Translator: Nox

Chapter 50

From last night through this morning and even now, Kaella hadn’t felt the cold once. It was partly because the weather had begun to warm, but nothing could fill the emptiness in her heart like the warmth of the person who had touched her.

The moment she realized that, Kaella’s heart grew even more complicated.

She gazed down at the diamond ring that weighed heavily on her finger.

Pheon had nagged her so relentlessly to wear it that she had no choice but to put it on alongside the Empress’s ring she’d accepted as an engagement ring. But right now, honestly, she wanted to yank it off.

‘What does it matter to me if war breaks out in Lüsenford? I’ll be dead before that anyway!’

She snapped at herself, but her brain, which worked so cleverly at times like this, immediately found a proper excuse.

‘As the Duchess, I have no choice. If the Emperor brands the Lüsenford Duke a traitor, then Ostein, my home duchy, will be branded traitors right alongside him.’

Convenient nonsense. Ridiculous nonsense. And yet she’d tried to abandon her father and just die.

Then what made her any different from Pheon, who had helped kill him? At least Pheon wasn’t related by blood, but she was his own daughter. So why on earth was she hoping that man wouldn’t die?

‘It’s different from the man he was before he died. This time, he saved Father! And it was a huge sacrifice on his part. Are you going to hold him accountable for a crime he didn’t even commit—your own husband?’

It was confusing. Having died once before, the uncertain future terrified her horribly, and at the same time, this desire she hadn’t even known existed left her flustered.

‘More than anything, are you really going to believe what Beatrice said before she died, blabbering on like that?’

Her rational judgment that she shouldn’t trust a word Beatrice said brought all sorts of thoughts flooding in.

Could she hope for what she wanted? Would it be okay?

Could someone like Kaella de Shasser do what she wanted?

“Your Highness, Lady Lavalle is here. Shall I let her in?”

Kaella nodded, fiddling with her nape where the high-necked dress felt suffocating.

She would have preferred something wrapped around her neck rather than a dress that climbed all the way up from the collar. Lüsenford was so cold that she had no choice but to wear it, but it still felt unfamiliar and stifling.

As she did, her eyes met those of Beatrice, who had entered the duchess’s office.

‘She’s annoying me again.’

No, she looked a bit unwell too. Spending the night in the duchess’s bedroom with not a single curtain must have been utter hell.

With cold drafts whistling through the stone walls, even piling on two or three layers of blankets and lighting the wall furnace wouldn’t have kept her from getting sick.

“Come on in.”

Protocol dictated that Beatrice should greet her first, but once again, Kaella kindly did it herself. She, who had never harmed anyone in her life, had left Beatrice in that freezing bedroom, so the least she could do was offer a greeting.

Going through brutal experiences dulled one’s moral compass a great deal.

Kaella, who once couldn’t even imagine harming someone, could now nonchalantly make Beatrice spend a night in that frigid room after her own wretched death.

There was no hesitation at all, since Beatrice had committed plenty of misdeeds against her even in this new life.

She had learned by watching and doing.

“A doctor…”

Kaella looked up from her papers. Beatrice’s voice, once described as nightingale-like, was now hoarse and cracked, sounding like nails scraping metal. She must have caught a bad cold.

“I need to see a doctor…”

“Yes. I heard a new room was prepared for you.”

Kaella nodded and finally unpinned the collar pin holding her dress neckline in place. She couldn’t stand the suffocation any longer, and the duchess’s office was warm enough that she didn’t need it secured.

Her hands or feet had always felt miserably cold at the tips, but after Pheon had wrapped his large hands around her feet last night and rubbed them, they didn’t ache at all.

“I’ll have the doctor sent to your room.”

Would Darinka have time? She’d heard that most of the urgent cases among the children in the castle had been treated. As the duchess’s personal physician now, she should have time to prescribe some cold medicine for Beatrice.

Honestly, to Kaella, the castle children were more precious than Beatrice. She’d known them since they were very young, but that was just how bonds worked sometimes.

When no reply came, Kaella looked up. Unexpectedly, Beatrice was staring right through her.

“Is there another problem?”

Problem? There were problems. So many problems. Beatrice had spent the night shivering and realized exactly why Kaella had handed over the duchess’s bedroom without a word of protest. It was deliberate. It had been on purpose.

If she was going to give her that hideous room and call it a bedroom, she shouldn’t have given it at all! And yet Kaella had plopped herself right into Pheon’s bedroom, putting on one outrageous display after another.

Beatrice, who dominated the social circles of the Kranian Empire—known as the most refined—knew well that noble gatherings were all the same no matter where you went. It all came down to money.

Money was the most important thing, and with status and fame backing it up, a young lover could be bought anytime. Yes. People and love alike could be bought with money.

In that sense, Kaella—illegitimate daughter of Ostein Duke, officially recognized by the late emperor as the emperor’s son—had shown with a single gesture just what she possessed.

“…Thank… you.”

Her head felt heavy, her throat ached. Irritation surged amid the misery, and yet here she was, minding her manners and speaking deferentially to Kaella—this foolish girl who had everything. It was killing Beatrice.

And in the midst of it, the ring on the hand removing the collar pin caught her eye—two of them.

One was the Empress’s ring given directly by the Emperor, symbolizing authority itself, and the other was a diamond even Beatrice, who adored jewels, had never seen before.

It was so large it had turned halfway around her finger, covering more than one segment of even Kaella’s small finger. It symbolized wealth.

Highborn noblewomen would slip off their gloves or fan themselves lightly, subtly displaying the heavy rings on their fingers to boast.

Whether it was their ancient lineage, how much their husband loved them, or how wealthy they were—rings encapsulated all sorts of boasts.

Beatrice herself wore a fairly large ruby ring now. But even if she gathered every ring—no, every jewel—she’d ever seen, none were larger or more beautiful than the one on Kaella’s finger.

‘The Ostein Duchess’s heirloom?’

No, that couldn’t be. She would have recognized it immediately if it were.

And so she arrived at the final conclusion she’d desperately tried to ignore and deny.

If Kaella had only removed the collar pin, Beatrice might have denied it. But the moment she did, the vivid red marks peeking from between her collar thrust her into reality.

Kaella de Shasser had her innate bloodline and wealth, and now even her husband’s love—the hardest thing of all.

The pale nape of a southern girl untouched by the sun bore blatant red marks—not just one or two at a glance. Only a persistent, vigorous lover would leave marks like that.

‘How?’

Even with her throat massively swollen, Beatrice couldn’t comprehend it, her mind fixated on Kaella.

She couldn’t fathom how Pheon—who had awkwardly accepted even her perfunctory lip brushes—had become so mature, so proficient. The sight of him heading to the bedroom last night had shocked Beatrice.

…He was a man at the peak of masculinity, enough to set any woman’s body aflame.

The most regrettable part was that this man—even Beatrice couldn’t tear her eyes from him—had shared a bedroom with Kaella, who was far beneath her. A political couple sharing a bedroom, of all things.

Beatrice kept staring at Kaella. Her blatant gaze was so obvious that Kaella had no choice but to look up. But Beatrice’s eyes weren’t on her—they were on the diamond Pheon had given her.

‘So that’s why he insisted I wear the ring.’

To show it off. Blatantly, to Beatrice. Was it because their relationship was rocky and they were provoking each other? Living so long in their shadows had her thinking all sorts of things now. Yes, foolishly entertaining every wild idea.

“The ring is really beautiful.”

Her pink eyes sparkled with heat.

“Yeah, thanks.”

With no intention of continuing the conversation, Kaella replied flatly and turned back to her papers. Her throat felt much freer now.

*

Her body moved mechanically without thought. Her hands wielded pen and sword, her mouth issued orders, her ears listened—but her mind creaked.

Was it because she hadn’t slept a wink, or because she’d held Kaella in her arms for the first time? Even pouring all her focus into work and opposing the Emperor wasn’t enough; her brain conveniently wandered to other thoughts.

Like ‘I wonder if we can sleep together again tonight’—purely meaning sleep, but still a lowbrow notion—or ‘We planned to finish counting the silverware together; will she remember?’—fleeting hopes like that.

This was what it meant to hold someone dear. Her nerves stretched toward the room at the far end of the opposite corridor, and long-pursued goals and hard-won achievements meant nothing anymore.

Absurdly pointless, anxiety-inducing, and repeatedly perfected by that very existence. For the Lüsenford Duke, responsible for border security, it was a truly unnecessary emotion.

And for Pheon as an individual, it was one he was only now fully realizing, leaving him embarrassed.

“Your Highness. A message from the gatekeeper at Giants’ Field. The Emperor’s investigator passed through there three days ago.”

“Fast.”

“Yes. It seems they’re aiming to traverse quickly; they’re riding nonstop, changing horses without rest.”

That meant the Emperor was taking the matter of the Lüsenford Duchess’s collapse very seriously.

Or perhaps, with Pheon submitting to marriage and Lady Beatrice Lavalle’s hostage value diminished, he planned to exploit this as Pheon’s weakness. Either way, the Emperor’s intentions were never in Pheon’s favor. They couldn’t be.

“Send word to the gatekeepers. No matter what they say, let them pass.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Let them come and scour Lüsenford from the muddy ground up to the tips of its towering spires. With Beatrice here too, it would be quite the sight watching foreigners stir everything into chaos.

“Um, Your Highness. What about the mines and the other operations?”

As a dutiful secretary, Lezen had hidden and covered things where the investigators wouldn’t easily see, but you couldn’t conceal massive mines or gold trades forever.

Pheon hadn’t given any orders on it so far. It was unlike the obsessively thorough duke.

“Have you prepared the largest gold ingots?”

“We’ve readied about three for now. Gold is pouring out of the mines.”

That would be enough for Lüsenford to survive independently without aid from Kline.

Fewer might starve in winter and spring. They could buy weapons and seed with the fruits of their labor.

Lezen harbored hope, but he knew well how powerless it would be before the Emperor, leaving him anxious. Could they protect this hope?

“It’s not something you can hide. Just leave it be.”

“Is that really okay?”

“It will be.”

Pheon turned to gaze out the window toward the distant border. He could hear it. The approaching hoofbeats.

Was it his sharpened hearing picking it up, or the power in his blood sensing it? His senses were going wild, incomparable to before his regression.

“Let them be.”

Let the hoofbeats trample this land. Just leave it.

“Yes, Your Highness. We’ll do that.”

The castle buzzed with activity. Kaella was quite busy too. The head maid came and went from the office, guest rooms were being cleaned diligently, new furniture had arrived.

And Beatrice, after visiting Kaella’s office just once, holed up in her new room and didn’t budge.

Pheon pondered briefly, then rose and walked to the room at the end of the corridor that concerned him most, on the opposite side. He asked the maid standing guard.

“Ask if the Duchess has time.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The maid who darted in returned seconds later and flung the door wide. Kaella, who had stood from her seat, stared at him with wide eyes.

“Are you busy?”

“No. Come in.”

He closed the door behind him and first checked if the office temperature was appropriate. Plenty of logs in the wall furnace.

In the meantime, Kaella pulled out the ledger she’d hidden in a drawer again. Her eyes fixed boldly on him held strong wariness, yet pulling it out was audacious; Pheon suppressed a smile.

“The numbers don’t match, do they?”

Let me see. Those eyes said, ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that!’

“The ledgers the steward brings have increased a bit.”

Kaella’s lips twitched, but she held back. Better not to give problematic answers and just hear Pheon out first.

“He’s not that meticulous.”

The duchess didn’t even need to reply for the duke to seem unperturbed. He muttered bitterly.

“It’s embarrassing, but I’ve been negligent in oversight and management.”

A subordinate’s laziness and corruption reflected the superior’s incompetence. To the steward, Pheon must still look like an easy child or a duke uninterested in internal affairs. Even to his subordinates, Pheon had to prove himself.

“Leaving such sloppiness unchecked shames me before you, Duchess.”

She’d thought his attitude was poor. But wanting to hand personnel authority over the sloppy steward to Kaella, he’d left it alone.

Then seeing her investigate the silverware inventory made the back of his head throb. Traitors infested Lüsenford. Could a man this foolish and pathetic truly be Kaella’s husband?

“Your Highness.”

Pheon looked up.

“Shall we finish counting the silverware today?”

The young duchess looked far more resolute and stern than her age suggested.