“Your Lordship. Someone is coming from the opposite direction.”

The voice carried in through the open window, and Thear’s expression hardened. An ordinary passerby would not have warranted a report.

“My sword.”

“Yes.”

He held his arm out through the window and felt the weight of cold metal settle into his palm. Thear gripped that familiar sensation and looked down at Lysiana, asleep against his shoulder.

‘Better not to wake her.’

It would be best to stop the carriage briefly, handle the situation, and then set off again. He couldn’t have Lysiana startled or frightened.

Thear conveyed his intentions with a simple gesture rather than a spoken order. The carriage slowed and came to a stop.

He carefully laid her head down on the seat so she wouldn’t wake, then draped his black robe over her.

“I’ll be right back.”

Thear whispered quietly near the ear of his lightly stirring wife and stepped out of the carriage.

The man standing across from him was someone he vaguely recognized. A cold smile crossed Thear’s lips.

“If you ran off alone, wouldn’t the wiser move be to hide quietly and keep your life?”

“Shut your mouth, you bastard.”

“And look at the state of you, having run from that very bastard.”

Thear gnawed at his opponent’s composure with remarkably cold words. It was nothing like the warm smile he always gave Lysiana.

Bennet and the knights, well accustomed to this side of Thear, remained composed. His cousin, Ryle Schtegen, ground his teeth.

“It was a strategic retreat.”

“You would have been better off retreating all the way.”

Thear muttered at his leisure and drew his sword from its scabbard. He had no desire to waste time on pointless words.

The pressure of needing to finish everything before Lysiana woke and realized what was happening made him impatient.

‘No need to carry unnecessary baggage.’

The moment Thear gave the order, the knights charged the enemy all at once.

Ryle Schtegen likewise came straight at Thear. While the mercenaries he had presumably hired with coin clashed with the knights, Ryle went for Thear’s throat.

“You needed the Havertz Marquisate, and that was all because of you, wasn’t it?”

Thear deflected a straight thr*st to the side and asked.

“Do you have any idea how deep the history of the Havertz Marquisate runs, you wretch!”

“Of course I do. I heard it until I was sick of it.”

He truly had heard it until he was sick of it. Until his ears bled.

Not a figure of speech. His ears had actually bled. From taking punches and kicks from his brothers, he had once taken a bad blow to the ear.

Half-wit. Bastard. Peasant blood. Disgrace to the marquisate. Trash…….

Every manner of insult the world had to offer had followed him like a brand. They had clung to him so long and so naturally that he had never even thought to feel ashamed.

Right up until he met Lysiana, none of it had been an insult to Thear.

“It’s right that I, the legitimate heir, should inherit the family, not someone with blood of unknown origins running through his veins.”

“Then you should have cut my throat properly when you had the chance.”

Thear shot back coldly and closed the distance in an instant, driving into Ryle Schtegen’s space.

He swung his sword with enough force to cleave the man in two, but his opponent twisted away by a hair. The hem of his clothing was cut clean through, and blood dripped steadily from a gash along his side.

Thear ground that red blood under his boot heel and buried it in the dirt. Lysiana couldn’t see it.

“Ggh……! You filthy bastard!”

Whatever he made of that, Ryle Schtegen’s face contorted savagely.

The sort of people who fixate on blood alone. That common thing flowing through every body was their only source of pride. He appeared to feel a deep sense of humiliation at the fact that Thear had ground it into the dirt.

Whether he did or didn’t. Thear pressed his index finger to his lips with an utterly unbothered air.

“Shh. Keep your voice down.”

He couldn’t have Lysiana waking to that man’s shouting.

“Hand over the family and step aside quietly, you bastard!”

Ryle Schtegen, worked into a frenzy, charged like a bull. His sword grip was sloppy and his legs had no force behind them.

Far too easy an opponent for Thear.

Thear readjusted his grip on the sword and moved to parry Ryle Schtegen’s blade with a single decisive blow when.

The corner of Ryle Schtegen’s mouth curled up in a vicious sneer, and his stance shifted in an instant.

“……?”

It wasn’t a charge. It was a dodge.

Before Thear could even process what was happening, Ryle Schtegen rolled across the ground. He broke through Thear’s rear in an instant and reached out toward none other than the inside of the carriage.

“Seems you still had time to send letters to your wife in the middle of all this?”

“Lysia……!”

Ryle Schtegen smashed the carriage lock with his sword and threw the door open without hesitation.

In that split second, what he saw was Lysiana, wrapped in the robe Thear had draped over her, holding her breath and huddled small.

“Lysiana!”

Everything around him stopped.

The only things still moving were Thear’s enemy and Lysiana, swallowing a scream with wide, startled eyes. Even Thear himself had frozen, and his movements turned sluggish.

The enemy’s hand reached toward her.

Lysiana’s trembling eyes searched frantically for Thear, as though pleading for help.

He moved on reflex, then stopped dead as a blow slammed into his abdomen. Ryle Schtegen, half hanging out of the carriage, had pulled the sword he held in a reverse grip from between his ribs and driven it into Thear.

Even with the breath knocked out of him, the instincts forged on the battlefield moved his hand on their own. Blood of uncertain origin mingled together, and a sharp smell filled the carriage.

“……Ha, d*mn it.”

The crude curse slipped out before he could stop it. Thear pressed one hand over the wound and released the sword he had driven into Ryle Schtegen’s back.

The body of a man breathing his last twitched and convulsed in small spasms.

“……Lysiana…….”

Sweat running from his brow stung his eyes and blurred his vision.

But Lysiana’s face, terror swallowed whole, was all he could see clearly. A strange thing.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“……Oh…….”

Thear asked, but she didn’t answer. She only gasped and pressed her hand over her mouth.

Her eyes had gone wet, and she looked ready to cry at any moment. She looked so pitiful, like a small, helpless creature that had come face to face with a predator.

‘Done for.’

A hollow laugh escaped him before he knew it. He could even laugh with blood welling up from his abdomen and soaking his hand through.

He had put on every manner of display trying to inch his way into her heart while Lysiana had no memory, and now one incident was going to unravel all of it.

If he had his way, he would have cut off Ryle Schtegen’s head on the spot and thrown it to the animals, and it still wouldn’t have been enough.

“I’m sorry for frightening you. There was a sudden attack…… Just stay inside for now, and I’ll have everything sorted and be back shortly. So…….”

He wanted to speak the way he normally did, but his labored breathing kept cutting him off. The pain that came with every word was an added burden.

“Hoo…….”

He couldn’t finish what he was saying, and his head dropped. He couldn’t bring himself to look Lysiana in the face.

That was when it happened. A gentle pressure wrapped around his head.

“Bl, blood…….”

A voice on the verge of tears fell drop by drop.

“What do I do…… Thear, you’re bleeding…….”

“Ha, Lysiana.”

“Wh, what should I do? We need to find a doctor, but the nearest v, village…….”

“Lysiana, calm down.”

Thear carefully pried away his wife’s hands, which had locked around his neck. By then the noise behind him had died down, as though the situation had more or less been resolved.

“I’m fine.”

“How can you possibly be fine!”

Lysiana cried out in an agitated voice.

“You’re bleeding this much……!”

It was the first time Thear had ever seen her raise her voice, and he froze in surprise.

He genuinely knew he was fine.

He had taken a stab to the abdomen, but the blade hadn’t gone deep. And it had caught closer to the side, so it had only nicked the muscle layer.

If his organs had been damaged, he would have lost consciousness long before now, but an injury like this only needed the bleeding stopped and the wound kept clean to heal without issue.

From everything he had been through, he was certain he was in no danger of dying, at least not from this. But Lysiana’s perspective was clearly something else entirely.

“The bleeding won’t stop. Hic, please don’t die…….”

Lysiana had been clumsily trying to stanch Thear’s wound when she finally broke into tears. Sobbing like a child.

The tip of her nose and her cheeks went red, and the tears fell without stopping. Her face was so crumpled that he couldn’t even see her eyes, the ones he had always thought so beautiful.

Thear, who had suddenly reduced his wife to heaving sobs, found himself at a loss.

He had thought she would lose all warmth toward him after seeing him kill someone, or be too frightened to even speak to him, and yet here was this ending.