As Rosalyn felt her fear grow, Johannes walked towards her without hesitation. As they reached the door, the soldiers bowed respectfully to Johannes. The one who followed glanced at them, but didn’t interfere.

The brief moment they passed the soldiers seemed unbearably long to Rosalyn. It wasn’t until they had put enough distance between themselves and the soldiers that she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

As they made their way up the narrow path, the horse Johannes had arranged came into view. He mounted first, moving with precision and fluidity, from stepping into the stirrup to swinging his leg over without any unnecessary movement.

Perhaps out of consideration for Rosalyn, he left the saddle empty and chose to sit behind her. Soon after, she put her foot in the stirrup and reached for the handle of the saddle.

But no matter how hard she stretched, she couldn’t quite reach it. Struggling and shifting her position, Johannes leaned forward and gently lifted her into his arms.

“Ah…!” 

In an instant, her body was lifted and she gasped in surprise. But when she saw that Johannes was unaffected, she bit her lip.

Ever since he had helped her over the wall, she had felt that she was constantly demonstrating her lack of physical ability, which made her feel somewhat embarrassed.

Once Rosalyn was safely in the saddle, Johannes gave the horse a light kick on the side, causing it to move forward.

One hand held the reins while the other gripped Rosalyn’s waist. As the horse broke into a fast gallop, Rosalyn flinched and trembled slightly. It was the first time she had ever ridden a horse at such a speed.

Despite the natural anxiety that came with it, she didn’t feel overly frightened, perhaps due to the firm hold on her waist and the solid presence of his body against her back. Still, being outside the castle felt overwhelming, and when he slowed briefly, she turned her head slightly.

“But… why are you doing all this for me?”

She asked, genuinely unable to understand, and he furrowed his brow slightly. His eyes seemed to ask, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“You said you couldn’t sleep.”

There was a faint trace of confusion in his voice, as if the answer he had confidently chosen was being questioned.

Looking at his face, Rosalyn lost the courage to ask any more questions. She forced an awkward smile and turned her head away.

But the feeling of something clutching at her heart was hard to ignore. If he hadn’t looked at her with contempt after seeing her appearance, it could have been seen as indifference, but why was he showing her such kindness? Her inability to sleep probably didn’t matter to him.

As the horse picked up speed, she could feel her heartbeat increasing. She also felt a heat rising through her body – different from the signs of a seizure, but still something unusual.

When they reached a certain point, Johannes stopped the horse. Rosalyn heard the faint sound of water and looked up quickly.

Johannes, who had dismounted first, naturally reached out for her, lifting her up and gently setting her on the ground. Feeling that the distance between them had become too close, Rosalyn avoided looking at him, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the ground.

“Thank you.”

Still maintaining her politeness, her eyes remained on the ground as she began to walk towards the lakeshore.

Johannes tied the reins loosely to a branch and slowly followed her, staying a few steps behind.

It was a night with a bright moon. As he gazed up at the sky, Johannes’ eyes shifted to the woman who walked in front of him with a confident stride. With each step Rosalyn took, her fine hair swayed in rhythm. Even in the darkness, the colour of her golden blonde hair stood out, but his gaze quickly moved away.

How pathetic.

A feeling of self-disgust rose in him. Of course, he was aware that he was doing something senseless, and in an impulsive moment, he ended up saying it. It was indeed careless of him.

As he mentally repeated a reflection that wasn’t really an apology, his greyish-blue eyes scanned the scenery with a sense of boredom.

The chill of early winter seemed to have already sucked the life out of the plants around the lake. Perhaps because it was night, the eerie atmosphere of winter seemed strangely familiar.

He didn’t have a strong preference one way or the other, but when it came to winter, he couldn’t shake the intense dislike it brought. Winter reminded him of his hometown.

Johannes was born and raised in a place at the northern tip of the continent where there was only one season.

It wasn’t just the geography that was unique. His home town was a place where even the streets you walked on were cleaned and polished with white marble.

Wherever you looked, everything was white. In this holy kingdom, the statues of gods on the walls were probably the only thing that gave a sense of life.

There were living people, but there was no sense of vitality. In a place where not only plants failed to sprout, but where human reproduction was considered taboo, Johannes was born.

Brought up in that pure white world, Johannes was disgusted by the season that had ruled his life, but he was indifferent to all seasons except winter. This indifference persisted even when he left the world he knew and entered the capital.

Even the sight of flowers blooming in spring didn’t cause him any great wonder, and standing under the scorching summer sun didn’t seem unbearable to him.

It was true, but…

When Rosalyn stopped walking at a certain point, Johannes finally looked up. Before they knew it, a deep blue lake stretched out before them.

But it was not the lake that caught their attention.

There was nothing remarkable about the scene at the edge of the lake, but Rosalyn’s face, as she gazed at the still water, was relaxed, as if she had just arrived home.

Her expression was quite different from the tense one she had worn at Delmart Castle or the Imperial Palace.

As her chin slowly tilted and her soft lips formed a gentle curve, Johannes found himself holding his breath as he unconsciously stared at her.

Where his gaze had landed, there stood a woman as if made of the molten essence of spring. As he watched her, the sweet scent of lilacs blooming under the spring sun seemed to fill his chest, even though the trees had already shed their leaves.

Johannes clenched his hands tightly as if to control himself. But for all his efforts, it was now nothing more than a futile thought. At this moment, the two of them were nothing more than a prisoner trapped in a locked castle with a guard watching over them.

Johannes had just regained his composure after doing something unnecessary. But his pale grey eyes remained fixed on Rosalyn for a long time.

***

Perhaps the real cold was finally setting in as snowflakes began to fall from the morning sky. As Rosalyn stretched her hands out of the window, trying to catch the snowflakes in the air, she slowly began to feel the cold in her fingertips. She pulled her hands back and closed the window.

Every year around Christmas, she was busy making things to sell at the bazaar, and her days were always full. But since she had been imprisoned in the castle, she had become so numb to the passing of time that it was only now that she realised that winter had come.

After standing by the window for a while, watching the snow fall, Rosalyn dug through the disorganised wardrobe and finally found a fur coat. She put it on, then took out a pair of large knitting needles and began to knit. Knitting with the large needles had become one of the few pastimes she had lately.

Rosalyn had found the threads and needles she had used in the messy wardrobe after her trip to the lake with Johannes.

As she worked with the needles, she half lifted the navy scarf she had almost finished and examined it. Even though it had been a while since she had last worked on it, she was relieved to see that it still looked good.

Staring at the scarf, Rosalyn narrowed her eyes slightly.

“Maybe red would suit me better.”

Her skin was so pale that any colour seemed to suit her. After a moment’s thought, Rosalyn shrugged and picked up the navy thread again.

It didn’t really mean anything.

She doesn’t know what to call her meetings with Johannes, but since they started sneaking out of the castle once a week to avoid the prying eyes of others, the symptoms of her attacks have definitely eased.

Compared to the days when she spent sleepless nights with only a few hours of rest, she now rarely stays up all night sober. This is just her way of getting back at him. So it’s really just a meaningless gift.

Repeating this in her mind like a mantra, she concentrated on her knitting.

Several hours had passed as she immersed herself in her knitting, and gradually her back began to ache. Pausing for a moment, Rosalyn decided to go for a walk to stretch, and rose from her seat.

Draping a shawl over her shoulders, she stepped outside, the biting cold making her breath visible in the air. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to walk. In her mind she was still deep in thought, debating between blue and red.

Maybe white would be better. Lost in thought, she looked up and froze, stopping her steps when she spotted someone.