“……Miss Jane. It would be good to mind your words and actions. You remember the terms of the contract, don’t you?”

Alicia spoke in a somewhat stern voice to Jane, who had come out to see her off at the door. Jane knew exactly what Alicia was warning about, so she bowed her head deeply and answered in a timid voice.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you understand. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alicia didn’t say anything more to Jane and disappeared with the priestesses who had come to meet her. Jane sighed only after the sound of Alicia’s footsteps, as she descended the stairs, had vanished.

‘Why is His Highness hiding his identity and hovering around Lady Yerena?’

Jane couldn’t understand why Roshan pretended to be a knight named Kian and volunteered to guard Yerena. But whatever the reason, she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. She wasn’t directly lying, but she was certainly contributing to deceiving someone by hiding the truth.

‘We’re all deceiving Lady Yerena, including me. Lady Yerena knows nothing……’

Moreover, whenever she faced Roshan looking at Yerena, she felt as if she had offered a sacrifice to a huge monster. Therefore, Jane found it difficult to control her pounding heart whenever the two met, even briefly.

‘Stop. Don’t think too deeply. I need to focus on my home now. If I can’t pay the interest, Rose or Widna will have to go work far away.’

Jane, who had lowered her head with guilt, shook it vigorously to clear her distracting thoughts. Now was not the time for her to be picky about things.

‘But that’s deceiving the princess.’

‘Well…… Is this the time for you to worry about that? Your family situation isn’t good.’

‘How did you know that……’

‘There are always spies in war. And some of them infiltrate, disguised as people of your status. Thanks to that, even though it takes more effort, we check all letters going to and from the laborers.’

‘……’

‘Going home now won’t solve anything. If you lose your house, all your family members’ lives will be in danger this winter. Shouldn’t you prevent that first?’

Jane hadn’t told Yerena, but her family situation was actually serious. While she was at the battlefield, her older brother, the pillar of the family, had lost the use of one leg. The family had borrowed money for immediate living expenses, but they had no ability to repay it.

The debt, which couldn’t even be half paid with the money earned from the battlefield, and the mountain of accumulated interest….. Despite the pricks of her conscience, Jane couldn’t refuse this job.

“Jane? If you’re done seeing them off, please come in quickly. It’s cold in the corridor.”

Just as Jane was trying to shake off her guilt while steeling her resolve, Yerena called out to her in a kind voice, wondering why she hadn’t returned. Coming to her senses, Jane turned around to enter the room but paused.

“……I’m sorry for deceiving you, Lady Yerena.”

Jane murmured with her hand on the doorknob. But of course, it was an apology that would never reach the person concerned.

* * *

Outside, it was already dark. Alicia, who was about to return with the priestesses who had come to meet her, noticed someone standing near the tower’s entrance and stopped walking.

“You’re still here.”

Roshan, who had been standing still like a statue under the soft moonlight, slowly rolled his eyes to stare at Alicia. Although she couldn’t see his expression, her shoulders stiffened, seemingly tense, as soon as his gaze reached her.

“……Do you intend to stay longer?”

After hesitating for a moment, Alicia carefully asked. Roshan turned his head back to look outside and answered briefly,

“Yes.”

After being served tea by Yerena, Roshan had immediately left the room. But that was all; he hadn’t left the tower. In a way, it was natural. He was currently acting as Yerena’s guard under the name Kian.

Alicia’s face hardened momentarily at Roshan’s emotionless answer. But she soon bowed deeply and bid farewell.

“Then we shall take our leave first, Your Highness.”

Alicia and her party passed by Roshan and moved away. Roshan watched the light from the lamp held by the priestess standing on Alicia’s left gradually recede, then moved his body toward the entrance.

His red eyes, half-visible in the arch-shaped entrance, clearly saw the darkness outside. The area beyond the tower was desolate, as if ghosts might appear at any moment. With no proper lamps in sight, the surroundings were shrouded in darkness, and the environment, untouched by human hands, was in disarray.

He raised his eyebrows slightly as he surveyed the surroundings of the tower. The first thing that caught his eye was the tall trees. The trees, serving as the tower’s fence, were all healthy and well-kept. However, branches jutted out in places, and the shrubs were unsightly and overgrown. The ground below mirrored this disorder, with the path, overrun by weeds, looking shabby and neglected.

“What a mess.”

Roshan muttered as he withdrew his gaze. He had visited this tower since he was quite young. But he had never thought of this place as a mess before.

Yet somehow, today the place bothered him greatly. Roshan kicked a nearby pebble for no reason. The pebble rolled away but didn’t go far before getting caught in weeds and stopping. Looking at the weeds with withered ends, Roshan decided to tidy up this place.

‘It’s not a large area, so perhaps a week would be enough.’

Thinking about the land becoming neat, it didn’t seem bad to plant flowers and tend to various spots. Winter was coming soon, so he wouldn’t be able to enjoy them immediately, but when spring arrived, quite a beautiful scene would unfold. He pondered for a long time about what to place on the ground.

‘If nothing else……’

Roshan, who was thinking he must definitely plant lilies, suddenly stiffened. Why was he having such thoughts? Though he didn’t voice the answer aloud, he already knew the cause.

‘Yerena Sedas.’

The woman who had caught his eye from the first time he saw her refused to leave his mind. No, as time passed, she increasingly grated on his nerves.

Was it the pale face and clear eyes that shed pearl-like tears while hiding behind the throne? Or was it that fragile appearance, with long golden hair flying as she ran toward her mother, looking as if she might break at any moment? He couldn’t tell anymore. Roshan only knew that when he looked at Yerena, he was captivated by a strange feeling he had never experienced before in his life.

This emotion, as mysterious as a labyrinth, wasn’t particularly pleasant, but strangely, it wasn’t unpleasant either. And as these unidentifiable feelings accumulated layer by layer, Roshan grew more curious. He wanted to see what face the princess of the small country he had destroyed with his own hands would make. How she would move. His desire to examine and probe into these things surged like a flood.

However, if he approached the princess while revealing his identity, it was obvious that what he could see would be limited. She would either shout that he was her enemy and show anger, or display fear.

‘The princess must not know that I am here.’

Therefore, Roshan satisfied his desire through a somewhat gloomy method. He secretly watched her vent her anger and hatred on his subordinate knight while hiding his existence, and he secretly observed her up close as she collapsed on her parents’ coffins and wept, blind from the shock of losing her parents.

He was aware that he was toying with and deceiving the princess. But instead of guilt, Roshan felt satisfaction with his actions. Especially when he was alone with Yerena while concealing his identity, his fingertips tingled with satisfaction filling his chest.

However, as soon as they left the Sedas Kingdom, the satisfaction disappeared. On the way from the kingdom to the Empire, Roshan’s mood twisted whenever he looked at Yerena in the carriage. More precisely, it had been like that since he saw her smiling while conversing with the woman named Jane whom he had placed beside her.

The faintly raised corners of her lips and the subtle vitality that remained. When these were directed at someone else, it felt like having something hidden in his pocket stolen. He felt a sense of loss that he hadn’t felt even when giving up the emperor’s seat, and he even developed murderous thoughts toward the commoner woman who had done nothing wrong.

As irritation rose from his uncontrollable emotions, impulses kept surging up. Let’s stop hiding his existence regardless of what expression the princess makes. Let’s just watch her distort her face hideously while screaming that he’s the enemy, then cut off interest. However, for some reason, reason suppressed his impulse in the end, and Roshan did not reveal his existence to Yerena.

How long had it been like this? While he was struggling with his difficult-to-control mood, a group of assassins disguised as Sedas resistance fighters launched an attack. And that day, Roshan realized something while saving Yerena.

‘But w-who are you……?’

The princess had never heard his voice before.

On the first day, when he beheaded the King of Sedas and queen, he hadn’t said a word until Yerena fainted. And it had been the same afterward. Roshan hadn’t opened his mouth in situations where Yerena was conscious and could recognize someone’s voice.

‘The princess has seen my face but doesn’t know my voice. And now the princess’s eyes are……’

The moment he realized this fact, Roshan trembled with ecstasy and unconsciously raised the corners of his mouth.

‘What about the high priest?’

‘For now, I’ve arranged a place as you instructed.’

Afterward, as soon as they arrived in the Empire, Roshan assumed the identity of ‘Kian Modre,’ someone who was already dead. Then he blackmailed the high priest to frame Yerena, who would have been pushed into his half-brother’s bedroom, with the false charge of a curse and confined her in the tower.

‘……I’m not feeling well. I’m sorry, but could you leave for today?’

However, the plan didn’t go perfectly according to his thoughts. Roshan’s lips twisted as he watched Yerena pushing him away despite hiding behind the false persona of Kian.

Yerena hadn’t figured out his identity. But she showed aversion to him, whether by instinct or not.

Of course, she wouldn’t have good feelings toward an imperial knight, but Roshan was displeased by her showing particular aversion to him. The stiffened face, shoulders narrowed as if frightened, gestures trying to back away. Seeing this, he was overwhelmed by the base desire to throw her much smaller body onto the bed.

‘If it’s just lust for a woman’s body……’

Wouldn’t it be fine to press her down with his whole body and hurt her? After all, she was just a prisoner from a defeated country. Along with these thoughts, dirty fantasies that made him want to curse filled his mind in an instant. And even now, after leaving the room, such fantasies continued.

Roshan found himself ridiculous and incomprehensible. As he let out a hollow laugh while looking outside, he suddenly stopped. Then, with a rough movement, he turned his body and went back into the tower.

Thud.

After closing the tower’s entrance, Roshan stood in front of the wall opposite the starting point of the spiral staircase inside the tower. As he quickly pressed several stones that made up the wall in an unknown sequence, amazingly, with a clunking sound, the floor right next to it opened, revealing stairs leading downward.

Roshan stepped into the space with familiarity, his figure gradually swallowed by the darkness beneath the stairs. When he was halfway gone, the floor creaked softly and returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened.

Darkness fell more thickly around the quiet tower, and near the tower, a black bird that had suddenly flown in from somewhere perched on the tallest tree.

The bird’s eyes were strangely bright red. After tidying its wings with its beak for a moment, the bird soon raised its head and stared fixedly at the princess’s lit bedroom, watching over it like a guard until morning came.