“Fine, I understand. No matter where your body may have been, the fact that your heart has always remained my knight… very well. I’ll write it the way you wish. But if you are to work under me, that won’t be as someone by my side, but rather—”
“No!”
Just as words of acceptance were about to leave her lips and hope filled Higgon’s eyes, the door flew open with a bang, and Noah burst in, his face flushed red.
“I absolutely cannot accept that man!”
At his sudden, ill-timed appearance, both Karia and Higgon turned their gazes toward Noah.
“Were you eavesdropping outside the door?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping! It’s just that I—! My hearing naturally gets better in the evening!”
“What?”
It was a bold yet utterly nonsensical excuse.
Seeing Noah, uncharacteristically fuming like a child, Karia found both him and the situation absurd. She turned her head and let out a dry laugh.
As she avoided his gaze and cleared her throat, Noah, growing anxious, tapped the toe of his shoe repeatedly against the floor.
“I tried to wait. But isn’t the conversation you two are having alone in a sealed room going on a bit too long? The sky’s already turning red!”
“So this is the hour when our upright Sir Noah Trantes is supposed to head home, is it? Fine, you may clock out.”
Noah struck his chest in frustration. The sparring match had started right after lunch, early in the afternoon, and now it was already dusk. As she said, it was time for him to leave—past time, in fact. He had even put on his robe and prepared to go.
And yet, he simply couldn’t.
There were many reasons, but the biggest was that the person whose confession he had just unintentionally overheard was the first man Karia had ever officially acknowledged.
“I know this isn’t something I should interfere in. But… but I clearly won the sparring match. He was the one who knelt first, wasn’t he? He cannot be the lady’s guard. Protecting you—one knight is enough. I alone am sufficient.”
“That is not sufficient.”
As Noah pleaded with her to make a decision based on principle, Higgon, who had been silently observing, interjected.
The look he gave Noah held even more hostility than when their swords had crossed.
“Your Highness is now a great lord who has inherited the title of Marquis of Valta. You do not even have a separate order of knights, and you will surely have many opportunities to engage in affairs beyond your domain. If something were to happen while being escorted by a single knight, what then?”
“Why wouldn’t I manage? Even after receiving the title, the lady plans to remain in the capital. Nothing will change all that much!”
Noah showed Higgon not the slightest courtesy. He simply could not tolerate the things Higgon had said in the past, things he had heard from Karia herself.
No matter how desperate the circumstances had been, if someone had done such a thing once, then there was no reason it couldn’t happen again. Noah could not trust Higgon.
“Enough.”
As the two glared at each other in a silent battle of wills, a firm voice cut between them.
“You’re both taking quite a few liberties, deciding things on your own. Who said I would take him in as a guard?”
Leaning comfortably back in her chair, Karia alternated her gaze between Noah standing stiffly upright and Higgon kneeling before her. She had let things play out out of mild amusement, only to see the two of them run wild with their own conclusions.
From the start, Karia had never once said she would take Higgon in as her guard.
“Higgon Alkestra.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“From this moment on, you are my dog.”
“…Y-Your Highness?”
When she called his name, Higgon—who had been harboring a sliver of hope—could only ask stupidly in response to her unexpected words.
Unless he had misheard, she seemed to be suggesting that he become something other than human…
Seeing his confused expression, Karia explained calmly, in words simple enough for even a child to understand.
“In public, you will continue to serve as the princess’s knight as you do now. If anything unusual happens in the imperial palace, you will secretly report it to me. And you will ensure, thoroughly, that her pregnancy is not discovered. Above all, the Emperor and the Crown Prince must never find out.”
“W-What are you planning to do?”
“What else? Help bring my adorable niece into the world.”
“But, Your Highness—the child’s father is—!”
Higgon could not bring himself to finish the sentence. The eyes looking back at him were far too cold.
He was the princess’s direct escort knight. Whenever Seribis attended a party, he always accompanied her from a distance. Even on the nights when she met secretly with Duke Pandeon—Karia’s former husband—Higgon had stood guard outside the door.
“Ah, of course. You knew everything from the start. As Seribis’s guard, there’s no way you wouldn’t.”
“Your Highness, I… I did consider telling you, but—!”
“You really are a dog.”
Useless as a human being. Clicking her tongue, Karia shook her head. At her words, Higgon stopped trying to make excuses.
She did not seem angry. And the reason she wasn’t angry was because she had never expected anything of him in the first place. Higgon realized that the trust that once existed between them was gone, and that they could never return to how things had been.
“It’s late. Go back. The princess will be looking for you.”
“But—”
“I’ll call you when I need you.”
With an impatient wave of her hand, Karia dismissed him. Burdened by guilt, he could say no more and turned away.
She did not even consider, let alone respond to, his desperate confession of love.
‘But there’s still something I can do for her.’
With lingering regret in his eyes, Higgon looked back at her one last time before leaving.
Noah stood like an immovable boulder, not relaxing his guard until Higgon had completely disappeared. The light spilling through the window set his sunset-colored eyes ablaze.
“Do you still have something to say?”
Karia relaxed even further once Higgon was gone. Listening to someone drone on for hours was exhausting enough, and on top of that, old memories she had kept buried had taken an unexpected turn, making her head ache.
She could plant Higgon in the palace, use him like a chess piece, and make him repay her for all the irritation he had caused. But Crown Prince Robert… she had never expected his name to come up here.
‘I never had a personal grievance with Robert, but it seems I’ve gained another debt to collect.’
She had always known that the crown prince cherished Seribis. In high society, he was known as a kind elder brother who looked after his only younger sister.
Worthy of being the next ruler, he appeared benevolent and fair to all. Even before Karia, he always kept proper boundaries.
She didn’t particularly like him, but among the imperial family bound together by the name of “family,” he had been the only one she felt no personal animosity toward.
Yet in hindsight, it was indeed strange. For Seribis—so impulsive, reckless, and simple-minded—to remain a beloved princess adored by the people all this time would have been impossible without someone’s help.
‘I don’t know how obsessed he is with Seribis, but this should be interesting.’
If Seribis was his weakness, then Karia was already taking her revenge. Seribis was firmly in the palm of her hand, and Karia intended, at all costs, to sweet-talk the immature princess into giving birth to a child that would ruin her life.
Just recalling the face of Robert, who had hypocritically asked after her well-being with a worried expression, made Karia feel nauseous.
Like Grenberic, who hurled abuse at her while pretending to be a dignified noble in public, the so-called great imperial family members were all so utterly different on the outside and the inside.
They acted as though blue blood flowed through their hearts, as though they were something grand and exalted—but in the end, they were nothing more than humans, each broken in some fundamental way.
“Lady, please keep your promise.”
“…A promise?”
As she covered her eyes with her palm, lost in thought, Noah spoke up.
The crimson light of the setting sun pouring through the window was at its peak. He was still standing there.
“You said that if I won, you would listen to what I’ve been wanting to say all this time, what I couldn’t bring myself to say while constantly watching your mood.”
“Oh, right.”
Karia recalled the condition she had set that morning along with her request.
She knew that his subordinate, Shagal, had been trailing after her like a puppy that needed to relieve itself, clearly wanting to bring something up for days now.
But she had been too busy, only half-hearing something about a “forest” before telling him to put it off for later.
Karia assumed that the “forest” they mentioned was the elves’ forest. Whatever they wanted to ask, it seemed they had seen her entering the forest.
Whatever they wanted, Karia was willing to help the “Black Night” as long as it did not pose a danger to herself. After all, she wanted a certain “confirmation” from Noah, and she expected to be dealing with them for a long time to come.
“Go on, tell me. The urgent matters are settled, so I’ll listen. But is the time all right? You always leave once the sun sets. Ah—would you like to sit?”
“I like you.”
The abrupt confession made Karia flinch, her shoulders jerking. What did he just say…? She blinked several times in disbelief.
When she raised her startled face, Noah met her gaze squarely and, with a face flushed either from embarrassment or the sunset’s glow, repeated himself.
“I like you.”
“…I thought you were going to ask about the forest?”
At her bewildered question, Noah let out a small sound of realization, but he did not take his words back. Instead, visibly tense, he swallowed hard and slowly, carefully stepped closer to her.
Then he knelt down in front of her.
