“I need trousers.”

Merian, who had been refilling Clodine’s empty teacup, straightened her tilted head and asked.

“Pardon? Trousers?”

Clodine, chewing on a piece of fruit, met Merian’s gaze and nodded.

“Yes. Trousers I can wear. They don’t need to be pretty. They just have to be loose and comfortable enough that I can spread my legs wide without the seams tearing.”

Merian tilted her head, her eyes shifting curiously as though she could not imagine why such a thing would be necessary.

Unable to explain the true reason without dying of embarrassment, Clodine pretended to be absorbed in her breakfast. But even now, as her thighs throbbed faintly, the absurd scenes from last night’s so-called ‘secret training’ replayed before her eyes, and her face burned.

Overcome with shame, she unconsciously tightened her grip on the fork and stabbed an innocent strawberry.

How could he call that training? It was t*rture.

In that moment, the plump red strawberry looked suspiciously like Ahazan. Narrowing her eyes, she bit her lower lip and glared at it.

‘I wondered what you meant, so that’s how you misunderstood me?’

‘Since you were expecting something stimulating, I thought I’d live up to it.’

She should have realized things were headed in the wrong direction the moment he said that. Though, even if she had, she doubted she could have escaped what followed.

The ‘vulgar and intimate training’ Ahazan mentioned had been exactly that, vulgar and intimate. Now she fully understood why he had insisted it was something she could do with no one but him.

Because the training required her to remove her nightclothes entirely.

Had there not existed a set of women’s undergarments consisting of a short-sleeved top and calf-length bottoms, she shuddered to imagine what she might have worn during that ordeal.

Ahazan had made her, clad in nothing but her underclothes, sit on the carpet with her legs stretched wide apart. He had ordered her to lie on her back and repeatedly lift her torso. Under the guise of ‘training,’ he had subjected her to what felt like endless physical torment.

His face stern and unyielding as he pinned her legs in place and commanded her to sit up faster still hovered vividly before her eyes. Even when she cried out that she truly could not continue, abandoning all dignity in her pleas, he had not so much as blinked. Instead, he had coolly informed her that such training would be repeated every other day.

‘This is t*rture, not training.’

‘Building muscle always feels like t*rture.’

‘I said I would learn to ride, not that I wanted to become muscular.’

‘With a body as thin and untrained as yours, you won’t last long in the saddle. Muscles aren’t built overnight. You must start now.’

‘When would I ever need to ride for long?’

Exhausted and irritated beyond measure after the grueling session, Clodine had snapped at him without restraint. Ahazan, amused by her indignation, had only laughed softly and looked at her as though she were a child.

‘Whether such a day comes or not remains to be seen.’

Recalling his inscrutable expression, Clodine bit into the strawberry with unnecessary force, far from her usual refined table manners.

Ahazan was not a man who failed to carry through on what he declared. If he had said every other day, then without a doubt, another session of t*rture awaited her soon.

Chewing the tasteless fruit, she wore an expression of reluctant resignation.

‘If I think about it calmly… he wasn’t entirely wrong.’

She had protested vehemently the night before, but in the cool clarity of morning, his reasoning seemed, at least in part, sensible.

Even strong men struggled after riding for extended periods. With her own slender, fragile frame, how long could she realistically endure? She did not need to experience it to guess.

‘If it’s truly necessary, then I must endure it.’

Once she resolved to do something, Clodine did not do it halfway. Even so, her shoulders sagged helplessly. No matter how she reasoned it out, the thought of once again standing before Ahazan in nothing but underclothes sweat-soaked and begging for mercy was mortifying beyond words.

‘At the very least, I must prevent doing it in my undergarments.’

It was not that her underclothes were revealing or indecent. But underclothes were underclothes, and last night had been humiliating enough.

She had not been able to perform such movements in a cumbersome skirt, and Ahazan must have deemed his solution practical. Still.

The image of herself sitting with her legs spread wide before him in nothing but her undergarments flashed in her mind again. Covering her face with both hands, she let out a long sigh.

“Your Majesty? Are you feeling unwell?”

At Merian’s worried voice, Clodine merely shook her head. She then dragged her hands down her cheeks as though washing her face dry, revealing a faint flush.

“I will go to His Majesty. Prepare me.”

***

“Is he definitely inside?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. He is certainly inside. When he entered, he instructed that no one be allowed into the office except his aide…”

The servant looked flustered when there was no response from within the study despite repeated knocks and raised calls. Because of the Emperor’s strict order, he could not simply open the door to check whether His Majesty was present.

“Do not worry. I will go in myself.”

Though the command had been to admit no one, it had been implied that Cal was an exception. That meant, at the very least, her unannounced visit would not damage Ahazan’s dignity.

Besides whatever state he might be in inside that room could not possibly compare to what she herself had displayed the previous night. Of that, she would have wagered everything she owned.

Still, the servant hesitated.

Clodine softened her voice.

“I will take full responsibility. Step aside.”

With that, the servant reluctantly moved away from the door.

Clodine quietly pushed open the firmly shut study and stepped inside.

The spacious, sunlit room was filled with Ahazan’s scent. Though no one greeted her, she felt as though she had been welcomed.

She did not need to search long. At the far end of the room, seated behind a massive wooden desk, was Ahazan.

He had leaned his head lightly against the tall, ornate backrest of his chair, his eyes closed.

‘Is he asleep?’

Unconsciously muffling her footsteps, Clodine approached him. His shoulders rose and fell in a steady rhythm, he seemed deeply asleep. Considering he had not responded to the persistent knocking earlier, it was believable.

Come to think of it, after last night’s ‘training’—or t*rture, Ahazan had not remained at her side. She had been the one who collapsed into sleep from exhaustion. Where he had gone afterward, or whether he had slept at all, she did not know.

Her gaze drifted over the numerous documents scattered across the desk as she stepped closer.

A writing instrument was loosely caught between his fingers, as though it might fall at any moment. With utmost care, she removed it and set it gently upon the desk.

Just then, a breeze slipped through the window, softly stirring his shining hair. His bangs, now longer than when they had first reunited, brushed lightly over his closed eyes.

The sight made her heart tighten.

After a brief hesitation, she reached out, more carefully than when handling the pen, and smoothed his hair away from his face.

The softness of it startled her. Though the touch had been brief, she found herself reluctant to withdraw her hand. Yet she did, satisfied that she had accomplished her small purpose.

‘He really is sleeping deeply.’

It was not the first time she had seen him asleep, yet today the moment felt unusually vivid, perhaps because they were not lying side by side in bed, but standing here like this, in the light of day.

‘Just a little longer’, she murmured inwardly.

Her gaze lingered on him, as though tracing his form in the air. Her hands, resting awkwardly at her thighs, fidgeted with the folds of her skirt as if reaching for something they dared not touch.

She forced her eyes away toward the distant window, only to look back at him again. Then down at the desk. Then back at him.

Her repeated, fleeting glances might have gone unnoticed even by herself, had her eyes not suddenly halted upon a document lying atop the desk.

She began reading slowly from top to bottom.

A faint crack appeared in her expression, not fully formed into a frown, but frozen midway by shock.

[For the forthcoming long-term inspection procession of His Majesty the Emperor, the number of soldiers assigned for escort shall be set at eight hundred, and the number of knights at two hundred. Should Your Majesty deem this insufficient—]

Clodine read the passage once more in her mind.

[For the forthcoming long-term inspection procession…]

Even on a second reading, the meaning remained unchanged.

‘Ahazan… is leaving again?’