The maid sat clutching her swollen cheek, already struck at least once, and crying, while Lucian stood before her with a resolute expression, blocking the way.

Lucian was glaring at his mother, those empty eyes blazing fiercely, as though she would not yield no matter what.

Heliones still recalled that scene from time to time even now.

Despite Lucian’s defiance, the maid was dismissed and held responsible, and Lucian soon returned to her usual quiet state, as though none of it had ever happened.

What had she been thinking? What had she been burning through in that moment as she stood in front of the maid?

Had seeing someone struck without cause brought back her own past? Had she projected her own suffering onto a girl still so young?

Come to think of it, the moments when warmth had entered Lucian’s red eyes had almost always been in similar situations.

No matter what was said to her or done to her, she was always unmoved, yet whenever the cat that lived in the garden and scrounged for food scraps, or a clumsy maid, or a naive page boy found themselves in serious trouble, she would step forward and stand in their way.

It was the same now. She did not seem to take Delmir stabbing her particularly seriously, yet for Elise’s honor she had fanned those cooled embers back to life once more.

Lucian seemed to regard restoring Elise’s honor as more important than seeing Delmir punished.

She clearly felt guilty for having kept that matter buried for three years.

That must be why, even after such a major surgery, she had asked after Elise first.

Mercilessly indifferent toward herself, yet for others she burned with a fury that threatened to consume even the last of her remaining ash.

That was the kind of person Lucian was.

Heliones looked down at Lucian, pale to the point of looking drained of all life, with a sorrowful gaze.

He himself had done nothing wrong, yet because of his mother’s conduct he had spent his entire childhood living as though he did not exist. He was the Emperor’s son, but he could not set foot in the imperial palace, and he could not even attend his father’s birthday parade.

After his mother became Empress and he was officially recognized as an imperial prince, life grew even harsher at the hands of his half-brothers than it had been when he was illegitimate, to the point where he sometimes wished he had never been born into the imperial family at all.

Heliones had spent his entire life walking a tightrope stretched high above the ground, outwardly composed, telling himself it did not matter when he fell. He had lived as though watching the world below from a distance.

Twitch. Lucian’s brow furrowed slightly, a faint crease forming between her eyes as though she were caught in an unpleasant dream.

Heliones raised his hand and took hold of her trembling one. Her breathing eased soon after.

A truly strange thing.

Even when his father and brothers all died and he found himself unexpectedly named heir, even when he was preparing for war against Rodencia under the banner of restoring the Frianc Empire, he had simply gone along with the expectations around him, the way water follows its course.

He had killed Lucian’s father and conquered Rodencia with clear hostility and a desire for revenge, yet he had felt no satisfaction or sense of achievement in any of it.

Even amid all the voices urging on the Emperor’s illegitimate son, telling him he would be the next Emperor, his only purpose had been revenge for his family and for Lucian.

What would she look like? What expression would she make when she saw him?

After finally settling everything with Rodencia and the surrounding nations and making his way back to Frianc, Heliones had not anticipated any grand triumphal ceremony or coronation.

He had only been anxious about how his wife would react to the husband who had brought about her homeland’s destruction.

The slight furrow of her brow as she ate a tart dessert topped with fruit. The way she pressed her lips together and let her eyes drift when she got stuck mid-sentence. The way she shivered and quietly rubbed her palms together when a chill came over her.

Heliones thought about how he wanted to see those things he remembered of Lucian, those small habits and mannerisms she herself was likely unaware of, things only he knew as her secret observer, and at the same time he had dreaded facing her.

Worry outpacing anticipation, he kept putting off his return, until at last he came home.

He had steeled himself to take the slap if she struck him, and to kneel if she demanded it.

But Lucian had already signed the divorce papers, collected the settlement, and left the estate.

She had signed without a single demand or moment of hesitation, they said. She had left without so much as a farewell, let alone a letter.

At that moment, Heliones understood.

He and Lucian had been husband and wife for two years, yet they were a pair with not a single word worth leaving behind.

When he thought of Lucian, only the small habits and mannerisms he had secretly observed on his own came to mind. He could recall no emotional exchange, no real conversation.

Despite being bound by the most concrete of ties, the bond between them had been nothing more than a surface-level connection.

Heliones lifted Lucian’s hand, white to the point of taking on a faint blue tinge, and pressed his lips lightly to it.

He had believed he could live without her, but he had been wrong. The sense of balance that had kept him walking that precarious tightrope his entire life collapsed the moment she was gone.

Falling endlessly, he came to understand.

He should have reached out his hand. When she spoke to him first, he should have answered her warmly. He should have asked what flower the seedling he checked on every day would bloom into. When she suggested they go to a fitting together, he should have gone and stood beside her.

His mother had openly pressured Heliones, threatening to kill Lucian under the guise of a s*icide attempt. The estate had been crawling with spies from various factions tied to Rodencia and to his mother.

It was his and Lucian’s home, but it was a place where her safety could never be guaranteed.

Right. He had told himself it was to protect Lucian in that dangerous situation. To escape the guilt of knowing he was about to destroy her homeland. Both were true, but neither was the whole of it.

Heliones had felt his heart helplessly tilting toward Lucian, and without realizing it, he had built a wall.

He drew an uncrossable line, invented plausible reasons, and managed the distance between them.

The real reason he had kept Lucian at arm’s length was, in truth, something entirely practical and cold.

He had not wanted her to become his weakness when the time came to destroy Rodencia.

Because the first person who would have exploited any closeness between him and Lucian was Lewian himself.

For her safety and for his own purpose, Lucian and Heliones had to be a husband and wife who walked side by side like parallel lines, never to meet.

They had never even shared a bed. If she divorced him and lived quietly, that should have been nothing but a relief. Yet when Heliones held those divorce papers in his hands, he felt for the first time in his life the sensation of falling into a bottomless abyss.

A perfect fall, with no straw to grasp, no branch to catch.

Heliones had not anticipated that this surface-level connection, with nothing left of Lucian but her afterimage, would prove so devastating in her absence.

In the two years he spent searching for Lucian, Heliones cut and cut again without pause.

To keep her wholly by his side, he severed ties with his mother and killed the relatives who had risen in revolt.

And so he had at last become an Emperor of absolute power, an Emperor who could bring the whole world to its knees with a single word.

“Haa.”

A deep, cold sigh escaped Heliones before he could stop it. The darkness lay thick in the bedroom, and his heavy sighs had already been layering there for some time.

Lucian would probably, no, certainly bow her head if told to bow, kneel if told to kneel, and pledge her loyalty if asked. She was the kind of person who would do all of that publicly without hesitation, if only to avoid causing trouble for her former husband.

But she would not give her heart. Her every thought would be bent on finding some way to escape him.

What was he to do? Should he become a mangy stray cat hiding in the imperial palace garden?

Flutter. Lucian’s eyelids trembled, and after about two hours, those red eyes opened to the world.

“Are you awake?”

Heliones, who had been sitting at her side the entire time watching over her, let out a small, quiet cough to conceal the emotion in his voice and asked in a slightly hoarse tone.

Whether from the medication or from lingering drowsiness, Lucian gazed up at Heliones’s grey eyes for a moment with a hazy look. Then, a faint smile settled at the corners of her lips.

“I’m fine.”

Heliones bit down hard on his teeth to keep the tears from breaking through and swallowed his breath.

‘I am not fine! I am the one who is not fine!’

“Did the trial end well?”

“It ended well. Delmir has been transferred to the detention tower.”

Lucian gave a small nod as though she understood, then asked with a look of concern.

“And Lewian?”

“The search is still ongoing.”

“I’m sorry. I caused you trouble, didn’t I?”

Trouble? Again. Even now. Heliones, who had been holding his emotions in check the entire time, finally broke.

“Yes! Do you have any idea how much trouble I was in? Watching you collapse in the courtroom, I thought my heart had stopped! Why do you always put others before…”

Heliones caught himself in the same instant, realizing he had called her his wife and that he had raised his voice at her. Regret came swiftly. He bit his lip and dropped his gaze.