I couldn’t help but laugh softly as my voice overlapped with Cedrion’s.

“You go first.”

“No, you first.”

Cedrion, yielding the floor to me, seemed somewhat tense. He was probably expecting me to ask about his childhood.

To think that I could now see traces of nervousness on the face of a man who was always so stern. Absentmindedly, I fidgeted with my fingertips and spoke.

“Answer my question with either yes or no. If you stay silent, I’ll take it as a yes.”

Cedrion tilted his head slightly. It must not have been the question he had anticipated.

In an exaggerated voice, as if hosting a quiz show, I asked,

“Is Angie’s identity related to your oracle?”

“……”

Though he was sitting at a slight distance from me, I could distinctly feel his body stiffen. Glancing up at him, I saw that his face had completely frozen over as he looked down at me.

So, Dame Gwendolyn’s guess was correct.

Seeing that he showed no signs of relaxing even as time passed, I chuckled softly.

“If you had simply said it was related to the oracle, I would have accepted it without question. But you can’t even bring yourself to utter the word ‘oracle’ in front of me, can you?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Well, when you said you could only tell me after we were officially engaged, any noble of Arcadia should have been able to figure it out.”

I made my tone playful in an attempt to lighten the mood. After all, it was common knowledge in this world that the firstborns of Arcadia’s noble bloodlines received oracles.

“That’s not it, my dear.”

Did my words sound self-deprecating? Cedrion, seemingly flustered, quickly responded and grasped my hands. His hands were so large that my own disappeared entirely beneath them.

“I just… felt guilty. I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

“You mean when you said you were Angie’s father? If you’re planning to adopt her, then you will be her father, so it’s not entirely a lie, is it?”

“If that’s how you see it, I appreciate it, but…”

Of course, in order to keep up that lie, he had spun a web of falsehoods—claiming that the child’s mother was no longer in this world and so on. But at this point, those details hardly mattered anymore.

In any case, joining forces with Cedrion for Angie and her nanny’s sake had turned out to be a good decision.

“It’s fine. Once our engagement is officially approved, I’ll listen to the full story and judge for myself how much you actually lied.”

“…Speaking of which.”

Cedrion suddenly seemed uneasy.

“Something has come up that I truly need to apologize for.”

“What is it?”

His voice was unusually uncertain. Curious, I looked up at his face. The moonlight cast a slanted glow across his features, giving him the sculpted beauty of a marble statue.

“I sent a letter to Belvo requesting approval for our engagement recently. But…”

As I tilted my head slightly in question, Cedrion pressed his lips together, clearly struggling to find the right words.

“I received a reply saying that Michael will personally visit Norhart to deliver the response.”

“…What?”

“He’s arriving the day after tomorrow.”

My jaw dropped in shock. If I had been drinking wine at that moment, I surely would have spilled it all over myself.

“Wait—Is that… normal?”

“No. Usually, an official decree of approval is all that’s needed. It’s customary to send a messenger or even use the temple’s telegraph system. Occasionally, a royal knight is dispatched as a courier to Norhart, but…”

Cedrion trailed off, his expression darkening.

“In any case, for some reason, he insisted on bringing it himself.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“I suppose I frightened that acting lord a little too much.”

His golden eyes flashed with anger, suggesting that the royal family’s decision was in response to his intimidation of Baron Alterman on the day we left Meldorf.

“So I’ve been trying to negotiate a workaround, but…”

“…What?”

Negotiate? I tilted my head in disbelief.

“You mean you actually tried to negotiate over something like this? Is that why you’ve been so busy lately?”

“I told you I’d do my best.”

His deep, serious gaze settled on me.

…Ah.

“I doubt he has enough sense to refrain from coming, but I’ll do everything I can to stop him.”

That was what he had told me when I was worried that Michael might show up at our engagement ceremony.

Judging by his actions, Cedrion must have truly believed that I should never have to face Michael. He had done everything in his power to prevent him from coming to Norhart.

Considering his usual way of handling things…

“You didn’t try to bribe him with a gemstone mine concession, did you?”

“…That was one of the options.”

A laugh of disbelief slipped out of me.

“Seriously? You’re practically waving a flag that says, ‘I don’t want you here’! You even revoked the gold trade privileges, and now you’re offering up a mining concession just to keep him away? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“Norhart isn’t just any vassal of Arcadia.”

Cedrion’s brows furrowed in dissatisfaction.

“And besides, I made a promise to you. That’s what matters more to me.”

Cedrion continued to gaze intently at my face for a while longer.

Truly, his appearance was compelling in itself. Just hearing such a handsome man speak softly about keeping his promises to me was enough to make me momentarily wonder if he harbored feelings for me.

My heart kept pounding.

“…Ah, that.”

I hurriedly opened my mouth to break the awkward silence, but nothing in particular came to mind.

Fidgeting with my wine glass for no reason, then brushing my hair back, I finally said,

“Oh, fine. Let’s leave it at that.”

Throughout it all, Cedrion’s gaze never left me, making me even more flustered.

“Then before that, you should tell me… what exactly happened between me and Michael.”

The words slipped out to fill the embarrassing silence, and for a moment, there was only quiet.

A breeze from the deepening spring night swept in. The chill in the air made my shoulders shiver involuntarily.

“You should dress warmer.”

“I was warm. Before I came out here.”

I replied petulantly and clutched my shawl tighter around my shoulders. Just then, Cedrion lifted his arm on the side closest to me. Before I could fully grasp his intent, his large hand rested on my outer shoulder.

And just like that, he wrapped his strong, firm arm around my back, half-embracing me—

W-What is this?

While I was caught off guard, my shawl quickly became warm.

Oh, so that’s…

“T-This, is this magic…?”

My face flushed hot, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the warming spell on my shawl or because I was half-pressed against Cedrion’s chest. All I could do was flail in confusion.

Cedrion’s lips stretched into a long smile as he gazed down at me along the bridge of his elegant nose.

“This is the magic you asked me to teach you before winter came.”

“…Huh?”

“Ode.”

***

Cedrion had met young Ode purely by chance.

As the cherished only child of the harmonious Grand Duke and Duchess of Norhart, he had grown up adored by the people of the territory. But around that time, he was entering adolescence and yearning for freedom.

“My Lord? Are you feeling unwell? You’ve been quite distracted lately.”

As the direct heir to Norhart, the first bloodline of Arcadia…

“I distinctly recall instructing you to read up to chapter seven. Was my voice too soft for you to hear?”

He sought freedom in the mildest of ways.

“My Lord! Where are you?!”

Skipping his studies and avoiding lessons, for instance.

That day was no different.

Thirteen-year-old Cedrion had no desire to attend his stern tutor’s history lesson, so he easily slipped away.

As someone who had inherited the first blood of Arcadia—along with one of the most powerful magical abilities in recent generations—nothing hindered him.

After using teleportation magic a few times, he arrived at the place he had recently claimed as his hideout.

“Kyaa! Y-Y-Y-You—!”

“Ah, what the…”

A child had bumped into him and fallen over.

She was a young girl with platinum blonde hair, as if infused with sunlight, spilling onto the dirt path beneath her bonnet.

Her violet eyes, shimmering like a moon submerged in water, trembled with shock at his sudden appearance from thin air.

“A-Are you okay?”

Cedrion, clearly the older one, quickly crouched down to check on her.

Though he didn’t have a keen eye for such things at thirteen, the fabric of her clothes didn’t seem much different from what his mother wore. Her dress also resembled his mother’s gowns more than the simple frocks he had seen servant girls wear. She was undoubtedly a noble.

“Ugh, but they said this was Lure’s private property…!”

She had been too dazed by Cedrion’s friendly smile to react at first, but now her face twisted as if she was about to cry.

Lure? If this was Lure…

“This is Meldorf?”

He had discovered this tranquil forest while randomly teleporting from place to place.

It was warmer than Norhart, sparsely populated enough to avoid being noticed, and filled with unfamiliar trees that fascinated a boy accustomed to the coniferous forests of the North. Most importantly, the broad canopies of the trees made perfect places to nap.

But was this actually Lure’s private land?

“You, are you from Lure?”

“Yes! Ah, no…!”

She had answered immediately, then suddenly realized she shouldn’t reveal her identity so freely. The innocence of a child was evident in her flustered reaction, making Cedrion chuckle before extending his hand to her.

“I’m Cedrion. What’s your name?”