The next day I suggested to Eden that we go for a walk first.
“Your Highness, would you like to go for a walk in the park?”
Once I made up my mind, I couldn’t even afford to wait for the night to visit Eden’s room.
I just wanted to escape from Everetian Empire as soon as possible.
“I don’t care where we go, but are you feeling okay?”
Eden asked, obviously concerned for me after I’d used the excuse of not feeling well the day before.
“Yes, I’m okay. Shall we go then?”
“That’s a relief. You seem to like the park, by the way. We went to the park last time.”
Eden said cheerfully.
Yes, I do like the park.
But today we must go to the park.
We can’t talk about asylum in a crowded library or cafe.
“I just wanted to go to the park again today, is that okay?”
“It’s all right. You know, I like everything.”
The way he says it, like he’s really into everything, makes me cringe a little, because I’m suddenly reminded of his questionable nature.
Regardless of my feelings, Eden talked a lot, as he always did while walking on the trail.
But even as I listened to him, my mind was filled with thoughts of asylum, so his words only rang in my ears, never reaching my brain.
“…Are you going to?”
He asked me something.
Going to what?
Oh… was he talking about my favorite food?
“Yes, well, something like that.”
Since it seemed like a trivial question, I answered casually.
“Really? Are you serious?”
Eden’s eyes widened as he asked again.
Wait! What’s serious now?
Wasn’t he talking about food?
Had the topic changed?
Looking at Eden’s round eyes, I had no choice but to ask him again.
“Ah… I think I didn’t catch your question properly. Could you please repeat it?”
“What are you thinking so hard about? Focus, Lyn.”
Eden gave an unusually sharp reprimand.
Oh dear, get a grip, Lyn!
He’s the one holding my life line now.
I nodded my head vigorously and answered him.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry, so what did you ask…?”
“I asked you if you love Grand Duke Leon.”
“Huh?”
What are you talking about?
“I heard you’re going to marry Grand Duke Leon.”
“Oh…”
What are you saying, I’ve decided not to marry him.
Why are you asking like that when you already know that my engagement with Leon is already broken?
Is he thinking about me?
What a raccoon.
I tensed up again.
This was not someone to be taken lightly.
As we exchanged stories, the two of us were entering the park before we knew it.
I turned to Eden, who was still looking at me as if waiting for my answer.
“Hey, Eden, I’d like to talk to you in a less crowded area, right around there?”
I pointed to a sparsely populated part of the park.
Eden’s eyes widened a little, and he looked down at me.
“Do you have to answer the question of whether or not you love Grand Duke Leon in a place like that?”
“Yes.”
Actually, I’m about to bring up asylum.
“Hahaha!”
He suddenly laughed out loud.
Why are you laughing?
I’m so serious and nervous even.
I looked up at him with a strange expression, and he asked after he stopped laughing.
“I didn’t ask you if you love me so why are we going to a spooky place?”
“…”
Patience, patience. All that laughter, all those jokes, it’s all a mask.
Don’t get carried away for no reason and keep a cool head.
I tried to control my mind because Eden got annoying again, but I was on the verge of bringing up something important.
When we reached the bush by the river, he asked me.
“What do you think, there are no other people here, it’s just the two of us, is this okay?”
“Yes.”
“So, what’s the answer, Lyn?”
“Eden, you asked me if I loved Grand Duke Leon, right?”
“Yes.”
“No. Not at all. So I don’t want to get married. As you already know, Eden.”
At that moment, a little wonder crossed Eden’s smiling face.
“Well, what do I know?”
He was still slick.
“In fact, I noticed that Your Highness negotiating with my father and the Empress. I went to your room to ask you something, and I overheard you talking with my father.”
“!!!!”
Eden’s expression hardened at my sudden revelation.
I quickly added.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t go around telling anyone what you said to my father.”
Eden’s face stiffened at my words, but he quickly relaxed and put on a relaxed expression.
“What am I worried about, I’m just curious as to why you’re bringing this up.”
I was very nervous.
“I don’t want to marry Grand Duke Leon.”
“So? What does it have to do with that?”
His face looked relaxed, but I could feel his voice had become somewhat chilly.
“From what I overheard yesterday, even if I didn’t want to marry Grand Duke Leon, I don’t think the secret agreement between Your Royal Highness, my father and the Empress would be broken.”
Eden stared into my eyes.
“But?”
“I don’t have the power to change Your Highness, Her Majesty, and my father’s plans, but wouldn’t I be able to change my life at least?”
I cannot die in vain because of your schemes.
“It’s your life…. What do you want to say?”
I swallowed hard before answering.
“I want asylum in the Darkus Empire.”
I said it.
“!!!!! What?”
His face was distorted with surprise.
Yeah, I guess that’s unexpected.
I began to ramble on like an outspoken man.
“I do not want to intervene in the battle for the throne of the Everetian Empire. I can’t risk my life to make a man I don’t even love emperor.”
“So you want asylum to stay out of that fight?”
Eden asked, narrowing his brow.
“Yes. My father, who has already signed an agreement with Your Royal Highness as well as the Empress anyway, seems to be unable to pull out of the pact.”
“You mean to say that you would take a different position than your father?”
“Yes.”
I answered firmly.
Eden, who was always smirking, shut his mouth tightly, as if he had forgotten what to say.
I waited for him to open his mouth again, and finally after some silence he opened his mouth again.
“You… you seem to have already conceded defeat in that fight.”
I swallowed soundlessly again.
Eden was not, after all, a man who lived for love and pleasure.
He’d already gotten the meaning behind my words.
I cleared my throat and answered.
“I don’t know who will be crowned emperor in the end, but I do know this: if my father wins, Grand Duke Leon will be emperor, and I will most likely be forced to become the wife of the man I don’t even love. And if my father loses, I will die. By Calix.”
“Hmm…. You don’t like Leon and you don’t want to die, is that it?”
I told Eden as if I had made the decision of asylum, after considering both situations, but in truth, those two things were one and the same.
I hate Leon because I don’t want to die.
No, if Leon becomes Emperor, well, he’s not that bad.
Whatever.
He’d be an emperor who genuinely likes me.
But he’ll never be emperor.
The only days Leon can call himself emperor are the few days it takes for Calix to return to Everen, the capital, from the border.
After that, I’m dead.
In the first place, I don’t need to be empress, I just need to live.
But I can’t lay out all these details openly, so it’s better to summarize and speak like this.
“Yes. I don’t want either.”
Eden’s eyes sparkled with interest as he responded again.
“What about your father and brother? After all, your father only made a secret pact with me because you were so insistent on marrying Grand Duke Leon.”
Insistent?
Even now, his choice of words irked me.
It wasn’t me who was insistent; it was the Kailyn from the novel.
No, in the first place, Kailyn and Leon were on good terms with each other.
It wasn’t a one-sided thing.
But I tried to ignore his expression.
What’s important now is not such trivial expressions or past facts.
“I used to be, but not anymore. I’ve changed my mind, so I told my father, don’t try to take the throne. I tried to convince him and convince him, but as you know, he doesn’t break agreements.”
I felt bad for my father and brother, too, even if they didn’t feel like family.
“For someone who caused the Duke’s decision, you have no sense of responsibility to your father, do you?”
His words clearly blamed me.
It was natural that, in his eyes, I might seem like a capricious child who acts on whims.
He couldn’t possibly know that the Kailyn who once loved Leon and the me who wanted to run away were two completely different people.
“Even if my father made the pact solely for me, the agreement that condones and aids the invasion of the Darkus Empire was not what I wanted.”
You’re the one who got involved, entangling the Darkus Empire, making everything so complicated!
I spoke with the resentment and blame I felt towards him.
“I’m sorry. This is not a pact that can be undone merely by your capricious taste in men.”
Eden, reading the resentment in my words and expression, once again pointed out my fickleness.
Why, did my father even sign an agreement with such a cheeky guy?
A lament was about to come out.
But in any case, I had to ask him for a favor.
Gathering myself, I spoke calmly.
“Yes, I see you have no plans to break the pact, so I have no choice but to leave.”
“You mean asylum?”
“Yes.”
Eden, who had been keeping his mouth shut for a moment, asked me if I was thinking of something again.
“If Leon becomes emperor, it doesn’t mean you have to become empress, and if you don’t want to, you can refuse, right?”
No, no!
Leon will be defeated no matter what.
We don’t have that option anyway. I just said that to make it make sense.
I’ll just die, and Calix will kill me.
He killed me when he loved me.
But now, it seems he doesn’t love me.
Naturally, he won’t hesitate to kill me.
As the daughter of a traitor family, he might even execute me in front of the palace.
“I don’t want to remain optimistic and carefree, believing that my father will win. Even if he does win, it’s a fight where I have nothing to gain, so I can’t risk my life for it. If my father wins, I still won’t get what I want, and if he loses, I’ll end up dead anyway.”
“…”
Eden fell silent again.
It was an asylum request from the only daughter of the Duke of Brockburg, Chancellor of the Everetian Empire.
I had expected him to accept, but the suddenness of it was something he needed time to think about.
I waited calmly for him to speak.
