Hearing her words, Ahazan ultimately granted Clodine’s request.

After what had happened the day before, and with his determination to reconcile with her today no matter what, he likely did not want to repeat the same mistake.

With Ahazan’s help, Clodine mounted his horse.

Even among the finest breeds of Perseion, his steed was of the highest lineage.

Its saddle sat unusually high compared to others just climbing onto it made her head spin.

There was no way to overcome this moment except to keep telling herself it wasn’t what she feared.

Even so, she couldn’t stop her hands, gripping the reins, from trembling, pale and rigid.

‘Nothing will happen…’
‘We’ll arrive safely at the plateau…’

The fear of horses, which she had thought she had long overcome, surged back like water bursting through a broken dam, swallowing her whole.

But she couldn’t let Ahazan or anyone else notice.

So she forced herself to appear calm and urged the horse forward.

True to his declaration that he would personally protect the Empress, Ahazan stayed close behind her.

As they continued toward their destination without incident for quite some time, Clodine finally allowed herself a small sense of relief and glanced back.

No, to be precise, she looked at Ahazan.

His golden hair, shining like the sun, fluttered in the wind sometimes veiling, sometimes revealing his eyes as they met hers.

Though she had never said it aloud, Ahazan looked most striking when clad in his imperial armor.

The gleaming shoulder plates caught the light sharply, and draped over them was a long crimson mantle, something only he could wear, adorned with golden tassels that swayed with every movement.

He was always a sight to behold, but today, for some reason, he seemed especially beautiful, so much so that she wanted to engrave this moment into her memory forever.

When her gaze lingered on him longer than expected,
Ahazan, puzzled, began guiding his horse closer to her side.

In truth, Clodine had been struggling to suppress a creeping sense of dread this whole time.

So his approach was something she welcomed.

Now nearly beside her, Ahazan smiled gently and extended one hand toward her.

Knowing exactly what that outstretched hand meant, Clodine returned a soft smile and reached out her own.

At that moment, It almost felt as though no further reconciliation was needed.

Just before their hands could meet in the air.

That was when it happened.

“Neigh—!”

The horse that had been calmly carrying Clodine until nowlet out a piercing, desperate scream
loud enough to shake the ground.

Then, It suddenly reared up on its hind legs, twisting its body grotesquely as it began to thrash wildly, trying to throw Clodine off its back at any cost.

“Clodine!”
“Your Majesty!”

Startled, Clodine clutched the reins tightly and lowered her body, clinging desperately to the horse’s neck.

She didn’t even have the breath to scream too focused on not being thrown off.

‘I knew it… I didn’t see it wrong…’

Even in the chaos, that thought filled her mind.

But the moment the memory of the violet substance she had seen inside the horse’s mouth surfaced, she could think of nothing else.

The horse, with Clodine still on its back, bolted straight into the dense forest, charging like a mad beast.

Poisoned,unable to distinguish anything ahead, it ran in blind desperation, tearing through the trees at twice its usual speed.

It was so fast that Clodine could barely breathe.

‘This is exactly the same as back then…!’

Years ago.

When Leiana Langham, the eldest daughter of the Langham marquessate and Charlotte’s sister, had played a cruel trick on the horse gifted to Clodine.

Even then, before mounting the horse, Clodine had seen something, a vivid violet stain, inside its mouth.

Though she had only been twelve at the time, the unnatural color had been so strange that it remained etched in her memory to this day.

And just like now, that horse had suddenly gone into a frenzy, racing wildly until Clodine was thrown off and injured.

Later, it was revealed the horse had been poisoned.

‘What do I do…? What should I—!’

Clodine gripped the reins so tightly her nails felt like they might break.

From her experience as a child, she knew—

If she fell this time…

There was a high chance she wouldn’t survive.

Clodine tried desperately to keep her senses intact, but the fear consuming her mind and the relentless, violent impact tearing through her body drove her further and further into a hopeless corner one where she no longer believed she could survive.

She needed to look ahead but her vision burned, blurred by rising tears.

It was a relief, an immeasurable one, that Ahazan was not on this maddened horse with her.

And yet, her instincts longed for the opposite.

She wanted to be trapped in his arms, to shut her eyes tightly and simply disappear into him.

The hand she had almost held just moments ago flickered before her eyes.

‘Is this… the end…?’

A sound escaped her, not quite a scream, but something closer to a desperate cry scattering into the air before it could even linger.

She couldn’t hold on any longer.

The strength drained from her body, and the realization struck with bone-deep terror.

“……Clodine……!”

It sounded like his voice.

That familiar voice she knew it couldn’t be real, and yet… it felt as though it was drawing closer.

“Clodine, open your eyes!”

At some point, without even realizing it, her will to live had begun to fade and she had closed her eyes.

Even as she slowly accepted the death rushing toward her, that clear voice striking her ears forced her tear-soaked eyelids open.

And then.

At that exact moment.

How he had managed to catch up, she didn’t know.

But there riding recklessly at terrifying speed right beside her.

Ahazan.

The sheer impossibility of it.

The moment she saw him, her eyes flew wide open, struck by an even greater fear and shock than before.

“Ahazan… what are you doing—?!”

He wasn’t simply riding.

He had one knee raised, perched precariously atop his galloping horse as if he were about to leap onto hers at any moment.

“Lower yourself, Clodine! Closer—!”

“Ahazan, it’s dangerous…! Don’t—please!”

Clodine broke into sobs, more terrified now than when she had been facing death alone.

Until now, she had taken a strange comfort in the thought that it was her, not him, who was riding this crazed beast.

It was unbearable, terrifying beyond reason, but if it meant she was facing that fear in his place,
she could almost accept even death.

But now.

Now.

She was the one dragging him into danger.

And that, that was something she could not endure.

More unbearable than death itself.

“Don’t do it! Stop, Ahazan…!”

The pounding of hooves, the roar of the wind, the dense forest closing in around them.

All of it drowned out her voice.

No matter how desperately she cried out, it seemed he couldn’t hear her.

And then.

She saw it.

He had begun stepping onto his horse with his remaining leg, climbing higher.

‘Why… why would you…?’

Clodine almost wished, in that moment, that the mad horse would collapse that it would break and send her crashing down.

Even if her body were shattered to pieces, so long as it stopped him from doing something so reckless.

But no matter how much she wished it Ahazan only urged his horse closer.

Now, he was within arm’s reach.

With the last of her strength, Clodine pleaded.

“What are you trying to do…?! If you do this, you’ll be in danger too—so please…!”

“Lower your body!”

“Then—then I’ll jump instead! So you just stay there—!”

“There’s no time, Clodine! Lower yourself!”

Never in her life had she seen Ahazan shout like that.

His face desperate, as though his own life were on the line and in that overwhelming desperation, Clodine could do nothing but obey.

In utter despair, she wrapped her arms tightly around the mad horse’s neck and lowered her body flat against it.

Unable to bear watching what he was about to do, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Tears spilled freely, scattering into the air like shattered light.

“Neigh—!”

The horse screamed as though it would tear the sky apart.

Its massive body twisted violently.

And then.

Amid the violent motion, She felt it.

The hard press of armor against her back, terrifying, and yet, at the same time, strangely reassuring.

Ahazan had leapt onto the back of the maddened horse.

To save her, he had thrown himself onto it.