Arkan slightly clenched his left hand and then opened it again, watching how Erdene would react to his roundabout rebuke. At the same time, he recalled an old memory.

The first and last rabbit he caught died from an arrow.

At first, he was simply proud and amazed by the fact that he had succeeded in hunting.

It was understandable for a thirteen-year-old boy.

But the trouble began when he heard the servant who brought the limp rabbit say that it seemed to be pregnant.

The king ordered to prepare an evening dish to commemorate the crown prince’s first hunt, but Arkan couldn’t eat a single spoon of the rabbit stew that day.

As soon as he saw the bowl, he retched and locked himself in his room, crying all night.

He could have told Erdene all about it, but Arkan suddenly felt embarrassed and guilty.

And for some reason, he didn’t want to tell her everything.

Whether he knew it or not, it was a cruel act, and he didn’t want her to know about that part of his past.

At that moment, a loud burst of laughter hazily lifted Arkan’s consciousness.

“Princess.”

He called, but Erdene couldn’t stop laughing. It wasn’t just laughter; she was roaring with laughter, even pounding on the table.

Arkan’s face turned slightly red. He didn’t know why she was laughing, but he had a feeling it wasn’t for a pleasant reason.

“What’s so funny?”

When Arkan asked, Erdene finally bit back her sobbing laughter and shook her shoulders slightly.

Her once pale face was now quite flushed.

The white pearl ornament pinned in her black hair shook frivolously along with her laughter.

Erdene, chewing on her intermittent chuckles with her lips, said:

“It’s truly astonishing.”

“What is astonishing?”

“Your hypocrisy, Your Majesty, King of Betor. I’ve heard rumors of your wisdom, but I never imagined you’d be such a hypocrite.”

The word ‘wise’ was obviously sarcastic, and only the word ‘hypocrite’ was sincere.

Platt made a sound of swallowing, and Arkan blinked in bewilderment.

He had heard people say ‘Our King is too kind-hearted for his own good,’ but being called a hypocrite was a first.

Not only was there no one who dared to say such a thing to him, but even if there was, Arkan was far from being a hypocrite.

But Erdene thought differently.

“You say you don’t hunt because after catching a rabbit, you realized how terrible it is to take a life? Are you trying to shame me with such words?”

Struck at his core, Arkan silently gazed at her without showing any reaction.

Erdene, who had burst into laughter, pointed with the stiletto she was still holding at the plate of food.

It was a dish covered in a savory-smelling sauce.

Erdene said:

“Then, is the meat on this plate something that died by chance and was picked up?”

Arkan responded with silence.

As if she never expected an answer from him in the first place, Erdene leaned back, twirling the sharp and heavy stiletto in her hand.

Her posture, sitting askew like a rough negotiator from a back alley, was a sight to behold, but Arkan strangely thought that it suited her well.

Erdene continued speaking while playfully twirling the stiletto:

“Of course not. For the dish on this plate, someone had to take a newborn calf from its mother and slit its throat. They would have hung it upside down to drain the blood and cut the tender bones and flesh. Thanks to that, this enters your mouth and becomes your blood and flesh.”

“It’s hard to understand what the princess is trying to say.”

At last, a word flowed from Arkan’s mouth. His tone was monotonous, making it sound cold.

Erdene wrinkled her nose bridge and lifted the corners of her mouth in a mocking smile.

“Have you ever thought about how the person who slaughters a newborn calf feels? Of course not, right? Do you think they feel elation when killing a calf trembling before gleaming saws and blades, separated from its mother? Or do you think they mourn each time and offer prayers out of guilt?”

Arkan calmly said:

“I suppose not. However.”

The stiletto that had made one rotation in Erdene’s hand stabbed into the table with a thud. Both the blade and handle trembled simultaneously.

“The person who slaughters lambs and calves is simply indifferent because it’s their job. You’ve never seen it with your eyes or heard it with your ears, so you’ve never had the chance to think about the person who takes the life of a newborn animal. You probably believe that when the chef stirs the ladle, veal with sauce magically appears on an empty plate.”

Arkan tried to refute once more.

However, Erdene’s retort, no longer even tinged with mockery, silenced him.

“War, having never experienced the harshness of having to wage war to survive, you dare say that cutting out a human’s tongue is ‘something anyone can do’? You say you don’t hunt anymore because you felt sorry for a dead rabbit?”

Erdene, her fist clenched so tightly that her bones showed, glared at Arkan for a moment with her lips pressed shut.

Her black hair seemed to flutter, spreading in all directions. Her blue eyes seemed to burn.

Finally, Erdene pulled out the stiletto and pushed it back into its sheath, saying:

“Don’t be so presumptuous, Your Majesty.”

With those final words, she rose from her seat without a greeting or even a glance and left the dining room.

In the midst of it all, she was holding a bottle of alcohol in one hand, which still contained more than half of a liquor famous for its potency anywhere in the inland.

“Your Majesty.”

A shocked Platt approached Arkan, fidgeting nervously.

As he was about to criticize Erdene using Betor’s conservative words, Arkan raised his hand swiftly. It meant to keep quiet.

A belated chuckle escaped Arkan’s lips as he stared blankly at the empty space left by Erdene’s abrupt departure.

“It feels strange to hear fitting words from a drunkard.”

“Your Majesty! What are you saying? Do you intend to let such insolent words slide?”

Platt burst out in anger, highly agitated, but Arkan’s expression as he turned to look at him was indifferent.

If anything, he seemed somewhat amused.

Platt said:

“Your Majesty, you know how much I disapprove of Lady Fiddlers treating you as if you were a three-year-old child. But this time, I have no choice but to side with the Marchioness. No matter if she’s an Imperial Princess, for someone with no trace of manners like that to sit on the throne as Betor’s queen. It’s unimaginable.”

“Platt, are you blaming others for your lack of imagination?”

“Your Majesty!”

Arkan shook his head.

“That’s enough. I was the one who cast the first stone, knowing it was slightly mean-spirited. It’s my oversight for not thinking deeply enough, knowing she’s the type to uproot a boulder when thrown a pebble.”

Platt’s mouth gaped open, and a short sigh escaped.

However, Arkan, as if he no longer cared what became of Platt, rested his chin on his hand, looking down at the food on the table.

The tender veal roast, skillfully prepared by the chef, was cooling needlessly.

Arkan tapped the meat lightly with the tip of his fork and muttered to himself.

“‘The person who slaughters cattle simply does their job indifferently.'”

His handsome eyebrows twitched slightly.

“It’s all the more vexing because it’s not entirely wrong.”

A week flew by like an arrow.

After the disastrous—Erdene wanted to call it a mess—dinner, Erdene and Arkan never faced each other again.

She had no reason to seek out Arkan, and Arkan too was too busy working every day, even with the wedding approaching.

“Your Highness, please raise your arms a little.”

Erdene raised her arms obediently, with an expression barely containing her irritation.

When in the Empire, she rarely wore the princess’s formal attire unless she had to go to the battlefield.

She always carried more than three weapons on her body, and besides the sword at her waist, things like daggers had to be hidden in unseen places, so she preferred clothes that military officers would wear rather than cumbersome dresses.

Her mother, the late Empress, would occasionally caution her about her attire, but she had the strongest backing in the Empire.

The late Emperor was proud of his heir’s robust temperament and didn’t regret at all that she wasn’t a son.

‘If I had a short life, I would have died just wearing dresses.’

Erdene thought indifferently.

As tomorrow was the wedding day, she was trying on the dress for the last time.

Thinking that wedding attire would be all the same was a grave miscalculation.

The royal wedding attire of Betor seemed simple at first glance, but when examined closely, it was not so.

The undergarments that wrapped the body from top to bottom were all different, and another full-body undergarment had to be worn over them.

The dress itself wasn’t a single layer; first, a separate top was worn, and a sash was wrapped around the waist to cover the line where it met the bottom.

Only then could the visible ceremonial robe be worn, and each small ornament had to be attached one by one by hand.

“Can’t we just put on a moderate amount of ornaments, just enough to look good? Why are there so many different types?”

When Erdene asked, the maid who was kneeling and adjusting her waist looked up with a startled expression.