Chapter : 17
Calix was staring straight into my eyes, waiting for an answer.
If I stuck with my original claim—that I hadn’t even checked the contents before picking them and simply chose at random—would he believe me if I said, “No, I just grabbed anything.”?
No, no way. He would never believe that.
Both books were dead giveaways, clearly of the same taste.
Sigh…
I let out a long sigh.
Fine! My tastes are already exposed anyway!
Puffing out my chest, I declared confidently:
“Yes. They are my taste. They’re the works with the highest artistic and realistic completeness, so I chose them carefully. And yet they’ve ended up being taken by Your Highness and your knights.”
“…I see. I’ll remember this too.”
Remember this too?
What did that mean?
Was he saying he’d remember my taste?
Ah!!!
The wrist guard!
He was definitely referring to the embroidery on my wrist guard from before.
It had been a reminder: even if the moment came when he wanted to kill me, he should not forget the feelings of love he once had for me.
But now, if that were the case, when that moment came, he might remember not only my embroidered words but also my R-rated book tastes!
I should’ve just left it blank.
A wave of sharp regret hit me again.
Disappearing—yes, I should just hurry up and disappear from in front of Calix.
“Then… may I leave now?”
“Go.”
At last, I was granted permission.
Doing my utmost to look graceful, I turned my back, walking out of the alley with every ounce of dignity I could muster.
As if I’d ever come to this alley again. This was the most cursed spot in this whole novel!
Every step I took, I cursed the night market under my breath. I fought to keep my composure until I returned home, but the moment I collapsed onto my bed, my body melted like porridge.
Burying my face into the pillow, I groaned, half-seriously studying how best to suffocate myself by burying my face deeper. In the end, like a coward, I kept raising my head to breathe, spending the whole afternoon pathetically alternating between gasping and sulking.
*****
Days passed, and I still couldn’t forget that incident.
Calix must now think of me as a lady with extremely “revealing” tastes…
Well, it wasn’t wrong, but still—ugh, so embarrassing!
At first, it was just shame and humiliation.
But as the days went on, my worries grew heavier.
I only planned to pretend to like him until Estelle appeared. But what if he took it the wrong way and thought, “Since she confessed she likes me, let’s do this and that together”?
Ugh! Why is nothing ever easy?!
I had gone to the night market hoping to distract myself from survival anxieties, but ended up dragging back even more worries.
And why was this body so weak?
After the shock of nearly drowning, the fright at the night market, and the constant stress afterward, Caelyn’s frail body hurt all over.
Her mother had died shortly after giving birth because of her own weak constitution, and Caelyn had inherited that fragility. She had always been a source of worry for her father, the duke, and her brother Luke.
On top of that, since even basic tasks—eating, dressing, bathing—were handled by servants, she rarely used her body at all.
So even if I escaped Calix’s blade during the empress’s rebellion, if I survived, I might end up dying like Caelyn’s mother—sickly after childbirth.
After all, no matter my mind, this was Caelyn’s body.
I wanted to live. Live long, meet a good man with a kind face and heart, have children easily, and be happy. But it wasn’t just Calix I had to worry about—this frail body itself was a ticking problem.
Still, the only exercises a noble lady could reasonably do were walking and horseback riding. Since I’d never ridden a horse, walking was my only option.
Yes, not just when I felt like it—I would walk daily, and also do stretches at home!
With that resolution, I decided to expand my walking routes.
Buying books at the night market was out of the question now, so as a substitute, I added the library to my path to borrow some wholesome soft romance novels.
I also added stops like the tea shop street, the imperial palace’s front gate, the flower shop, and finally, Retian Park—the very place where I’d nearly drowned but was rescued by the crown prince. Somehow, that park lingered in my memory.
Thus, with a new plan of regular walks, the first course I attempted was a round trip to the imperial palace’s front gate.
*****
Calix was reviewing reports from the border regions.
For the past few years, the emperor had entrusted all military decisions and responsibilities concerning territorial expansion and border defense to the crown prince.
The emperor lacked military talent, but Calix had it in abundance. The arrangement was both natural and inevitable.
The report detailed a grave provocation along the border with the Darkus Empire.
Weeks earlier, a trivial quarrel between imperial citizens in a border village had suddenly escalated into a violent clash. To quell the disturbance, some knights of Aolium had been temporarily dispatched to the village.
But during that gap, unknown raiders attacked one of Aolium’s iron mines, which had been under knightly protection.
It was baffling: a front-line mine was lost because of unrest in what was considered a “safe” rear-line village.
The raiders’ timing—striking immediately during the defense gap—was too precise, as if they had known in advance.
The suspicious chain of events led to the discovery of a common link: both the rioters and the raiders had received their dates through peddlers at the night market.
Night market merchants traveled between nations, collecting and selling information. Sometimes they even served as networks for spies.
Though many methods of secret communication existed, in Everren—the empire’s heart—the most common method was through illegal books at the night market.
Messages were hidden in texts, often by aligning the dates of key events in the book with real operation dates.
That was why seeing the Duke of Brockburg’s daughter at the night market had left Calix deeply unsettled.
Even commoners couldn’t be arrested just for buying an illegal book—since no one could know which stalls sold them until after purchase.
And she was no commoner but the duke’s only daughter. He’d had no choice but to let her go.
Yet that only made her more suspicious.
The duke was the empress’s confirmed ally—the very person most opposed to the crown prince.
Although nothing in the books she chose seemed suspicious, Calix couldn’t believe her claim that such books were simply her “taste.”
She must have lied because she couldn’t admit to acting as her father’s contact or information broker.
Pretending such scandalous books were her taste… stubbornly insisting even though she clearly hadn’t opened them until I did… That sunny young lady must have been terrified, struggling desperately to keep up the act.
Remembering her blushing face, forcing herself to stay composed over a book she’d obviously never seen before, he almost felt pity.
Thinking of her, Calix asked Rajiv, his aide standing by:
“How is the young lady faring these days?”
After the night market encounter, he had ordered extra surveillance on Caelyn Brockburg.
“The lady has been unusually active lately. Starting from the ducal residence, she has been visiting various places in the city center of Everren, one by one each day.”
Calix frowned.
“So she keeps going to the city center…”
First the night market, and now wandering through the empire’s capital hub?
The suspicion only grew stronger—that the duke might be plotting something, using a delicate, beautiful young woman with shining doe-like eyes to charm and mislead.
“What specific places?”
Rajiv gave a detailed report.
“On the first day, she went as far as the imperial palace’s front gate. The second day, the library. The third, a flower shop. The fourth, a tea shop. The fifth… well, this is strange.”
“Where?”
“The park where the opera performance was held. Retian Park.”
“The one by the Retian River?”
“Yes.”
“…Hmm.”
That was the very place where she had nearly drowned recently. And yet she had gone there again, of her own will. No wonder Rajiv found it odd.
Was it because she had an important rendezvous there, important enough to face her trauma?
All the other places were ordinary enough, locations where one could meet anyone without raising suspicion. Except, perhaps, for the palace gate.
“Why did she go to the palace gate? Could it be… because I am in the palace…?!”
Muttering this sudden thought aloud, Calix startled himself and shut his mouth.
Rajiv tilted his head at his prince’s strange words and expression but continued his report.
“She visited the library again on the sixth day. She even borrowed a book.”
At that, Calix’s face grew oddly serious, as if hiding embarrassment.
“A book, you say… Did she meet anyone else there?”
“No. She did not.”
“And the duke? Any unusual movements?”
“He continues to meet frequently with Marquis Lastus, but otherwise, no.”
Calix was silent for a moment. Then, as if a thought struck him, he asked:
“What was the title of the book she borrowed?”
“Well…” Rajiv hesitated.
Calix’s eyes narrowed.
Rajiv finally answered:
“The Lady Dreams of Love With the Crown Prince.”
“What? The lady… and the crown prince?”
