“Call Selheim.”

I’ll handle the rest after that.

“When you call him.”

“The Empress will be able to stop her eldest son’s foolishness and save her youngest son’s life. And I will take my wife.”

It was an offer the Empress’s side couldn’t refuse.

“Your Highness.”

Whilton expressed his objection throughout their journey from the Empress’s palace to the temple.

“Now is not the time to hand over Owen. You must see the bigger picture! When there’s a greater danger later…”

“A greater danger.”

Could there be… a danger greater than this?

The car spewed black smoke as it crossed the imperial garden.

The servant driving clumsily turned the wheel, running over a corner of the garden. He made an apologetic sound, but since it belonged to the Empress’s palace, he didn’t care much.

Looking back, the perfectly round geometric garden was ruined by a single small flaw.

While not everything perfect is beautiful, something damaged while pursuing perfection becomes ugly when it loses that perfection.

Because it has nothing to show except perfection.

“Thinking of the bigger picture, this is right.”

Reizen said while taking in the ruined garden.

“Even if you’ve reached the perfect level of artistry, think about if the painting remains unfinished or its corner gets damaged. It becomes worthless.”

The same went for Reizen’s painting. Without Melissa, it wouldn’t be complete, and if she got hurt, it would become an imperfect painting.

Reizen slumped against the backrest and put a cigar in his mouth. He tilted his head back to look at the sky. Early summer sunlight shone down from the clear sky.

Weather that made one’s body slightly sweaty.

The emotions neatly collected in a glass bottle were swirling, almost overflowing.

It felt like he would fall if someone just nudged his side. Once the water in the glass bottle started spilling, it would be impossible to gather it back.

He had to prevent that before it happened.

To bring Melissa back before anything happened to her, he needed to present conditions that the other party absolutely couldn’t refuse.

Because he needed to reduce the time.

But Whilton thought differently.

“Value doesn’t change depending on the situation.”

He tried to change Reizen’s mind.

“I think your judgment is clouded because of the mark right now. The Your Highness I know would surely regret this later.”

He meant that even if it was painful now, Reizen should take Owen and abandon Melissa.

He understood. Whilton wasn’t saying this with ill intent but as honest counsel for everyone’s benefit. It was worth considering.

Reizen gently closed his eyes. His closed eyes trembled slightly. He combined various thoughts to consider what would happen next.

Let’s say he left Melissa with Selheim.

If Reizen were Selheim, he would have fled far away with Melissa. But Selheim was a man who had lived his whole life bound to the imperial palace, so he wouldn’t even consider leaving here.

The Empress wouldn’t leave Melissa, who remained in the palace, alone.

He imagined her dying. He felt the pain of his heart being torn to shreds while still beating. Once in a lifetime was enough to fail to protect a woman he cherished. He didn’t want to make Melissa unhappy like his mother.

Even the sunlight on his face was irritating in his unpleasant mood. Reizen smiled lightly and declared.

“Ah, this won’t do.”

“Your Highness.”

“This really won’t do.”

Whilton swallowed his words. After all, through countless dangerous situations, while his words had been wrong before, Reizen’s words had never been wrong.

Since he had decided to trust him anyway, he decided not to argue with Reizen’s decision. Even if he didn’t understand it.

Reizen had also made this decision after deep consideration. His greatest troublesome enemy right now was his own emotions.

Whether these emotions were due to the mark or not didn’t matter. Reizen wanted to suppress this precarious anxiety before he broke down.

Chewing on the end of an unlit cigar, he cursed the disgustingly peaceful sky.

The black car passed through the temple’s main gate, kicking up dust.

The front of the temple remained the same.

It was his first visit since the wedding, and while the cherry blossoms had fallen, the trees had grown lush and green.

Cicadas were crying loudly. Breathing in the humid air, he opened the door, and the sound echoed emptily through the vast temple.

The stained glass, goddess statue, and sculptures of angels serving the goddess emphasized the temple’s holiness, making it mysterious.

There was a hole in the platform above showing the sky.

Sunlight passing through the glass illuminated a coffin. He could recognize who the woman was in the coffin with her hands neatly folded just by looking at the back of her hands.

“Your Highness, you cannot enter!”

A knight blocked his way, but Reizen paid no attention.

“Your Highness!”

Several knights followed him.

Selheim was absent. And unless their master ordered them to bite, they couldn’t freely touch Reizen. That’s what a prince’s status meant in a society dominated by the class system.

Damn powerful and unreasonable.

“Please, you can’t!”

They rushed to stop him but didn’t dare lay hands on him.

Like during the wedding, Reizen strode down the center aisle toward the platform. At the end, he could see Melissa sleeping with her hands neatly folded.

“Ha.”

His heart sank seeing the woman lying in the coffin. It reminded him of when he was twelve, leaving the temple crying bitterly while holding his mother’s urn.

The thought that he had failed to protect again made it feel like the world was crumbling.

Reizen’s eyes shook violently. Cracks spread through his heart. He felt an earthquake throughout his body.

It felt like everything in the world had lost meaning. This wasn’t the world he wanted. Everything he had worked for until now was to protect the person he loved.

He experienced hell in an instant. Fighting back tears from the burning pain inside, he reached for the woman’s face… but while pale, it was warm.

Looking carefully, she was breathing and seemed perfectly alive… what was this distant feeling then?

A priest clutching a scripture was dragged out by Whilton. For someone claiming to be God’s servant, he had betrayed them out of fear for his life.

Reizen asked.

“Did you… mark her?”

The priest made a frightened sound and turned pale upon seeing Reizen, trying to flee. Whilton blocked his escape. The remaining soldiers around watched this scene with bated breath.

A low voice echoed through the temple.

“Speak. I asked if you marked her.”

No one dared breathe properly. The massive temple that could hold hundreds was dominated by one man.

Despite the sweltering sunlight of midday, the air in the temple felt chilly. A soldier gulped.

Reizen grabbed the priest’s collar and glared. He looked ready to kill everyone, priest or not, if there was no answer.

“I, I, I only did what I was told…! So-sorry… ugh.”

“So, where did you mark her?”

The priest, almost crying, told him the location.

Reizen approached with slow steps and checked the left arm of the woman lying in the coffin.

It was partially overlapping with his mark, of all places.

The location of a mark isn’t something that can be artificially determined. Yet why did it have to be here, of all places?

Reizen glared at the goddess statue and swallowed a hollow breath.

For the first time in his life, the man understood what it meant to become furious. He had thought expressions like eyes rolling back were just common sayings, but they weren’t.

When people get truly angry, something at the top of their head really does spin.

Different from adrenaline rushing, an unimaginable rage dissolved into every blood vessel in his body, making his entire body spin rapidly.

Though his eyes were open straight ahead, what they saw wasn’t the image but the vast black space beyond it.

First, he lifted and moved the woman lying in the coffin.

After sending Melissa ahead in the car, Reizen closed his eyes then opened them. When he opened them, the black space was gone and Selheim’s study appeared.

He couldn’t remember how he got here, the memories in between were gone. It felt like a dream, but the heat he felt was entirely real.

Selheim, with his long silver hair flowing, smiled weakly with a face that showed he hadn’t expected Reizen to come here at all.

“Huh.”

His tone suggested disbelief.

It was understandable since he had returned to his territory because the Empress said it was urgent, only to have Reizen appear immediately after.

Even someone as perceptive as him had realized it.

That his mother had joined hands with Reizen to help Melissa escape.

Selheim’s face twisted frighteningly. The guards around them watched each other tensely at this fierce confrontation.

Shooting here would be disadvantageous for Selheim. The moment he ordered all but a few to wait outside the door, Reizen’s fist struck Selheim’s face.

“Your Highness!”

Knights from the Crown Prince’s side rushed to support him, while knights who had followed Reizen stood behind him.

Selheim must have bitten his inner cheek as blood trickled when he opened his mouth. He checked the blood on the back of his hand and smiled brightly with narrowed eyes.

“Wow, is this how you greet people now?”