They reached Beringhem by late afternoon.

The delegation procession attempted to enter the inner castle after crossing the grasslands on the outskirts of the territory.

Suddenly, Rozenne heard the horses outside her carriage snort and come to a halt.

While wondering what was happening, the coachman knocked loudly on the door and shouted:

“Your Majesty! You need to come out and see this!”

What’s going on?

After exchanging glances with Cynthia, Rozenne opened the carriage door.

At that moment, Cynthia firmly grabbed Rozenne’s arm.

When Rozenne turned to Cynthia with a questioning look, Cynthia confidently spoke up.

“I will get out first.”

“Ah……”

The current Rozenne was not herself but Cynthia.

Though Rozenne nodded at this statement faithful to their roles, she felt momentarily dazed.

But she quickly regained her composure and made way for Cynthia.

After Cynthia got out with the coachman’s escort, Rozenne followed.

Stepping outside the carriage, she saw figures guarding the back gate of Beringhem Castle.

Though she had heard Beringhem was on the verge of falling, it seemed to have already been occupied by Wolfhard’s troops while they were assembling the delegation.

Several soldiers who appeared to be elite troops were mounted on horses, blocking the entrance to Beringhem Castle.

Rozenne stared intently at Cynthia’s back from a few steps behind.

But Cynthia turned back to Rozenne with a flustered face, as if unsure what to say to the enemy soldiers they were confronting.

Rozenne exhaled softly and called out to the enemy commander in front:

“We are envoys sent by the King of Sohara. Here, we have brought the King’s personal letter seeking an agreement with Wolfhard and gifts for the King of Wolfhard.”

Rozenne pointed to the luggage carriages lined up behind them.

The man at the front, who appeared to be the knight commander, dismounted and walked toward Rozenne.

In response, Rozenne quickly pulled Harrieus’s letter from her sleeve and stuffed it into Cynthia’s side.

As Cynthia flinched and quickly took the letter, the enemy commander had already approached the two women.

Up close, the man had an extremely fierce face.

With a bushy beard that looked like it had been growing for ten years and abundant hair all over his body, including his eyebrows and sideburns, he gave the impression of a mountain bandit leader.

The knight commander scrutinized Cynthia, who had Rozenne’s face, as if appraising her.

Then, perhaps dissatisfied with the darkening day, he snatched a torch from his adjutant who had followed and thrust it close to Cynthia’s face.

“What is this……!”

Rozenne cried out in hasty protest.

But the man raised his hand to stop Rozenne’s movement.

Cynthia froze in place like ice, holding her breath.

Rozenne also clenched her fists tightly with tension. Her palms, curled inward, were already damp with sweat.

The man, who had been examining Cynthia with narrowed eyes, handed the torch back to his adjutant.

“Our lord desires only one thing.”

After tossing these words at Cynthia, the man turned to the mounted soldiers guarding the castle entrance and shouted:

“Take only the woman!”

“Yes, sir!”

Rozenne’s eyes widened in surprise.

What does that mean? Take only the woman? Does he mean they’ll only take Cynthia?

Rozenne’s confusion didn’t last long.

“The advance party will escort the woman with me to the Wolfhard border! Be prepared for possible combat with resistance forces during the retreat! Bifura! Tell the rear guard inside the castle to gather the remaining tributes and prisoners and follow us!”

“Yes, sir!”

The adjutants who heard the man’s words moved quickly.

Some mounted men entered the castle gate to relay the commander’s orders, while several robed figures dismounted and walked toward Cynthia.

Suddenly, Rozenne’s heart began to pound heavily.

Only Cynthia. Only Cynthia?

In that moment, Harrieus’s instructions echoed in her ears.

‘Negotiate to restore the severed trade. And find out what Paikan’s purpose is.’

Simultaneously, Wolfhard’s soldiers seized Cynthia by both arms.

“I don’t want to!”

Cynthia cried out sharply, turning to look at Rozenne.

‘Cynthia, no!’

Rozenne cried out hastily.

“You cannot!”

The knight commander, who had been returning to his formation, stopped at Rozenne’s voice.

The soldiers who had seized Cynthia also stopped their movements and turned to look at Rozenne.

“You cannot send Lady Rozenne there alone. At the very least, allow me, her maid, to accompany her.”

Rozenne couldn’t understand where such a solemn voice had come from within her.

The only clear thing was that even as her heart pounded fiercely, the thought that she couldn’t let Cynthia go to Wolfhard alone outweighed her fear.

‘Cynthia alone will find it difficult to lead the negotiations.’

This wasn’t underestimating her abilities, but if anyone were dropped alone into the heart of enemy territory, they would inevitably feel intimidated. If that happened, it would be difficult to conduct proper negotiations.

“Why, are you afraid we might eat your mistress?”

The knight commander sneered with an amused expression.

“Whether you’ll eat her or not, no one knows.”

Rozenne glared back, directly countering the enemy commander’s words.

Perhaps impressed by her spirit, the knight commander looked at her with an interested expression for a moment without saying anything.

“Fine.”

The man finally spoke and shouted to his adjutants.

“Bring that woman too.”

Then he strode to his horse and swiftly mounted it.

“Everyone hurry!”

Rozenne, led by the soldiers’ hands to join the enemy forces, stared with a shocked face at the horses prepared before her.

“Are we…… supposed to ride horses now? At this hour?”

“Of course.”

The knight commander spoke indifferently as he led Cynthia toward a large black horse.

“Using carriages would reduce our mobility.”

Rozenne looked up at the sky.

The sun had already set.

The sky was darkening to a deep navy blue, and they were not experienced riders.

Asking women who only rode horses as a hobby to gallop through the night?

As if reading Rozenne’s thoughts, the knight commander smiled slightly and said:

“Don’t worry. Wolfhard’s horses are monstrously fast and strong, and they never throw their riders.”

“But even so…… in this attire……”

Rozenne looked down at the flowing hem of her dress.

“It seems you’d like to change into riding clothes, but as I said, we have no time. We must see our lord before dawn breaks.”

Rozenne’s mouth fell open.

The distance from Beringhem to the capital of Wolfhard would take at least two weeks to travel.

Yet he claimed they would make it in a day. It was nonsensical.

‘What kind of person is their lord to be in such a hurry?’

Then again, considering how they had invaded the border without a declaration of war and pushed all the way to Beringhem in a single day, he must have quite a temper.

So his adjutants must be equally hot-tempered.

When Rozenne said nothing more, the commander, perhaps thinking her complaints had ended, signaled the other soldiers to depart.

“You take charge of the women.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cynthia and Rozenne were placed behind female knights who had received the order.

They rode forward, surrounded and escorted by a formation of female cavalry.

The fierce wind clawed at Rozenne’s face as they passed, and she could barely keep her eyes open at a speed she had never experienced before.

Before long, she realized that the knight commander’s words about meeting the king before dawn were not an exaggeration.

They had indeed passed through Sohara’s territory and entered the Wolfhard border in just a few hours.

There, Rozenne encountered an unexpected situation.

“Prepare to greet our lord.”

The King of Wolfhard was right there at the frontline of the border region, not in the capital.

Rozenne was extremely bewildered by this unexpected situation.

She was still dazed about crossing the Wolfhard border, and now she would already face the king.

Moreover, the knight commander gave her no time to mentally prepare, immediately taking Rozenne’s party to the castle where the king was said to be.

The interior of the castle had a structure as complex as a maze.

After walking down corridors for quite some time, they reached an audience chamber used when foreign envoys or provincial knights first met their lord.

Standing before those large doors, Rozenne’s legs began to tremble involuntarily.

Then, with a loud creaking sound, the doors opened to reveal a long hall lined with marble columns.

Though she had seen a similar audience chamber structure in the Sohara royal palace, the magnificent space before her created an atmosphere quite different from what she knew.

While Sohara’s audience chamber was painted with gold throughout and had a red carpet laid out to display royal dignity, this place was simply a grand and empty space made entirely of white marble.

The interior of the hall was dim with not a single candle lit, and the only light came from the moonlight entering through the glass windows.

And at the end, far away on the dais, she could faintly see a man sitting on a large chair, bathed in blue moonlight.

At that moment, the knight commander who had entered through the door knelt on one knee before the entrance and paid his respects.

“May Wolfhard have infinite glory. Border Defense Commander Byron has returned after completing your lordship’s mission.”

“You’ve come.”

The man’s voice penetrated her highly sensitized eardrums.

This voice, which she had never heard before, felt utterly unfamiliar.

Perhaps because the voice was unfamiliar, or because she thought it belonged to the man who had specifically wanted her, a strange and ominous shiver ran through her body for unknown reasons. Rozenne tensed her upper body to prevent herself from trembling at the chilling sensation.

Soon, the knight commander rose from his position and led Cynthia forward to the King of Wolfhard.

Accordingly, Rozenne also followed Cynthia, walking forward little by little.

After briefly watching Cynthia’s heels as she walked ahead with her head bowed low, the knight commander and Cynthia stopped in front of the dais.

Rozenne halted at an appropriate distance from Cynthia.

The knight commander reported the results of his mission once more.

“My lord. As you commanded, I have found the woman and brought her here.”

“Hmm.”

The King of Wolfhard uttered only that one word and still said nothing more.