Inside the swaying carriage.
Clodine sat upright, staring at the window veiled in white fabric.

Each time the sunlight shimmered against the cloth, the shadow of the window bars rippled like waves. Of everything on this journey, that seemed to be the only thing enjoying itself.

She exhaled softly through her nose and closed her eyes, but her thoughts refused to settle.

A newly married couple setting off alone on a journey, even for an Emperor and Empress, was a customary part of the wedding rites.

Though she did not wish to remember it, Clodine had already experienced such a journey once before, when she married O’Neil Penelope.

‘Where could the destination be…?’

She lifted the edge of the curtain slightly with her fingertips. A gently sloping forest path came into view. Not far away, she saw Ahazan riding on horseback.

He seemed to be speaking with Sir Regerson, who rode beside him. Suddenly, Ahazan’s lips curved faintly into a smile.

Clodine watched him expressionlessly for a moment before letting the curtain fall back into place. Once he disappeared from sight, she felt strangely as though she had stolen a glance, and the back of her hand itched faintly.

“Your Majesty, we have arrived. May I open the carriage door?”

They had reached their destination before the sun had even begun to set.

She had heard it was not far from the imperial palace, but she had not expected it to be this close.

Instead of granting permission to Merian, Clodine moved first and opened the carriage door herself.

As she stepped down and lifted her gaze, her eyes widened slightly.

Her eyes traced the view in an arc, and layered emotions slowly gathered within them. It was a landscape she had seen only in paintings as a child, now unfolding before her.

“I had repairs done, but there were limits. It is an old wooden structure.”

Ahazan had approached her without her noticing.

He gestured toward a weathered villa built upon a lush green hill.

At first glance, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it. And yet it was the villa Ahazan had inherited from his mother, the late Empress Selena.

During her lifetime, Empress Selena had been known to visit this place whenever she could. It seemed that from childhood, Ahazan too had often come here, and held it close to his heart.

“I don’t expect that you still wish to come here. I brought you because I wanted to. You may call it selfish.”

Clodine turned and looked up at him.

Sensing her unwavering gaze, he eventually met her eyes as though reluctantly.

It was the first time they had truly looked at each other since the coronation at noon.

“You wanted to bring me here?”

Her tone carried disbelief.

Ahazan’s expression hardened faintly.

For a brief moment, Clodine looked around the villa with something close to nostalgia.

She had always been curious about this place. Ahazan had never permitted anyone but himself to visit.

Whenever she had asked, even once, to be brought here, he would merely smile quietly in refusal.

She had assumed there must be a reason it could never be allowed.

But was that reason something that could vanish so suddenly?

So much between them had changed that she could not tell what, now, had made this possible.

She looked back at him.

He was watching her in the same unreadable way, silent.

Thinking back, he had always been like this.

At every moment when she had needed an answer, there had been silence. And more silence.

If Ahazan continued in silence now, there was only one response she could give.

“So we are to stay here, then? Let us go inside.”

Without hesitation, she turned toward the villa’s entrance.

Servants were already busy unloading their luggage, and soldiers were planning their posts nearby. She intended to survey the interior while the commotion unfolded outside.

Just as she stepped toward the threshold, Ahazan suddenly moved in front of her.

The action seemed impulsive even to him. His gaze wavered somewhere behind her before settling firmly on her eyes.

“This was a place my mother loved dearly.”

He spoke after a heavy silence.

“Here, she seemed less the Empress of the Empire… and more an ordinary woman.”

Clodine could not grasp what he was trying to say.

“Did you perhaps know?”

When Ahazan began in a low voice, Clodine found herself listening before she even realized it.

He held her gaze gently as he continued.

“My mother never wanted to become Empress.”

Clodine’s brows drew together at once.

Selena von Lernando, the late Empress, had been born a princess of the Kingdom of Kryson and betrothed to Emperor Geskel von Lernando while still an infant. It was said she had been born with the fate of becoming Empress already in her hands.

In that respect, she had been no different from Clodine.

For such a woman to have never desired the throne was, in itself, a tragedy. The bitterness in Ahazan’s expression suggested he thought the same.

“You wouldn’t have known. No one would. I only learned the truth after coming here.”

After a brief pause, Ahazan opened the villa door and stepped aside, as though inviting her to see what he had seen.

At last, the interior revealed itself to Clodine.

She stood with her hands folded neatly before her, as she had been all along, and quietly observed the space.

The entrance itself was unremarkable. As the red glow of sunset filtered in, dust motes drifted through the air like sparkling powder.

Clodine stepped inside slowly. Behind her, Ahazan followed, and the heavy door closed with a muted thud.

From the outside, the dark timber structure had appeared austere. Inside, however, the walls were painted in a soft white with a hint of yellow, lending warmth and brightness. The decorations were simple, small carvings and modest murals here and there. It resembled an ordinary household more than a royal retreat.

Clodine brushed her fingers along a curtain hanging by the window.

Beneath her fingertips, she felt uneven stitches—flower embroidery.

It did not look like the work of a skilled artisan paid handsomely for perfection. Rather, it seemed as though the mistress of the house had embroidered it in idle hours, adding a few stitches here and there over time.

“She never touched embroidery at the palace.”

Ahazan’s voice came from behind her.

‘Of course she didn’t, If she had, they would have mocked her for it.’

Releasing the curtain, she moved on. With no reason to hurry, her steps were unhurried.

They stopped next in the kitchen.

Perhaps because of the large window, the room was flooded with the crimson hues of sunset. It felt as though someone had just finished cooking there, blackened pots, well-worn dishes, and an apron that must once have been pure white.

Clodine noticed that the same embroidered flowers from the curtain bloomed upon one corner of the worn apron.

“She must have liked cooking for herself.”

Ahazan retrieved a small box from a cabinet and opened it. Inside were several handwritten recipes, stacked neatly.

“I couldn’t bring myself to throw any of it away. I keep imagining her being happy here.”

A range of emotions flickered across his face as he looked down into the box.

Clodine had never imagined Ahazan, who had no memory of his mother, would long for her this deeply.

Selena had passed away a year after giving birth to him. The official record cited illness. Yet rumors had once whispered that she might have taken her own life.

Those rumors faded after Elizabeth, the Empress who succeeded Selena, left undeniable evidence of her own s*icide. Faced with two Empresses dying in succession, Emperor Geskel had chosen to bury the truth, whatever it may have been, rather than let the House of Lernando bear the stain of a curse.

“My mother died because she could not endure life in the imperial family.”

Ahazan’s voice echoed softly in the quiet kitchen, tinged with loneliness.

Clodine said nothing. She, too, simply stared into the box.

“She had someone she loved.”

That was when she finally lifted her head.

“Not my father. Someone else. She would meet him here.”

“…How do you know that?”

“I found letters here once. Letters they exchanged.”

His tone remained even as he met her eyes.

“I could neither abandon nor deny her, Clodine.”

There was no resentment in his gaze. That startled her more than she let on.

With his characteristic composure, Ahazan continued.

“That is why I could never bring you here.”

He reached out and brushed her hair gently. When she flinched and turned her head away, his hand fell back almost at once, as though lacking the will to persist.

“I didn’t want you, who was meant to become my Empress, to know about a life that might have been happy… had someone never become Empress.”

The direction of his words unsettled her.

She feared where they were leading.

Though he must have seen the darkening of her expression, Ahazan did not stop.

“But now… I want you to know.”

He grasped her wrist. Unlike the earlier hesitant touch, this one held a quiet insistence.

As she raised her head to pull away, the red sunset light fell harshly across his eyes.

They caught hers.

And in a voice neither cold nor warm, he murmured,

“There is no path that allows us to escape the fate we were born into.”