A small hill and a coastline. On the hill, a large bronze bell of the kind commonly seen at monasteries was drawn, and seagulls were flying over the sea.

The details added so abruptly were too specific.

It felt deliberate, as though someone wanted to make the location clear by adding these elements, to say this place is by the sea.

As though someone wanted to be found.

A flash of light cut through Andrea’s dry, exhausted eyes.

Then his gaze narrowed, as though measuring something.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Fabienne knew the painter had slipped hints to the outside through his illustration, and she let it pass.

Kidnapping Riley had been the first, immediate act of retaliation, but the final target was naturally Crown Prince Andrea.

She curled her red lips.

“Fine. Come, then, if you’re coming.”

She could destroy what he cherished and call it revenge, but that thick-skinned crown prince might simply overcome the pain of loss.

And the illustrator might not be as important to Andrea as she assumed.

Revenge was always best delivered to the person directly responsible.

Even setting aside the current affair, how long had she regarded the son born of the king’s first wife as a thorn in her eye?

That look of contempt he had always worn, as though she and Henry were no more than insects.

Twisting her red lips once more, Fabienne murmured.

“Come quickly, Andrea. Let us have one final negotiation with no way out.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A few days later.

Just as Fabienne had anticipated, Andrea and his escort forces were riding hard along the cliff tops rising above the western coast.

Pebbles kicked up by the horses’ hooves clattered and tumbled over the edge, but Andrea, riding at the front, did not slow.

They pushed through dense pine forests and leapt over tangled undergrowth for a long while.

Then the bell of a monastery, nestled somewhere deep beyond the cliffs, rang out clearly.

“That’s the place.”

If the painter had been able to hear that bell, the place where Riley was being held could not be far from here.

Andrea swept his sharp gaze over the thick forest and the ridgelines, then drove his spurs in, and the warhorse cleared the slope in a single bound.

They plunged into the densely wooded forest, and the thunder of hooves following behind shook the ground.

Without slowing, Andrea called up a map in his mind. According to it, a provincial lord’s old castle was located somewhere in this area.

And according to his informants’ reports, an unknown wealthy buyer had recently purchased that castle from the lord who had originally owned it. On top of that, traces of Blanc family money flowing into this suspicious transaction had also been found.

Fabienne!!

Andrea ground his teeth.

His eyes as he tore through the forest blazed like a predator about to sink its teeth into its prey’s throat.

Why did it take me this long to realize it was her?

He had been cursing himself the entire ride here.

Her family, the Blancs, had lost their title, and she herself had been confined to a country villa, so he had assumed she was completely stripped of power. Or rather, he had been aware of her, the way you feel a hangnail, but had thought lazily that he would deal with her properly when the time came.

That complacency had come back like a boomerang.

Andrea clenched his jaw with a fury that made his whole face rigid.

He should have finished it completely when he brought her down.

While he had been raiding the Karan marquisate and its allied families and turning the entire capital upside down, Fabienne had been quietly making her move.

With the Blanc family’s vast fortune still intact, bribing officials and contacting mercenary guilds would have been easy enough.

After nearly an hour of scouring the forest with burning eyes, they finally found an old castle so covered in ivy it was nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding woods.

The paths for horses and people had been completely overgrown, a sign the castle had gone unused for a very long time.

Andrea tied his horse and climbed the steep slope on foot, then walked toward the castle’s main gate and roared so loudly the forest rang.

“Fabienne Thea de Blanc! You have abandoned your place of confinement, and for that you are sentenced to death!”

The echo of his shout had barely faded when archers emerged from the towers, battlements, and parapets and drew their bowstrings to aim.

From their dress, they appeared to be international mercenaries loyal only to whoever paid them, affiliated with no kingdom. They followed orders and showed no particular bloodlust or hostility of their own.

Andrea and the knights behind him, on the other hand, radiated a fierce killing intent alongside the sharp, honed edge that came from years of elite training, and every mercenary went on high alert.

Watching more bowstrings being drawn along the castle walls, Alfonso muttered.

“It seems we really should have confiscated every last coin of the Blanc family’s fortune.”

But Andrea seemed to hear nothing. He roared again toward the top of the castle wall.

“Open the gate! Have your master receive me! She wants this too!”

The mercenaries, momentarily thrown off by the natural authority radiating from him, exchanged glances, and the one who appeared to be their leader called back.

“If you want to leave any room for possibility, come in alone! And unarmed!”

‘Any room for possibility’ clearly referred to Riley’s life.

The color drained from Andrea’s face in an instant.

He answered, “Accepted,” and this time the knights lined up behind him went pale.

“You must not, Your Highness!”

“It’s too dangerous!”

No one knew what traps might be set inside, or how many mercenaries were waiting within. The kingdom’s heir could not be sent in alone.

A direct *ssault to take the castle by force would be better. The royal knight order was elite, and while it would take some time, it was possible.

But Andrea had no patience to spare for that time. He needed to rescue Riley as quickly as possible, or if she was being held somewhere else, find out where.

He had already considered the possibility that Riley was being held somewhere entirely different, and had positioned his intelligence network and forces at every key location accordingly.

“Let me go in your place and negotiate.”

The knight commander stepped forward.

But Andrea simply turned and threw his longsword to the commander.

To the men trying to argue further, Andrea said with quiet finality.

“The second prince is already in our hands. They won’t do anything reckless.”

The knight commander looked into those eyes, emptied of all emotion, and could not bring himself to actively stop Andrea. A lord with that look in his eyes had never once reversed his own words or orders.

And besides, a much larger reinforcement force would arrive before long.

“Even so, there could be any number of variables! This is absolutely not acceptable, Your Highness!”

Despite Alfonso’s desperate protests, Andrea was already striding toward the castle gate.

Watching that unyielding back, with its dangerous air that made clear he would hear no one, Alfonso pressed a hand to his own forehead. He needed to stop him, but there was no stopping him.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A moment later.

Bang!

Fabienne, waiting in full dignified dress as though she were still queen of the Kingdom of Arvel, stared blankly as the door came off its hinges.

She flinched, visibly shaken, and then composed her expression as her stepson appeared from behind the slowly toppling door.

Forcing her composure back into place, she deliberately put on a leisurely smile and welcomed Andrea.

“My, who is this? It seems our magnificent eldest son missed this mother of his so dearly that he came running without even the courtesy of a knock?”

She kept her tone light and mocking, but the killing intent in Andrea’s cool grey eyes unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.

Still, she had been the one to lure him into this dead end, so she had no room to be afraid now.

Andrea crossed the room in a few strides and looked down at Fabienne with eyes that could have drawn blood.

A few mercenaries who had followed him inside moved to restrain him, but she held her chin up and waved them off.

“I’m fine. Stand back.”

The mercenaries, with no interest in these two people’s identities and regarding it all as a power struggle among nobles, withdrew at their client’s order without a word.

At the same moment, Andrea, who had been about to seize Fabienne by the throat, barely contained his fury and pulled his hand back from the air.

“Riley. Where is she.”

Killing intent rippled through Andrea’s cold, low voice, but Fabienne’s resentment was no less fierce.

How much had she wept tears of blood while he was holding Henry up to ridicule and mockery before the entire kingdom?

She tilted her head with arrogant composure and curved her eyes.

“We haven’t seen each other in so long, and you can’t even ask after your mother’s wellbeing. Isn’t that rather heartless, even for someone deposed, Your Highness?”

She watched Andrea’s expressionless face and continued.

“You need not worry about that scheming creature just yet. ‘Just yet,’ I said.”

Fabienne emphasized the last sentence.

She had been holding herself back despite every urge, because touching the woman ahead of time would ruin any deal. Who would agree to the same terms after finding out what they valued had been damaged? The only reason she had kept her hands off that woman was for the sake of Henry’s future.