The familiar weight of a sword filled her hand—and she smiled.
Eatrith’s swift movement slashed through the air, breaking the expectations of everyone watching.
Even Heddon, who had swung first, couldn’t follow what had just happened.
Clang—!
A clear, resonant sound rang through Yuri’s Room.
Clatter!
Heddon’s sword hit the marble floor.
“No way…”
Someone whispered in disbelief.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye.
One strike between Heddon’s drawn blade and the one Eatrith had borrowed.
But that was enough.
Heddon lost his grip and dropped his sword.
‘Large, unrefined movements with poor form. He was an easy target.’
His posture was sloppy, and in his haste, his balance was all wrong.
Eatrith had diverted his weight sideways and used his force against him.
His grand swing may have looked flashy, but it had been his downfall.
‘Classic sign of a lack of practice.’
Eatrith clicked her tongue inwardly.
Heddon, stunned with disbelief and fury, stared between his dropped sword and Eatrith.
Meanwhile, she remained perfectly composed, not even a tear in her dress.
“Prince Bellanel has trained in swordsmanship for three years…”
“And that young lady has never even held a sword, hasn’t she?”
Whispers of shock rippled through the hall.
A small, young girl had just dodged the attack of a sword academy aspirant—even a surprise one.
Even Louis Eurean, known for rarely showing emotion, stood frozen, mouth slightly open, unable to look away from Eatrith.
‘As expected, this body can’t handle the wrist strain.’
She rotated her wrist, testing the weight of the blade—too heavy for her current size.
‘Well, I’ll build it back up with training.’
Satisfied that her enemy had lost the will to fight, Eatrith spoke.
“Thank you for the sword.”
She returned it to its owner. The noble heir, too dazed to speak, only nodded furiously, completely forgetting he hadn’t offered it willingly.
“Well then, brother. I’ll see you again.”
Heddon trembled all over, consumed by humiliation he couldn’t suppress.
Eatrith met his gaze and gave him a lopsided smirk.
The peaceful little family play was over—and she had ended it with her own hand.
* * *
“I have nothing to say in my defense, even if I had ten mouths. I am truly sorry, my lord.”
The old butler, Mel, kept his head bowed and did not lift it.
“……”
But what followed was only a silence as heavy as death.
“This is all my fault for failing to manage the staff properly.”
The terrified head maid also stepped forward from the line of assembled servants and lowered her head.
“……”
Duke Kaidel Bellanel had not uttered a single word since stepping into the corridor where the vase had shattered.
‘This is bad. This is serious enough for half the staff, including myself, to be dismissed.’
Mel knew that well. This was no trivial matter.
He fidgeted nervously, casting a sidelong glance at the setting sun through the tall windows that stretched to the ceiling. A dark thought crossed his mind—this sorrowful orange twilight might be the last sky he ever saw from within the estate.
‘He could start yelling any moment now.’
But the duke simply stood before the shattered vase, silent for several minutes. That quiet was even more suffocating.
‘That vase was one of Lady Isobel’s favorites when she was alive.’
Mel knew that too. There were remnants of Lady Isobel scattered throughout the estate—her top-floor bedroom, a few paintings, and this broken vase were among them.
The seriousness of the situation dawned on Mel all over again. He shut his eyes even tighter.
Then, the duke—who had stood still like a statue—moved.
‘No way… is he going to shoot someone?’
When the duke reached toward his inner jacket, Mel and the rest of the staff gasped and held their breath.
“My lord, please, anything but murder!”
Mel, who had seen the duke on the battlefield years ago, cried out in panic.
But what the duke pulled from his coat was a pair of white gloves.
“Oh.”
Mel quickly shut his slack jaw under the duke’s brief, questioning gaze.
With gloves now on both hands, the duke knelt.
Everyone looked on in confusion, unable to understand what he intended.
The duke picked up a single shard of the broken vase.
The setting sun filtered through the glass windows, casting a fading light across the corridor.
Bathed in the melancholic glow, the duke silently stared at the shard glinting in red.
He then began carefully wrapping it in a handkerchief. Mel was at a loss for words.
One piece, then another.
As the lined-up servants remained frozen in place, the duke began picking up the fragments by hand.
Only Mel—who had served House Bellanel for a very long time—quietly stepped forward to help.
“…My lord, it’s broken beyond recognition. Even if we try to piece it back together…”
Mel spoke in a pained voice, trying to express the grief he knew his master must be feeling.
Only after gathering all the pieces did the duke finally speak.
“Mel.”
“Yes, my lord.”
His next words were exactly what Mel had expected.
“Find out who broke the vase. Immediately.”
* * *
It was uncomfortable.
From the moment they left Yuri’s Room, Louis’s gaze had been fixed intensely on the side of Eatrith’s face. No matter how she tried to ignore it, it was impossible to shake off.
“Why do you keep following me?”
When she finally sighed and met his eyes, Louis smiled brightly, as if delighted to finally have her attention.
“Am I not allowed to?”
His tone had shifted into formal speech without her noticing. Eatrith, staring at his unreadable face, responded without hesitation.
“Yes.”
“Ah… then I’m hurt now.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say.
A cunning mage from House Eurean claiming to be emotionally wounded?
Eatrith frowned, incredulous.
Louis, unaffected, placed a hand on his chest and lowered his head playfully, even going so far as to pout like a sulky kitten.
“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll be going now.”
Eatrith was about to leave, watching his cherry blossom-like hair ripple in the breeze, when—
“Lady Bellanel.”
Louis called out to her.
For a moment, Eatrith didn’t realize he was addressing her and looked around.
In that split second, she thought it was Adrian calling her.
“I meant you, Lady Eatrith Bellanel.”
Louis smiled gently at her hesitation. The playful air from before had completely vanished.
Eatrith blankly stared at the boy smiling at her.
He had pink hair like spring blossoms and yellow eyes.
Not the jet-black hair that devoured the night, nor the deep, heavy violet eyes.
‘Right… Prince Adrian wouldn’t be here.’
He was likely in the imperial palace by now, having long forgotten everything that happened before her regression.
But when she heard herself addressed by her family name, she couldn’t help but stop in her tracks.
‘Because the only one who ever called me by my family name… was Prince Adrian.’
She closed her eyes.
Her heart instinctively drifted back to the past—the day she first heard her family name spoken aloud.
The miraculous day she became his knight.
She had first met him in the northern region, where a monster subjugation force had been deployed.
Eatrith, having just turned twenty, had been appointed as a regular knight and dispatched to the north.
Though mana was essential for both knights and mages, it was also a dangerous force.
The north was a land with an exceptionally high mana index, where thick gray clouds blocked out the sun even at noon.
It was a desolate, unwelcoming land.
For a young woman from a noble house to be sent to such a place, especially one without holy power or mana, was highly unusual.
But Eatrith had gone without hesitation. Because Heddon had ordered it.
“I’d like you to keep an eye on Prince Adrian while you’re with the subjugation force. You can do that, right?”
Adrian was the First Prince, but he had already lost the power struggle within the imperial family.
Even though he held the title of Northern Army Commander, being stationed in the north was essentially exile from imperial politics.
Still, Heddon—who had aligned himself with the Second Prince—remained vigilant and sent Eatrith to serve as Adrian’s knight and act as a spy.
Back then, that was all she knew.
‘I had no idea at the time that Heddon and Muriel hoped I’d die fighting monsters and never return to the capital.’
Even now, she remembered with painful clarity the brutal days she had spent there.
Kyaaaah!
How many more monsters had she cut down as they lunged at her?
Eatrith slashed through another one charging straight at her, splitting it clean in two.
Splat!
The creature’s body burst open, spraying blood that splattered across her face.
Eatrith blinked the blood from her lashes with an expression devoid of emotion.
A different knight might have burned the creature’s body with sword aura, but she had neither holy power nor mana.
To slay a monster, she had to move several times faster than others and take far greater risks.
Even if it meant drenching herself in filth in the process.
“There she goes again, covered in blood showing up at camp…”
“I was glad to be assigned to the same tent as a woman, but who cares if she’s a girl when she looks like ‘that’!”
Knights—no, other members of the subjugation unit—grumbled and insulted her every time they passed.
The stream of degrading remarks that poured out with each step had long since become routine.
But sharing a tent was another matter.
She wanted rest after a day of fighting from morning till afternoon, but she couldn’t bring herself to return to the tent.
In the end, Eatrith wandered to a quiet cliff near the camp and sat down on a cold rock.
‘My mind feels hazy.’
Was it because she was exhausted? Or because it was pathetic how hard she fought yet remained unrecognized?
She couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Biting her dry lips, she stared at the setting sun.
For two years now, she had smelled the stench of burning flesh every day, been drenched in the blood of people she couldn’t name.
Now it wasn’t just her body that felt heavy—her spirit was weighed down too.
Even the letters from Muriel, filled with idle greetings and shallow encouragement, had stopped arriving. It had been over two months.
‘Surely nothing happened…’
Just as unease began creeping in with thoughts of her cousins—
“Lady Bellanel.”
A low, elegant voice rang out close by.
For a moment, Eatrith didn’t realize she was the one being called and nearly closed her eyes again.
Startled, she quickly turned her head to see a tall man standing in the crimson sunset, dressed in a commander’s uniform.
The northern lands rarely saw sunlight, and with the light behind him, Eatrith couldn’t immediately recognize him and narrowed her eyes.
“…Were you speaking to me?”
“Is there any other Bellanel here besides you?”
The man shrugged with the setting sun at his back.
A golden emblem of the imperial family gleamed on his left shoulder.
It was First Prince Adrian Blaine Roanest.
“Knight Eatrith Bellanel, at your service, Your Highness.”
Eatrith belatedly knelt and bowed her head deeply.
Rumor had it that despite his handsome appearance, the First Prince was terrifyingly cold and cruel.
There were even whispers that he had no direct knights because none could endure his personality.
Whether the rumors were true or not, Eatrith could practically feel a chill surrounding him.
‘I can’t make a bad impression now.’
Especially since she had been ordered to watch him.
She couldn’t afford to ruin Heddon’s plan due to a careless mistake.
That thought alone filled her with dread.
“I didn’t realize you were addressing me. I apologize for the delay. Please forgive me.”
Expecting a rebuke, she knelt instinctively, just as she would before Heddon, and bowed her head in apology.
But the response was entirely unexpected.
“There’s no need for you to apologize. It’s not your fault that being called by your family name isn’t familiar to you.”
Caught off guard, Eatrith looked up.
“I came to commend you for your conduct, as your commanding officer.”
Commend… her?
Eatrith blinked at the words she had never heard before.
It was a term just as unfamiliar to her as her own surname.
“They said you were the first to detect the swarm of gargoyles invading from the west and took the lead.”
“……”
“They said the entire camp might’ve been in danger if not for you. Thanks to your actions, we were able to protect it.”
Eatrith stood there, mouth slightly open, unable to say anything.
She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
Even when Adrian told her there was no need to apologize, she had remained kneeling, unmoving.
So he stepped closer and helped her up, meeting her gaze.
“Well done. It was all thanks to you.”
Only then did Eatrith truly face her liege.
Adrian’s eyes were an enchanting amethyst—like a sky on the verge of dawn.
“Ah…”
The moment she met those gentle eyes, she reflexively looked away.
“It was the first time.”
That was why.
Why the words escaped her lips before she could stop them.
“The first time I’ve ever been praised as a knight… or called by my family name.”
Not ‘bastard,’ not ‘half-breed,’ not ‘the shame of House Bellanel.’
He had called her ‘Bellanel’.
That was why she hadn’t answered right away.
It was her name—but it felt foreign, because no one had ever used it for her.
She couldn’t believe her efforts had been recognized.
A girl without holy power or magic, someone of no affinity.
She had told herself to give up on being acknowledged as a knight.
No matter how hard she fought, no matter how fiercely she tried, she believed there was a realm she could never reach.
‘But even so… how painful it was that my heart could never truly let go.’
As Eatrith stood silently, overwhelmed by emotions she couldn’t name, the prince spoke again.
“It seems only vile people have surrounded you until now.”
Her eyes, which had been lowered, snapped up.
Adrian smiled faintly. The chill in his features melted, and his expression changed entirely.
“People who refused to acknowledge you, who kept you isolated and alone—people like that were all you had.”
He took a step forward as he spoke.
Behind him, the radiant sunset spilled across the sky, turning Eatrith’s silver hair into strands of glowing gold.
“That name—the one that should have always been spoken proudly—I’ll call it for you, over and over again.”
“Your Highness… will?”
“Of course. You are ‘my’ knight.”
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, Adrian smiled once more.
“Eatrith Bellanel.”
Slowly, like he was reciting a treasured love letter, Adrian spoke her name with reverence.
The sound of it, carried by the wind, brushed past her ears—and Eatrith unknowingly clenched her fists.
‘Why…?’
The moment she realized that this gentle voice had truly called her name—’her’ name— her heart dropped.
This was right.
Being called by this name—this was how it was always supposed to be.
‘Why does this feeling wash over me like this?’
Just hearing her name spoken made all the strength leave Eatrith’s body. Her heart crumbled helplessly, and she couldn’t hide the expression on her face.
Unconsciously, she clasped her hands tightly together.
A strange, unfamiliar warmth pierced her chest, and her hands trembled.
At the same time, a wave of guilt surged up, making it impossible for her to meet her liege’s eyes. She wanted to run away.
But at the same time—
‘I want to hold on to this painful, unfamiliar feeling just a little longer.’
The emotion that overpowered the guilt was joy.
Eatrith felt so happy, her chest ached with how tightly the feeling swelled within her.
Her blood-soaked, heavy battle gear, the calloused hands that gripped her rough blade—they didn’t feel burdensome anymore.
Even though she was his enemy now, she suddenly longed to become his true knight one day.
‘I want to survive this desolate north… and stay by his side for a long, long time.’
She slowly lifted her gaze and took in the landscape before her eyes.
The fleeting sun that shone through the cracks in the northern sky.
The blood-colored horizon. The imperial black cape fluttering slowly in the wind.
And—his violet eyes, gazing at only her with a smile in the middle of this miraculous scenery.
It wasn’t just to survive, following Heddon’s orders.
In that moment, she knew.
She truly wanted to become his knight by her own will.
‘This is a memory I’ll never forget.’
Even after a long time has passed, even when her sword rusts and her breath runs dry— this memory would never fade.
Eatrith recalled that moment, a memory etched deep behind her closed eyelids.
And when she slowly opened her eyes again, she saw Louis.
“Lady Bellanel?”
Still caught in the haze of the past, Eatrith’s expression snapped back to her usual calm the moment she heard her name.
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“I owe you an apology, Lady Bellanel.”
Louis stepped closer and continued.
“I wasn’t aware that House Bellanel had two daughters, and because of that, I was terribly rude. As the heir to the Eurean Mage Tower, it’s shameful.”
He then placed a hand over his chest and bent one knee slightly behind him in a graceful bow.
It was an impeccably formal gesture.
“Though belated, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Louis Eurean.”
“Eatrith Bellanel.”
Eatrith lifted her skirt just slightly and responded with a polite nod.
But what he asked next caught her completely off guard.
“Lady Eatrith, when did you begin learning swordsmanship?”
He wasn’t asking ‘if’ she had learned.
His tone already held certainty that she was trained to a skilled level.
“Swordsmanship?”
Eatrith didn’t look away from the snake-sharp golden eyes.
Instead, she countered,
“Do you truly think I had the opportunity to learn it?”
“In the Empire, it’s rare for a woman to be trained in the sword, but not impossible.”
Louis replied, lightly shaking his head and looking her directly in the eye.
“The speed and judgment you showed aren’t those of someone holding a sword for the first time. Honestly, even if you claimed to be a trainee now, I wouldn’t believe it. Your movement was at a level no less than a formally trained knight.”
“……”
“Also, the style you displayed—I’ve never seen swordsmanship like it.
At a glance, it followed textbook postures, but it wasn’t rigid or by-the-book.
That’s why I suspect you’re self-taught. Am I right?”
‘He really ‘is’ the heir to the Mage Tower.’
In just a short moment, Louis Eurean had accurately deduced far too much.
Technically, it had been Heddon and Joseph who first taught Eatrith swordsmanship—but that didn’t last.
Without holy power or mana, she had to focus solely on physical movement,
and compared to her, their sword skills were laughable.
‘So I learned real swordsmanship through battle—through actual combat.’
Every enemy she faced became her teacher.
The sword movements she developed over time became hers alone.
“Perhaps I should be asking you instead. I heard you were a mage—but you seem to know your way around a sword too?”
When Eatrith shot the question back with a sharp edge, Louis laughed clearly, amused by something.
“I’m nothing but a harmless mage with no skill in the sword.
I was only able to guess thanks to observing academy students and improving my eye for things.”
Louis, smiling with his eyes crinkling at the corners, took a step forward.
“Our first meeting was a bit lacking, but I hope to interact with you more often, Lady Eatrith.”
Even as Eatrith remained expressionless, Louis’s eyes lit up as he made his proposal.
“Next time we meet, could we meet as friends?”
His tone and manner were flawlessly polite, yet Eatrith couldn’t easily accept the offer. She quickly turned over possibilities in her mind, trying to gauge the boy’s true intentions.
‘It’s an obvious fact that, publicly, I’m far less recognized than Heddon.’
If the Marquess of Eurean intended to build ties with House Bellanel, then she was hardly a favorable option for Louis.
In fact, he must’ve already noticed that she and Heddon were at odds—so Louis’s offer now was more of a bold move than a casual suggestion.
Heddon was currently regarded as the Duke’s likely successor.
So why would Louis choose to alienate someone like Heddon, who would probably become the next Duke, just to be friends with her?
‘He doesn’t look like he’s joking…’
The lemon-yellow eyes asking for friendship showed no flattery or mockery. Which only made it harder for Eatrith to understand Louis’s real thoughts.
‘Could it be that Louis Eurean isn’t as strategic as the rumors claim?’
In her previous life, he had risen to fame as a great mage—but who knew now? Skill and reputation didn’t always go hand-in-hand.
‘Maybe he’s brilliant in magic but lacks discernment when it comes to people and relationships?’
Still, it was hard to believe that the heir to the Mage Tower—who had to manage a wide variety of eccentric mages with intelligence, flexibility, and political sense—would lack insight.
“Didn’t you already guess the kind of relationship I have with Heddon?”
“Yes. It was hard not to.”
Louis nodded without hesitation.
“Then why bring this up at all?”
Eatrith narrowed her gaze at the pink-haired boy.
“It’s ‘because’ your relationship with Lord Bellanel is so hostile that I made the suggestion.”
Louis shrugged, as if wondering why she would even ask.
“And your reason?”
“I can’t tell you unless you’re my friend. I’m afraid you might leak it.”
“…Excuse me?”
“What if you go around talking behind my back? I may look fine, but I’m actually quite sensitive.”
Louis added with a theatrically melancholic air. As he lowered his gaze, his yellow eyes were shaded by lashes like cherry blossom branches. It was the kind of innocent charm that could make one’s chest ache.
But to Eatrith, it just looked like a practiced act meant to mask something cold underneath.
She couldn’t stand watching it any longer.
“I’d like to see you more often too. As friends.”
Eatrith blurted it out. The words were spat like she was chewing them, but the moment she switched to the common continental tongue—casual and blunt—Louis’s face lit up with delight.
Eatrith tilted her head to the side, urging him wordlessly to answer already.
Louis, smiling at the sight, tapped his own head lightly with his fingers.
Not knowing what that meant, Eatrith looked at him with a puzzled expression.
With a wide, blooming smile at his lips, Louis finally said—
