The week felt endless.

‘Maybe I should have said I’d come in four days.’

Aslan’s face floated before her eyes so persistently she almost regretted it. Her mood swung dozens of times a day.

His face would surface and her heart would flutter with excitement, then the memory of being sent away the moment it was over would sour her mood, and it cycled on and on.

The maidservants tread carefully around Freya’s unusual mood.

They assumed she was unsettled because talk of marriage was beginning to circulate. Not one of them guessed that the Ingrone hostage was making her mind go in circles.

With no one daring to bother her, the boredom only grew. The more restless she felt, the more what happened with Aslan drifted through her thoughts.

That sharp, addictive taste!

Once a tongue experienced something truly special, going back to something plain was hard. The sweet, stinging intensity kept lingering at the tip of her tongue.

She was starting to worry she would never be satisfied with something ordinary again.

‘And I can’t just keep being on the receiving end. I have to defend the pride of a Vaigon woman.’

The nerve of him, acting like he mastered every bedroom art just because he read a few books.

How could she flatten that insufferable arrogance of his?

Fired up, Freya called her maidservants together.

Two heads are better than one, as they say. She intended to pool the wisdom and knowledge of Vaigon’s women.

‘Where does he get off being so smug with just a book? The true masters hide in the shadows.’

Among them, the stories from women who bore two or three children were the most riveting.

Accounts of bedroom matters so explicit that Freya’s face burned red came pouring out.

And so Freya learned real, practical strategies that no book could teach.

What she now held in her right hand was an unidentified gel made from the slippery m*cus of seaweed.

The maidservant who gave it to her whispered that it contained ingredients to heighten arousal. She was genuinely excited to see if it worked.

‘With this…’

Freya’s gaze shifted to her left. In her left hand was a leather restraint used on prisoners.

‘Tie him up with this, rub him with this, and he’ll be absolutely undone, right?’

Freya looked back and forth between her two hands and smiled a devious smile.

“Hehehe.”

She was going to watch that clean, composed face of his fall completely apart.

She would make Aslan cry, and get payback for her stinging bottom and the bitter feeling at the end.

‘I can’t be the only one who feels bad.’

Of course, spreading the rumor and putting him in a difficult position was clearly her fault.

‘But kicking me out without even a kiss is too much, isn’t it?’

He was also in the wrong for coldly turning away a woman he shared a bed with, Freya vowed with fierce determination to have her revenge.

***

The long-awaited day arrived.

But she couldn’t be purely happy about it. Just as she sat waiting for the sun to go down, news fell on her like a bolt from the blue.

Freya’s eyes went wide, like she took a blow to the back of the head.

“The Dolton family is coming tomorrow?”

Bjorn tilted his chin as though wondering what there was to be so surprised about.

“Yes. It would be best to settle the marriage talk before they leave for trade.”

“Were you serious about that marriage?”

“Would I joke about your marriage?”

“I wish you were joking…”

Freya’s shoulders drooped. Things were moving faster than she expected.

At this rate, would she end up married before Ulfgar? Was she really going to marry Leif? Everything went dark before her eyes.

It wasn’t that she doubted her parents’ judgment. They loved and cherished her more than anyone.

If Haakon decided to focus on trade over war, as her father said, then the Dolton family, long overlooked, would rise in prominence.

Even when many kingdoms declared they would not trade with Vaigon for its wars and raids, Dolton steadily carved out trade routes.

He opened his own independent trading lanes through rare spices, teas, and other goods that others couldn’t deal in.

And Dolton’s eldest son, Leif…

‘He’s plump and not very manly, but I heard he’s kind.’

Word was that he was so gentle and good-natured that no one ever saw him lose his temper.

Marrying a man like that, she would probably live just as freely and comfortably as she did now.

She was beginning to slowly understand why her father chose Leif as her betrothed.

Bjorn, who waited quietly for Freya to collect her thoughts, lowered his voice gently.

“I believe you’re a smart girl. Don’t be foolish over your pride. What has your father always told you?”

“…Don’t be swayed by small waves. Look at the sky.”

“That’s right.”

Freya walked out of the room with heavy steps.

‘He’s better than arrogant, overbearing men. He won’t order me around.’

Her head understood, but her heart seethed with rebellion. If she couldn’t calm this feeling, she might blow up something important.

‘If only I never knew Aslan.’

Then she wouldn’t feel this restless now.

‘Nothing is decided yet. Tomorrow’s marriage talk could still fall through.’

She tried to hold onto that slim possibility, but reality was too clear and too heavy.

‘If the marriage is decided, I can’t see Aslan anymore.’

The excitement and the joy would be over. The sudden sting at the tip of her nose and the prickling of tears was just regret, surely.

It was at its best right now. The prince’s hidden true nature was starting to show, and it was just getting interesting.

‘Enjoy it while I can.’

Freya fastened the pouch holding her secret weapons to her side.

A maidservant spotted her sneaking out in the dead of night and nearly leapt out of her skin, but who could stop a riled-up wild horse?

Freya shot her a ferocious look and issued her warning.

“Keep your mouth shut or there will be consequences. It’s because of you all that I’m about to end up married to Leif. Keep making me angry and I’ll turn everything upside down.”

The maidservant, who knew her well, went pale and nodded frantically.

Freya slipped out of the manor and gave her horse a firm kick in the side.

The reeds grew taller in the week she was away, just like the desire swelling inside her.

Knowing the end was near made her all the more desperate. She wanted to race to Aslan as fast as she could.

She cut swiftly through the reed field that tickled her ankles. The summer night wind brushed past her cheeks.

The warm breeze felt like Aslan’s palm. The careful way he wiped down her exhausted, unmoving body and face.

When she surrendered herself so docilely, like a child, did he smile?

She clearly remembered him pinching the tip of her nose and letting out a small, involuntary laugh.

‘Is Aslan waiting for me too?’

Freya shook her head, catching herself hoping.

Don’t expect anything. Don’t try to guess what he feels.

If she got engaged, this relationship would be over. And even if the engagement fell through, this couldn’t go on.

He was Ingrone’s hostage. Someone who would return to Ingrone one day.

She would ask nothing of someone with no future to promise.

‘It’s enough to just enjoy it now. This is just a brief fling.’

The guards keeping watch at the fortress opened the gate and looked at her with puzzled eyes.

Why is she here again at this hour? The curiosity in their gazes was plain to see.

During the day her father watched her, and at night she was drawing the guards’ suspicion.

‘How many times can I even do this? Maybe once or twice more at best.’

The end was right on her heels. She felt the ache of it.

It wasn’t love for Aslan that brought on these feelings. It was only that a relationship destined to shatter like seafoam felt all the more precious because of it.

She turned her back to the fortress standing tall, passed the guards making their rounds with torches, and made her way to the vine-covered hostage manor.

Her heart was still adrift on small waves.

***

“You’re late.”

Aslan’s tone was oddly curt.

It was an unfair complaint to Freya, who rode a long way and crossed the fortress gate to get here, but she laughed it off with an apology.

‘I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to come.’

She couldn’t understand why Aslan, shut away in his vine-covered manor, looked so strangely serene today. It felt like coming to visit a princess locked in a castle, hiding from a villain.

“Did you wait long?”

“I had the window open since morning.”

He sat by the window overlooking the front yard all day. The book he started reading in the morning never made it past three pages.

Watching the sun go down, Aslan realized that waiting felt like anticipation.

Letting time pass without end, and yet not feeling bored. It was a strange thing.

He felt something similar watching Freya approach with a playful smile. He wanted her to come closer quickly, and yet he wanted the anticipation to stretch on.

“You weren’t waiting for another woman, were you?”

“Regrettably, there is still no other woman.”

“That’s a relief, then.”

Every time she drew closer, he savored the pleasant racing of his heart.

He reached out to her when she finally stood before him. When he pulled her by the waist, his tongue and his knuckles ached, like the onset of a fever.

Freya giggled in his arms.

“Why are you laughing?”