CFLBF CH 08

8

“…….”

“…….”

Their breaths mingled, and their bodies were pressed flush against one another. Even the servants following from a distance turned away in startlement.

Lavinia stared at Cedric with wide, surprised eyes, while Cedric looked down at her, frozen like stone.

Because he had pulled her so tightly, Lavinia’s hand had come to rest upon Cedric’s chest. The frantic, thumping vibration beneath his ribs was transmitted directly to her palm. It was so rapid that it bordered on concerning.

“Are you all right?”

Consequently, those were the first words to leave Lavinia’s lips.

Cedric’s face flushed a violent crimson as he pulled away. Then, realizing she might have injured her ankle, he dropped to the ground.

“Let—let me see your ankle. Are you hurt?”

Ignoring the fact that his trousers were getting soiled, he knelt down immediately.

“Lean on my shoulder.”

At his unusually firm command, Lavinia followed his lead and placed her hand on Cedric’s shoulder for support.

“Only the heel of my shoe broke.”

Despite her words, Cedric’s touch was resolute.

His large hand reached through the hem of Lavinia’s mud-splattered skirt and grasped her slender ankle. In Barkazar, this would not have mattered at all, but was this not a breach of etiquette in Nordiel?

Lavinia glanced back briefly with that thought, but from the moment their bodies had overlapped, the servants seemed to be doing their absolute best to ignore everything happening.

“Ah.”

A low soft sound escaped Lavinia’s lips. Having removed her shoe, Cedric had placed the sole of her foot upon his palm.

“It’s dirty.”

She knit her brows and tried to pull away, but Cedric caught her ankle with rare determination.

“Did you not just let out a groan? You must be injured.”

“It was just surprise. I don’t get hurt by something like this.”

Though she said so, Lavinia caught her breath at the warmth of his body spreading through her ankle. Cedric roughly rolled up his damp shirt sleeves and began to rub away the mud splashed on her ankle with his blunt fingertips.

It was a touch more obsessive than delicate. Under the pretext of examining her ankle, his thumb pressed firmly against the area around her bone, stroking downward. The heat blooming over her thin skin was vivid.

Cedric lowered his head slightly further to check for any redness or swelling.

His breath brushed against Lavinia’s cold instep.

“There is no swelling, but the internal ligaments may have been jarred.”

He wrapped his large hand around her entire foot. The sensation of him gripping her foot with a pressure that was neither too heavy nor too light felt strangely peculiar.

Looking down, she saw the man kneeling with her foot in his hand. His green eyes, resembling a clear forest, were peering tenaciously at her ankle.

Feeling as though that intense gaze was searing her skin, Lavinia instinctively tightened her grip on Cedric’s shoulder.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

Eventually, Lavinia pushed him away and stepped onto the ground with her bare foot. Cedric let out a startled “Ah,” but when she stood firm and repeatedly tested her footing, a complex expression—one that made it unclear if he was relieved or disappointed—crossed his face.

“See? Perfectly fine.”

“Then I am truly relieved.”

Lavinia removed her other shoe and straightened her back.

“It seems I have no choice but to show the barbaric behavior of walking barefoot before Your Grace.”

As she reached for her shoes, Cedric snatched them away.

“I shall carry them.”

His manner of taking a lady’s shoes was remarkably natural. Lavinia shrugged and left them to him.

Meanwhile, Cedric looked down at the shoes in his hands—small enough to fit in his palms—and narrowed his brows as he looked at the ground where Lavinia stepped.

He had intended not to use magic today, but he had no choice. He couldn’t allow a sharp stone to be in her path, nor could he let her feet freeze on the cold ground.

Dangling her shoes from his fingers and keeping his hands behind his back, Cedric followed, staring intently only at the ground where Lavinia’s feet landed. Every time he gave a slight nod, sharp pebbles in her path retreated into the earth, and a pleasant warmth radiated through the damp soil.

Lavinia tilted her head at the strange warmth rising through her soles, yet she strode forward with such spirit she seemed ready to hum a tune.

Watching her, a strange sense of satisfaction washed over Cedric. Lavinia, walking safely upon his magic. It felt almost as if he possessed her.

“How is it? The land of Nordiel?”

“It feels good, actually. Soft and cushioned. Barkazar is very rocky.”

“Did your feet not get injured then?”

“More than just my feet.”

Her lips curved as if his naive remark was amusing.

“No matter how much of a ‘deficient’ princess I was in Barkazar, I didn’t live without getting a drop of water on my hands like the ladies here. I was a warrior in my own right.”

“A warrior… you say?”

Cedric rolled the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. His gaze moved once more to Lavinia’s white ankles, which were moving powerfully as they pressed into the dirt.

No matter how he looked at them, they seemed only smooth and slender; he couldn’t imagine them being capable of harming anyone.

Then, he suddenly became curious about the person she was.

According to what was known in Nordiel, she was a forsaken princess. Twenty years ago, Nordiel had sent the daughter of a Marquis to be a concubine to the King of Barkazar to secure an alliance.

The princess born from that union was Lavinia. Thus, instead of the rough names typical of Barkazar, she had inherited a Nordiel-style name and fair skin. Though her vibrant red hair was a hallmark of Barkazar itself.

It was a famous anecdote that during the war, Lavinia had been discovered in a castle dungeon. The people there had fled, forgetting she was even imprisoned, and she had supposedly survived on weeds and ants.

At the time of her discovery, she had been skeletal, on the verge of death.

‘How pathetic a princess must she be for the King to forget he even had such a daughter?’

People had whispered such things, looking down on her.

Cedric recalled those words and suddenly asked, “When the war broke out, why were you imprisoned in the castle?”

Lavinia gave a thin smile.

“Because I offended my father. He was always quite disappointed that I was an inadequate warrior.”

For someone so disappointed, he sounded like the very definition of a cold-hearted father to imprison and forget his own daughter. Cedric worried whether she had ever received even a shred of affection growing up.

“You must have always wanted to become a proper warrior,” Cedric added quietly, gazing down at her face as she walked with such vigor. “My own father was also very displeased with me when I was a child.”

“A great mage like you?”

“When I was young, I did nothing but suffer from illness. I was a patient.”

Lavinia’s eyes widened as if hearing something unexpected. Cedric shrugged as if it were of no consequence.

“I had to stay confined in a dark room for more than half the year. So much so that I forgot what color the sunlight outside was. The people of the ducal estate trembled in fear that I might die at any moment, and my father treated me as if I didn’t exist at all. Even with only a door between us, I saw his face only a few times a year.”

Cedric walked slowly to match Lavinia’s pace, still warming the ground beneath her feet with his invisible magic.

“What I yearned for most was to share a meal with him. To have that one ordinary meal together, I swallowed bitter medicine without a word of complaint and endured treatments that felt as though my body were burning. Because I wanted to one day stand before him healthy and be recognized as his proud son.”

He paused for a moment. The sunlight breaking through the forest caught on the tips of his eyelashes, trembling slightly.

“But even when I finally managed to pull myself up and attend a meal, my father never looked at my face once. He simply read his documents, the only sound the clinking of his cutlery, as if I were a ghost that wasn’t there. That was when I realized how meaningless it is to gnaw away at oneself while craving someone else’s recognition.”

Cedric turned his head to look at Lavinia.

“So, please do not say you are inadequate, My Lady. It is enough that you did your best.”