Rain fell softly from the sky. As I stared blankly at the scenery outside the window fracturing along the rivulets of water, the man I was meeting after a long time was looking at me, his eyes rimmed red.

I too had missed him once.

But so what? It was a connection already past, and I had forgotten him.

“Long time no see, Sir Arthur. Or should I now address you as Your Grace?”

Once, we were comrades, a close pair, which granted me the permission to use that name. Like his name, Arthur, he was a prince.

While I was just a low-ranking knight.

So, I loved him, but I forgot. It was merely an old, moldering memory located in the distant past of a season, like a popular song.

He had grown a bit gaunt since I last saw him. Perhaps due to age, or perhaps because he’d had a hard time weeding out unnecessary noise in the process of becoming a duke.

“You don’t look well.”

His once-short hair was untended and long, his skin drawn. Just the long, dark blue circles sagging under his eye sockets showed he was terribly tired.

Yet, the sharp jawline and nose bridge that couldn’t be hidden, and the eyes that seemed inlaid with sapphires still emitted a piercing light.

I had heard news of his exploits on the battlefield while we were apart. Perhaps because of that, the steel armor he wore, his sword, and he himself seemed like one body. He had an aura of deeper experience now.

Instead of answering my question, he just stared at me fixedly for a while.

How many seconds did the silent stillness last? Finally, he opened his mouth.

“You…”

His lips moved as if to say something, then he uttered an unexpected remark.

“Just the same as back then.”

“I have little to worry about, after all. This rural backwater has good air, and few troubles. Unlike a battlefield where explosives go off daily and you never know when you’ll be struck by a blade.”

“Is that why?”

“Pardon?”

“Did a hollow wind blow through in the meantime, making you abandon the sword you once wielded well and just go have a child?”

At his words, I closed my mouth. Old memories welled up. A familiar feeling, an unfamiliar emotion.

I remembered. He had a habit of circling around what he really wanted to say.

It was a nasty tactic, finally driving a blade deep into the other’s heart as if to force them to hear his true feelings.

So, my younger self said I liked him, and he used my feelings without reserve.

Body and heart.

‘…There was a time like that.’

But I was different now. I wouldn’t fall for his tricks. I didn’t want to be hurt again, nor did I want to agonize daily over the sin of coveting a tree I could never climb.

“Are you obsessed with me now, of all times?”

At my words, his eyes flashed. Soon, he answered, almost growling.

“It’s not obsession, it’s bewilderment. The woman who shared my bed in my barracks every day suddenly disappeared, then shows up not only pregnant with another man’s child, but as a mother.”

“Regardless of Your Grace, at that time, I was simply tired of the sword, and had no reason to remain there any longer.”

“And what you chose instead was love?”

“…….”

“Then where did that love run off to?”

His words pierced my heart sharply. Love—it felt like an interrogation asking who the child’s father was. The woman who said she left because she was tired of you, getting pregnant out of love, yet having no father for the child.

That, in itself, was akin to being abandoned.

Perhaps some of it might be true.

Because……

“How disappointing, Rosie.”

“…….”

“I was always curious about what you were doing, but now I suppose there’s no more need to see.”

With a genuinely disappointed expression, he then took a letter from his br*ast pocket and tossed it to me.

An extravagant letter, adorned with high-quality wax and gold dust on fine white parchment.

On it was written: Wedding Invitation.

“Still, it’s a party hosted by your old superior. Why not come? If the opportunity arises, I can even introduce you to a new position. Because.”

“…….”

“You were a competent knight I acknowledged.”

Even though they were words of recognition, I felt no joy. It felt like my heart had plummeted. This was what I didn’t want to see, why I had avoided him.

Yet, in the end, he had thrust it before me.

It was written as an invitation, but it read as the reality between him and me.

Like the numerous steps of hierarchy that existed between us, I could say nothing to him.

“You can bring the child, too. Might as well take the chance to look for a new father. It can’t be easy for a woman, raising a child alone.”

Even until the very end.

Each of his words horribly whittled me down, yet I, like a fool, couldn’t utter a single word in return.

Because in that moment, I felt it. That I was nothing to him.

I was merely an easy, far-too-easy young girl he’d briefly indulged with on the lonely battlefield, to whom he’d shown a scrap of affection.

An already-over one-sided love was painfully dug up once more.

The very author of that action seemed unaware, turning his back without the slightest hesitation.

“Well then, I’ll be off.”

He disappeared into his carriage, and at that moment—

“Mommyyyy!”

At the sudden, piercing sound of a child’s cry, I had no choice but to rush out.

The words I couldn’t bring myself to say were this:

In truth, this child was his.

The man who was my first love and my direct superior.