Ashika felt wronged that she had no retort, so she chewed her lips irritably.
“This isn’t about conditions. Have you forgotten? You are Duke Talion and I am Igraine. You’re the one who said you would reject Igraine even if all the women in the world disappeared. Why are you acting like this toward me now?”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Those were certainly the words he had spoken. However, Drushia’s expression suggested, “So what?”
“That was just what I thought before sleeping with you. Who could have known we would be such a good match?”
“Ha. You call that an explanation…”
Ashika was dumbfounded by Drushia’s brazen attitude.
“Aren’t you embarrassed to flip your stance so easily?”
“I’m a pragmatist. When needs and conditions change, why should I be constrained by mere words? I’m just a healthy man who desires a woman.”
And before him lay a tempting prey. Like game offered whole to a predator, someone he could seize just by reaching out. And a woman he absolutely wanted.
“You know how much Talion’s knights and vassals hate me, yet you still say such things?”
“You know they don’t hate you. They just need someone to direct their anger toward.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“That’s exactly why I’m saying this.”
Drushia’s expression cooled. Keeping his gaze fixed on Ashika, who wondered what he meant, he continued.
“For the sake of the future, I think it’s time to end this antagonism. Perhaps it could start with the two of us.”
Drushia’s expression was serious, suggesting this wasn’t a sudden thought.
Ashika’s eyes widened. She had thought he was only intent on tormenting her, never imagining he harbored such thoughts.
“The two families have long desired a marital alliance. It suited both sides’ needs.”
“You must also remember how that ended.”
The marriage of Ashika’s grandfather Weive and Drushia’s great-aunt Vanne. Because of it, Weive’s lover and child died, and Vanne also lost her life. It was a marriage that ended in tragedy, leaving many questions unanswered.
“Lady Igraine, do you perhaps have a hidden lover or child?”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Yes, of course not.”
Drushia nodded at Ashika’s horrified face.
“I don’t have any either. As you know, I have only a healthy body and the considerable position of Duke.”
“Is this proposal truly for the sake of your family? Not personal desire?”
“Either way, what difference does it make?”
Drushia genuinely seemed to think it didn’t matter. Now Ashika began to feel confused.
Talion, the Empire’s foremost sword and shield. And Drushia, the current Duke dedicated to his family. Just as Ashika had constantly sacrificed herself and trained since childhood for the sake of her family, she thought he had done the same.
‘But what is this attitude?’
“Why are you looking at me like that? Did you just realize what kind of man I am?”
He didn’t care what others thought. Drushia was unconcerned even if people cursed him as a selfish man who only cared about himself.
In his childhood, having lost his parents and left alone, his only blood relative, Neoren, never returned from the war with the foreign tribes, and the abandoned young boy was thrown into a den of beasts.
Collateral bloodlines who approached under the pretext of caring for the heir, yet only watched for opportunities to devour him. He had endured those precarious times alone, like walking on the edge of a blade to avoid being eaten.
No matter how important the family was, whose family was it for? Except for his grandfather Neoren, all his blood relatives were dead. So what meaning did the family have for a child left alone?
Power was more important to Drushia than family, and the knights who devoted themselves to him were more important than vassals who watched for opportunities.
Therefore, the eyes of others were never a consideration, and his own desires were more important. Of course, this included the power and authority that would firmly support his position.
That was why. Drushia had long recognized that gaining possession of Igraine would bring tremendous benefit, rather than opposing her. The only problems were emotional issues unrelated to practical benefit; the calculations were already completed.
“Ah-ha, ha”
Ashika genuinely came to admire Drushia. She knew he was calculating by nature, but she hadn’t realized he was this thorough.
“So, what’s your answer?”
His gaze urging an answer was subtle. A secretive and deep desire imprinted by just two nights. And a strange heat that surpassed that desire.
‘How did things turn out like this?’
She certainly didn’t dislike it. No, even if Drushia’s displayed emotion was merely desire, she liked it. Ashika’s heart had already been helplessly swaying.
Whenever she confirmed that Drushia had a fiancée, it was painful as if her heart had been stolen. Without knowing why she felt that way.
A sweet temptation extended to Ashika.
She wanted to meet Drushia. To see him up close, call him by a pet name, and whisper tender love. She wanted to confirm the nature of these feelings. But an inexplicable ominous premonition blocked her path.
‘I thought we would never be close like in the dream.’
But now it was no longer a dream. Though the process differed, the two had become entangled like this. If so, could the other dreams also have some meaning that couldn’t be ignored?
Ashika squeezed her eyes shut. To gather her helplessly drifting heart, she took deep breaths and harshly regained her composure.
Drushia silently observed Ashika’s changing face. Her face was so honest that her conflicted feelings were plainly visible.
‘What is she pondering? After boldly seducing me first?’
He couldn’t understand Ashika’s hesitation now.
‘What answer is she going to give?’
When Ashika finally organized her thoughts and opened her mouth, Drushia forgot to breathe due to tension.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear your proposal. You and I are not compatible. And we shouldn’t be.”
Drushia’s face froze coldly as his energy drained. Ashika felt her heart shrink under his glare that seemed ready to devour her.
“I…”
The man’s face, not even moving slightly, was terrifying. Effectively pressuring the other party with silence.
‘He… seems angry.’
But she couldn’t take back words already spoken. Ashika barely managed to voice words amidst the oppressive silence.
“I don’t intend to retract my answer. I’ll return the clothes and accessories you gave me as soon as I return home.”
Ashika finished her statement. Though her heart overflowed with muddled emotions, not a drop should leak out. Thinking thus, she gathered her resolve.
Tok, tok, tok.
Drushia’s long, outstretched fingers slowly drummed on the table.
Once Ashika closed her mouth, she never opened it again. Though their time together had been brief, Drushia had carefully analyzed Ashika’s character. A woman who, while having soft spots, could be ruthless when decisive.
‘This won’t be solved by pushing.’
Drushia knew when to retreat. So he changed the subject.
“By the way, what nightmares do you have so severely? Does it happen often?”
The blood drained from Ashika’s face. Drushia was surprised by how she froze with her eyes wide open. Whether aware of his surprise or not, Ashika didn’t even blink.
After some time, her frozen black pupils shook violently. Though her bleached white face showed not the slightest emotion, her eyes trembled as if in an earthquake.
“I’m not prying, it’s just that you looked so…”
Flustered, Drushia stammered his words.
At the end of his gaze, her stiffly frozen small lips opened as if forcibly torn apart. Even after her mouth opened, it took time for her voice to emerge. Each movement seemed forced, as if borrowing someone else’s body rather than her own.
“I have no reason to stay here any longer, do I? I’ll take the liberty of borrowing a carriage just to the city.”
Ashika bowed her head and slowly rose from her seat.
She had frozen so completely that not even a needle tip could enter. She had returned to being the proud and resolute Lady Igraine who allowed no gaps, not the woman who had been flustered, irritated, and swayed by him just moments ago.
Everything is back to square one.
The large hand gripping the table corner tightened. So much that the knuckles turned white. But Drushia’s blue eyes burned sharply and hotly like those of a predator.
****
The windowless room was cold and dark. There was only one lamp on the wall, and half the room was blocked by bars.
The man beyond them moved uneasily. He flinched, trying to distance himself from the gaze that glared at him while clutching his side stabbed by a sword.
“W-who are you?”
“You know where you recklessly jumped into. So who do you think I am?”
From outside the bars, Aegonite glared at the man with a terrifying gaze, arms crossed.
“What are you talking about…?”
“Stop playing dumb. Who else would dare invade the Duke’s residence and cause a commotion?”
“Th-the Duke’s residence?”
“Ha, look at this guy!”
The man, with his gaunt face, avoided Aegonite’s gaze.
“Your comrades have already gone to the other world after being poisoned. No one will help you even if you hold out.”
“Poison? Why would my comrades…?”
“Three were captured, but only you remain. Someone poisoned the food and they went all at once. Before we could even investigate the mastermind. You should understand by now, right? Your life hangs by a thread. Your only chance to live is to confess quickly and seek His Grace’s mercy.”
The man’s face darkened at the news that his comrades had been killed.
“Who hired you? How great a person sent you to fearlessly invade this place? The Duke Talion’s residence, no less.”
“I-I didn’t know! Really!”
Realizing he was cornered, the man prostrated himself. The pain from his torn side was no longer the issue. Aegonite’s face wrinkled at the unexpected attitude.
“What do you mean you didn’t know?”
“We just received a minor request. The client asked us to accompany them to secretly enter someone’s house. They said no one would get hurt, so we followed.”
They weren’t told whose house it was or what was to be done. They were transported in a large cargo wagon and passed through what seemed like a secret passage.
Only after entering the mansion did he realize with shock that this was Duke Talion’s residence. But by then, knights were already rushing at them with swords. Thus, the man and his comrades became unwitting scapegoats.
The man continued to bow his head repeatedly while prostrated. He was so frightened that his hands on the floor trembled too much to lift.
“The physician worked hard to save you, and yet…”
Aegonite let out a disbelieving laugh. He knew they would be useless, but he hadn’t expected they wouldn’t even know where they had infiltrated.
For two more full days, he interrogated the man, but discovered nothing. Though there was no torture or threat to his life, the man had to tremble in anxiety throughout his confinement.
He had dared to infiltrate the main house of the ducal family. He hadn’t even known such a thing was possible against Talion.
On the third day, after continuously anxious waiting, the man was moved from the basement of the mansion to a small building on the ground. Aegonite, who had been interrogating him all along, no longer visited. It seemed he had been pushed aside from everyone’s attention for being completely useless.
The man carefully watched for an opportunity. The dilapidated warehouse seemed unused, with everything worn out. On the second day after being moved to the warehouse, the man who had been holding his breath quietly searched the interior.
‘A door!’
Finding a hidden back door behind piled junk was unexpected good fortune.
In the deep night without a moon, the man waited for a quiet time around the warehouse. Passing through a side door barely wide enough for one person, he headed to a corner of the garden far from the main building.
‘It was somewhere around here.’
A place with weathered statues, garden trees surrounding like a fence, and red-tinted flagstones on the ground.
‘Found it!’
He found the outermost flagstone hidden by bushes and lifted it with difficulty. Beneath was a hole just large enough for one person, and iron handles were embedded in layers on the wall of the pit.
The man successfully escaped from the mansion using the same passage he had entered through.
