At the border of the Tarecus Kingdom, Casian commanded his troops to scatter in all directions.

Since this was a mission to capture the prince alive, being conspicuous wouldn’t help, so he planned for them to scatter in different directions and regroup near the kingdom. 

The return journey after capturing the prince wouldn’t be a problem whether the Empire brought troops or not. The moment they captured the prince, the Empire would hold all the cards.

Rihana, who kept telling Casian to go back, declared her intention not to accompany him until the end and crossed the border first. Casian couldn’t understand why Rihana was so angry and felt frustrated for quite some time. 

However, he endured it, thinking that once he returned after capturing the Tarecus prince with his help, she would eventually thank him and regret being angry about those matters.

He dispersed the troops he’d brought to cross the border and crossed himself with his right-hand man, thinking:

‘Once the mission to capture the Tarecus prince is over, I should hold the wedding ceremony with Rihana immediately.’

He’d planned to marry after the rebellion ended and the Empire stabilized, but since the Emperor found out, there would be no change of emperor.

Complacently, that’s what he thought.

Rihana heard about the Tarecus Kingdom’s secret passages from a kingdom knight that one of her subordinates had made contact with.

‘There are no other conditions. In exchange for telling you the secret passage leading to the prince’s room, you must go alone. If you accept the condition that no one else can accompany the Count, I’ll tell you the way through the secret passage.’

Though it could be a trap, Rihana needed to finish this as quickly as possible and go find Raiden, so she followed the kingdom knight alone without hesitation. Her six subordinates who’d planned to infiltrate the royal palace through different routes looked worried, but she told them not to worry and followed the kingdom knight.

While passing through passages not much different from the Empire’s secret passages, she suddenly became curious about what kind of person the Tarecus prince might be. She didn’t think she wouldn’t be able to bring the Tarecus prince out of the royal palace with her own power.

Though he was someone who possessed magical power and could use magic, she could bring him to the Empire without using physical force. Since the Tarecus Kingdom was still under the Empire’s interference, she thought she could negotiate by taking advantage of that gap. The reason for capturing the Tarecus prince in the first place would be to sit at the negotiation table with the Tarecus Kingdom, not to put him in danger.

She realized the Emperor was thinking that far when he commanded her to bring the prince safely without harming a single hair on his head. So she planned to persuade the prince that sneaking into the royal palace was for friendship, not war. 

But Casian, who heard about this from Melissa, misunderstood that Rihana was in danger and came leading troops. Hoping that things wouldn’t go wrong because of Casian, who wouldn’t listen to reason, Rihana carefully snuck into the prince’s bedroom through the secret passage.

* * *

It was a deep night with clouds completely covering the moon, so the prince’s room was very dark, but having entered through the secret passage, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see the golden hair of someone sitting in a large chair in the center.

“I greet Your Highness, the Prince of Tarecus. I apologize for introducing myself in this manner, but…”

Suddenly, a familiar and longed-for scent brushed past her nose, and Rihana unconsciously stopped speaking.

The pleasant, cool winter scent that came from Raiden.

Rihana’s heart began beating rapidly.

No way, that couldn’t be. The missing Raiden couldn’t be here right now.

Just because the golden hair and blue eyes that shone particularly bright in this pitch-black darkness resembled Raiden’s, thinking that the Tarecus prince might actually be Raiden made no sense. 

But still, the scent similar to Raiden’s body odor and the longing that kept bubbling up somehow created both anticipation and anxiety that the man before her might be Raiden.

Unable to finish her words, she stared intently at the figure sitting before her for a long time. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt her ears, making it impossible to hear any other sounds in the room. Only the sound of her own heartbeat wrapped around her ears.

After standing frozen for quite a long time, Rihana opened her mouth to continue the words she’d stopped.

“I…”

Suddenly, the clouds outside the window cleared like magic and the bright moon revealed itself. Rihana reflexively frowned at the moonlight that suddenly entered her eyes and looked at the prince before her. 

The prince’s hair, sitting in the large chair with his back to the moonlight, sparkled like gold in the light.

Rihana spoke toward the prince again.

“Please come with me to the Kadelai Empire.”

“…”

“His Majesty the Emperor commanded that you be quietly escorted. He said to understand that this kind of invitation is due to the timing. You must also know about the rebellious atmosphere currently happening in the Empire…”

Rihana, who had been pouring out words like a machine gun toward the man before her, suddenly stopped speaking. Her eyes widened to the point of popping out when the man’s head moved diagonally to the side. Moonlight poured over the side profile of the man who had placed one hand on the chair’s armrest and rested his chin on it.

“…Rai?”

Raiden’s name slipped from Rihana’s lips like a whisper.

“Raiden.”

Thud. At the low, calm baritone that came from the man’s mouth correcting his name, strength left Rihana’s legs. She sank to the spot and looked up at the golden-haired man who stood up and walked toward her. Raiden bent down and gently helped the collapsed Rihana to her feet.

“How… how…”

Though no one was choking her neck, her throat was completely blocked and no voice came out. At the longed-for scent and longed-for face, tears immediately poured out.

“Rai…!”

When Rihana unconsciously stretched out both arms and embraced Raiden, Raiden also tightly hugged her waist and buried his face in her shoulder.

“Yes, being called Rai by you might be better.”

Originally, using the name Raiden could be problematic since someone might connect it to having the same name as the Tarecus prince, so he’d told her to call him Rai. But that name had eventually become like a pet name she called him, and he thought it would be better for her to continue calling him that.

“I was worried. Why… how…”

Her sobbing voice trembled.

Raiden was about to open his mouth to tell her about what Casian had done and why he couldn’t return, when he saw him appear at the door and his eyes narrowed.

“You, you b*stard!”

Casian confirmed that the man embracing Rihana before his eyes was Raiden and his face hardened.

Strength entered Raiden’s hands holding Rihana. His brow furrowed automatically because of that d*mn b*stard who appeared before they could even set the mood and share a reunion kiss.

The moment Casian saw Raiden holding Rihana, his eyes flipped. He drew his sharp sword and pointed it at him for daring to embrace his fiancée without permission. Startled, Rihana pushed Raiden behind her and shouted at Casian.

“Put away your sword, Your Lordship!”

“You were pretending to be a slave with memory loss, but you were the Tarecus prince?!”

“Your Lordship! I said put down your sword!”

“Come here, Rihana! I’m going to capture that b*stard and thoroughly investigate what he was trying to steal from the Empire by becoming your slave!”

“Your Lordship!”

Raiden pulled Rihana, who was blocking his way, behind him when the excited Casian swung his sword toward Raiden. Raiden blocked Casian’s sword with his own sword at his waist and spoke in a cold voice.

“Do you know what effect your current actions will have on the relationship between Tarecus and Kadelai?”

But Casian immediately attacked Raiden, seemingly unwilling to listen to his words. Raiden lightly blocked Casian’s attack with his sword while pushing Rihana to safety, and Rihana shouted at Casian to stop.

The royal guards rushed in due to the commotion in the room, and the troops Casian brought also invaded the royal palace. The palace instantly erupted into fighting, and Casian and Raiden also began fighting like they would kill each other. However, Raiden didn’t use magic since he didn’t want things to escalate.

“Stop it, Casian Lewandes!”

Rihana drew her sword and struck away Casian’s sword that was coming down toward Raiden before Raiden could, shouting. Casian seemed shocked by his fiancée’s action of attacking him and froze in place.

“Are you planning to disobey His Majesty the Emperor’s command?! Because of you, this could become a situation where war breaks out! What on earth are you thinking?!”

“Why!”

Casian shouted fiercely at Rihana.

“Why are you protecting that b*stard?! Have you forgotten that I’m your fiancé?!”

He couldn’t understand why his fiancée had changed so much. Though cold winds had been blowing toward him at some point, she was the woman who had chosen him first. 

Despite everything he’d done for her until now, Rihana didn’t appreciate any of it. That was so resentful and infuriating. Casian’s resentment and anger ultimately turned toward Raiden.

‘If only that b*stard wasn’t here…!’

He thought that if Raiden just died, Rihana would return to him. Not in the form of burning love, but certainly as the Rihana who wanted him. He thought she would definitely return.

So he became desperate to kill Raiden, losing his reason and focusing only on k*lling Raiden. Casian was also as excellent at swordsmanship as Raiden or Rihana, and since he had much more real combat experience than them, he was skilled.

While making skilled attacks and driving Raiden back, Casian cleverly swung his sword to make Raiden look at Rihana, then aimed for his neck when Raiden let his guard down. 

Rihana, who couldn’t bring herself to attack her fiancé and had only been shouting for him to stop instead of blocking Casian’s sword with her own, saw this and instinctively threw her body in front of Raiden.

“Rihana!”

“Hana!”

Casian and Raiden called Rihana’s name simultaneously.

Raiden cast a defensive spell at the same time as calling her name, but Casian’s sword had already pierced straight through the upper part of Rihana’s chest.

“Ugh…! Cough!”

Rihana, pierced by the sword, coughed up blood and collapsed, and Raiden quickly reached out to catch her in his arms before she could fall to the floor.

“Hana!”

Casian, who reached for Rihana but was a step too late, covered his head with both hands and sank to the spot, screaming.

“Nooooo!”