At Shed’s question, Luise’s gaze grew only more resolute.

“What is it you intend to do?”

All she could think about was protecting Eve. If he tried to harm the child… she was ready to stand against him. Even if the one she had to oppose was Eve’s own father.

Her voice, firm and steady, made Shed’s eyes narrow.

“Who knows. Perhaps my list of merits for purging heretics will grow longer.”

Straightening up, he gave a bitter smile, his fingers brushing the sharper, leaner line of his jaw than before.

His warning, delivered in his deceptively languid tone, did not sound empty.

Luise felt as though she had been placed on a board crafted by him, as if the very air in this place moved at his bidding.

“Please, don’t make me draw my blade against you, Shed.”

“Then you should never have left me.”

His eyes narrowed.

Everything stemmed from Luise. He simply followed the inescapable pull of fate that led him to her. It had brought him to her.

“Shed Lester.”

It was then that an intruder cut in.

Shed lifted his long lashes and looked down toward the base of the hill.

“Daddy!”

Eve, cradled in Luise’s arms, cried out with delight.

Luise turned as well.

There stood Eclace, flanked by soldiers.

“So. It seems you sought Eclace’s help after all?”

Shed’s hand moved slowly to rest upon the hilt at his waist.

Luise shook her head.

For Eve’s safety, she had kept strictly to the conditions he had set in his note.

“I never said a word.”

“Then perhaps it was a meeting of minds.”

Shed’s eyes fixed on Eclace, standing at a distance, his voice edged with irritation.

At Eclace’s side stood Greeta—the one he had shaken off.

It must have been Greeta who carried word to him, and Eclace, realizing Luise’s absence, had acted at once.

‘Such relentless devotion.’

In the years he had been away, Luise and Eclace had grown closer than Shed had known. Perhaps even more than he had ever imagined.

The veins bulged along Shed’s forearm as his grip tightened on the hilt. Seeing his hand upon the sword, the soldiers froze in wary caution.

Eclace and the soldiers of Scizlon had completely surrounded the cliff.

Shed ran his fingers slowly over the wolf-shaped carving at the end of the hilt.

“It seems they still don’t know your secret—or the child’s.”

The low murmur brushed against Luise’s ear. She looked at him with eyes wide in fear, as if the blade were already pressing against her throat.

Shed thought to himself that he must truly have gone mad. Because every time Luise looked at him in fear, strangely… his lips threatened to curl.

Yes. Better she fear him. So she could not escape. So he could choke her weaknesses until she could not breathe.

“If you want to protect the child, then come with me.”

He extended his hand to her. It was a gesture polite and refined. Yet no threat could have been more absolute.

If she wanted to protect Eve—if she wanted to keep the child’s secret from being exposed, there was only one choice.

With trembling hands, Luise laid her palm atop his, still holding Eve close.

Shed’s mouth curved upward in satisfaction.

His hand closed firmly over hers, sealing a bargain she could never take back.

“Lea!”

As Eclace stepped forward, Shed pulled Luise towards him and pulled her into his embrace. The tiny child was swept up with her, of course.

“What do you think you’re doing, Duke Lester? To treat a helpless woman and child so roughly—!”

“Helpless?”

So that bastard truly knew nothing. If he understood the power Luise and Eve carried, he could never have said such a thing.

Shed gave a mocking laugh at Eclace’s ignorance, then lifted Luise and Eve high into his arms.

“Mommy!”

“Shed…!”

Their cries broke out, near to screams, but Shed stepped calmly forward, his face composed.

“Today, I’ll let it pass. I have more pressing matters, Eclace.”

Shed began to edge backward toward the cliff.

The horizon, where the sun half-sank blood-red, deepened in color.

“Duke Lester, stop this at once—!”

Eclace raised a hand to stop him, but in that instant—

“Until next time.”

With a smile at his lips, Shed turned and leapt into the abyss where the crimson sea spread below.

“Kyaaa!”

A scream split the twilight sky.

Luise clutched Eve tightly in her arms.

The vertical gusts of wind whipped harshly through her hair.

“Lea!”

Eclace and his soldiers rushed to the cliff’s edge, chasing after the vanished Shed.

Crash!

With a thunderous roar, waves pounded the rocks below the cliff.

Eclace craned his neck, peering down into the depths.

Beneath the Giant’s Head, a small fishing boat rocked on the waves.

Shed—who had plunged from the cliff—stood unharmed upon the deck, as though he had planned it all.

He raised his head, looking up at the cliff above.

His face carried the ease of a man who had already claimed victory.

With a refined glance, he offered the lord of Scizlon Island a farewell.

Then, with a short bow, the fishing boat skillfully steered its way between the reefs.

Only then did Eclace notice a large ship anchored farther out at sea.

Its flag, dyed crimson by the setting sun, bore the emblem of a wolf gripping a sword.

It was a Lester vessel.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

Perhaps it was the day’s turmoil, or perhaps the shock had been too much, but Eve eventually fell asleep in Luise’s arms, her tears quietening as she slept.

Shed sat in the cabin, silently watching mother and daughter.

Although he had known about the resemblance, seeing the two children side by side was still startling. In fact, it would have been impossible to claim that the child had been born to another family.

Luise still dyed her hair brown, however, just as she had when she lived as Liana. Eclace must have continued to supply her with dyeing potions.

Arms crossed, Shed tried to gauge Eve’s age. She was only a tiny child, yet thinking of her as Luise’s daughter made her seem older. Or rather, it was difficult to believe Luise had a daughter of that age at all.

‘If she’s that old… then she must have been conceived right after she fled.’

An image he had no wish to see flashed through his mind.

“It must have been good for you.”

The first words to leave Shed’s lips since boarding the ship were steeped in scorn.

While he had wasted himself on distant lands, Luise had built a home, living peacefully and happily with her daughter.

To them, Shed was exactly as Eve had said—a villain.

The feeling of being the villain who had come to destroy a family’s happiness was filthy beyond measure.

Although he had many questions, as he observed the tender bond between mother and daughter, his anger escalated more quickly than he had anticipated.

Holding Eve close, Luise finally parted her lips, still looking at him with eyes that saw only a villain.

“I heard that you once served as Governor of Blancas, Your Excellency.”

She had heard his fame through Eclace.

Following the war in Blancas, the Lester family enjoyed greater prosperity than ever before. The Duke of Lester’s name was now mentioned in the same breath as that of the imperial House of Chepbolden.

If anyone had lived well in recent years, Luise thought, it would surely be Shed. And yet she could not understand it.

At a time when he should have been revelling in the honour and glory that would go down in history, he had come all this way, dressed in humble clothing, to find her. Honour and glory did not suit his current appearance.

At first, she thought it was just his shabby clothes. But no — he was unmistakably different from before.

The body that had once been packed with overwhelming muscle and bulk was now lighter. He looked leaner and sharper, with a hint of restless severity. The slightest misstep seemed likely to set him off, which was an all the more chilling impression.

“So, you even knew I was in Blancas.”

Shed muttered as though weighing each word that slipped from her lips, dissecting them.

“While I was stumbling around in ignorance, you already knew everything about me.”

“Stumbling…?”

Her guileless expression of confusion caused Shed to press his fingers hard against his temple, as if trying to stifle his frustration.

She couldn’t possibly claim that she hadn’t known he had been searching for her. Not when she had been the one to run off in the first place.

Leaning back against the seat, Shed tilted his chin at an angle.

“I’ve been learning a bit about dark magic.”

At those words, Luise’s nape stiffened instantly.

She was tense, like prey before a predator.

Shed lazily traced his fingers along his mouth.

“I also learned about the crescent mark etched into the body.”

His violet gaze drifted to her chest, to her collarbone, where the crescent-shaped blemish lay hidden.

After the matter with Pamen, he had been buried beneath countless questions.

Why Pamen had become a heretic.
Why he bore the exact same crescent-shaped mark as Luise.
What connection that crescent mark held to the power of heresy…

And at last, he had found his answer.

“You were a heretic too.”

Tap.

His long finger lightly flicked his own chin. A small motion, silent as breath—yet it made Luise’s body tremble as though struck by thunder.

“Come to think of it, that dog bite of yours healed clean, didn’t it?”

His gaze lingered on her chest before slowly sliding down to her calves.

She rose languidly from her seat and picked up her sword.

“Back then… you excused it as holy water, didn’t you?”

He bombarded her with questions, prompting her to draw on old memories.

Luise bit her lip but said nothing. She might have managed to force out an excuse. But it would never have convinced Sheld Lester.

His silence, devoid of denial, brought him to a halt in front of her.

Then he seized the wrist with which she was cradling Eve with his large hand.

The moment she looked up at him, he swiftly cut her pale palm with a sharp blade.

Luise’s face flinched faintly. A vivid red line spread where the blade had passed, and soon heavy drops of blood pattered onto the floor.

Shed lowered the sword, staring down at the woman who did not cry out once.

The wound on her palm did not close—it continued to bleed.

“So. You could suppress it after all.”