Chapter 20. Yuna

So that ‘honorable’ death of his mother was just a sad event for Theo.

Although it had been well over ten years, his mother’s death was always cruel to Theo, her son.

Theo had thoroughly ignored this fact.

He couldn’t have lived otherwise.

For him, sorrow was a luxury. He was only in a hurry to move forward.

At the young age of fifteen, he had to become the master of the principality.

To protect the principality his mother had painstakingly built up, he needed power.

He needed people’s recognition, the powerful strength they feared.

For that power, he didn’t look back.

So he thought he had overcome it well. Sorrow, pain, suffering, happiness… They were all just useless emotions.

But why is the sorrow he suppressed suddenly pouring out now?

The answer was right in front of him.

Theo took in Yuelina wearing his mother’s earrings with one glance.

Yuelina made Theo look into the emotions he kept hiding and concealing.

With Yuelina wearing the earrings, sorrow might suddenly visit Theo from time to time.

Fortunately, Theo would receive both sorrow and comfort from Yuelina’s appearance.

Because she was wearing the earrings, because his wife looked so beautiful wearing them, it seemed that would be a comfort.

So he could now grieve to his heart’s content.

“Yuelina.”

Theo called her name softly.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

At Theo’s words, Yuelina’s lips curved into a smile.

“Yuna.”

She said.

Yuelina, with a faint smile, continued speaking.

“In the village, they don’t call me Yuelina, but Yuna. It’s my nickname.”

“Nickname…”

“Your Highness, please call me Yuna too.”

Theo found Yuelina’s shy voice pleasant to hear.

And her nickname, Yuna, as well.

“Yuna.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I don’t have a nickname. Just call me Theo.”

It was a belated arrangement of how to address each other as a couple. As late as it was, it became an unforgettable moment for Theo.

To Theo, Yuelina was the Grand Duchess.

The Grand Duchess who would have to be tied down here for the rest of her life.

A hostage to be used for revenge against the Empire that tried to use him.

But now he was even grateful to the Empire.

For marking him as Yuelina’s imprint partner.

For pushing him to the battlefield, preventing him from having a proper family life.

Theo sorted out the titles they would change to from now on.

Grand Duchess and Grand Duke.

Yuna and Theo.

Then honey, darling, sweetheart. Or maybe Daddy. Mommy…

Ah, there’s still a long way to go.

She probably doesn’t know.

How far Theo’s imagination is stretching because of her request to call her Yuna.

How much he’s enjoying it.

Theo realized.

There was never any strange spell cast on him from the beginning.

Now he no longer has the ability to ignore his tightly hidden emotions.

He just likes Yuelina.

He’s extremely happy that Yuelina has become his wife.

No, he’s over the moon about it.

* * *

Yuelina went down to the base of the tower with Raye.

Behind the tower with the attic room was a garden.

Now, with no one to manage it, uneven leaves were sprouting, and flowers bloomed wildly, making it difficult to find the walking paths.

There were many reasons why the area around the Black Mansion wasn’t maintained.

First, Theo had minimized the number of mansion staff.

The reason was that there was no need for unnecessary personnel since he was often away at war.

It was the same when Theo wasn’t at war.

He said there was no point in maintaining the garden or fields when no one was looking at them anyway.

As a result, despite being the Grand Duke’s Black Mansion, it was barely maintained with minimal staff.

There were far more knights in the training grounds than servants dusting and cleaning old furniture.

The knights in the training grounds, used to rolling around on battlefields, didn’t entrust others with their laundry or cleaning.

So the Black Mansion was wearing out more when people were present than when it was empty.

Yuelina could see it too. When trying to walk in the garden, it was hard to move forward because of the overgrown weeds.

The hunting trail was cleaner and easier to walk on in comparison.

The Black Mansion always creaked on the wooden floors.

Being spotlessly clean was separate from the fact that it was aging.

Still, Yuelina liked the garden. Looking at the vast green foliage reminded her of home.

Two months had already passed.

That’s how long it had been since she left her hometown.

Perhaps by now, yellow and red ripe leaves were falling in her hometown too.

Before Yuelina came, cold winds were blowing through the lush leaves.

In contrast, Theo’s territory, which had passed through early autumn, still had only fresh green leaves.

This was the power of magic stones.

With processed magic stones, green leaves could sprout regardless of the season.

They could operate stoves, create blankets with warming magic, and various other useful items.

Yuelina found the ‘magic stones’ fascinating.

The trees and flowers grown using magic stones were the same.

From afar, they looked full of vitality, like a hillside under the midday sun.

But up close, it was different. It was artificial vitality.

The flowers couldn’t emit fragrance, and not a single insect crawled on the leaves or dry soil.

In the village, you could see earthworms and caterpillars just by walking a little.

Here, it was hard to see these small creatures moving forward with all their might.

“Your Highness the Grand Duchess. Aren’t you tired?”

Today too, Yuelina had brought a bucket full of water and was watering the dry soil.

The parched soil eagerly drank up the water Yuelina poured. No matter how much she gave, it seemed insufficient as the water quickly dried up.

“I thought it might make them fragrant.”

“Did the flowers in Your Highness the Grand Duchess’s hometown have fragrance?”

“Yes! But there were also lots of bees. We always wore veiled cloaks to avoid getting stung by bees.”

Yuelina answered brightly.

She remembered the shape of her feet as she and her friends walked carefully to avoid disturbing the beehives hanging from trees.

These were scenes she missed but couldn’t see right away.

But she could still send letters, right?

Delkan had told Yuelina it would be better not to go back to her hometown for a year.

She needed to adapt to the Grand Duchy, and if she frequently visited her hometown, which took over a month to reach, the people of the principality and Theo might not view it favorably.

Instead, Delkan said she could write and send letters.

But now Delkan was away on business.

When Delkan returns, she would have to attach all the letters she had written so far.

Fortunately, she had separately asked Delkan to send the letter she wrote on her first day in the principality before he left.

The letter was very long.

Starting from her first impressions of the Grand Duchy, stories about the weather, and she also had to write about Theo.

Did the letter reach her father well?

For a moment, she paused holding the bucket.

Thinking about it, she felt like she might have written something she shouldn’t have in the letter.

It seemed she might have written that the men of the north look quite handsome, and among them, her husband is the most handsome…

She might have also written about how impressive Theo’s first impression was, that even if she brought a dozen warriors from the village, they wouldn’t match up to her husband.

What if her father feels hurt?

She used to sing that her father was the best in the world and that she wasn’t interested in marriage.

“Ah… I regret it.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh. I’m just thinking of home.”

Yuelina crouched down and held her head in her hands.

She should have written that there’s no one better than her father.

Right.

Let’s rewrite the letter to make her father happy. To do that, she might need to revise yesterday’s letter too.

Didn’t she write yesterday about how elegantly Theo eats?

“If only I could turn back time… I want to send it again.”

While Yuelina was worrying about her father feeling hurt, Raye was standing behind her, breaking out in a cold sweat.

Is that supposed to be hiding?

Does he think his body is hidden? Is my lord underestimating himself too much?

To Raye’s eyes, the black hair sticking out from the dense foliage was clearly visible.

Although Yuelina didn’t seem to notice, Raye had realized from the beginning that her lord was following them.

Not only that, even when Yuelina was eating, the corridor floorboards creaked, unable to bear Theo’s weight.

To think that her lord would use stealth techniques used for infiltrating enemy lines around his own Black Mansion in his territory.

Raye fervently hoped that Yuelina would never know about this behavior of Theo’s for the rest of her life.

“Oh my, is there a mole? Why is it so bothersome?”

Raye cleared her throat and kicked the nearby tree a couple of times.

Soon after, there was a rustling sound, and her lord’s round head disappeared in an instant.