“You can… keep staying here too. I persuaded Mother well. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

She’d promised her mother to keep silent about Romeo’s relationship if she left obediently, and gotten back all his letters too. Her mother’s anxiety and anger originated from the delusion that Rosaline was Beatrice’s daughter in the first place. If she disappeared obediently, her mother had no reason to act wickedly and rage.

Everything’s solved if only I’m gone. Her chest ached at the fact she realized anew.

“Rosaline. You don’t think I’d care about such things.”

Romeo confronted her with an angry gaze as if unable to accept.

“I asked if you’re not leaving with me.”

“……During the day.”

Rosaline put strength in both eyes to look as sincere as possible. But she couldn’t stop her words from trembling.

“During the day, I decided impulsively out of fear. What about you would I trust to leave together when we’ve barely known each other?”

No, the truth is I want to leave with you. But I’m not bold enough to leave with you at the cost of Miss’s death.

“After Miss fell ill, I remembered the kindness the Capulets showed me. I also realized that what I shared with you was just a transgression. When I go to the grand temple soon, I intend to pray and devote myself to the Capulets.”

Even while watching him turn pale at each of her words like his throat was being strangled, Rosaline gritted her teeth and lied. Romeo kept his gaze on empty air as if wandering, shaking his head like he couldn’t accept it.

Tears finally flowed from his eyes trembling as if suppressed. Even in this moment, Rosaline thought his black pupils shone beautifully like jewels studded with stars.

After standing dazed like someone beaten, Romeo finally asked in a cracked voice:

“You don’t love me?”

Rosaline couldn’t bear to look at him and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, he didn’t show properly through the blurred tears. She just had to lie again, but the words “I don’t love you” wouldn’t come out even if she died.

“……Stop. I guess this is as far as we go.”

Rosaline expected curses to fall from his lips. That he’d point fingers calling her a frustrating, foolish woman.

But what came instead were arms grabbing her waist. Too shocked, she opened her eyes wide to find him kneeling, clinging with his cheek pressed against her thighs and lower belly.

“If I break you, will you stay by my side?”

Far from breaking, he only held her to keep her from leaving, yet he spoke so viciously.

“You said I’d crumble at your slightest gesture.”

He gripped hard enough to wrinkle her clothes. She desperately held herself up to keep from falling, then stroked his lovely blond hair while feeling her clothes grow wet with his tears.

Romeo’s head lifted in response. His wet gaze touched her meticulously, as if searching her intentions or begging her to reconsider.

But all that met him were her brown eyes trying to look away.

“You’re always like this.”

Shedding tears, he smiled faintly.

“Only loving unrequitedly without return, grieving alone then fading away.”

His speech was soft like earth soaked in water. Rosaline felt the illusion that her soul was getting wet too.

“I’m sick of chasing your back that won’t look around, chasing you as you only run from me.”

He smiled showing white teeth. With deep regret and contempt.

Rosaline wanted to tell him that now she understood him better than anyone, that she now completely abandoned, she was no different from him.

That she truly loved him.

She wanted to say that.

“Goodbye, Romeo.”

Rosaline pushed him away forcefully. Ignoring his hand that fell away obediently, she ran like fleeing and closed the garden gate. Then she collapsed after taking only a few steps. Like a fool, she spewed out the words she couldn’t say to him.

“Forget someone like me. Let go of a frustrating, dull wretch along with your anger.”

Rosaline embraced her own shoulders that no one would hold. She suddenly recalled advice she’d once given Romeo and Juliet.

“They say honey too sweet is rather disgusting. Love is the same. It becomes a disgusting poison that will harm you.”

This was a warning she herself needed. Morning sunlight touched Rosaline’s skin as she let out a bitter laugh. The light was so warm, yet why did her heart hurt so much?

She truly couldn’t understand.

“Where’s Romeo?”

“He’s nowhere. We searched every possible place but can’t find even a hair.”

The royal knight spoke as if troubled by Prince William Alberic’s question. The holy knights from the temple and attendants were in no different position.

But William felt not frustration but rather a strange thrill. That they couldn’t find him in this tiny city was proof he was a special existence!

Romeo Montague—he’d thought him just an oddity. But his nickname became reality. He was truly summoned as ‘Kata’s incarnation.’

He who’d recognized his existence in unison had to capture the incarnation first. If Father or the Crown Prince made the first move, all his plans would go to waste.

His plan was to depose the current Crown Prince, his eldest sister, and enthrone his twin Jasmine as heir.

Of course, the current Crown Prince wasn’t incompetent or particularly lacking in ability. But the problem was William and Jasmine, half-siblings to the Crown Prince.

If the current heir became monarch, Jasmine and he would have to marry nobles their sister designated and spend their lives groveling under the royal family.

This hadn’t been the plan from the start. Until a few years ago, the Crown Prince had promised that when she became monarch, at least these siblings would be freed from central politics. William had helped the Crown Prince behind the scenes wanting only that. But the Crown Prince changed her attitude when the King’s health began rapidly deteriorating.

“Don’t you know the royal family’s old traditions? How uncooperative royals were executed.”

The Crown Prince’s point was to follow her words if they didn’t want to die without anyone knowing. Ah, so that’s how you’ll be. William pretended obedience while hiding arsenic and vowed.

Rather than be ruled, he’d rule instead. This too was an old royal tradition.

So he’d worked behind the scenes in league with the temple for a long time. He’d finally found the incarnation and planned to use his position with the incarnation on the battlefield to elevate Jasmine as heir and next monarch.

After a few minor wars, his plan would succeed.

For that, he needed the temple’s power. And Romeo’s power. But that Romeo was so smitten with some woman he couldn’t come to his senses.

If necessary, he could just take that girl too. Originally, they said it took time to strip away the incarnation’s myriad human emotions for complete manifestation. Though this was from records hundreds of years old so he couldn’t be certain, he had no choice but to believe it.

William scratched his eyebrow after loosening his stiff neck at the Montague estate entrance.

“Did you search the Capulet side?”

“Yes, we went with the priests… Your Highness!”

The knight called him urgently. At the end of William’s gaze—dressed in full uniform like the splendidly armed knights—a man walked toward them aimlessly.

Romeo Montague.

No, Kata’s incarnation.

With maddeningly splendid outer skin, his gaze seemed directionless as if he’d just walked here wherever his feet took him, but the radiance and majesty he couldn’t hide, the gaze swallowing coiled fury, was Kata himself from the battlefield.

William smiled showing his canines.

“Seize him.”

The moment his order fell, holy knights and royal knights rushed at Romeo. Romeo narrowed his eyes and gazed indifferently at the knights approaching him while raising dust clouds.

Among them, the woman he’d wanted wasn’t visible.

He’d waited and been abandoned for countless times. Yet what had he expected, thinking this time would be different?

She said she loved him, so he’d been fooled by golden eyes that seemed ready to answer “I love you” right back. Though that so-gentle person looked at everyone that way, he’d stupidly confessed his love.

“Kata!”

“Please forgive the discourtesy.”

Though their opponent showed no resistance, the knights began binding his body. They seemed shocked from chasing him fruitlessly for half a day after he vanished like smoke.

Unlike their urgency, Romeo only belatedly realized who the knights and the man standing blankly behind them were while his limbs were seized. Royal hyena William trying to establish position, and the temple knights gathered under his lead.

Whoever they were didn’t matter. In lives repeated too many times to count, he’d seen thousands like William.

Only Rosaline shook him.

The knights’ handling was rough like dealing with a beast caught in a trap, but Romeo didn’t resist once.

Prince William knelt on one knee before him.

“The incarnation of Kata descended from the sun.”

At the prince’s voice filled with clear purpose and longing, Romeo thought with a sneer: Did Prince William even know the end of those who coveted the sun?

It would only be a fall anyway.

“You must come with us. Please show mercy for the lambs’ violence. We had no choice but to force you because the human heart remaining in you rejected you.”

But just as Romeo foolishly coveted Rosaline, William was already thoroughly bewitched by his inflated dreams.

Really so pathetic.

“Ah, haha! Hahaha!”

Romeo Montague laughed loudly. Then the rigid atmosphere heightened as if about to break. Each time he laughed, the earth echoed, and his two black eyes turned deep red.

“Mercy? Human heart?”

Without wiping away the tears flowing viciously, Romeo’s red eyes turned upward.

“So insignificant……”

Facing the vividly risen sun directly, he didn’t avert his gaze as if his eyes weren’t even dazzled. Until his pupils completely transformed to burn red.

He kept glaring at the blazing sun.