Reina, who had been struggling to suppress her anger, revealed her true nature the moment she stepped into Dietrich Calypso’s mansion reception room.

“How dare you break your promise with me? No matter how much you look down on me, there should be a limit!”

Gritting her teeth, Reina glared at Dietrich, who had arrived late to the reception room.

The elegant line of his neck extending above the black collar, his broad, sharply angled shoulders, and his striking facial features.

Beneath his black eyelashes, his crimson eyes were as dry as a desert.

Dietrich, with an emotionless face that carried not a trace of feeling, didn’t even offer Reina a cup of tea.

“I don’t know what promise you’re referring to.”

Reina trembled all over at Dietrich’s clearly dismissive attitude.

“There’s a limit to how much I’ll tolerate you. If I tell my brother, that wretched girl will be killed immediately…”

“Courtesan.”

Dietrich cut Reina’s words short.

“If you so much as touch a single hair on Celia Brillion, your wrist will be severed.”

“……”

“If you harm Celia, your head will roll.”

Dietrich no longer bothered with formalities.

They kept pushing their luck because he had let things slide too easily.

He didn’t care about those who clung to him.

But if someone tried to use Celia to threaten him, that changed everything.

“Dietrich!”

Reina slammed the table with a loud bang, unable to contain her fury.

Dietrich spoke as if he didn’t care in the slightest whether Reina was angry or not.

“You’d better look for someone else to warm your bed. I suppose I’m just too much of a perfectionist.”

Dietrich pointed toward the door with the tip of his chin.

“The exit is over there.”

“Ahhahaha!”

Ileon threw his head back and laughed loudly upon hearing the news.

Ileon’s subordinate, who had served him for a long time, looked surprised, having never seen his master laugh so heartily before.

His younger sister Reina had not only been harshly scolded by Dietrich, but utterly humiliated, reduced to dust.

He had expected Ileon to be upset upon hearing this, yet instead, he was laughing out loud.

The subordinate kept cautiously watching Ileon’s expression.

“What about that matter I mentioned earlier?”

“…I regret to inform you, it failed. Since the Emperor’s coronation, Dietrich has not left his mansion at all. Today, even the task of feeding the stables was given to a knight. It seems nearly impossible at the moment to introduce a new person into the mansion.”

After hearing his subordinate’s words, Ileon paused in thought for a moment before speaking.

“If we can’t get inside the mansion, why not pull someone out instead?”

The subordinate blinked in confusion at the incomprehensible statement.

“What do you have in mind?”

“There’s a ball coming up in a few days, isn’t there? Then we should send an invitation. To Celia Brillion.”

At Ileon’s answer, the subordinate expressed doubt.

“Are you saying, Your Majesty, that we should send the invitation only to Celia Brillion?”

“If I invite just one, the other will inevitably follow. There’s no need to send invitations to both.”

“Without an invitation, attendance at the ball is impossible. Surely Dietrich wouldn’t dare defy a royal command and attend anyway?”

“Just wait and see. He’ll find a way, no matter what it takes.”

Sunlight slanting into the room woke Celia Brillion from her sleep.

Waking from a deep slumber, Celia slowly raised her weary body.

She felt as if she had had a bad dream, or perhaps mumbled something in her sleep.

‘I think I heard Dietrich’s voice in the middle of the night.’

But because she had been sleeping so deeply, she couldn’t remember at all what he had said to her.

‘…Was it just a dream?’

Celia tilted her head in confusion. Maybe she had been thinking too much about Dietrich last night.

What mattered most to her was revenge, yet because she had grown accustomed to living with Dietrich, she kept getting caught up in unnecessary emotions.

The deaths of her king father and queen mother, the anguished cries of her kingdom’s people—these memories were as vivid as if they had happened yesterday.

“Don’t grow complacent. Don’t become weak.”

Exhausted in both mind and body, her heart had drifted toward Dietrich.

She had foolishly allowed feelings to grow simply because she wanted to depend on him.

“This is unnecessary emotion.”

Celia murmured to herself.

Pushing herself up with her hand on the bed, Celia turned her gaze toward the window.

Through the open window came the chirping of birds.

The more comfortable her body and mind became, the more guilty she felt.

The last princess of Shan Kingdom.

The unfortunate princess of a kingdom completely erased from the map.

The guilt of being the only survivor tormented Celia.

Perhaps she had become overly reassured simply because Dietrich was from Inata Duchy, an allied nation.

If the Emperor she had killed wasn’t truly her enemy, and if the Three Dukes were indeed her real enemies as Dietrich claimed, then Celia had planned to use her abilities on all three dukes at once and then go somewhere no one knew her, to face a lonely, sorrowful death alone.

Emotions were nothing but a luxury for her.

Celia slowly closed and opened her eyes.

Her green eyes, shadowed beneath dense eyelashes, sparkled like stars.

Then.

Knock knock.

A knock at the door was followed by Dietrich’s voice.

“Celia.”

The voice calling her name was unreasonably gentle.

“Yes. Come in.”

Celia’s door opened.

When she saw Dietrich, her eyes widened in surprise.

Because Dietrich had personally wheeled a tray full of food into the room.

Buttered bread, juicy steak, a rich soup filled with various vegetables, crisp bacon, a fruit salad generously drenched in dressings, and lavender tea.

Celia looked back and forth between the tray and Dietrich with a puzzled expression.

“I thought you might be very hungry.”

Dietrich, speaking indifferently, placed each dish from the tray onto the table in turn.

The sweet aroma of bread and the scent of steak revived her appetite, which she hadn’t realized was missing.

Dietrich moved the chair from the table closer to Celia’s bed, then scooped a spoonful of soup and brought it to her lips.

“I can eat by myself.”

At Celia’s words, Dietrich’s brow furrowed slightly.

He looked strangely displeased, despite her saying she could eat alone, and Celia felt puzzled.

“Why?”

“……”

Dietrich fell silent for a moment before asking her.

“Are you really sure you can eat by yourself?”

Celia felt flustered by Dietrich’s attitude, which seemed as if he were treating her like a baby.

Of course, it was true that Dietrich had always fed Celia before.

‘Now that I think about it… Dietrich has always fed me bite by bite.’

Even in prison, even in the mansion…

Habits could be terrifying.

She had grown so accustomed to receiving food from Dietrich that she hadn’t noticed anything strange, even after speaking up.

“From now on, you don’t have to feed me.”

At Celia’s declaration, Dietrich’s expression turned extremely sour.

His eyebrows twisted sharply as he glared at Celia with clear dissatisfaction.

Seeing his discontented face, Celia quickly snatched the spoon from Dietrich’s hand and said,

“Thank you. I’ll enjoy the food.”

“……”

“Dietrich?”

Dietrich let out a deep sigh before speaking.

“I’ll apologize for last night.”

“For what?”

“For deciding things on my own, without consulting you… And for various other things.”

Celia shook her head.

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. After all, we’re nothing more than bound by a contract—nothing more, nothing less. So you don’t need to apologize to me.”

When Celia firmly drew that line, a deep shadow fell across Dietrich’s face.

Celia couldn’t understand why Dietrich wore such a sorrowful expression.

“Why do you look like that, Dietrich?”

“Don’t you remember anything from last night?”

“?”

“The words you said to me while half-asleep.”

Celia shook her head. She had no idea what Dietrich was talking about.

Truly, she remembered nothing at all.

“…Did I say something to you in my sleep?”

Dietrich made no effort to hide the hurt on his face.

But only for a moment. Dietrich returned to his usual dry expression.

“If you can’t remember, then forget it.”

Muttering bitterly, Dietrich rose from the chair.

“As long as I remember, even if you don’t, that’s enough.”

With those final words, Dietrich turned and left the room.

Thud.

For a moment, Celia stared blankly at the closed door.