Though he knew his crying face wouldn’t be beautiful, he couldn’t hold back. Reizen looked at her with eyes brimming with tears, breathing heavily like a fish thrown onto land.

“Melissa.”

The man called that name tenderly, his voice pleading.

“I really love you.”

In the cold winter, a well-dressed gentleman who seemed out of place at the shabby cabin exhaled white breath.

Through the misty breath before him, his mother’s dead face appeared. Like a dream from long ago, in Reizen’s memory she was an adult, but thinking about it now, she was a woman in her early twenties, barely past girlhood like Melissa.

Being from a minority ethnicity, she was brought to the palace for her beauty and even after becoming pregnant, wasn’t allowed outside the palace until her death.

“Ah…”

Reizen’s eyes grew hot. He tightly embraced the woman looking at him and rested his forehead on her delicate shoulders.

“I wanted to protect you.”

He wanted to protect the people he loved.

“I didn’t want to make you die.”

If she couldn’t get pregnant, she would be sent to Sorbet after a year, and he didn’t want her to go through that.

He didn’t want to repeat the past where he failed to protect his mother and let her die. The past where he knew she was being mistreated by nobles but couldn’t stop it and ran away had tormented him his entire life.

He wanted to gain power, use that power to protect the one he loved, and show it proudly.

“That’s all. I became strong to protect you… When I became able to protect you…”

That’s when I was going to tell you everything.

The man stroked Melissa’s hair and, leaning against her in exhaustion, broke down crying in her arms. As tears darkened the floor, the woman barely supported the stumbling drunk man and spoke in a bewildered voice.

“You’re very drunk. How much did you drink…”

The woman frowned as she patted Reizen’s back. When she asked if anyone had come with him, Reizen shook his head.

“I don’t want to go back.”

“You should go back, shouldn’t you? You’ll regret it.”

When the woman responded dryly, Reizen shook his head again.

“Look, sober up and we’ll talk again.”

Annoyed by the repeated rejections, Reizen staggered backward.

Squinting his eyes to see the woman more clearly through his blurry vision, the man finally slumped down in place.

“I’ll sleep here. I can’t, sleep.”

“Go back and sleep.”

He stubbornly shook his head. It was his determination to stay by Melissa’s side and prevent her from running away.

“If I sleep, you’ll disappear again.”

The woman sighed, pressing her forehead.

“Good grief! You’re being such a mess, brother-in-law.”

“Your speech has gotten quite rough while I haven’t seen you.”

It seemed like she might be making a strange joke…

“Anyway, let’s talk tomorrow. I’m curious about what happened too.”

You should have done better from the start.

Clicking her tongue, the woman threw an old blanket at Reizen’s head, telling him to do whatever he wanted about sleeping.

The old cabin was quite drafty in winter. Reizen sat by the door and fell into a deep sleep for the first time in a long while. His hands and feet were frozen stiff, and the door rattled whenever the wind blew.

In the deep night, it must have started snowing as snow came in through the slightly open window, wetting his hair. Still, believing he had met Melissa made his lips curve up gently. He truly thought coming here was the right choice, hoping he could see her and talk to her directly tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning, his secretary came.

“Prime Minister!”

The coachman, who hadn’t received payment at dawn, had returned to the state guest house and explained everything, and the secretary, face red as he paid the outstanding fare, had rushed to the cabin.

“Did you really sleep here?”

The secretary couldn’t hide his shock at Reizen’s unfamiliar state. Unaccustomed to such eccentric behavior, the secretary’s face turned pale as he paced anxiously.

“What if something had happened while you were here…”

He sighed with relief that this hadn’t happened today but after they’d successfully completed yesterday’s state functions, as it could have been disastrous otherwise.

Waking up beside a stranger’s door, Reizen slowly recalled the previous night’s memories and deeply furrowed his brow.

It was the moment Rael’s words about regret hit him hard.

Pain stabbed at his brain like needles, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the hangover or the agony of embarrassment.

The man silently stood up and sighed deeply while running his hands over his face. The strong smell of alcohol still lingered from his unresolved hangover.

“Are you up?”

Rael asked casually from the kitchen, holding a ladle. Seeing her, Reizen felt like the tower of hope he had built all night was crumbling.

“Madam?”

The secretary’s eyes widened.

“No.”

When Reizen responded curtly, Rael awkwardly spoke while fixing her slightly grown hair.

“Never mind that, come in everyone and have some soup. I need to hear what this is all about.”

Though her tone was sharp and stiff, the aroma from the kitchen was quite savory. She seemed to have prepared ingredients early in the morning to make soup for when Reizen woke up. The secretary tried to lead Reizen by the arm, saying they might as well eat since his stomach wasn’t feeling well anyway, but he said he had no appetite and went outside the cabin.

The area in front of the cabin was covered in white snow and ice. Unlike Sys where autumn had just ripened, the weather here was cold enough to make hands freeze.

Especially in front of the cabin, tall trees cast shadows that made the biting wind particularly painful when it gusted.

‘Is this really the best place she could find to live after leaving Sys.’

Rael was Melissa’s only family.

Though he felt resentful thinking about what Rael had done to Melissa in the past, he had told Arthur to take care of her, thinking there must be some emotional connection only the twins shared…

Between helping Melissa escape and Rael’s shabby living conditions, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed in Arthur in many ways.

“Why are you so angry? What right do you have?”

Rael approached, wrapped in a winter coat and pulling down a fur hat.

“Honestly, shouldn’t I be the angry one? I’m pretty sure I asked you to take good care of her.”

Without makeup unlike when she was in Sys, Rael looked strikingly similar to Melissa. Perhaps that’s why the man, who would normally have dismissed such words entirely, stood silently listening to her nagging.

“It’s cold, put on some gloves.”

Rael tossed over what appeared to be thick gloves she had sewn herself with wool lining. Reizen’s nose and ears were red with cold as he was still wearing his formal dinner attire from Sys.

The man followed Rael with a dry expression, holding the gloves. Hoping he might get even a small bit of information about Melissa.

Afterward, the three of them sat silently in the secretary’s carriage as they headed to a nearby church.

Perhaps because the state religion was different from Sys, the appearance of religious buildings in Tavania felt unfamiliar.

Moreover, while in Sys only royal family members and nobles could enter temples, here they were mainly used by villagers.

“The pastor knows best about important matters in the village.”

Rael hopped out of the carriage and headed toward the church entrance with familiarity.

Reizen got out of the carriage holding his gloves and looked at the desolate garden. Unlike Sys, which was green year-round due to fertile soil and mild weather, this place strongly resembled the Miellin territory.

“This way.”

Though Rael went ahead first, Reizen couldn’t take his eyes off one spot for a long while.

Usually, gardens are decorated with aesthetically pleasing flowers, landscaping trees, or statues, but this garden had rows of tombstones.

It seemed someone had been buried this morning too, as family members in black clothes remained in front of a tombstone, wiping tears with handkerchiefs.

When the wind blew, snow piled on the trees fell softly and scattered. Seeing the man walking steadily under the white snow, Rael raised her voice.

“Not that way!”

Though she gestured that they needed to go another way to meet the pastor, for some reason his feet carried him forward. The man who had been walking quickly at first suddenly began running urgently, scanning the tombstones while panting heavily.

Please… please let there not be any familiar names.

As he moved forward with large strides while hoping this, a tombstone that looked relatively recently erected caught his eye.

‘Melissa Grey.’