Standing atop the high cliff, the vast expanse of the Grand Territory of Regel stretched out before them.

The land Ahazan had promised.

Clodine surveyed it with a face heavy with thought. Sunlight shimmered like scattered jewels across the surface of the Euphrat River that split the territory in two. Everywhere she looked, the earth was wrapped in green, fresh, vibrant, alive. It was far too magnificent to be called the price of a marriage stained with humiliation.

“About what happened before.”

While she was absorbed in the view, Ahazan stepped closer and spoke.

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. There had been too many ‘incidents’ to know which one he referred to.

She turned her head and looked up at him without answering. The fierce wind on the cliff roared between them. Deliberately avoiding her gaze, Ahazan continued, eyes fixed on the land below.

“I mean what happened during dinner.”

At dinner…

‘Every time you avoid me, it makes me want to take you by force.’
‘Don’t move away.’

Clodine felt her mood darken instantly. She turned her eyes back toward the territory. The words she had nearly managed to forget now echoed freely in her mind once more.

“I’ll apologize.”

What?

She looked at him, faint surprise flickering across her face. He still wasn’t looking at her.

“I was too emotional. I’m sorry for frightening you.”

Only then did he turn, meeting her eyes with a serious gaze. Sunlight caught in his irises, making them glow almost transparently bright.

There was no need to ask if he meant it. Unfortunately, Clodine knew him too well, knew what his face looked like when he truly regretted something, what his voice sounded like when it carried sincerity.

And yet, that sincerity was unwelcome.

“Compared to everything else that’s happened, that was nothing.”

Her voice was flat as she reminded him of the truth.

As if he had expected that response, Ahazan looked away and exhaled through his nose. He clearly didn’t want to continue the conversation, but Clodine felt that if she didn’t ask now, she might never get another chance.

She stepped closer to him, something she rarely did.

“If you truly want to apologize to me, tell me the reason first.”

She tilted her chin up and met his eyes. His golden gaze, like living flames, looked down at her. Even now, he seemed impossibly noble, almost painfully beautiful.

She continued.

“Why did you kill O’Neil? Why did you destroy Rotermann—”

“Enough, Clodine.”

His cold warning cut her off before she could finish. But she did not stop.

“I want to understand you.”

That was the deepest truth in her heart.

Her pale hand reached out and rested against the cold metal of his armor.

“I don’t want to hate you like this.”

Her voice trembled as something surged painfully in her chest. Of all the things she could have said, that was the one that reflected her heart most clearly.

She did not want to hate him.

She had struggled her whole life not to, and yet she had ended up here.

“I want to believe you. Tell me the truth. There was another reason you had to kill O’Neil, wasn’t there? There had to be.”

Now she was almost begging for the truth.

‘Because he seemed unworthy of receiving your love.’

She remembered the words Ahazan had spoken before O’Neil’s corpse. As long as that hadn’t been the only reason, so long as he hadn’t destroyed Rotermann over something so emotional, so impulsive, it would be enough. Even a small political reason would suffice.

“Tell me. I’ll believe whatever you say. Even if it’s a lie… all right?”

Her voice softened, just as it had long ago when she treated him as her true fiancé. As if she wanted him to lie to her.

Ahazan looked at her with quiet sorrow.

“Is his death that important to you?”

“Ahazan…”

“It means nothing to me. That bastard’s life.”

“…What?”

“I wanted to kill him. So I did. There was no other reason.”

His low voice carried raw, unfiltered anger.

“You could ask me a hundred times and my answer would be the same. So stop looking for reasons that don’t exist.”

Despair filled Clodine’s face. She shook her head slowly. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and fell.

She stared into his eyes, searching. And then, as if she saw something there, her shoulders slumped.

“You… that…”

Is it really true?

She could not bring herself to finish the question.

She stepped backward. Then another step. She added distance equal to the closeness she had created, ending up farther away than before.

Ahazan lowered his head, staring at the ground. He did not reach for her. He did not try to close the distance.

This was the end.

Her final attempt to understand him had crumbled into nothing.

At his sides, Ahazan’s hands slowly curled into fists. His heart felt as though it were shattering into pieces. Even though it was impossible, he could still feel the warmth of her touch lingering on the armor she had just caressed.

Clodine wiped away her tears quickly. When she looked at him again, her eyes were empty, devoid of expectation.

A surge of impulse rose within him. He wanted to confess everything. To tell her the reason he had been unable to spare O’Neil’s life. To make her understand the rage that had consumed him.

‘O’Neil insulted you.’

But to do that, he would have to tell her first.

‘He did not love you. He was going to sell you to another man’.

Would Clodine be able to endure that truth?

To learn that the man she had believed loved her had never loved her at all?

Ahazan had endured that pain through her once. It was worse than being pierced through the waist by an enemy’s spear. It felt like the ground collapsing beneath him, like falling endlessly into darkness, trapped in unending self-reproach with no escape.

But…

Even if he had suffered such unbearable pain because of Clodine, he did not wish for her to endure the same. At times, anger and an unbearable sense of betrayal surged toward her, but not yet to the point where he wanted to wound her with it.

“I’ll ask you one last time, Ahazan.”

Though it had seemed she had already given up, Clodine spoke again, seeking confirmation of the truth. Her face was different now. She was no longer crying. She was no longer clinging to him, begging for a reason. She appeared frighteningly calm and still.

“There really was no other reason?”

Ahazan understood.

This was the final chance she was giving him.

Beneath the hardened armor, his heart trembled faintly. His blood seemed to run cold, goosebumps rising along his back. The tension that filled him now surpassed even the times he had ridden into battle surrounded by enemy forces.

I don’t want her to hate me.

That was his true thought.

But the word that left his mouth was—

“No.”

The moment he uttered it, a colder silence than ever before enveloped them.

“I see.”

Clodine answered as though she had no lingering attachment left. Then she stepped forward, brushing past him.

***

Rain fell in a steady drizzle all day.

Clodine pulled the lace shawl that had slipped from her shoulders back into place, drawing it tight around herself.

‘I wanted to kill him, so I did. There was no other reason.’

Ahazan’s words refused to leave her.

Had she pushed him too far?

Absurdly, that thought crossed her mind.

She hated him, then felt an inexplicable pity, then anger again, then tried to understand him. She was one person, yet she felt divided into many. Her thoughts, torn into countless fragments, chattered loudly in her head as if each had its own will.

“The bath is prepared, my lady.”

Tomorrow was her wedding day to Ahazan.

From early morning, the servants moved busily, preparing for the grand ceremony to be held in just a few hours.

Clodine was meant to spend the day purifying and composing herself. It was, by tradition, the first rite required to become Empress of the Empire.

“Wait.”

She turned to Merian and murmured softly, then stared at the floor for a long moment as if deep in thought.

No matter how she considered it, she could not marry Ahazan while feeling as she did now. Somehow, she needed to settle what had happened, to stand before the ceremony at least with a humble heart. Even if it was a forced marriage, even if obedience was demanded as its price, she could not deceive the masses by marrying him while harboring such turbulent feelings.

After a brief moment of resolve, she spoke.

“I need to see His Majesty.”

Fortunately, Merian did not try to stop her. She simply adjusted Clodine’s attire and followed quietly behind.

Clodine walked slowly, carefully avoiding attention. She moved discreetly, mindful of those around her. How long had she walked like that? She was just passing a narrow side path that led to the main palace when—

“They’re dead. All three women.”

“I heard it was horrific. Their bodies were covered in signs of t*rture.”

The murmur of women’s voices drifted through the sound of rolling thunder. It was a gruesome subject, yet the words rang unusually clear in her ears.

Clodine halted mid-step and turned toward the source of the voices. Two maidservants were sweeping rainwater from the recessed floor of a narrow arcade, their heads bent down as they worked.

Merian moved swiftly, intending to announce Clodine’s presence, but Clodine lifted a hand to stop her.

The maids, still focused on the ground, continued speaking.

“I heard they were originally women of fairly high status in their homeland.”

“Yes… how pitiful. Dragged here as captives…”

Captives.

At that single word, Clodine’s heart dropped heavily.

But the next sentence made it lurch to a complete stop.

“They were women from Rotermann, weren’t they?”

What…?

Clodine did not wait to hear another word. She hurried forward, stepping directly before the maids.