Lady Adelia must be very nervous with the wedding so close. With that thought, Luna let her imagination run free and began to answer in a way she hoped would lift Adelia’s spirits.

“If I were you, my lady… I would go look at pretty dresses and all sorts of adorable little things. And then… I would buy the most delicious dessert from every shop and lay them all out and have a bite of each one.”

“All those sweets?”

“Yes. Eating something sweet puts you in a good mood.”

“All right. Setting that aside, what then?”

“What then… hmm… I suppose I would just live a comfortable, easy life?”

“Is that so? Your dreams really are modest.”

Her face flushing at the sincere note of wonder in those words, Luna waved her hands in protest.

“W, well, that’s only because you asked so suddenly. They say you eat best what you’ve already tasted before. I can’t help it if this is all that comes to mind right now.”

As far as Luna was concerned, this conversation was meaningless either way.

To a girl born an orphan, the world of the nobility was another world entirely. Having finished her brief happy daydream, Luna’s face was pink with embarrassment.

But a look of satisfaction passed over Adelia’s expression, which had seemed subdued all this while.

Her eyes, which had lately been as lifeless as a wilting plant, took on a new brightness. Her expression even looked resolute, as though she had found the answer she had been searching for.

“Then that’s good enough. Perhaps you might live a more enjoyable life than I would. I finally feel a little at ease.”

“Pardon? My lady, what do you mean?”

“Ah, never mind. Thank you, Luna.”

Luna was briefly puzzled as to what exactly she was being thanked for, but she interpreted it as gratitude for answering her question, and smiled back at Adelia, who was smiling at her.

“My lady, tomorrow is the wedding. Shall I give you an oil massage so your skin takes the makeup well?”

“Yes. That sounds lovely.”

She must finally be feeling a little calmer after all that worry.

Luna spoke to Adelia, whose expression had brightened noticeably compared to before.

Adelia kept Luna by her side until late into the small hours of the night, saying she was nervous about the wedding, and then insisted on sharing her favorite tea with her, pressing a cup of herbal tea on the tired Luna again and again, saying she wanted her to try it.

Unable to refuse her repeated offers, Luna drained cup after cup of the tea she was given. And watching her do so, a meaningful smile played at the corners of Adelia’s lips.

Having recalled the conversation from the night before the wedding, Luna came back to herself and looked down again at the note in her hand. Adelia had anticipated that she would come here and had left a warning inside the paper crane.

She was still bewildered and unsettled as to how any of this had come to be, but if the position of Grand Duchess was as dangerous as Adelia had said, she could not simply sit idle.

The Grand Duke had been forced into the marriage just as much as she had. He could not possibly have a shred of affection for her either. Right, then. She would do better to play the part of Adelia properly and become a Grand Duchess who gets set aside. That way she would be able to move about more freely.

* * *

Meanwhile, Caesar had set out early that morning to receive the Crown Prince.

The drawing room of the Crown Prince’s palace was wide and still.

Sunlight streaming through the tall windows stretched long across the marble floor, and tapestries depicting the history of the Travata Empire hung neatly along the walls.

Crown Prince Adrian lit his pipe without a word and slowly drew in the smoke.

A moment later, a long exhale of smoke drifted softly into the air.

The faint smoke rose over Caesar’s face as he sat across from him and slowly curled toward the ceiling.

“Shall I offer you some?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“I suppose so. It would be poor manners to offer a newly lit pipe to a bridegroom who has just spent his first night.”

Adrian brought the pipe back to his lips.

The tip of the tobacco held between his lips glowed faintly as smoke puffed out in lazy curls.

He had given it up for a while because he disliked the smell clinging to his clothes, but moments like this had a way of bringing it back to mind. Caesar watched Adrian exhale for a moment.

The two were cousins. Having grown up coming and going through the imperial palace since childhood, the manner in which they dealt with each other leaned more toward ease than formality.

But beneath that relationship lay a reality that was anything but light.

Caesar was the emperor’s only nephew and stood third in the line of succession to the throne.

Caesar’s father, Albert Valenstein, the former Crown Prince.

The imperial throne had originally been destined for him.

But during his time as Crown Prince, a grave illness had forced him to relinquish that position, and the seat had ultimately passed to his younger brother.

The one who had inherited the position of Crown Prince and eventually ascended to the throne.

That was Adrian’s father, the current Emperor Edmund Valterion.

And the current emperor kept a watchful, unrelenting eye on his young nephew, who might have taken his place had it not been for his elder brother’s failing health.

Caesar, who could not have been unaware of the emperor’s true feelings, had had no choice but to keep entirely out of politics from the start and focus solely on business.

But innate talent cannot be hidden.

His exceptional ability had ultimately elevated House Valenstein to one of the most prominent families in the empire in a single stroke, and that had been the very thing that brought this marriage about.

Adrian, drawing on his pipe, clicked his tongue briefly and spoke with an air of sympathy.

“His Majesty really is heartless. However one looks at it, there was no need to be so harsh with you. Of all people, the ‘Lady Adelia’ who has been caught up in every scandal imaginable.”

“One cannot step off a cliff while trying to dodge a falling stone. It has already come to pass.”

“So then? Was she as the rumors say?”

At Adrian’s mischievous question, Caesar answered with a rather indifferent expression.

“Who can say. What do you think?”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“She is a most satisfying bride. In every regard. Is that answer enough?”

Adrian’s eyes slowly narrowed.

Caesar, who had been subjected to the emperor’s constant wariness, was a figure whose very existence posed a threat to the imperial family.

From the emperor’s perspective, it was necessary to prevent his influence from growing too great, and this marriage had been quite an ideal means to that end.

Adrian fixed his gaze on Caesar for a while, as though trying to read what lay beneath the surface, then abruptly let his expression open into a bright look, as though nothing had passed between them at all.

“I’m glad you find the bride to your liking. I’m sorry for calling you out here when you must be busy. I was genuinely worried, you see. I’m sure His Majesty does not doubt your loyalty. You’re simply too capable for your own good.”

“It is fine. His Majesty is merely impatient.”

“I’m grateful you see it that way.”

Adrian smoked his pipe one draw after another, watching Caesar’s face, and felt a quiet, genuine admiration stir within him. Caesar had inherited only the best of both his parents and possessed striking looks to match.

To anyone’s eyes he was flawless, and the only flaw to speak of was the marriage his father the emperor had commanded. Lady Adelia, and nothing else.

Adrian was not without understanding of what Caesar truly felt about being made to marry a woman trailed by scandal. If he had genuinely taken to her, he would not have fled at the first opportunity after the ceremony ended and come running at his summons.

Adrian shook his head, thinking that however much he was his father, it had truly been too much. Looking at that face again, he could only feel sorry.

But Caesar’s silver-grey eyes were still and sunken, as though submerged in deep water.

“Now that I have paid my respects to the Crown Prince, I will take my leave.”

“Yes. I’ve kept you too long.”

Caesar rose from his seat, offered Adrian a formal bow, and walked out of the drawing room with measured steps.

* * *

Inside the carriage heading from the imperial palace to the Grand Duchy estate.

He had not let a single thing show in front of the Crown Prince, but Caesar was in the worst of moods.

The emperor’s wariness toward Caesar had been going on for a long time. By now he ought to have grown numb to it, but there was a separate reason his composure had been rattled.

He had thought of political marriages as a common enough thing among the nobility. Even if the young lady in question was notorious as a wild filly, as long as they lived as though the other barely existed, it would have been tolerable enough.

But what the emperor wanted had gone entirely beyond Caesar’s expectations.

He unfolded once more the emperor’s secret edict that had arrived together with the marriage order some time ago.

Caesar’s marriage was already a matter known to the world at large, but the edict delivered in secret was known only to the emperor and Caesar alone.

Caesar had originally planned to leave for the frontier on his own someday.

A life spent always under surveillance. Having lived on a battlefield without swords or guns, he had no need for family or a spouse.

But the emperor’s marriage order had thrown his plans into complete disarray.

A loveless marriage, a political shackle. To Caesar, it was not a responsibility but a chain that restricted his every movement.

He swept a cold gaze over it for a moment, then crumpled it roughly in his hand.

He had crushed the emperor’s edict with his own hands.

Had anyone witnessed that sight, he would not have escaped a grave charge for daring to deface an imperial command. Even so, he paid it no mind.

Outside the carriage, the sky was brilliantly clear, making it hard to believe it had been pouring rain not long before.

He yanked the curtain shut as though even that sight displeased him. His handsome brow remained tightly furrowed.

‘So then? Was she as the rumors say?’

Caesar recalled Crown Prince Adrian’s question from moments ago, asked with undisguised curiosity.

At the time, mindful of what might reach the emperor’s ears, he had answered that she was satisfying, but his true feelings were somewhat different.

Caesar found it far more comfortable to be alone.

The fact that he had not kept so much as a single fiancee well into his late twenties was entirely because of that.

Because he trusted no one but himself.

And yet, of all things, to be married to a dissolute woman who trailed scandal wherever she went. It was only natural that it was unwelcome.

He had even gone so far as to have her investigated on the off chance, but the deeper he dug into her, the more outrageous things kept surfacing without end.

The misconduct filling the report was enough to disgust him before he had even read through half of it.

And yet. The first night of the wedding.

Caesar recalled the sight of Adelia beneath him, so pitifully undone.

She had begged him to stop, yet gripped him tight below and would not let go. Whether that contradiction had set his desire alight, he had driven her through the entire night in a way that was unlike him, even for a first night.

He had been swept away by instinct before he knew it.

Like a stone thrown into a still lake, it had clearly been behavior uncharacteristic of him.

Uncharacteristically guileless eyes, and the expression of someone who had not known what to do with herself even in the midst of drunkenness, surfaced in his mind unbidden.

Right. It had been the reaction of someone who had never truly been with a man before.

The moment that face flitted through his mind, he felt himself grow heavy below once more.

“I must be losing my mind.”

Caesar pulled the curtain back up as though to shake off the restlessness. Outside the carriage heading toward the Grand Duchy estate, the scenery had already shifted from the suffocating imperial palace to something far more open and unhurried, flowing past rapidly.

He stared out at it in silence, then opened the window as though to air out his thoughts and drew in a long breath of cold air.