Chapter 1. Something That Should Never Have Happened

It was a day when the sunlight was almost unbearably dazzling.

The light pouring over the white marble lining the palace corridor was beautiful, and so was the woman walking across it.

Beneath her platinum-blond hair, gleaming in the sunlight, vivid green eyes shone like emeralds, as though the lush greenery of summer had melted into them. Her porcelain-white skin made her red lips stand out like a painting.

She was enchanting.

Enough to make one forget the blemish of being a widow who had lost her husband at an early age.

The former Countess Marcel and current Lady of Rodiana was being escorted somewhere while surrounded by heavily armed royal guards.

It was far too strict an escort for merely guiding one slender woman.

‘This can’t be the way.’

Eloise bit down hard on her red lips.

As a collateral member of the royal family, she had traveled through the royal palace countless times.

Yet even she had never seen the path they were taking now.

She abruptly stopped walking.

I mustn’t go any farther.

Her instincts told her so.

“Colonel Anderson, please tell me honestly. Are we truly going to see His Majesty right now?”

At her words, Daniel Anderson, who had been walking ahead, turned to look at her.

“In a sense, yes. His Majesty’s command is as good as His Majesty himself, is it not?”

A chill ran down Eloise’s spine.

Because what he meant was that he was merely following the King’s orders, not that they were actually going to meet the King.

“I’ll return home. Call my car and driver immediately.”

“Lady Rodiana has something she must do today under His Majesty’s orders. So please follow quietly.”

At those words, Eloise’s brows twitched with suspicion.

“I came here to see His Majesty, yet you’re saying I won’t even meet him and that there’s some order I have to obey? I was never informed of anything beforehand. I’m leaving!”

Her ominous feeling had now become certainty and descended upon her.

“His Majesty ordered that the command be carried out without fail the moment I escorted you here. I trust that you, too, will understand.”

At his words, Eloise clenched her molars to conceal her anxiety. Then she asked as calmly as she could.

Hoping she was wrong.

“And that command is…?”

“The arranged marriage agreement with Robitan.”

The desperate hope she had been clinging to finally plummeted to the bottom.

Eloise went pale and shook her head.

“No! If I’m not going to meet and speak with His Majesty, then I have no reason to go! Take me to my car immediately!”

Her face flushed with agitation as Eloise roughly shoved at the royal guards.

Clank.

But as though her resistance were laughable, they crossed the bayonets they held in formation into an X and blocked her path.

“If you cause any more disturbance, I will no longer stand by and watch. Seize the lady.”

“Colonel Anderson!”

Despite her horrified cry, the guards roughly grabbed both of her arms.

And so, without even being able to resist properly, she was dragged along by them.

“His Majesty’s command is for you to ensure that today’s agreement with Robitan is successfully concluded.”

Colonel Anderson spoke coldly after she was shoved into an unfamiliar room whose location she did not even know.

“No! I won’t do it! Let me out of here immediately!”

“This agreement is of great importance. I was told that you had already discussed the matter with His Majesty previously, so I trust you will not disappoint his expectations.”

“Colonel! I can’t marry him. This arranged marriage makes no sense! Please let me meet His Majesty. This agreement is impossible for me!”

Eloise clutched at him and cried out almost desperately, but the Colonel’s expression did not change in the slightest.

As though proving himself worthy of being King Laperion’s right hand.

“Will you continue to disobey? …His Majesty also instructed us not to hesitate to execute you on the spot if necessary.”

A chill ran down Eloise’s spine.

He’s willing to go this far?

It seemed the King truly intended to break his promise to her.

When Eloise showed less sign of resisting, the Colonel coldly shut the door between them.

“I should have known long ago that he would treat a promise he made to me as something utterly insignificant……”

Holding onto a shred of hope, she knocked against the windows and walls, but the space was nothing more than a thoroughly sealed room dressed up to look respectable.

Like a private prison prepared for a distinguished guest.

“I can’t do this. There’s no way I can go through with this arranged marriage. The agreement isn’t the problem. This marriage is……”

Eloise whimpered as she gripped the tightly locked doorknob.

Clank.

Then she heard the sound of a door opening behind her.

Her face had begun to brighten as she turned around, wondering if perhaps—

Only to freeze the moment she saw the broad-shouldered man entering the room.

He had grown far taller than when she had last seen him.

His build had become even more imposing, and the boyishness had vanished from his face, leaving his features sharper and more defined.

And.

His eyes met hers with an indifferent, barren gaze utterly unlike the tenderness she remembered.

“Sit.”

The familiar yet strangely hollow manner of speech fell casually from his lips.

It was nothing like the way she remembered him speaking.

This… this couldn’t possibly be Alexis.

“Don’t want to? Then listen as you are. This gathering is intended to strengthen the alliance between Robitan and Arcadia in order to keep Bastan in check, and I hereby announce that its purpose is the arranged marriage between Eloise Marcel and Alexis Rasterian.”

She had struggled so desperately to forget him and tried so hard for so long……

Yet hearing him speak in a manner so unlike himself was painful.

“Do you agree?”

The hollow voice asked.

Eloise slowly removed her hand from the doorknob.

Because the man before her was both familiar and unfamiliar.

And because this entire situation was unbearably uncomfortable.

She could not even begin to comprehend what exactly was happening inside this room right now.

As the silence dragged on, Alexis let out an irritated sigh.

“Does Arcadia actually intend to conclude this agreement? You claim to represent your homeland, yet you don’t even intend to show Robitan basic courtesy?”

Eloise could not bring herself to speak under his cold pressure.

At the sight, Alexis let out an incredulous scoff and rose to his feet.

“This level of disrespect is remarkable. Fine, then. We’ll consider Arcadia responsible for breaking off this agreement.”

In an instant, Alexis headed toward the door.

“Wait.”

Eloise barely managed to call out to him.

This side of him. This attitude.

She had to understand all of it.

Because his merciless behavior was entirely her fault.

When Alexis turned around with an unpleasant look, Eloise steadied her breathing and continued.

“You don’t want this agreement either. So break it off. If you don’t want it, then it’s right not to go through with it. Request that you cannot agree to this arrangement.”

“Haa……”

Alexis pressed a hand to his forehead, looking as though he were dealing with someone impossible to reason with.

“This was arranged far above our level. And you’re telling me to break it off? You want me alone to bear responsibility for its collapse? You’re just as selfish now as you were back then.”

“I don’t intend to push the responsibility onto you. Say it was because of me. And if the agreement can’t be broken, at least ask them to replace me with someone else. You don’t need to enter this marriage. There’s no reason for you to.”

“So that was the problem?”

His already cold eyes darkened further.

“I expected as much, but I suppose it really was true. It was because of me.”

“That’s not it, Alexis! That’s not what I meant……!”

Eloise cried out urgently, but his gaze only grew colder.

“Eloise Marcel, don’t misunderstand. This marriage is nothing more and nothing less than a means of keeping Bastan in check. You seem to think you can pick and choose whichever man suits your taste, but Robitan has no intention of playing along with that nonsense.”

The words were far crueler than she had imagined, and Eloise clenched her teeth hard.

“I’m not joking either! I’m not saying I hate the agreement. I’m not trying to pick and choose anyone! And…… I’m Rodiana. Don’t call me Marcel.”

Alexis, his face set expressionlessly, gave an incredulous snort.

“Marcel or Rodiana. Fine. In any case, if you aren’t opposed to the agreement itself, I’ll take that as acceptance. I’ve understood your opinion clearly enough.

I feel the same way about this marriage.”

“The same way?”

At Eloise’s question, Alexis’s face twisted strangely as he answered.

“That this marriage is dreadful because I hate the person I’m marrying. That it will therefore remain purely superficial and political. And that even after this marriage takes place, you and I will be nothing to each other.”

He flipped once through the documents he was holding before heading toward the door.

“The wedding will be held simply at my estate in Robitan three days from now.”

“Ask them to change it.”

The man who had delivered his final notice strode out of the conference room as though there were no need to hear anything more from her.

“You have no reason to go through with this marriage, Alexis! Ask them to renegotiate with someone else! Or at least tell them you can’t conclude this agreement!”

Despite Eloise’s earnest cries, he continued through the doorway.

Thud.

The door closed mercilessly, as if her opinion was not even worth hearing.

Staring at it, Eloise murmured hollowly.

“This marriage… never made sense from the beginning.”

The marriage between Eloise Rodiana and Alexis Rasterian.

An arranged marriage intended to strengthen the alliance between Arcadia and Robitan, two of the nations united to keep the great western power of Bastan in check, had been concluded.

In other words.

It was the moment Eloise Rodiana’s marriage to Alexis Rasterian—the former lover she had abandoned—was finalized.

After their storm-like meeting, Eloise sat blankly at the negotiation table.

The only thing that had changed was that the sinking sun had begun to dye the room red.

Her eyes remained fixed on the now-empty seat across from her where Alexis had been.

For a moment, she almost convinced herself that what had happened with him had not been real.

Maybe I didn’t meet him. No… was it real? Did I really… meet him?

She was repeating the thought vacantly when—

Clank.

She heard the lock on the tightly sealed door behind her being released before the door opened.

Eloise clenched her teeth.

That sound alone proved the reality of what had happened moments ago, despite her desperate desire to dismiss it as an illusion.

Perhaps they knew she no longer had the strength to cause a scene, because she could no longer sense the presence of the guards who had threatened her.

But she sensed someone else approaching.

A presence both familiar and, in a way, unfamiliar.

It was King Laperion.

“I was informed that the agreement went well. Good work. I knew you would handle it properly. Well, I had already more or less finalized the agreement with the King of Robitan.”

“Did you really have to do this?”

“You were the best piece to play, weren’t you? You’re beautiful and intelligent. You’ve been married once before, but Robitan won’t consider that a flaw. Besides, I, the King, am both your godfather and your maternal uncle. There could hardly be a stronger guarantee.”

She had asked while clinging to the faint hope that perhaps the marriage could still be overturned, or at least that her partner could be changed.

As expected, it was futile.

“You know that isn’t what I meant, don’t you?”

Hearing the anger enter Eloise’s voice, King Laperion formed a strange smile.

‘As expected, even though she’s my niece, she has quite a temperament. If I fail to control this child properly, she may become an unpredictable variable.’

Unlike the King, Eloise closed her eyes for a moment as though desperately suppressing her anger, then opened them and glared at him.

“Didn’t you make a promise to me? That’s why I donated the military forces and jewel mines that had belonged to my late husband to the royal family. Wasn’t that an unspoken agreement that, in exchange, Your Majesty would allow me to live quietly?”

“I did. But circumstances have changed. Bastan’s movements are troubling. You are a citizen of Arcadia and a member of the royal family as well. Surely you can bear that degree of sacrifice.”

“Someone else could do it……!”

The King’s eyes suddenly gleamed coldly.

Eloise noticed it and could not finish her sentence either.

No matter that he was her maternal uncle and godfather, he was still the King.

And if she said someone else, who else could she possibly mean but his own daughter?

Eloise bit her lip.

“I don’t want to get married.”

When she finally said the words in a low voice after suppressing them over and over, Laperion regarded her with an indifferent yet puzzled expression.

“Do you hate this marriage? Or do you hate that man?”

Eloise could not answer immediately.

She did not understand why she could not, but even saying that she hated Alexis would not easily leave her lips.

She only wanted to escape this situation.

“I hate marriage itself. Once was enough, wasn’t it? I only wanted to live quietly… whether I lived or died, I wanted to exist without anyone knowing.”

Eloise murmured the words, sounding less like part of a conversation than a monologue.

The King silently watched her before raising his brows as though there were nothing more worth hearing.

There seemed to be something going on with his niece, but now was not the time to indulge her.

The Gruel Continent had remained peaceful for a long time.

The fact that the warlike nation of Bastan had stopped expanding its territory had played a part in that peace.

Yet reports were now arriving from everywhere that Bastan’s movements were unusual.

They were said to be expanding and strengthening their military forces, while internal agitation had also increased.

Bastan was far too powerful a country to ignore.

If they truly had invasion in mind and were preparing for it, then the other nations had no choice but to prepare as well.

Laperion stared silently at his dispirited niece.

‘Sacrifices have to be made in circumstances like this. Eloise is intelligent, so she’ll surely understand someday. And…… if the situation improves later, perhaps we can discuss it again then.’

“Go home. Marquis Rasterian informed us that the ceremony will take place in Robitan three days from now, so we will proceed accordingly as well. Eloise, this marriage is important. Do not forget your position.”

It meant there was no point in discussing it any further.

As Eloise remained silent, the King spoke while leaving the conference room.

“Congratulations on your marriage, Eloise Rodiana.”