Clodine twisted her wrist, trying to free herself from Ahazan’s firm grip.

He loosened his hold just enough to keep from hurting her, but instead of letting go, he drew her closer.

The distance between them vanished.

A sweet, faintly bitter scent mingled in the air.

“I will never let you go again.”

His low voice brushed against her ear.

If she could have, she would have chosen deafness in that moment.

Up close, Ahazan’s face looked like a sculpture carved from ice cold and unyielding.

“There is no woman here anymore who wished to hear those words from you.”

Her voice was hollow. Her gaze equally so.

Though their bodies were so close that she might have leaned back or stepped away, Clodine stood stubbornly straight.

Ahazan did not react to her provocation. The corner of his lips curved faintly.

“But you are here.”

There was no laughter in the smile.

He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek.

“That alone is enough for me.”

His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her firmly into him. Forced to tilt her head back, she met his gaze.

His hand steadied her fragile neck as it arched.

Silence stretched thin between them.

Outside, the villa bustled with activity but no one would dare intrude without Ahazan’s permission.

Even for Clodine, being pressed so closely against him like this, forced to look into his eyes, was unfamiliar.

Even when she had once been his fiancée, such contact had come only during the rare dance. Each time, she had endured a heart that felt ready to burst until the music ended.

Now, Ahazan’s fingers gently kneaded the tense nape of her neck.

“You smell nice, Clodine.”

His smile was subtle. Deliberate. Alluring.

The truth was, the same could be said of him.

If there was one thing that had never changed, it was Ahazan’s scent.

He had always favored the oil of Abemonji wood, a cool, faintly bitter fragrance he had worn since childhood. Once it had seemed too mature for him; now it suited him perfectly.

Clodine was acutely aware of the sharp, woody scent at her nose, and of the warmth of his hand at her neck.

She wished desperately that it would disgust her.

Instead, what rose within her was fear.

And that fear did not come from him but from herself.

“Something makes you tense.”

Ahazan’s fingers traced the rigidity in her body, and he seemed almost amused.

“Could that something be me?”

His tone, his eyes everything about him suggested satisfaction, as though he were whispering love to a willing lover.

He studied her eyes in silence.

Time seemed to halt.

She forgot to breathe.

Then, slowly, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers.

It was light. Soft. Clean. Not possessive, nor sticky.

Yet in that instant, Clodine felt as though her heart had fallen straight to her feet.

The contact was not unexpected.

But bracing for the surge of emotion was another matter.

Her mind went blank.

Her lips felt flattened, as though still pressed beneath something.

She did not let a single flicker show on her face.

Ahazan tilted his head slightly, studying her.

“Calmer than I expected.”

There was a trace of playfulness, though not mockery.

“That’s right.”

Her voice was dry.

His eyebrow lifted.

“Even if I were to do more?”

At the probing question, her brows tightened faintly.

Clodine knew more about marriage than most women.

From the moment Ahazan had implied their wedding, she had understood what this day might entail.

A surge of bitterness rose within her.

He knew she had neither the right nor the strength to refuse. Yet he still asked.

Was this another way to remind her of her powerlessness?

She forced her voice steady, though her throat stung.

“I don’t want to waste strength resisting something that will make no difference.”

Countless futile moments of resistance flashed through her mind.

The nights she had spent with O’Neil Penelope came back to her in fragments.

She remembered them only as humiliation and anguish, nights she had been expected to endure simply because she was married.

To bury such memories was to live forever on the edge of being consumed by them.

Without realizing it, she had turned pale, her gaze avoiding his.

“Clodine. Look at me.”

The hands that had gripped her waist and neck now cupped her cheeks gently.

He lifted her face.

“Until you truly want me, I will not force anything.”

He spoke slowly, pressing each word into her.

“It may sound absurd, coming from a man who invaded, abducted, and forced a marriage.”

His thumb brushed beneath her eye, covering the space almost entirely.

The touch was careful reverent, even.

He wanted her. That much was clear.

And yet, he restrained himself.

She did not understand.

“Why bother?”

The question might have sounded strange but she did not care.

Whether it happened now or later, she believed the outcome would be the same: painful, humiliating, despairing.

Ahazan laughed softly at her pale face and bold question.

“Who knows.”

He withdrew his hands slowly.

“Let’s say I no longer wish to be hated by you.”

***

The villa was divided into three floors, though each level was modest in size. Because it stood close to the imperial palace, the servants did not reside there. Instead, they came and went in shifts to prepare meals and clean.

Which meant that for the next week, only Clodine and Ahazan would remain here.

They were to share a single bedroom on the second floor. Fortunately, two beds had been prepared.

While Ahazan spoke with the soldiers outside, Clodine went upstairs first.

She had not slept a moment the previous night because of what had happened, and the wedding ceremony had exhausted her further. Fatigue pressed in on her like a tide.

Through the large window, she could see the hillside now washed in moonlight.

She had only just begun to grow accustomed to the quiet when a knock sounded at the door.

“Your Majesty, I have come to assist you in changing.”

It was Merian Bennett.

Only then did Clodine realize she had forgotten something. Rising, she moved toward the mirror.

“Wait a moment.”

Standing before the mirror, she hurriedly lifted the outer layer of her dress. Slipping her hand deep into the hidden pocket sewn into the center of her voluminous underskirt, she withdrew what lay concealed within.

A shard of white marble, about the size of her palm.

She vividly remembered the moment earlier that day when she had deliberately pushed over the statue in the corridor and hidden a fragment inside her bouquet.

Even now, staring at the sharp, pointed edge, she felt the same indescribable emotion as she had then.

‘Perhaps it is not too late.’

A fragile queen dragged away as a captive by an invading enemy.

A pitiful royal house that had driven its powerless people toward a dreadful fate.

Perhaps there was still a chance to escape that disgrace.

Perhaps what the people, who had lost their nation, truly desired from their queen, now the wife of their enemy, had always been this.

Clodine turned the shard so that its pointed end faced downward and gripped it tightly in her right hand.

Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, stared at her own hand, poised as though ready to strike downward at any moment. It looked foreign to her.

‘But now… I want you to know.’
‘There is no path that allows us to escape the fate we were born into.’

Ahazan’s words from earlier echoed in her ears.

He was right.

She had never lived by her own will. Fate had always led her forward, indifferent to her struggles. No matter how desperately she wept or fought, another path was never granted to her.

When she had been Ahazan’s fiancée.
When war had torn them apart.
When she became Queen of Rotermann at his request.
And now, once again, when she had become Empress of the Empire through his incomprehensible whim.

Her life had never once truly been her own.

‘My mother died because she could not endure life in the imperial family.’

Whether Selena von Lernando had truly taken her own life remained uncertain.

But if it were true, then perhaps she, too, had simply found no way to escape the fate imposed upon her.

Clodine thought of Merian waiting beyond the door.

She placed the marble shard into a small black box beneath the mirror and closed the lid firmly.

‘No path to escape…’

Her fingers rested lightly upon the box.

“Or perhaps, have only just discovered the simplest and most certain way to escape.”

Her thin voice lingered quietly around her, then dissolved into the night air.