“Your Grace.” 

He hadn’t wanted to exchange pleasantries. 

With a soft sigh, Kylance straightened the half-turned posture of his body. 

“It’s been a while, Countess Forte.” 

“Indeed. The last time was at the hunting tournament held to celebrate Your Grace’s victory. That must have been… three years ago, wasn’t it?” 

Kylance’s fingers twitched slightly. The hunting tournament three years ago – *that* was the day he first met Ariel. 

‘She’s bringing that up on purpose.’ 

Kylance realised at once. It was the only explanation. Countess Forte wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed idle chatter, and the two of them weren’t close enough to engage in such casual conversation. 

Moreover, Kylance and Ariel’s love story was well known throughout the Empire, so most people knew the details of their first meeting. 

It was also at this hunting tournament, where he’d made his first public appearance after coming of age, that he’d entered the Imperial social scene for the first time. 

Kylance didn’t bother to hide his discomfort as he replied. 

“Countess, if you intend to bring up Lady Blante, I suggest you stop. As you know, she and I are over. And I think you know how final that ending was.”

‘After all, it was my actions that dragged you back into politics in the first place.’ 

Kylance added coldly, drawing a sharp line between himself and the Countess. 

But Countess Forte was unfazed. Instead, she offered a slight smile, as if she had expected his reply. 

“My, it seems I’ve been caught before I’ve had a chance to speak. As might be expected of a knight with such keen instincts.” 

“Countess, I’m in no mood to exchange pleasantries with you. Nor are we close enough for that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” 

Kylance was ready to leave without hesitation, but once again the Countess stopped him. 

“Your Grace, it won’t take long. Please spare me a moment. Although this concerns Lady Blante, it’s not directly about her.” 

‘Not about Ariel?’ 

As Kylance hesitated, the Countess dropped a statement he could not ignore. 

“It’s about the Marquis of Blante and the late Grand Duke.” 

Kylance halted in his tracks, slowly turning back to the countess, his expression tense.

‘Does she know? Could she possibly know that the Marquis of Blante killed my parents?’ 

‘His Majesty swore he would not make that truth public… but did he tell Countess Forte anyway?’ 

Although His Majesty held the Countess Forte in high respect, it seemed unthinkable that he would reveal to anyone, even her, the truth about his father’s death – something that could become a stain on the Imperial family. 

‘Is it something else, then?’ 

Still, there couldn’t possibly be anything else of importance between his father and the Marquis of Blante. 

To be sure, Kylance turned to the nearby servants. 

“I have important matters to discuss with the Countess. Step back.” 

The servants bowed their heads and quietly stepped back ten paces. Kylance took a step closer to the countess and spoke in a voice lowered to a near whisper. 

“Speak. What story could connect my father to a traitor?” 

“A traitor… Indeed, Your Grace was the one who presented the evidence of the Marquis of Blante’s treason to His Majesty.” 

“That is correct. And you, in turn, begged His Majesty to reopen the case I had investigated. Why? Are you going to tell me to my face? That my investigation was wrong? Or are you going to accuse me of causing the death of the Marquis de Blante?” 

For a brief moment, Kylance lost control of his emotions and let them show. 

It wasn’t what he had intended. 

But as he met Countess Forte’s unwavering gaze, another face appeared above hers. 

Ariel. He saw her. 

The Countess didn’t even resemble Ariel, and yet… 

The way she looked at him now – with honest, clear eyes that lacked the darkness of his own – was strikingly similar. 

He looked away from the Countess, who continued to watch him in silence. 

Once again he felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, as if something were strangling him. Frustrated, he pulled at his collar to loosen it. 

Then the Countess spoke. 

“The Marquis’s death is tragic, but I never once thought it was Your Grace’s fault. I asked for a more thorough investigation because his death brought it to an abrupt end. The Marquis I knew would never have committed treason.” 

“You disappoint me, Countess. Despite your reputation, you are far from rational. There is no ‘never’ when it comes to people. Do not assume that the Marquis you knew was all there was to him.”

Kylance’s lips curled into a twisted grin, but Countess Forte continued calmly, unshaken. 

“You are right, Your Grace. Humans are far too unpredictable to be described as absolute. However, as someone who has lived longer than you, allow me to share this with you: there are rare individuals who live and die by their convictions. In my opinion, the Marquis of Blante was one of them. And if the late Grand Duke Seyerd were alive today, I believe he would agree with me. 

“What are you…” 

As Kylance’s face contorted at the mention of his father, Countess Forte spoke softly but deliberately. 

“Grand Duke Alex Seyerd trusted the Marquis of Blante more than anyone.” 

“Who… trusted whom?” 

Kylance’s expression turned ice-cold. He felt that the Countess had just crossed an unforgivable line. 

His father trusted the Marquis of Blante?

Not once had he heard such a claim. 

Though the time he had spent with his father was short, it only made his memories of him more vivid and clear. He was sure he knew his father’s character well. 

The day his father first put a sword in his hands, the first time he stepped into his father’s study, and the countless days he spent watching his father work from a corner of the room. 

Yes, compared to other members of the Imperial family or noble children, Kylance had spent far more time with his father. His father had never found his curiosity annoying, but had taken the time to teach him even more. 

As a result, despite the short time they shared, Kylance had learned much from his father – about the trusted retainers and nobles close to him, the vulnerabilities of the north and what it took to protect it. 

It was this foundation that had allowed him, at a young age, to take on the role of head of the family without hesitation and to successfully protect the North. 

And yet, in all these memories, there was no mention of the Marquis of Blante. He had never even heard the name, nor had the Marquis ever visited the Grand Duke’s estate. 

Ah, except for one instance. There was only one time when his father’s name had been mentioned alongside that of the Marquis of Blante – not on his father’s lips, but in the newspapers. 

It was at the time when His Majesty entrusted his father with the empire’s waterways project. The articles said that the Marquis of Blante had fiercely opposed the project, causing difficulties for his father. 

And in the end, the Marquis of Blante had killed his father to sabotage the waterway project. 

All for his own gain. 

And yet how dare anyone say that his father had trusted the Marquis? 

Kylance’s dark eyes gleamed dangerously as he fixed his gaze on Countess Forte. 

“Countess, do you intend to use my father’s name to justify reopening the investigation into the Marquis of Blante? Do you dare, as a mere countess, to implicate the late Grand Duke Alex Seyerd – His Majesty’s own brother and the ruler of the North – in connection with a traitor? If you don’t want to be torn apart and killed, you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

The deadly warning in Kylance’s tone caused Countess Forte’s composure to waver for the first time. 

She could sense the real threat in his words. 

Hiding the slight tremor in her fingertips, she clenched her hands tightly and took a deep breath to regain her composure. 

Finally, her lips moved slowly as she spoke. 

“As I expected, Your Grace is unaware. I don’t know what went wrong… but if anyone should not have acted against the Marquis of Blante, it was you – the child of Grand Duke Alex Seyerd himself.”

“Are you so desperate to die that…” 

Just as the last thread of Kylance’s fraying self-control was about to snap, Countess Forte spoke again. 

“Your Grace must already know. Before His Majesty ascended the throne, both His Majesty and the late Grand Duke Seyerd were prince with almost no presence within the Imperial family. Their positions were so minor that His Majesty himself often forgot they even existed. I’m sure Your Grace is well aware of this reality”. 

Even for a countess known as the ‘Wise Woman of the Empire’, it was a statement that should never have been made. 

True or not, such a disrespectful remark was an outright insult to both the reigning Emperor and the late Grand Duke. 

It was enough to justify Kylance executing the countess on the spot. 

His hand moved to the hilt of the sword at his waist, ready to draw it and sever the head of the countess who dared dishonour his father in her obsession with defending the Marquis of Blante. 

But then the countess said something that made Kylance’s hand freeze. 

“It was the Marquis of Blante who saved the life of the late Grand Duke Seyerd during those difficult times. Without the Marquis, the wound on the Grand Duke’s shoulder would not have remained just a scar – it would have been much worse.” 

The scar on his father’s shoulder. 

Kylance froze. He couldn’t answer. That scar was something no outsider was supposed to know about. 

He had only ever heard that it was the result of an accident in his father’s youth. 

“How did you know about that…?”