Richard frowned at this nonsensical statement.

“The empress? Why? Would the empress try to kill Rozena who carries my child?”

“Actually, there’s something I haven’t told Your Majesty. I just heard it myself and was planning to tell you after the ceremony, but the timing was off. After I left with Your Majesty, my wife, who prays at the temple every day, saw Her Majesty the Empress.”

Countess Bergman had been waiting for her husband near the imperial palace when she forcibly detained him to tell him about the oracle she had overheard.

She said it was something that couldn’t be kept secret, but also couldn’t be sent in a letter.

“Lady Lydia and Her Majesty the Empress were making a deal regarding an oracle.”

“So what oracle is it that’s so important?”

“There was an oracle that a hero who will open a new era will be born. It said the child would have eyes shining like gold and hair like spun gold threads.”

Simultaneously surprised by the oracle, Richard understood the empress. With such an oracle, she would want to prevent it from leaking out at any cost. And she would have wanted to eliminate Rozena’s child before it was born.

Lydia was also contemptible for making deals with the oracle, but when had she not been contemptible?

“One of my children will become such a figure?”

Beyond contempt, a sense of pride and joy washed over him. It was good to be remembered as a wise ruler, but the news that his child would surpass his father and be remembered in history as a great ruler of the ages brought him boundless joy.

When he rushed to the Herington viscounty and saw the child with golden hair that looked just like him, Richard couldn’t hide his joy and his eyes reddened.

* * *

Lydia and Arsen reunited at the Marquis Evansi’s residence. High Priest Manus, who was already acting as pope, readily permitted her outing.

Waiting for Arsen at the marquis’s residence, Lydia wanted to run and embrace him as soon as she saw him, but when she actually faced him, her feet felt stuck to the ground as if glued.

Arsen felt the same way. They returned to the awkward atmosphere of their last moments before parting.

The stiff atmosphere continued even after Arsen and Lydia were left alone.

“Um, I was shortsighted, Sir.”

Lydia thought Arsen was still upset. Though the war might have eased his feelings considerably, she thought there would still be a knot in a corner of his heart.

Since her fault was slightly heavier if they were to weigh their wrongs, Lydia wanted to completely soothe Arsen’s heart.

Having made up her mind, Lydia first reached out and gently stroked Arsen’s thigh.

“Are you still angry?”

“……”

“I promise I won’t do anything dangerous like that again.”

Angry? His anger had long since dissipated. No, he hadn’t been angry to begin with. He had only been terrified by the fact that he might have lost Lydia forever without even knowing.

“Shall I promise? Promise?”

Yet Arsen didn’t tell Lydia the truth straightforwardly. He made the cowardly choice to pretend to be angry because he enjoyed her touch as she tried to soothe him.

However, when her hand moved to a dangerous area, Arsen had no choice but to drop his pathetic act.

When he wasn’t swinging his sword, he had thought of Lydia constantly, and each day felt like a year.

That feeling had gnawed at Arsen’s vaunted patience every day, and now little remained. If Lydia stimulated him further here, he might lose his reason and pounce on her.

Then he would be branded not just as a petty man sulking at his lover, but as a beast, and Arsen didn’t want that outcome. At least with Lydia, he wanted to be a gentleman.

“I’m the one who should apologize. That day, instead of getting angry, I should have first asked if you were alright.”

Finally, Arsen took Lydia’s hand that was swimming across his thigh and interlaced their fingers.

“I thought you were disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed? Why would I be disappointed over something like that?”

“Really?”

“Of course. Actually, I went to see you the day you departed for war. If I had been disappointed in you, I wouldn’t have gone that day.”

Lydia had wiped away tears watching Arsen’s back as he left for the battlefield. Hidden in the crowd, Arsen probably hadn’t seen her.

“I knew.”

“What?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t have known?”

She thought their eyes had met, but it must have been her imagination.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“How did you see me? There were so many people.”

“No matter how many people there are, I can spot you at a glance.”

Very strangely, Lydia was always at the end of Arsen’s gaze. Since before they had this relationship, for quite a long time.

“Will you always stay within my sight?”

“Afraid I’ll cause trouble again when you can’t see me?”

“No. Just because I want to see you.”

Wanting to see her even while looking at her.

How could he explain this piercing longing? He wanted to wrap it up nicely, but Arsen could only think of one sentence.

“I love you, Lydia.”

Arsen took out a ring box from inside his coat. Then he knelt on one knee before her.

“Will you marry me?”

A pink diamond sparkled on his hand. A ring resembling Lydia’s hair.

It might have been locked away in a safe forever, but now finding its rightful owner, the ring shone more brilliantly than ever.

“Yes.”

Lydia reached out to Arsen. He slipped the ring onto her ring finger and kissed it. He felt happy, yet also worried.

He already felt like crying just because Lydia had accepted his proposal—what would happen on their wedding day? When he vowed to be with her for life, he might really shed tears.

It would certainly look unseemly if the groom cried.

Not only that, the Black Wolf Knights would mock and tease him every time their anniversary came around.

“But, Sir, when did you prepare the ring?”

Lydia’s reasonable suspicion fell on Arsen’s head, which was already wet with thoughts of the future that hadn’t even arrived yet.

Clearly, Arsen had been on the battlefield, then directly entered the city and headed to the imperial palace, and came to Marquis Evansi’s residence immediately after the award ceremony.

No matter how you looked at it, there was no time to prepare a ring, so how did he happen to have a ring right now?

‘Surely he hasn’t been carrying it around all the time?’

No, that couldn’t be. Maybe normally, but would he take a ring to war?

That was delusional, Lydia shook her head inwardly.

‘If I say I’ve been carrying it all along, I’ll look like a strange man.’

Arsen gritted his teeth invisibly. Since the day he got the ring back from the imperial family, he had carried it with him constantly. Ready to propose whenever the time was right.

Kedrick and some other knights, self-proclaimed experts in romance, had advised Arsen that “proposal is all about timing.”

Yet when Arsen asked when that timing was, they vaguely answered, “You’ll feel it when the moment comes.” Arsen carried the ring every time to catch that timing.

But for him, moments that felt right came too frequently. He wanted to propose every time he saw her—what exactly was this “timing”?

Arsen couldn’t quite grasp it, but he at least knew that sneaking through a window for a secret meeting wasn’t the appropriate time to propose.

As a result, he always carried the ring, and somehow ended up taking it to the battlefield too, which fortunately allowed him to propose at the right time, but he absolutely couldn’t tell Lydia this fact.

“I prepared it in advance, planning to propose today.”

“I see.”

Fortunately, Lydia seemed to believe him. Arsen quickly changed the subject to prevent her from thinking more deeply.

“When is the pope’s enthronement ceremony?”

“In ten days, when the star Ophirius appears.”

By then, Lydia would also be free.

“Ten days should be enough.”

“For what?”

“Time to wrap up life in the capital.”

Arsen didn’t want to stay in the capital any longer. Though unlikely, he worried that if they stayed in the capital longer, something might disrupt their wedding again.

Let’s quickly escape to the grand duchy before anything happens. In his mind, he calculated whether he could also clear out the Marquis Evansi’s residence within ten days.

“Um, Sir Arsen.”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ll go back to the temple now.”

High Priest Manus had said she could stay overnight, but Lydia insisted on returning to the temple. Arsen’s face, who had naturally assumed she would stay with him, filled with dismay.

He looked visibly concerned that he might have done something wrong during the proposal.

“Will you visit my room tonight too?”

He had done nothing wrong. Lydia just felt a little, very little, regretful that they only had ten nights left to enjoy those thrilling secret meetings.

It seemed like just yesterday that she watched Arsen’s departing back every night with sadness, but now that she was certain they wouldn’t part, the sad memories faded and only the thrilling sensation of their sinful acts remained strongly.

But it was too early to feel regretful. They still had ten days left to commit sins.

Lydia whispered in Arsen’s ear, shy but determined.

“I’ll wait for you.”