Chapter 4.4

As she stared at him, still wearing that innocent expression, Livie couldn’t find any words to refute him.  

“Livie? What’s wrong?”  

Seeing her dazed face, Boris gripped her shoulders tightly. Her face looked utterly devoid of life.  

“So, you saw, you saw everything… didn’t you?”  

This time, she grabbed Boris and shook him. Whether he was deliberately going along or not, he swayed easily under her weak grip. Realizing the meaning of her question, Boris finally broke into a wide smile and replied.  

“Why are you making such a fuss? We’ve even swum together in the lake when we were kids…”  

“That’s completely different! Totally different!”  

Livie screamed and grabbed the pillow supporting her back, throwing it straight at his face.  

Thud.  

The pillow struck the center of his face and fell.  

As she met his bewildered expression again, Livie shouted until her face turned bright red.  

“Different! I said it’s different!”  

She pounded the bed with her fists.  

“Calm down, Livie. You’ll lose your voice.”  

His genuinely concerned tone only infuriated her further. She hated his gentle gaze looking down at her.  

She hated everything about him at that moment.  

She swung her fists wildly, hitting his chest and shoulders. But he sat there like an immovable wall, silently enduring her punches.  

“You, you, you touched a grown woman’s body—no, a bride’s body—and you’re not even her husband!”  

“Is that so?”  

Boris grabbed her wrists. His voice suddenly turned dangerously low.  

Livie felt a wave of fear, as if she had awakened a long-dormant golem.  

“Then I just need to become your husband, don’t I?”  

His violet eyes darkened.  

“Do you know how people get married in places far from the capital?”  

“…”  

He leaned in closer.  

Livie, who had been pushed to the edge of the bed, gasped for air.  

“When a man likes a woman…”  

His hand brushed over her trembling lips.  

“He takes her. Usually, he just snatches her right off her horse.”  

“…”  

“Then they spend a night together.”  

The grip on her wrists tightened slightly.  

“By the next day, they’re husband and wife. That’s how it’s always been, and even now, there are still many places where it’s done that way. It’s not uncommon for a man to abduct a woman he fancies the day before her wedding.”  

Each word stabbed at her heart. She knew the stories.  

The founders of this kingdom were descendants of nomads, and the laws of the steppe ran deep in their blood.  

Even as the kingdom became more structured, the practice was banned, but it hadn’t entirely disappeared.  

“That… that’s barbaric. That’s something savages do. It doesn’t happen in the capital.”  

“Yes, it doesn’t happen in the capital.”  

She could meet his gaze directly.  

“But this isn’t the capital, is it?”  

His eyes seemed slightly unhinged. Something had gone wrong—terribly wrong.  

Livie felt for the first time that she was truly facing the madman lurking within him.  

“N-No.”  

She recoiled in horror, trying to distance herself from him.  

“If you try anything like that, I’ll… I’ll kill myself, I swear.”  

Her feeble attempts to move were easily subdued by him.  

“That won’t do, Livie.”  

The violet eyes that came closer roamed all over her.  

He gently brushed her cheek with his fingers.  

“That would make me far too sad.”  

“…”  

“No matter what anyone says, you’re my bride. From the moment you set foot on my land.”  

“What are you talking about?”  

From that moment?  

His words carried an inexplicable confidence.  

It wasn’t “abduction”; it was as if he had simply reclaimed what was rightfully his.  

“Are you worried because the King didn’t approve? Because I took someone else’s bride?”  

“Of course! If the King finds out about this…”  

“The King approved it.”  

“…What?”  

“The King approved it. Does that satisfy you?”  

At his beaming smile, Livie was momentarily dumbfounded.  

“The King approved it?”  

She blinked rapidly.  

What was he saying?  

Wasn’t it the King himself who had commanded me to marry Duke Resette?  

And now he was saying the King allowed me to be abducted from my own wedding?  

It made no sense.  

“Boris, stop lying.”  

“I’m not lying.”  

His eyes darkened.  

“The King gave his permission. He said I could have you.”  

“No. That’s impossible.”  

Unless the King had gone senile, there was no way this could be true.  

Allowing bigamy? What madness was this?  

“Livie, don’t you trust me?”  

His eyes shone with sincerity.  

Unbelievably, they did.  

Livie struggled to think clearly.  

“Surely not…”  

A dreadful thought crossed her mind.  

Looking at Boris, so full of confidence, she began to suspect the unthinkable.  

Was it possible the King had truly lost his mind?  

“Boris, you shouldn’t lie.”  

She spoke in a calm voice once more.  

It was clear which to believe between Boris’s baseless confidence and the King’s decree.  

She’d been momentarily confused, but wrong was wrong.  

“I can’t be your bride. The King explicitly ordered me to marry Duke Resette. You can’t overturn that.”  

“I told you, the moment you set foot on ‘my’ land, you became mine.”  

Once again, the conversation circled back to the start.  

Frustrated, Livie pounded her chest.  

“That’s ridiculous. There’s no way…”  

She stopped mid-sentence.  

Something about Boris’s words struck her as odd.  

“Boris, what did you just say?”  

“You’re mine.”  

He spoke in an even tone.  

“No, before that.”  

“From the moment you set foot on my land?”  

Boris repeated obediently.  

Livie wanted to dig out her own ears.  

“What do you mean by that?”  

Her shriek startled Boris slightly.  

Before he could answer, Livie pressed further.  

“‘My land’? You’re not saying… you don’t mean Tiso Village—our village, do you?”  

“That’s exactly what I mean.”  

He nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  

“Our village is… your land? What are you talking about? Why? How?”  

“Because I asked for it.”  

Contrary to Livie’s frantic questions, his answers were excessively calm.  

“…From whom?”  

“Of course, from the King.”  

Come to think of it, she vaguely remembered hearing something like that before she lost consciousness.  

“This is Edrach Castle.”  

“This castle is Edrach Castle…?”  

“Yes.”  

Boris answered again, nonchalantly.  

‘Wait a second.’  

The master of the Kalini Knight Order resides in Edrach Castle. He didn’t seem to be staying here as a guest. He spoke as if he had the castle firmly in his grasp.  

“Are you the master of Edrach Castle?”  

He nodded slowly, as if asking why she was only realizing this now.  

“That’s… impossible. They said the Lord of this castle passed away long ago. Since then, it’s been…”  

“Vacant. So I asked for it. I said I’d make it my territory, including all the villages within Edrach Territory.”  

“…”  

“As a reward for my victory in the war. I asked for three things, Livie.”  

Boris explained step by step.  

“One was the title of Duke. Another was dominion over the territory. And the last was ownership of…”  

“Ownership of what?”  

“Everything within it.”  

“…”  

Livie was momentarily speechless at his words.  

“Did you say ownership just now?”  

Boris quietly nodded.  

“Everything in the territory. Every grain of wheat, every blade of grass—it’s all mine, as recognized by the King. The people, too.”  

There wasn’t even a hint of jest in Boris’s expressionless face as he spoke.  

“People?”  

“That condition takes effect the moment one set foot in the territory.”  

“…”  

“So yes, you are my bride, Livie. You can’t go anywhere. Especially not to another man.”  

“No matter how much it’s you, you can’t do this. How could you stop a marriage decreed by the King? That’s treason, Boris.”  

Livie tried her best to reason with him, squeezing out the last of her rationality.  

“Even if you were given dominion over the village… this isn’t right. It can’t be.”  

As Livie desperately argued, his face darkened ominously.  

“A lord who owns a village has many rights, doesn’t he?”  

“So what?”  

Livie asked dumbly. Did the rights he gained include abducting a bride?  

“Have you heard of it? No, you must know.”  

“Know what?”  

Suppressing the ominous thoughts rising within her, she asked.  

“The right of the first night.”  

Boris whispered with an innocent face.  

“The right of… what?”  

An antiquated law, long rendered obsolete. Yet it hadn’t entirely disappeared. In some villages, the lord still exercised the archaic custom of claiming the first night of any newlywed bride within the territory. But such things had never happened in Hayden’s domain, nor were they ever going to.  

“That’s… absurd.”  

Her limbs felt frozen.  

“Your first night belongs to me. Of course, I won’t settle for just the first night. You’re mine. My bride, Livie.”  

He whispered sweetly.  

“The King approved it. I have the decree in my possession. So you don’t need to worry about anything.”  

“When… when did the King grant that approval?”  

“Three days ago.”  

“Three… three days.”  

Livie thought for a moment and realized something was off.  

“Then, you traveled from the capital to here in just three days?”  

“…I didn’t exactly rush.”  

Once again, he said something incomprehensible.