I felt no sharp pain.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and took in the situation.

My husband had knocked the attacker’s blade aside—but in the process, his left hand had been cut deeply.

Clang.

The knife, sharpened by the weight of a citizen’s hatred, struck the ground, its sound swallowed by the thunder of fireworks.

I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes.

Because I was afraid he would realize—that I had already accepted death…that I had been ready to embrace it.

“…You. Don’t make that face.”

Instead, my gaze kept drifting to his blood-soaked hand.

He hadn’t even tried to stop the bleeding. He didn’t show it at all—so much so that the people around us, distracted by the fireworks, hadn’t noticed anything.

As if he felt no pain, he looked only at me and shouted—

“Don’t look like that—like you wouldn’t care if you died in front of me.”

Amid the deafening explosions, his eyes were fixed solely on me.

His voice—strained, almost desperate—came out through clenched teeth, as if crushed into shape.

He was the one who had been cut—so what was he even saying?

For a moment, I was so stunned that I forgot I could heal. Only then did I finally look at him properly.

He didn’t look like someone enduring pain from a wound. He looked like someone drowning—struggling to breathe beneath deep water.

His face, twisted and broken, was fierce—and yet… it felt as though he might burst into tears if touched.

That cold-blooded man… looking like he might cry?

It made no sense.

Maybe I was the one who had lost my mind in shock.

Why were you making that expression?

You’re making me think that maybe you truly care about me.

As if you’d be heartbroken if I thought my death didn’t matter!

But it’s you who despises me. You’re the one who wanted to bring me down, reject me and hate me.

You and that hardline Republican have always shown the same contempt for me.

Boom. Boom.

Even as everything unfolded, the fireworks continued to explode overhead.

Before the disturbance could spread, the attacker was subdued by soldiers who had been moving discreetly among the crowd.

And yet, my husband looked only at me, as though I were the only person in the world.

“Even if you die—no matter how many times—you won’t escape me.”

His bleeding hand tightened around my shoulder, gripping so hard it felt as though my bones might break.

“So don’t even think about disappearing from me through death.”

I, who was already dying could say nothing to him.

***

Everyone had been too absorbed in the dazzling fireworks to notice anything. And since my husband had taken the blow quietly, the incident was resolved without causing a major disturbance.

Judging by the absence of even a single line in the papers, e must have suppressed it again.

At most, rumors circulated in hushed tones that during the harvest festival, an assailant had stabbed an ordinary couple and fled.

People even began weaving elaborate theories, linking it to rumors of Ludwig’s appearance—
claiming it was an act of royalist terrorism, the opening strike of a restoration movement.

But then came the obvious question—

What had happened to the couple who had been stabbed?

When asked to provide evidence, people quickly lost interest. Rumors died down just as quickly and people soon lost interest in the incident, instead shifting their attention to the government-sponsored hunting event.

My husband stubbornly insisted that he wouldn’t receive treatment, even if it killed him.

He said he had been stabbed with knives like this countless times before, and that as long as the bleeding stopped, he would be fine and could go straight back to work. I barely managed to hold him back, instead calling for Doctor Eleanor to administer first aid.

For a moment, I wondered if he had realized that using my healing power would shorten my life and if that was why he was acting like this.

“I prefer it this way.”

As I helped him fasten the buttons of his uniform—his bandaged hand making it difficult—he spoke with a faint smile.

“Who would’ve thought? That a princess would end up personally tending to me like this.”

“Yes, well. The most expensive service in the world—provided by a fallen princess. Enjoy it.”

I gave up telling him to stop calling me that and simply accepted his mockery.

So that was it. He refused treatment just because he wanted to see me take care of him.

Of course.

Having found such a perfect excuse, I wondered just how long he intended to milk it for.

…Probably quite a while.

“But seriously—your injury is on your left hand, so why do I have to feed you too?”

During breakfast before he left for work, I raised a reasonable objection while spoon-feeding him soup—since he kept complaining that he couldn’t eat properly because of his injury.

“You’re right-handed. You can at least feed yourself, can’t you?”

“Back during the Neuerban recapture operation, I was stabbed in the same spot on my right hand. It’s acting up again.”

The Neuerban operation had been a mission my father assigned to Reinhardt Helares when he was still a young commander.

Despite being an impossible situation, he had miraculously secured victory.

Using that, he skillfully prodded at my guilt, my conscience, my sympathy—and I found myself unable to argue any further.

“Cut the meat for me. Feed me with one hand, and eat with the other.”

“….”

“Peel the grapes and feed them to me.”

“….”

“Oh, and take the seeds out too.”

…Should I just heal him by force while he’s asleep?

***

Upon arriving at his office, Reinhardt took his seat and signed documents with his right hand while idly smoking a cigar with his left. A faint crease formed between his brows.

In truth, his left hand had already made a full recovery.

It hadn’t even been a gunshot wound; just a shallow cut from the clumsy blade of a drunken man.

For someone like Reinhardt, who had endured countless battles, it was hardly worth mentioning.

He had only pretended otherwise because he found Sienna’s awkward hesitation amusing and enjoyed watching her fuss over him, clumsily tending to his needs.

As for the disturbance at the festival, Reinhardt ensured the rumors quickly lost momentum by spreading conflicting accounts.

He imposed strict silence on the subordinates involved, and to further divert public attention, he arranged for a more sensational story to be released ahead of time.

The man who had tried to stab Sienna was interrogated, but the outcome was entirely predictable.

He had simply been told that she was the Princess of Beatrix.

Having lost all three sons to forced conscription under the monarchy, his hatred for the royal family had grown so deep that it haunted his dreams.

After a few drinks, memories of his sons resurfaced and, in his drunken haze, he acted impulsively.

That was all.

There were simply too many people in the Republic of Estante who opposed the monarchy.

An incident like this was hardly surprising.

It wasn’t just one man; the whole country was filled with Sienna’s enemies.

And Sienna…

Just as she had at the festival, she would accept death without resistance.

This meant that the returned crown prince was a secondary concern for Reinhardt.

Fearing that she might return to Ludwig, he had guards posted around her for ‘protection’, monitoring her movements, restricting her outings, and controlling every aspect of her daily life.

As for Ludwig, Reinhardt had already given a clear order: K*ll him on sight.

Given Ludwig’s reckless nature, the net was already closing in around him.

Ultimately, however, Sienna’s greatest threat wasn’t Ludwig.

It was the people of this country.

Nevertheless, Reinhardt had taken her to the festival, hiding behind the flimsy excuse of going undercover in an almost laughable disguise.

He had seen her.

He had seen the way she would look out from her confinement, her gaze drifting towards the outside world.

She would watch the ever-changing streets with quiet, unspoken longing.

‘After everything it took for me to have her… I won’t lose her so easily.’

To ensure that Sienna would never be taken from him, Reinhardt decided he needed to secure control of the National Assembly as soon as possible.

“Imelda Freimer’s weakness…”

He tightened his grip on the document outlining the weaknesses of Imelda Freimer, the iron-willed power broker of the Assembly, who controlled public opinion with an iron fist.

She was an unwed mother.

The identity of her child’s father was unknown, and she had been hidden away and raised in secret.

In a country that was far from forgiving towards women, such a truth would be the perfect scandal.

If it were exposed, he would effectively hold her political life in his hands.

This was why she had gone to such lengths to hide the child — yet even she could not evade Reinhardt’s network.

Recently, the child had been injured in a carriage accident.

Despite all her efforts, the child, hidden from the world, had been unable to receive proper treatment.

Now, it was said the child was dying.

The solution was almost laughably simple.

Rather than resorting to blackmail, it would be far more effective to offer Sienna a favor.

As it happened, Sienna was a saint who could heal physical wounds.

Everything fell into place too perfectly — as if fate itself had arranged it.

And yet, despite how straightforward it was, something about it unsettled him.

Partly, it was selfish — he didn’t want anyone else to benefit from Sienna’s power.

But more than that, he had a faint, nagging instinct that there was something about her he still didn’t understand.

The truth was that Reinhardt thought it was a waste to use Sienna’s healing ability.

It wouldn’t diminish no matter how often it was used, but he simply disliked the idea of anyone else receiving that blessing.

He had spent his entire life protecting her, and now that he finally had her, he wanted to hide her away deep within his estate and keep her to himself.

Still…

For Sienna’s sake, it was better that she had more than one way to survive.

That way, she would never come close to dying again.

If he could control Imelda Freimer, the former journalist and current Speaker of the Assembly, then manipulating public opinion in Sienna’s favor would be easy.

Whether he liked it or not, this was something he had to do if he wanted to possess Sienna completely.

After work, Reinhardt stopped by Sienna’s room before dinner.

“Why? Do you need me to unbutton something again?”

Sienna pouted slightly, hands on her hips as she spoke to Reinhardt. The way she acted like a sulky child was… unexpectedly adorable.

“Even though Sienna was royalty, she was humble, always smiling, and excellent in her studies.”

Jeremiah Linzer’s voice suddenly surfaced in his mind, recounting those words with quiet pride.

‘She used to smile a lot…’

So Sienna was someone who knew how to smile like that.

“Sienna…”

For some reason, he was overcome by an odd feeling that something was about to go wrong.

Nevertheless, he spoke as he always did, his tone deliberately composed and rigid.

“The Speaker of the Assembly, Imelda Freimer…You’ll need to heal her daughter.”