In the vast north. A rough and dry land.
The nerve-wracking atmosphere of the battlefield, which was nearing the end of the territorial war, weighed heavily down on everyone, even to the normally desensitized young girl.
The reddish sun began setting in the far west, painting the sky red, pushing away the grey clouds and swallowing the sky.
The golden shadow of the burning sun embraced the shadows of both the enemy and the ally without distinction.
In a place where blood, dust, and screams were rampant.
A girl raised her head. In the distance not too far from where she was, a man holding a longsword and standing tall in the middle of the battlefield entered her shaking vision.
The man was standing precariously, covered in someone’s blood from head to toe.
‘Ah. That’s my older brother from before.’
The girl’s small hands tightened slightly.
‘Don’t give up. You’ll definitely win.’
The man on the battlefield, who always had his back to her, suddenly turned his head and met the red-haired girl’s eyes. Before, the girl had always seen his broad back from afar, she had never seen his face.
‘Huh? Why today?’
As the girl’s almond-colored eyes widened. The man let out a faint smile and slowly began to approach her.
‘Huh?’
Suddenly.
Klisha rolled out of the bed from the unexpected dream.
The man had never turned his head in her previous dreams before. But today, unexpectedly, he met her gaze precisely from that distance in the dream, as if warning her about some bad omen.
‘How strange.’
Even in reality, she had never seen his face. Then why did she see his face clearly in the dream today?
The red-haired young woman crawled back into bed as she had just woken up. But before she could even begin to recall the night’s dreams in her dazed state, she was thrown off her bed once more by the sudden news.
“What?”
“….”
“Did I hear that correctly?”
She, Klisha Mezerine, opened her already large eyes even wider and muttered in disbelief at the news she had heard just now.
“What the hell are you talking about? Nanny, did you hear that just now? What the hell is that guy saying?”
The young lady, whose expression looked far from the neat and sophisticated noblewoman she was, spoke with a frozen expression on her face.
“Oh my. I’m just out of words.”
The woman sprawled on the floor, shook her head back and forth before opening her mouth again.
“Hey. Are you telling me to believe that? Have you all gone crazy? What the hell are you talking about?”
After a moment of groaning and hanging her head while sitting on the floor in agony, the young girl raised both hands and began pulling her luscious red locks as she thought.
‘I should go out and check. This isn’t something that can happen just like this.’
The morning sunlight streaming through the pure white curtains, scattered on the floor like golden threads. The hanging white curtains were nothing extravagant but had a neat decoration. The living room was designed with antique pieces. A peaceful landscape painting hanging on the wall.
The occasional subtle lace and pastel-colored flowers quietly revealed the taste of the mansion owner.
Dressed in a rumpled nightgown that was an extreme mismatch to the neatly decorated house, the young girl pushed away the blonde knight who had delivered the news and ran out of the bedroom door, screaming like a mad cow.
“Ahhhh! Father! Did I hear that right?”
The woman’s deep frustration could be felt in the shouts that followed.
“Divorce?? What Divorce??? What do you mean!!!!”
The birds sitting on the branches on the trees outside the window flapped their wings urgently and flew away. All the birds flew up except for one red bird that was preening its feathers.
“Me!”
The flowers that had been blooming neatly along the wall swayed gently in the morning breeze.
“I’m not even married yet!”
The young girl screamed like a raging storm. As the cries of the girl drew closer, both the one who delivered the news and the one who received the news flinched for a moment. They hurriedly finished their meeting.
“Viscount Mezerine, then we will be taking our leave now. I hope you understand the situation.”
“…I understand. You must be busy, but you still came to deliver the news in person. For that… Thank you.”
“Please explain to the Lady… well.”
“….”
The three or four uninvited guests, who arrived at the mansion of Viscount Mezerine early in the morning, disappeared with the swiftness of the wind. The only evidence of their presence they left behind was a large, gold-embossed parchment on the table.
Boom!
“Father!”
The door to the reception room opened with a loud sound as the intruder had forgotten all etiquette at the moment. The old Viscount Mezerine sitting inside, who seemed to have aged by ten years, sighed helplessly and said.
“First. Come with me. I’ll tell you.”
“Where are we going? Is the location a problem right now?”
“Uhh….”
“Divorce? What divorce? What’s with the divorce papers? No. I’m not even married! How can there be a divorce!”
The Viscount stared at his daughter with her amber eyes burning and her luscious red locks disheveled. Her current appearance with flushed cheeks and an angry expression, resembled so much like the Fire Spirit Kamika, as if she was the perfect embodiment of the said spirit.
Even he, the retired knight and a hero of the battlefield, Issac Mezerine, flinched for a moment.
Klisha was completely oblivious to the fact, or perhaps the predicament she found herself was more important than her appearance, that she was in her nightwear. She swung her arms around the reception room like a baby throwing a tantrum.
“No, Father. Who the hell is this person whom I married. Or rather, who is this person to divorce me?”
“…His.”
“What?”
“… His Majesty.”
“What? I can’t hear you well!”
The Visount showed a desperate look. Unable to bear it any longer, he roughly swept his face with both hands and shouted.
“His Majesty! His Majesty the Emperor!”
“… Huh? Huh?”
* * *
“… That’s how it is.”
“….”
“There’s no proper way for us to get out of this predicament.”
“….”
“My Daughter, why are you not answering… no. What’re you thinking right now….”
Issac Mezerine, well known as the Red Lion of the battlefield for his outstanding swordsmanship and contribution, no longer had the vigor in his young days. His fiery red hair had long turned grey, an evidence of his aging self. He narrowed his almond-colored eyes, similar to his daughter, and watched his daughter heaving crazily like a mad cow.
“Here, drink some tea. And have some cookies….”
“…Father.”
“Yes.”
“Does this make any sense? What the… … this is absurd. Seriously.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Even if it’s the Royal Family. This is too much.”
“That’s… true.”
Klisha had fallen out of bed twice last night because of that unexpected but reoccurring dream. And after she received the absurd news, she had been screaming since morning without having breakfast. Now she only felt exhausted as she dragged her tired self to the sofa and plopped down.
When the quick-witted nanny brought some snacks in front of her, she seemed to have calmed down a little. Reaching out, she picked up a cookie before slowly opening her mouth.
“Let me clear this up from the beginning. We’re not married, right?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“This isn’t like we had an engagement and are breaking it up now.”
“No. No.”
“I’ve never even seen the back of His Majesty’s head before.”
“I saw it. He had a very handsome backside with broad shoulders.”
At his soulless reply, his daughter’s burning eyes burned more fiercely as she glared at her father. The Viscount quickly shut his mouth realizing his mistake.
“Isn’t there a way to invalidate it or something? Why should I be the one to take the blame for the mistakes made by the temple in the first place?”
Klisha suddenly got up from her seat as she spoke. The cookie she picked up for eating began crumbling into powder due to her sudden anger, but she appeared to be completely unaware of the fact.
“No! Such a thing never happened in the history of the Royal Family. They shouldn’t solve the problem this way. Why me? Huh? Why me? I have such a long bright future ahead of me!”
The Viscount sighed helplessly. He seemed to no longer know how to appease his daughter, so he turned his head away.
“What can I do? This is the only way. They say that quietly resolving this matter is better for everyone. If it becomes known to the public, it won’t be good for you either… And in many other ways….”
Klisha quickly turned her head at her father’s helpless muttering. Her almond-colored pupils burned with red murderous intent.
“No! At the young age of twenty-one! Divorcing a strange man I’ve never even met! And we weren’t even married in the first place!”
“That, from a layman’s perspective, does seem a bit, I mean very strange… But. It’s His Majesty the Emperor….”
Klisha, still unwilling to budge from her stance, ran to the window, swung it open and shouted at the top of her lungs, as if wanting the whole world to know.
“Worst of all, how can being exiled for ten years be good for me aaaahhh!”
The Viscount continued, rubbing the space between his eyebrows as he felt like he had aged twenty years from the short conversation with his daughter.
“It’s not exile… It’s called ‘removal from position’… I heard that apparently, there is something called the Imperial Regulation, which is for the divorced Empress to quietly disappear, leaving her political power.”
Klisha’s expression distorted further. The Viscount hurriedly took a cookie from the plate and waved it in front of his excited daughter’s nose, continuing his words.
“So, Father will take you to a beautiful but quiet island, a little bit away from the capital. It’ll have good air and beautiful scenery, where you can rest for a few years….”
However, contrary to his expectations, his daughter’s sharp shouts continued.
“What! What kind of exile is that! A royal decree is a royal decree. But I’m not the Empress in the first place. So what kind of political power are you talking about!”
Klisha had forgotten all about the dream and the man whose face she had seen clearly for the first time last night. She shouted in despair at the absurd and unexpected news.
“Everyone’s out of their minds!”
The gardener, who had been out in the garden trimming flowers since morning and ignoring the ongoing commotion, dropped his scissors in surprise at the scream of the young lady.
It wasn’t just the gardener who was surprised. The squirrels playing in the grass was also startled ran up the tree. Even the rabbit drinking from the small pond was startled and hid itself in the bushes.
The Household of Viscount Mezerine.
The small, ordinary mansion located in the outskirts of the city was gripped by a tense sense of urgency. With the atmosphere like the calm before a storm, due to the sudden devastating news that arrived from the capital in the morning looming above.
None of the people could even eat.
