When their lips finally separated, she didn’t even notice. She was only busy gasping for breath with her distant consciousness.

However, when Raul covered her for the second time as she panted, Kareina finally came to her senses. When she turned her head, Raul’s body froze stiffly.

“Wh-why are you doing this, Your Majesty? Don’t you recognize who I am? I’m……”

“I know. Kareina Fair Adrian. What of it?”

An answer tinged with a fishy smile flowed from Raul’s mouth. It was the correct answer, but simultaneously an answer outside the realm of expectation, so it was wrong. At this answer she couldn’t process, the sense of reality she’d barely been holding onto disappeared completely.

Could this really be inside a dream? Kareina stared at Raul’s unfathomable eyes and tried to read the meaning contained within. But she couldn’t. Before she could find an answer, his eyes slowly closed.

“……Your Majesty?”

His body collapsed heavily, pressing down on Kareina’s windpipe. When she barely escaped from beneath him, Kareina could tell Raul had fallen asleep. The sound of his regular breathing was monotonous.

The former Raul who had returned for just a brief moment had disappeared without a trace.

Kareina sat in a daze, looking down at the sleeping Emperor. The cool shadows cast across his face were only beautiful and peaceful.

As if the hot kiss from moments ago had been a dream rather than reality, only quiet breathing and dark silence circled the room.

However, the tingling sensation remaining on her lips was awakening her grainy sense of reality.

Morning broke. Since the couple’s union wasn’t an official consummation, there was no official reaction even within the palace.

However, rumors gradually began to spread. Rumors to the effect that the relationship between the imperial couple seemed different from before.

The gifts delivered to the Empress’s palace and the events at the noble council supported those rumors.

Kareina, the person in question, said nothing. The ladies-in-waiting who were curious about last night’s events deliberately lingered near her, but her tightly closed mouth wouldn’t open.

She only spent more time staring blankly out the window. For the ladies-in-waiting, it was frustrating enough to die.

Even when a sudden dinner invitation came from the Emperor’s palace, Kareina remained silent for a long while. Then, around the time the messenger delivering the message began to break into a cold sweat, she asked.

“How is His Majesty?”

“Pardon?”

“I’m asking if there’s been any change in his health. Or perhaps his memory has returned……”

“Ah. His Majesty remains the same.”

At the attendant’s answer, Kareina nodded heavily and moved her feet.

In truth, Kareina’s mind was a mess. Though she had tossed and turned with open eyes beside the deeply sleeping Raul, there was no answer that could sufficiently explain what had just happened.

When she opened her eyes in the morning and confirmed the empty space beside her, she was convinced last night’s events were a dream. But for it to be a dream, Raul’s cracked voice, the cold night temperature, and her chapped lips were far too vivid.

Then, did Raul remember?

Kareina could barely muster the courage only when the meal was halfway through.

“Your Majesty. Do you remember what happened last night?”

“……Did I make some mistake?”

“No. That’s not it.”

Kareina shook her head while gripping her cup tightly. Raul, who had been waiting for an answer, smiled with an expression half worry, half relief.

It was a wonderful smile. Clearly different from last night’s fishy laugh.

“Actually, I was worried because I don’t remember at all. In case I did something bad.”

“……You must have been very tired. You fell asleep as soon as you lay down.”

“……I have no face to show you.”

He didn’t remember yesterday’s events at all.

Perhaps this was better. Because she hadn’t decided how to react if he asked about last night’s kiss.

Kareina carefully observed Raul as he concentrated on his meal.

Clearly the same face as yesterday’s him. Yet strangely, this side looked much stronger and more solid. The firm shoulders felt even through his shirt, the veins bulging on the backs of his hands, and his somewhat cool-looking lips testified to his steadfastness.

In contrast, last night’s him…… though fierce like a beast, he had looked precarious as if he might collapse at any moment.

As she raised her gaze along his smooth cheek, gray-green eyes already directed at her collided with hers.

“……”

It was different from yesterday’s deeply sunken atmosphere. Nevertheless, the moment their eyes met, the cracking voice that had settled by her ear swept through Kareina’s mind once more. Kareina bit her lower lip firmly.

“If there’s one thing I wish for…… it’s that you would open your heart just a little.”

“……”

“Since our relationship has been the worst until now, I understand you’d be flustered. But circumstances change, don’t they? The same goes for people’s hearts.”

“……I’ll try.”

In fact, the answer was already decided. Kareina just needed to give what he wanted and take what she would gain. If he wanted her body, her body; if he wanted her heart, she could pretend to give her heart.

But would that work as easily as it sounded?

Her two fists on her thighs turned white.

For a moment, Kareina doubted whether she could let Raul’s sweet whispers go in one ear and out the other.

And a premonition flashed that it wouldn’t be as easy as expected. Unfortunately.

Except for his memory that wouldn’t return, the Emperor seemed to have almost fully recovered his former health. Even looking at the amount of work he processed in a day proved it.

Considering the New Year festival approaching right before them, it was fortunate. In a few days, the entire continent would know that the great empire’s Emperor was unshaken even after the accident.

However, having to assist with work alone because the memory loss had to be hidden was burdensome for the chief chamberlain. No matter how much he was Morantz Greendale, wasn’t he an old man approaching sixty?

It was quite exhausting to keep up with the young, intelligent Emperor’s stamina and mental agility.

Just when the drained man was about to consider retirement, thankfully an intruder appeared and interrupted the work.

“Marquis Zook requests an audience.”

At the attendant’s message, Raul frowned.

“His business.”

“He says he wishes to apologize for his rude words and behavior at the noble council.”

Marquis Zook was the person who had been dragged out after criticizing the Empress to the end at the noble council. The chief chamberlain recalled that Raul had issued an exile order for him.

In fact, for the Marquis, it was no different from a natural disaster. All he had done was mock the Empress as usual. That was all.

But an exile order out of nowhere—how shocked must he have been? Seeing that he came running only three days after the imperial command fell, it must have taken time to accept reality.

The chief chamberlain inwardly thought the Marquis was pitiful. Being oblivious was certainly a sin, but not a sin great enough to completely overturn one’s life, was it?

Wouldn’t showing mercy at this point sufficiently convey the message not to touch the Empress?

However, the Emperor clearly didn’t think so.

“Would someone who’s sorry come here? Tell him to go back since I hate even the sight of him.”

“Your Majesty, didn’t the Marquis come to apologize in his own way? Still, you should at least hear him out……”

The chief chamberlain tried to interject a word as a fellow noble, but it was of little use. Raul instead looked at him pathetically, then waved his hand irritably.

“Tell him if it were me, I’d spend this time with my family. Because in two weeks, I won’t be able to see them forever.”

It seemed the Marquis was as unlucky as he was oblivious.

But this too was his fate. The chief chamberlain, having lived long, knew well that life wasn’t fair to everyone.

That’s why humans should have either perception or luck—one of the two.

As he clicked his tongue and silently gathered the documents, a voice dripping with sarcasm was heard.

“If you’re going to apologize, shouldn’t you do it to the person you wronged?”

“……What? Who would that be?”

The chief chamberlain, who asked dumbly, realized he’d asked a foolish question. The person Marquis Zook had fiercely slandered to her face. Wasn’t it the Empress?

“Are you saying if he directly seeks forgiveness from Her Majesty the Empress, you’ll withdraw the exile order?”

Raul only spun his pen on his hand without saying anything. However, the chief chamberlain, from his long experience serving the Emperor, knew well this meant affirmation.

But would the Marquis actually apologize to the Empress? Recalling the Marquis who was desperate to align himself with the ducal family somehow, the chief chamberlain soon shook his head.

“The Marquis probably wouldn’t dream of seeking an apology from Her Majesty the Empress.”

“That’s his fate. Perhaps that way my mood will be better.”

At the statement seemingly devoid of even a speck of mercy, the chief chamberlain sighed.

“My goodness…… Now that I look at it, Your Majesty doesn’t have even a speck of compassion.”

“Did I have it before?”

“Well……”

Come to think of it, Raul hadn’t been a benevolent monarch before either. That wasn’t to say it was bad. Isn’t power originally strongest when it’s ruthless?

Raul’s leadership had always leaned toward the cold and cruel rather than being swayed by emotion. It wasn’t a bad thing for Tirantus, which needed a strong monarch rather than a benevolent one after the war.

However, it would have been unfortunate for the Empress. Because Raul had been particularly cruel to her.

“Well, Your Majesty has always been someone without compassion. When Her Majesty the Empress fainted during the prisoner execution ceremony, even I, who am Tirantus to the bone, felt uneasy.”

“……Why bring up that incident now?”

“Actually, I still can’t believe it. You clearly treated her like an enemy. And why would you remember only Her Majesty the Empress of all people?”

At the uncomfortable story, Raul’s face crumpled. Whenever he heard stories about the past, an anxious emotion surged up from deep within him.

The fear that he might never obtain Kareina’s heart.

When he briefly revealed this, the imperial physician said it was a sufficiently possible phenomenon and didn’t make much of it. Explaining it was natural logic.

—Right now, aren’t you psychologically dependent on Her Majesty the Empress? The more strongly you desire something, the greater the anxiety about loss becomes.

Then he presented two methods: obtain the desired object, or eliminate the heart that craves the object. Of course, he had no intention whatsoever of choosing the latter. Though it didn’t seem possible anyway.

“At dawn. Do you know why I left the Empress’s palace early?”

Raul asked as if talking to himself.