It was a clumsy, awkward attempt at seduction. Whether it could be called seduction at all was uncertain.

It felt more like something a naive, inexperienced girl would do than a woman who had been married before.

‘In truth, I’am actually closer to that type.’

Elliope thought, a self-deprecating smile escaping her lips.

Even at that moment, the weight of her own words weighed heavily on her.

“……”

She whispered to the knight of a loyal duke, urging him to take the chastity of the woman who would soon be his lord’s wife.

There was no response from Kallian.

Whoosh.

A cold wind blew somewhere. The dry branches of the winter forest shivered and groaned in the desolation. The chill of the dawn stole Elliope’s body heat with every passing second, leaving her lips increasingly parched.

‘Why did I end up saying such a thing to him?’

Regret gnawed at her, but the despair that consumed her mind insisted it was the only way.

She and Kallian were alone together. If she wanted to free herself from her current life, this was her only chance…

“I don’t understand.”

Kallian said, breaking the silence.

At that moment, an overwhelming cold suffocated Elliope.

In the next moment, an overwhelming cold choked Elliope. Slowly, she turned her eyes up to look at Kallian. 

With the moon behind him, his face was bathed in backlight, making it impossible to see clearly. The faint moonlight reflected in his eyes gave them a glint that felt as cold and sharp as shards of broken ice. 

Elliope read many emotions in those cold, beautiful eyes – anger, distance, sadness that bordered on hatred… and a certain kind of loss. 

‘Loss?’

It was an incomprehensible feeling. He looked down at her like someone who had lost something before, as if she had taken something immensely important and precious from him. 

‘Ah.’

Only then did Elliope realise that he wasn’t just her husband’s loyal servant.

He had sworn allegiance not only to Theodor, but to the entire House of Ilmos. 

Ever since he joined the ducal family as a squire at the age of fourteen, he was said to have vowed to regard the Duke and Duchess of Ilmos as his parents and to serve the Duke of Ilmos as his own brother. 

And he had kept that vow. 

‘When the previous Duke and Duchess died… he took Theodor’s place and served at the front for a year.’

Elliope remembered. 

The previous Duke and Duchess had been ambushed and killed while travelling on the outskirts of their territory. 

In the north, and especially in Ilmos, revenge dictated that if one’s parents were killed by an enemy, one had to go out and cut the murderer’s throat, regardless of the enemy’s strength.

In this case, however, the perpetrators were the bandits who were rampant in the northwest region of Ilmos at the time. 

Though they were called bandits, they were actually a vast local mercenary force, allied with foreign lords and occasionally carrying out tasks on their behalf. Their history stretched back over a century. 

Such a group was difficult to deal with, and Theodor had no desire to provoke them. 

It was Kallian Icerick, son of the slain duke and duchess, who stepped forward to take Theodor’s place. 

And he did indeed wipe out the fearsome bandit force. With only fifty soldiers at his command, he accomplished the feat. 

When he returned, he held the freshly severed head of the bandit leader in his hands, still warm, or so the servants of the ducal estate often whispered in hushed tones, weaving his actions into tales of bravery. 

“That’s the kind of man he was.” 

And yet here she was, whispering to such a man to betray his Lord. 

The faint sense of loss he seemed to feel might have come from the very betrayal she was asking him to commit. 

Still, Elliope was desperate. 

Her hand was still gripping Kallian’s collar as if she couldn’t let go. She knew she should let go, but she couldn’t find the strength. Then Kallian asked again.

“Didn’t you intend to marry His Grace, the Grand Duke of Ilmos, Your Highness?”

“……”

Elliope’s body trembled slightly. Kallian slowly raised his hand and cupped her chin. Her lips, slightly swollen from the awkward kiss earlier, bore traces of the moment.

“I ask if you have come all this way to become his bride.”

Though his tone was calm and unemotional, it somehow felt like a subtle mockery, and Elliope swallowed her grief.

Her lips, as if they weren’t her own, impulsively spat out another confession.

“I don’t want to.”

“……” 

“I don’t want to.” 

To be offered again, like a tribute, to a man who never wanted her, to wither away until she could only imagine death as her fate… She couldn’t take it anymore. 

It wasn’t that she wanted to live actively, or that she had anything she really wanted to do or liked in life. But that didn’t mean she wanted to die like that either. 

If she didn’t have something she loved, she could create it. If there was nothing she wanted to do, she could find it. 

She wanted to try everything the world had to offer. If there was something among those things that she truly loved, she would be content to spend her life doing it. 

At the very least, she wanted to have that chance – a life where decisions weren’t made based on the approval or reliance of others, but on her own will. 

The realisation that she was trying to use Kallian to get it made her eyes sting. 

She had despised a life dictated by others, yet here she was, begging him to hold her so she could survive. 

She had even tried to bind him to her by force, planning to use a relationship they never had as leverage. 

Even after seeing the sense of loss in his eyes, she still couldn’t let go of the possibility that he might choose to hold her. 

‘Perhaps it was a relief that the sleeping pill hadn’t worked.’ 

At least now he had the chance to choose her of his own free will. 

But a corner of her heart whispered otherwise – that it would have been better if the drug had worked. 

Then she could have pretended they had spent the night together. 

Her despair, grief and resentment all intertwined, creating a cacophony of emotions within her. 

The relentless waves of self-loathing that washed over her, coupled with the faint glimmer of hope she couldn’t let go of, left Elliope unable to gather her thoughts. 

She had no time to wonder why he had succumbed to something as trivial as an *phrodisiac in a past life and ended up with her, despite his resistance to poisons and drugs. 

Or rather, the question would occasionally pop up, but quickly fade away. She just shrugged it off, thinking that perhaps the sleeping pill, poison or *phrodisiac was of a different kind. 

Kallian, who had been silent the whole time, tilted his head slightly. The moonlight creeping in from behind traced the line of his jaw, trickling down like a gentle stream. 

“You said you didn’t want to.” 

“…….” 

“And yet you kissed me so urgently.” 

“Do you expect me to believe that?” 

His sharp gaze lingered for a moment on her swollen, reddened lips, as if to say those very words in silence. 

That alone made Elliope feel as if he had seen through her, and her shoulders jerked involuntarily. 

“You can call me disgusting if you want.” 

“……” 

“Say a princess, who should be virtuous, seduces the faithful knight of the man who will be her husband. Call me a dirty and vulgar woman if you must.” 

Such words would no longer be a great insult to her. After all, she had been entwined with him in her previous life, their bodies burning so fiercely that they almost merged. 

At her words, the grip of Kallian’s hand on her chin tightened. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but his heat, pressing against her skin like a seal, left a tingling sensation. 

“Hold me, Kallian.” 

The moment she whispered the words, Kallian’s eyes deepened, his gaze penetrating her. 

His voice, deep and resonant, reached her ears. 

“And then?” 

“……” 

“Do you know what happens after?” 

“What…?” 

“It’s not going to end with one night together, not between us.” 

The heat emanating from Kallian seemed to intensify, and the unintentional contact between their chests only made her feel more and more flushed. 

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Your Highness?” 

“I…” 

“If I keep you here, you will have to be my wife.” 

She tried to answer, to say she understood, but her throat tightened as if something were choking her. For a moment, a metallic scent brushed against her nose. 

Elliope belatedly realised it was the scent of blood, lingering faintly somewhere on Kallian’s armour. 

A flood of rumours about him rushed through her mind. 

The dog of Ilmos. The loyal dog of the Grand Duke. The butcher of the battlefield. 

As she stared into his eyes and pondered those words, a thunderous realisation struck her. 

Maybe, just maybe, he… 

“Damn it, it wasn’t that bastard Theodor von Ilmos, but me..”

He despised Theodor von Ilmos. 

She didn’t know why. But the emotions she had felt in his words, so blatantly whispered in her ear, had been real. It hadn’t just been the result of fleeting excitement. 

The image of the man standing before the coffin of his eternally slumbering Lord, hungrily devouring the man’s wife as if to make a statement, came back to her. 

She remembered how he had shamelessly lifted her body, still intimately bound to his, as if to show it off to the deceased Theodor. His touch, which had set her body on fire and left her breathless, had been deliberate, as if he had enjoyed the humiliation he had caused the dead man by so brazenly claiming her. 

It was an action she hadn’t realised she was taking, precisely because she had been entertaining the same thoughts herself. 

The possibility that although he was loyal to the Grand Duchy, he might not like the current Grand Duke. 

Given that, there was still a chance. 

Between her ragged breaths, a desperate sentence slipped out – words Elliope couldn’t hold back. But they were words filled with sincerity. 

“I will be your wife.”