Aster stared intently at the gradually receding carriage. However, what was actually reflected in his silver eyes was her lingering image.

The wavering light pink eyes, the slightly widened eyes as if surprised, the lips that parted slightly as if wanting to say something before finally closing. Anyone could see that she was clearly reacting to his words.

“……”

Eventually, even the blurry shape of the carriage completely disappeared from view. Only then did Aster realize he had been clenching his teeth so tightly that his jawline stood out sharply.

He massaged his jaw with his hand and released the tension in his teeth. Yet even as he did so, his thoughts still reached out to her.

After receiving the emperor’s permission, his daily routine had become somewhat structured, unlike before.

Rising early before dawn, he would handle the tasks that had accumulated during the day, then have a simple late breakfast doubling as lunch before immediately leaving the mansion. Naturally accompanied by his aide Robert, who would briefly report on the progress of the search, he would join his knights stationed at the imperial palace, and then personally search the same areas again, as if confirming kills.

After that, he would expand the search radius to other areas, and before he knew it, the sun that had been at its zenith would set, and the moon would take its place.

Today was one of those days.

[“Nothing was found.”]

Another day with no results.

Those words, which he must have heard dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, reached him again today.

But unlike before, strangely, he didn’t feel so desperate today.

When had it started?

He belatedly questioned his own feelings. Thinking back, this wasn’t the first time he had felt this way, so it was a belated question.

After tracing back day after day, he reached the day the emperor’s permission came through, after meeting Ailexia in the garden.

Since then, after his mind had become complicated from the audience with the emperor and further confused by her uncharacteristic behavior of saving a child, he had changed in a way that felt strange even to himself.

His heart and mind, which had only looked at, recalled, and thought of Iella, now had Ailexia, that woman, wedging herself in, taking up space and refusing to leave.

Why? Because he kept thinking of her. Because he couldn’t shake her off due to Iella’s image that kept overlapping with her.

However, he had consciously avoided all such thoughts and actions.

He was too sorry toward Iella to even give the reason that he had suspicions. He felt guilty for daring to see her reflected in a woman who had no resemblance to her at all.

On the occasions when he inadvertently imagined that Ailexia might be her, he immediately banged his head against the nearest hard surface. He believed he must have gone mad enough to have hallucinations.

But at the end of his belated questioning, he finally had to admit it.

The reason he wasn’t so desperate despite hearing that Iella’s whereabouts hadn’t been found was because he was already intoxicated by that hallucination.

The suspicions about Ailexia that had gathered in a corner of his heart had created a place that made him see his suspicions as truth.

He wanted to deny that fact somehow. He wanted to dismiss it as a ridiculous, nonsensical thought. Honestly, wasn’t it? How could someone enter another person’s body?

Yet no matter how much he thought about it, nothing else made sense. The sudden change in Ailexia’s attitude and atmosphere, as if she had become a different person, and all the reasons for the actions that kept making him see Iella overlapping with her.

He was seized by intense anxiety. The only solution to deny his thoughts was to find Iella, but that couldn’t suddenly happen when there had been no results so far.

Eventually, his anxiety manifested in another way. With silver eyes flashing fiercely, he thoroughly combed the back alleys. And then, by chance, he discovered Ailexia deep in a dark alley.

Before any thought could form, his eyes followed her first. Then his feet moved in that direction, and his body followed.

Hiding in the darkness, he secretly followed her as she moved around, looking lost. When she stopped as if in trouble, he climbed onto a building to survey the situation. He saw a gang notorious for their bad reputation in the back alleys approaching.

He immediately descended behind them. His knights, who had been following their master without knowing what was happening, subdued the men in an instant with just one gesture from Aster. They thought he wanted to interrogate them since the gang was rumored to be involved in slave trading. The knights quietly disappeared with the gang members.

Aster didn’t stop them. Half of their assumption was correct. However, they wouldn’t know that the other half of his reason was to talk with Ailexia.

And now, having sent her back, he was no longer wrapped in anxiety. Instead, a strange impulse and desire enveloped him.

‘……If it’s really you.’

Aster unconsciously caressed the navy blue thread bracelet on his wrist.

An object Ailexia wouldn’t even be interested in, something that wouldn’t catch her eye, and even if it did, something she wouldn’t be curious about. Yet she defied all expectations by letting her gaze linger on it and even becoming curious.

So he deliberately spoke up. He felt that now he could at least outline the answer to the suspicion he had about Ailexia. The reason he revealed the precious thing he was looking for was solely for that purpose.

‘Normally, he would never have mentioned it.’

The Ailexia he knew was a woman who would use others’ precious things as leverage against them. So originally, he wouldn’t have said a word to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to Iella.

“……”

Aster slowly closed his eyes and opened them again. Just then, a knight approached quietly from behind him and reported in a low voice.

“The gang knew nothing. The same news came from the wolves searching the outskirts. What should we do?”

Aster remained silent for a moment, then once again looked in the direction where the carriage had disappeared. The wide road seemed to be speaking to him. Telling him to move forward as he was thinking.

As if having made a decision, he clenched his fist tightly before relaxing it and turning around. His rigid face was filled with determination.

“Change the target of our investigation. Find out the details of Ailexia’s activities over the past six months.”

His absurd suspicion was on the verge of becoming certainty.

* * *

The report on Ailexia’s activities came to him quickly, not even a few days later. It wasn’t difficult to investigate because she had moved around so noisily.

Aster read through the report in chronological order, from the earliest date to the most recent.

His smooth, unwrinkled brow gradually tensed from the first page, quickly becoming deeply furrowed. A chilling murderous aura surrounded Aster as he frowned at the activities described.

However, after flipping through the papers for a while and reaching her recent activities, his fierce demeanor subsided. His silver eyes scanned down the report, stopping to fixate intensely on one spot.

The date when Ailexia began showing uncharacteristic behavior was written there.

‘It coincides with the time Iella disappeared.’

His hand gripping the report tightened. But he didn’t jump to conclusions. His suspicions had solidified, but there was still no concrete evidence. He couldn’t make any definite conclusions based on this alone.

Moreover, a large gap appeared in the middle of the puzzle pieces that were starting to fit together. Specifically, Ailexia’s night with Allen that occurred after the coinciding period.

If his suspicions were correct, it wasn’t Ailexia who had spent the night with Bledin’s third prince. It was……

“Damn it.”

The report was finally crumpled into a miserable state. Just imagining it made his insides boil with unbearable rage. Just supposing that she had been in bed with another man made him feel like he would go mad with jealousy.

He threw the report onto the desk and covered his face with one hand.

“……Why on earth.”

The question that burst out like a deep sigh settled heavily. Why had Iella mixed bodies with the third prince? He couldn’t understand. No, beyond understanding….

‘If she was going to do that, she should have rather…’

He paused. Drying his face with his hands, he suddenly stopped. After reconsidering the thought that had unconsciously crossed his mind, he flushed red to the nape of his neck. Covering his mouth with his hand, he cursed himself as if scolding, “You crazy bastard.”

He couldn’t help it after realizing that the thought “If she was going to do that, she should have rather called me and I could have offered my body” had come from his own mind.

As if to clear his head, he filled a glass of cold water from a separate container prepared beside him and drank it all at once. Only then did his reason somewhat return.

‘There must have been some reason. She’s not the type to do such a thing without any reason.’

He leaned back completely and massaged from between his brows to his temples. Just as he wondered if knowing that reason would also allow him to conclusively determine the truth of his suspicions, something suddenly flashed through Aster’s mind.

Aster immediately took out a piece of letter paper from the drawer without hesitation.

‘Viscount Shua must know something.’

Due to their territories being adjacent, he had met with Viscount Shua many times on official business. And each time, he had been impressed by the viscount’s knowledge, information, and insight. The viscount was someone who comprehensively covered all aspects, not limited to any one subject.

So perhaps he might know about this reason too. There were many times when he surprisingly knew more than Aster did.

But when he held the quill pen and brought the sharp, ink-dipped tip to the letter paper, Aster couldn’t move it as intended. The black dot of ink gradually expanded and spread as it pooled in a circle.

[“This is not a matter for Your Grace to intervene in.”]

He had already been rejected by Viscount Shua regarding Iella’s matter.