Celiya deliberately lay down on the bed, pretending to be asleep. There was nothing to gain by being caught wearing a maid’s uniform right now.

The footsteps that had been echoing at regular intervals stopped precisely in front of Celiya’s bed.

She felt a piercing gaze. Celiya slightly opened her eyes to see Dietrich’s face right nearby.

“I know you’re not sleeping.”

It was a confident voice, unthinkable for someone who had entered the room at dawn. Celiya raised her eyelids to look up at Dietrich.

Perhaps because he was backlit by the dawn moonlight, his jet-black hair stood out particularly. His blood-red eyes carefully scanned her face.

Until now, not a single man had looked at her this way. Men always looked at her with eyes full of lust.

But the way Dietrich was looking at her now was as if he was looking at a weed growing carelessly by the roadside, or a jagged pebble caught under his foot.

It was a gaze beyond indifference, bordering on coldness. Celiya stared intently into Dietrich’s red eyes.

The two of them said nothing, just looking at each other’s faces for a long time like that. Dietrich observed Celiya, and Celiya also observed Dietrich.

It was Dietrich who broke the silence. After a while, his light pink lips opened slowly.

“You, what is your relationship with Ileon.”

Celiya felt bewildered. She thought he had appeared suddenly at dawn to say something, but this.

“Ileon? Do you mean Ileon Gredrik?”

Celiya also knew the owner of that name quite well. After all, it was the family that formed the core of the three ducal houses that were the pillars of Abelon.

But Celiya had no acquaintance with Ileon. The three dukes had never once shown their faces at Celiya’s auction held under the pretext of public courtship.

Wealthy tycoons, high-ranking nobles who favored women, renowned high priests.

Even the emperor who died by Celiya’s hand.

Countless men rushed to offer their fortunes to see Celiya, but the three dukes never even joined that procession.

Celiya thought it fortunate the emperor was foolish. If the emperor had been completely disinterested in her like the three dukes, the day she killed the emperor might never have come.

“Yes. I asked what your relationship is with Ileon.”

The angry voice cleared Celiya’s head. Celiya read strong hostility in Dietrich’s voice.

“I have no relationship with him. I’ve never even seen him.”

Celiya’s words were the truth without an ounce of lie, but Dietrich who heard this furrowed his brow. It would not be easy to express such disbelief with one’s whole body like this.

“Don’t lie. If that’s not the case…”

He wouldn’t have saved you from danger. The added words were very quiet, but Celiya heard them clearly.

It was incomprehensible. Celiya had no acquaintance with Ileon, nor had she ever seen his face.

An exasperated voice leaked through Celiya’s teeth.

“Why are you so certain it’s a lie?”

If he looked into it just a little, he would know that Ileon Gredrik had no connection to her. To Celiya’s eyes, Dietrich seemed to be making completely nonsensical assertions.

To confine her in the mansion and keep her ignorant of the outside situation, then appear after a week only to interrogate her.

Celiya was seriously considering moving to the Crown Prince’s palace. After all, it would be better to be with someone whose intentions were transparent rather than a man whose mind she couldn’t read.

Of course, if she moved to the Crown Prince’s quarters, she would inevitably have to face the ‘Empress’.

Celiya had only seen the Empress once, but she could vaguely sense that she liked Dietrich.

The intuition of someone who had dealt with many people was remarkably keen, allowing them to see much more than those who had not.

Though he likely hadn’t read Celiya’s anguish, Dietrich seemed to choose his words for a moment before speaking.

“Recently, Ileon disposed of a few people. By framing them for the crime of assassinating the emperor.”

Dietrich turned away from Celiya, showing his back.

“Do you really know nothing about this?”

When Celiya didn’t speak, Dietrich continued with his back turned.

“Originally, before you were Celiya Brillionne, what were you?”

“…”

“For a week, I tried to find out who your real mother and father were, but I couldn’t. The fact that not a single person knows about this means that everyone involved must have been killed.”

Dietrich walked to the window. As he flung open the half-open window, a cool breeze blew in, tickling Celiya’s cheek.

With only his back visible, Celiya couldn’t see what expression Dietrich was making. Celiya thought he looked like an old tree deeply rooted in that spot.

“Are you really from Abelon?”

Just as Celiya doubted Dietrich’s origins, Dietrich also doubted hers.

“No. You are not from Abelon.”

Beyond doubt, he was almost certain. Celiya genuinely admired Dietrich’s deductive skills. How did he figure it out in such a short time?

She had hidden it so thoroughly. To the point of almost fooling herself.

Dietrich turned around and approached Celiya lying on the bed.

He leaned down to meet Celiya’s eyes. His red eyes, looking like a sharply honed sword, stared without blinking, as if not wanting to miss any change in Celiya’s expression.

“The reason you killed the emperor…”

Dietrich paused and half-perched on Celiya’s bed. Gripping the edge of the bed, he came so close that their breaths could almost touch, as if he might kiss her.

When Celiya didn’t turn her face away, he lowered his head to her ear and continued speaking.

“It’s related to your origins.”

At those words, Celiya sprang up from her place.

As the blanket covering her body slid down, the maid’s uniform Celiya was wearing came into Dietrich’s view.

Seeing this, Dietrich’s expression didn’t change at all. It was as if he had known from the beginning that Celiya was trying to escape the mansion at dawn today.

Celiya grabbed Dietrich’s collar firmly. Dietrich’s uniform, which had been without a single wrinkle, crumpled in her grasp.

“…Dietrich.”

A low voice tinged with laughter reached Dietrich’s ear. Celiya’s soft breath settled on Dietrich’s ear.

“After living as the emperor’s bitch, now it seems you want to be my bitch since you’re more interested in me than the emperor?”

Celiya suddenly released her grip on Dietrich’s collar.

“But what can I do? I don’t keep bitches who might betray their master at any time.”

“…”

“You chose the wrong opponent, terribly wrong. Sadly, you’d better find another master.”

Celiya smiled brightly. It was a clear smile reminiscent of dewdrops on a blade of grass at dawn.

“…It seems true that you have no relationship with Ileon.”

Dietrich seemed to feel relief somehow upon seeing the angry Celiya. Celiya couldn’t understand the man before her at all.

“What are you trying to say?”

“What I want to say is.”

Dietrich put his hand on Celiya’s head. He undid the loose hair tie holding her hair and tucked Celiya’s disheveled hair behind her ear.

The gesture of tidying her hair felt almost unkind, as if he had done it merely because it was bothersome.

“That your killing of the emperor was completely pointless.”

With those final words, Dietrich rose. Celiya knocked him down onto her bed as he tried to move away from her.

Dietrich offered no resistance as Celiya climbed on top of him.

Now the positions were reversed, with Dietrich looking up at her. Celiya looked down at Dietrich, whose expression remained unchanged, with eyes full of hostility.

“What you just said, what do you mean?”

“…”

Dietrich said nothing, but Celiya read his eyes.

Looking at her with eyes mixed with pity and sympathy, he seemed to be saying, you really don’t know anything.

“I’m asking what you mean.”

“Do you want to know?”

Celiya looked down at Dietrich’s neck, which seemed like it wouldn’t even be cut by a knife, with cold eyes.

“You won’t tell me the truth anyway, right? You want something from me again?”

“…”

Dietrich didn’t deny it. Celiya felt she now understood Dietrich as a person to some extent.

This man is someone who never does anything that would disadvantage himself. It’s praiseworthy that he was able to deduce her identity to some extent. However, he likely doesn’t know the fact that Celiya is a princess of the Shan Kingdom.

And, there was one thing Dietrich didn’t know – that Celiya had also learned some information while staying with him.

Celiya lowered her head to Dietrich’s upper body. His heartbeat was neither slow nor fast, beating at a steady rhythm.

The calm heartbeat changed to a very irregular one after Celiya’s next words.

“You’re not from Abelon either, yet you sit in the position of Knight Commander.”

Dietrich said nothing. Celiya added her next words as if she hadn’t expected an answer from him anyway.

“Forget being from Abelon… You actually hate Abelon terribly.”

Having finished speaking, Celiya raised herself from Dietrich’s upper body. With her hands still on his chest, Celiya raised one corner of her mouth.

Her lips were smiling, but her eyes held a chill.

In her slender frame wearing a maid’s uniform, Celiya looked more royal than actual royalty. Dietrich could have subdued her with one hand, but he didn’t.

Because he didn’t want to.

Foolish yet not foolish. Cautious yet not cautious. People who possess both qualities at once are extremely rare.

To Dietrich, Celiya was such a person. She seemed foolish at a glance, but was by no means a fool.

Even if she might stab him in the back at any time, that was something to think about when the time came.

“Not even being from Abelon, yet sitting in the position of Abelon’s Imperial Knight Commander. What are you thinking?”

Dietrich also hadn’t expected Celiya to deduce his identity. If she could do this much with no information while confined in the mansion, if she got more information…

That ability was truly praiseworthy. In a situation where they each held the other’s weakness, he absolutely had to be the one to gain the upper hand.

Celiya was smarter than expected and possessed an ability that others didn’t have.

Celiya was the only person who had noticed his true identity. Keeping her alive could become a problem. If the information Celiya had leaked out, it could endanger his goal of destroying the empire.

He might have to kill this woman if necessary.

However, rather than outright saying he would kill her, it was better to act as if he had no intention of killing her for now and was on her side, making her let her guard down.

That way, there would be no complications later.

Over the past week, Celiya had nearly died several times. That was also why he had prevented her from leaving. The Empress had sent assassins or poisoned objects to kill her multiple times.

He couldn’t let her die by someone else’s hand. Celiya, with her special ability, was his alone.

Dietrich pulled Celiya’s hand towards him and placed it on his neck.

“I’ll let you hold my leash.”

Then you will get what you want.