How long could this uncomfortable jealousy and measured truth be maintained on such a precarious balance?

Melissa returned to the capital two months after the wedding. The capital of Sys had always been lively, but these days it would be more accurate to say it was closer to chaos than vitality.

“So the internal combustion engine automobile Your Highness reserved is completely sold out?”

Reizen, who said he had business in the capital, showed her the carriage that moved without horses.

“What do you think?”

It looked similar to the carriages men used for hunting, but seemed more convenient with a roof to keep out the rain.

Rather than putting effort into decorative patterns, it was painted a clean black with a glossy finish on the surface.

Melissa’s eyes carefully examined the car before she nodded.

“It’s wonderful.”

“Did you hear that? Her Grace says it’s wonderful. Then it truly must be.”

When Reizen repeated Melissa’s words to the merchant, the merchant’s mouth split into a grin that nearly reached his ears.

“It’s an honor, Your Grace!”

He seemed to be holding himself back from jumping in place out of joy.

“With the protesters now, it’s difficult to drive on the main street, so I’ll watch the situation and deliver it to the palace. Your Highness.”

Reizen readily agreed to the merchant’s suggestion. The man in his neat formal attire signed the check with Melissa at his side.

It was an elegant cursive signature.

“Now for the telephone.”

Reizen seemed subtly excited. From what she heard, these were items he had reserved during his busy period working in the capital.

When he suggested going shopping, she had only imagined clothes or jewelry, but watching such larger sums being spent made her heart flutter.

“So when you said you had business in the capital, you meant buying new inventions.”

Melissa spoke politely while following Reizen’s steps with her parasol. Reizen shrugged as if not denying it.

“Well. Among other things.”

He added explanations that the automobile was for traveling between the capital and territory faster than carriages, and the telephone was for better communication with the territory from afar.

When you heard it that way, it made sense.

As Glinford port develops into a city, there would be more decisions to make even while being away for long periods like now.

Melissa nodded.

None of what he said was entirely false. But it wasn’t the complete truth either. Reizen always gave her just the right amount of truth in his explanations.

“It’s amazing that electricity makes such things possible.”

“Once they set up networks in each region, communication will be free even across distances.”

“Even trains are fascinating.”

“Have you ever ridden one?”

The man asked with his hands behind his back as they looked at telephones.

Melissa shook her head slightly as if embarrassed among all the strange new inventions.

“Not even once?”

Melissa nodded with eyes full of subtle curiosity. It was also a wish to ride a train someday.

“I didn’t have many occasions to travel far.”

A noble lady’s life seemed complicated but was simple. Even when meeting people, they would be invited to the mansion or met at the palace, so there was never any thought of taking a train far away.

When she occasionally went on vacation with her grandfather, they naturally used carriages. Her grandfather didn’t want to place Melissa and Rael in spaces crowded with commoners.

“When Glinford station is built, let’s be the first to ride it.”

Just hearing the word Glinford brought back memories of Florence’s smile and her hands touching Reizen. But Melissa hid her unpleasant jealousy and nodded gently.

While thinking to herself:

‘If I can still be alive until then.’

The fact remained unchanged that she would be sent to Sorbet if she didn’t conceive within a year. Throughout the journey to the capital, Horrux and the Emperor’s men accompanied them in the back of the carriage.

Though she had grown used to them following her around like maids wherever she went, Melissa had also come to use their presence as a reminder of her position.

The goddess’s seal is strongest when first imprinted right after the wedding ceremony, and its effects gradually diminish afterward.

This was why Melissa’s former husbands found it hardest to control their desires early on, embraced other women, abused her, and eventually abandoned her back at Marita’s shop.

‘Will Reizen be the same?’

Now that over two months had passed since the wedding, it was time for the seal to stabilize. Though he was still taking suppression medicine, his symptoms had indeed improved compared to the beginning.

The problem was that for Melissa, this was just the beginning…

What would happen to Melissa when Reizen’s seal cooled? Would Reizen still desire her then and paint futures of riding trains together?

Melissa discovered a large poster inside the shop Reizen had brought her to.

It looked like a hand-drawn ship blueprint, catching her eye with its extremely detailed notes on an enormous sheet.

Reizen, who had been walking ahead, stopped and followed Melissa’s gaze. His low voice added an explanation.

“A cruise ship. Like a giant pleasure boat.”

“A ship for leisure rather than transporting goods.”

Reizen nodded slowly.

“Can something like that float?”

“Don’t underestimate the sea, Melissa. It might feel hurt, you know?”

At those words, Melissa held a quiet smile. Reizen, who had been silently watching her still entranced by the blueprint, once again promised an opaque future.

“Let’s ride that too when it’s completed.”

The words ‘If your heart hasn’t changed by then’ came up her throat but stopped. Melissa’s smiling lips froze while still parted.

A simple ‘yes’ or expression of anticipation would have smoothed things over. She didn’t want to burden the man who had barely shown his face at the hotel since arriving in the capital due to being busy by revealing unnecessary anxiety.

For fear that he might run far away from her later.

What if one day he suddenly left and never returned?

So Melissa decided to fold this desperate greed for him to look only at her like origami and keep it to herself for now.

Hadn’t he said?

That there was no woman in the world who didn’t like him.

She didn’t want to let such an arrogant man discover her feelings and add to that arrogance with self-righteousness and conceit.

Perhaps this cheap pride and unbending stubbornness of Melissa’s meant taking the long way around rather than the easy path, but…

Just as she had chosen death over living like Rael, she preferred to suffer heartache rather than become emotionally subservient to a man.

Thinking this way, she wondered if perhaps Rael would have been more suitable as Crown Princess than herself.

‘Since Rael is more flexible.’

She didn’t hesitate to adapt to situations, was quite impulsive, and true to her emotions.

Though that might seem bad, it had its advantages sometimes. At least Rael wouldn’t suffer from this kind of inner sickness.

Three days after arriving in the capital, Melissa finally had dinner alone with Reizen.

Though they could have stayed at the palace, Reizen had booked a hotel on the outskirts of the capital, saying he would clearly be uncomfortable there.

It was a luxurious prison with good security but surrounded only by forest and river.

Honestly, the feeling of being trapped here waiting for the man to return was truly miserable.

Some days he wouldn’t return no matter how long she waited, and other days he would appear faster than expected and greet her by devouring her lips.

It was even more entangling because she couldn’t figure out the pattern. Melissa hated this confusion.

She preferred a stable, fixed, unchanging, and permanent life. Change was frightening, and changes beyond her control were even more frightening.

At first, she liked him for being calm like the sea. In fact, when her heart wasn’t swayed by Reizen, that level of gentleness and peace was enough.

But now Melissa couldn’t be satisfied with just that. That was the problem. That she had separate feelings she wanted from him, and the greed to fulfill them was growing.

“…”

As Melissa quietly cut her steak and put it in her mouth, Reizen rudely propped his chin on the dining table and spoke.

“…I’m hurt.”

Melissa chewed her steak while looking at the man across the table. Her eyes only grew round, having no idea what he was hurt about.

“You’re lost in thought all day with me right in front of you.”

She had no response to that since it was true.

“It’s quite vexing.”

Melissa swallowed her steak and set her cutlery down in place.

“The same goes for me.”

After carefully dabbing her lips with the napkin, she raised her head. Her eyes met Reizen’s, who was sitting askew in his chair watching her.

“You always tell me half-truths and half-lies. You were at the same school as Florence but didn’t share classes. But you must have seen each other daily through the same theater club activities.”

“Melissa.”

“Moore, Sion, Whilton, Erich, all of them together. So she’s part of Your Highness’s group. There’s no way you could be absolutely nothing to each other.”

Reizen laughed coldly.

“Who told you such things?”