Two days after the imperial banquet, Xenos did little in the grand palace but nod absentmindedly.
“My lord, whatever possessed you to say such things?”
‘If someone suddenly brought up marriage like that out of nowhere, I would have run away too!’
Will, however, swallowed the rest of his words.
“I couldn’t help myself. I could think of nothing else except making her mine. Even so, I tried to speak gently.”
“So you said it to her directly, and you were rejected, correct?”
“She said, ‘I cannot… I cannot accept such a distinguished offer. Please forgive my insolence in refusing you.’ And I told her, ‘I wish to marry you. Do you refuse that as well?’”
“Yes, that is correct, my lord.”
As Xenos recalled the details of that evening, a faint smile touched his lips, accompanied by a quiet sigh.
“She refused me completely and without hesitation.”
Seeing Xenos recount his rejection with strange delight, Will found himself swept up in emotion as well.
“You have finally found the true one.”
Clenching his fist, Will muttered,
“Then what in the world were we searching for all this time?”
“It doesn’t matter… All that matters is that we found the true one now.”
Collecting his composure, Will asked,
“Is the feeling truly that different?”
“Yes. For one, her scent is entirely distinct. I recognized her by her scent from the very start. It seems to be a scent only I can perceive… I should inform the research society about this.”
“Then the moment you catch that scent, you will immediately know where she is, no matter what.”
“That’s right… But why did I never sense it before?”
“Lady Arsene has likely spent all this time in the capital. You had virtually no contact with her. You know there are those who never find their fated match to the very end… like your great-grandfather.”
The great-grandfather Will referred to was Xenos’s maternal grandfather.
He had possessed the Dragon Power and ascended the throne, but he never found his companion. In the end, fearing he would lose control and unleash havoc with his power, he willingly confined himself within an abandoned palace.
The Dragon Power is inherited only upon the death of its wielder. And if the bearer does not marry their fated companion, they die young.
The current Emperor had been certain that the Dragon Power would naturally pass to him, as the only surviving son.
To seize the throne, he had killed his brothers before he even turned twenty. Yet heaven granted him no such opportunity.
While he waited for the power to transfer as the confined Emperor’s health deteriorated, it passed instead to a sister away on the battlefield—Christa, Xenos’s mother.
Jealousy gnawed at Emperor Charles’s heart until his eyes burned red, and he cast his elder sister straight into the crucible of war.
So deeply did he dread her that an ominous moniker trailed her name: the ‘Black-Haired Sorceress Who Summons Blood’—a title never truly known to have come from her enemies or from the Emperor himself.
Then Christa’s power, following her death in battle, passed to young Xenos.
He was only three years old at the time.
As the youngest heir to the power, he collapsed the instant he received it, hovering between life and death for more than a week. His small body simply could not endure such overwhelming might.
“Xenos!”
Xenos’s father, Philip, burst into the study with a shout, not bothering to knock.
He had been Christa’s companion, and they had fallen in love the very moment they met on the battlefield.
Philip, caught abruptly in Christa’s arms without warning, had stood stunned, yet that moment was the beginning of genuine feelings between them.
And so, a common soldier became the husband of an imperial princess.
After a blissfully happy marriage, Christa became pregnant with Xenos. But the Emperor, terrified that she might settle in the capital and covet his throne on the pretext of pregnancy and childbirth, sent her back to the war with ruthless persistence.
Naturally, the burden of raising Xenos fell upon Philip.
Just as Philip was clumsily learning how to care for an infant, Christa died on the battlefield.
Despite losing his wife at a young age, Philip never remarried, dedicating his entire life to raising Xenos.
He passed down everything he had learned, from his days as a common soldier to his rise as Knight Commander, and he remained at his son’s side through every battle Xenos was sent to fight by imperial decree while still a boy.
“So, you found your companion?”
“Yes, and this time I am certain.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“There was a distinct scent that could not belong to anyone else.”
“Ha, a scent? Your mother said she saw a light radiating from my body the very first time she laid eyes on me.”
‘Wasn’t that… simply love at first sight?’
Xenos kept the thought to himself, watching his father, who spoke in high spirits.
Philip had founded the Dragon Power Research Society for his son’s sake. He recorded everything regarding Xenos’s growth and changes, striving to understand the power that remained shrouded in mystery.
Yet that was no simple task. The imperial family made endless excuses and refused to share any records, leaving Philip and Xenos with precious little on their own.
“Even now, I wonder if I was truly her real companion.”
Christa had declared that Philip was her companion, yet Philip still found it hard to believe.
“It’s true that I strove to become someone who wouldn’t bring shame standing beside Christa… but no special change ever came over me. Even after we… ahem… shared our love.”
The tips of the burly warrior’s ears flushed red; he had always believed that had he been her true companion, he would have felt some profound shift born of uniting his strength with the heir’s power.
“And sometimes I think… perhaps your mother died so young because I wasn’t her true companion after all.”
“Mother died because of a concentrated enemy offensive. The hostile nation deployed their entire corps of mages and holy knights against her alone. That is why it happened.”
“I should have been beside her back then.”
On the day of that tragedy, Christa had been on the battlefield, while Philip was stationed in the capital.
The moment word reached him, he rode his horse without rest, only to end up cradling Christa’s cold body, weeping in utter helplessness.
“I was far too late that day. That must never happen again.”
Before the ache in his heart could even begin to mend, Philip was forced back onto the battlefield, and this time with his young son. The Emperor showed not a shred of mercy.
“He isn’t even ten years old!”
“He inherited the power at three, and we have waited four whole years! Would you let such power sit and rot?! If war breaks out, he must march and defend the empire! Now, while the people of Ottum celebrate slaying my sister, I want you to prove to them that the Savaya Empire is far from finished!”
The Emperor had screamed in madness, issuing crude threats.
“Disobedience is punishable by death. And as a military commander, you know this well.”
The power he had never obtained… had gone to his sister, and then to her son.
When three-year-old Xenos lay bedridden fighting for his life against the erupting power, the Emperor’s very first act had been to appoint his own son, Erik, as Crown Prince—at that exact same age.
‘Were you truly that terrified?’
Philip could only scoff in his heart at the Emperor’s desperate clinging to his throne.
From that day on, Philip had no choice but to protect his son at all costs.
From the day Xenos first set foot on the battlefield at the age of seven until now, he had never left his side for a single moment.
He taught him all of his military tactics and hired the finest warriors as tutors to teach him the spear, the bow, the sword, and everything there was to learn.
Thus Xenos grew up knowing only how to survive on the battlefield. Because of that, he had not the faintest idea what to do upon meeting his companion.
“It seems she has no wish to marry me.”
Philip looked at him, and seeing his famed son furrowing his brow in dismay, he burst into hearty laughter.
“My boy, a woman’s heart is not something so easily understood. Even I never truly understood your mother’s heart as I should have. But no matter… we’ll learn together from here on out.”
He slapped Xenos’s shoulder with a broad grin.
“I wonder what our future daughter-in-law likes? And how can we get her to happily agree to marriage?”
And so, at that moment, father and son—neither possessing the slightest grasp of women—united to win Selina’s heart.
“I cannot bear this disgrace any longer!”
‘I was certain she was forbidden from entering the east wing…’
Three days after the chaos of the banquet, Flora barged into the east wing once more, evidently having caught wind of some fresh rumor.
‘Does she truly lack any capacity to learn? Fine… So be it. I’ll make her regret ever stepping foot in here.’
The meek silence Selina once offered was a thing of the past. Now, she was more than capable of repaying Flora and Brandon twofold.
Flora had started screeching from the entryway, and now she threw open the library doors with a violent shove, without bothering to knock.
