“……If the wildfire had reached the farmland, Poema would have suffered serious damage. Surely that was all thanks to His Excellency the Grand Commander’s swift response.”
Watching Poema’s governor, Markel, cut into his perfectly grilled steak, Karion felt increasingly irritated.
The meal had been prepared so that he could dine with her, yet it was ending up in the mouth of some unrelated man.
“I heard that His Excellency personally entered the flames. Truly, you are remarkable, Grand Commander. I was also deeply impressed by your quick judgment in immediately notifying Poema. You have no idea how anxiously everyone watched throughout the night. When we saw the flames finally dying down, everyone cheered.”
Karion had always found Markel difficult to deal with.
‘He talks too much.’
Given enough time, the man could endlessly flatter someone, using all sorts of elaborate expressions to praise them.
Even though Karion offered no response and simply continued eating, Markel’s talkative mouth never stopped.
“Your Excellency. You certainly deserve to receive recognition for your accomplishments this time. I will personally report everything to the imperial capital.”
“There’s no need to create unnecessary trouble.”
“But—”
“Determining the extent of the damage and the cause of the fire comes first.”
“Of course. Naturally. I have no doubt that Your Excellency will conduct a thorough investigation.”
By the time the long meal finally ended, it was already deep into the night.
Karion ordered that a guest room in the commander’s residence be given to Markel.
Even though he didn’t like it, there was nothing he could do.
Cedric would arrange the rooms himself and warn the princess’s people so that Leah wouldn’t run into Markel.
The moment Markel was shown into the guest room, his expression hardened completely.
‘What am I supposed to do now?’
He knew the real cause of last night’s fire.
A fire had accidentally broken out at a smuggling site he had been secretly operating.
His subordinates sent to the site had reported that a tiny spark had spread into a massive fire in an instant, leaving them unable to contain it and forcing them to flee.
‘Useless fools. They came back after saving only the most worthless lives.’
Since things had already turned out this way, he almost wished the wildfire had grown into a massive blaze and burned everything to ashes.
But because the fire had been extinguished so quickly, it was obvious that the traces of the smuggling operation would remain intact.
The Grand Commander would certainly investigate the cause of the fire thoroughly.
It was only a matter of time before he was discovered.
The biggest problem was the Fourth Imperial Prince’s personality.
He couldn’t be bribed.
‘What should I do? What should I do…?’
He had come to quietly assess the situation, but as expected, there wasn’t even the slightest opening in the Fourth Imperial Prince’s defenses.
Karion’s schedule had been disrupted because of Markel, putting him in a foul mood, so he had treated him rather coldly.
As a result, Markel had already mistaken Karion’s attitude for a sign that the Fourth Imperial Prince had noticed something suspicious about the fire.
The door quietly opened, and one of his subordinates entered.
Markel whipped his head around.
“What did you find?”
“It will be impossible to infiltrate the investigation team and erase the evidence at the site.”
“Ugh.”
Markel clenched his hair as though he wanted to tear it out.
If the truth about this smuggling operation reached the Emperor’s ears, not only he but the people of Poema would be slaughtered.
After groaning anxiously for a while, his eyes suddenly gleamed.
‘If evidence remains, then I simply need to get rid of the evidence.’
He spoke to his subordinate.
“Go to the smuggling site once things quiet down around here.”
When Markel had come here, he had brought a guide with him.
The man was an exceptionally skilled guide who could find his way even through a forest in complete darkness.
“A wildfire reigniting after it has just been put out happens from time to time. Burn everything so thoroughly that no traces remain.”
His subordinate swallowed nervously and nodded.
Leah’s eyes flew open.
She stared at the dark ceiling, breathing heavily.
She wiped away the tears running down from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.
She had dreamed of the day Penny died in her previous life.
After losing Penny, Leah had been dazed for several days.
Penny’s death had shattered Leah, but it had also given her the strength to rise again.
She had to survive tenaciously because the life she had left was a life Penny had helped preserve.
‘Enoch.’
Whenever Leah thought about the tragedy of her previous life, hatred for Enoch naturally followed.
Enoch in her previous life and Enoch in this life were no different.
He had already extended his claws toward the kingdom.
He had merely failed this time.
Someday, when he became Emperor, the kingdom would inevitably be in danger.
Preventing Enoch from becoming Emperor was the first goal of this life.
And she wanted to discover exactly why he had destroyed the kingdom.
If he had wanted to seize the kingdom by becoming her stepmother’s backer, then why had he killed her stepmother and destroyed the kingdom?
‘Did he have some grudge against Zephyrus?’
Moreover, even after the kingdom had fallen, the Empire’s pursuers had relentlessly hunted Leah.
As though she herself were their objective.
‘Why did they do that?’
Sleep had completely vanished, so Leah sat up.
She climbed out of bed, pulled open the bottom drawer of the dresser, and reached deep inside.
Just in case, she had taken only one item from her belongings and hidden it here.
What she pulled out was a long bundle of leather, tightly rolled up.
She unwrapped it, took out what was inside, and held it up.
The crystal dagger, illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the window, gleamed with an eerie, mysterious color.
It was the weapon Neria had tried to use that night to destroy the Eye of Zephyrus.
For some reason, no one in the royal palace knew where this unusual object had come from.
She hadn’t asked Neria.
There was no point. Neria had merely received whatever someone had given her and probably didn’t even know what it was.
While the former queen and the conspirators were being purged and everything was being sorted out in a frantic rush, the crystal dagger had simply been left unattended.
When Leah finally had the leisure to examine it, a question suddenly occurred to her.
If it hadn’t been for this dagger, could Neria have destroyed the Eye of Zephyrus in her previous life?
Could this dagger contain some kind of power that was the natural opposite of spirits?
With no other way to find out, Leah had considered experimenting on herself.
She had thought about making only a tiny cut on her finger with the dagger, but the spirit had issued such a strong warning that she abandoned the idea.
And that was when she became certain.
This dagger was a dangerous object prepared specifically to destroy the Eye of Zephyrus.
She didn’t know how to dispose of the dagger, and leaving it behind in the kingdom made her uneasy, so she had brought it with her when she departed for the Empire.
‘Perhaps this is a clue that could help me uncover the real reason the kingdom was destroyed in my previous life.’
A breeze lightly tapped her face, making her flinch.
She quickly wrapped the dagger back in the leather, placed it in the space beneath the drawer, and slid the drawer shut.
Then she turned her head in the direction the wind was moving.
There was the bedroom door.
‘Did someone come?’
Penny had brought her a water bottle earlier, tidied the bedding, and then gone to her own room, saying she would go to bed early.
They had to be on the move from dawn tomorrow.
Cedric, the Grand Commander’s chief adjutant, had arrived late in the afternoon and informed Leah of their travel schedule to the capital.
⌜We will depart for the capital tomorrow morning. You do not need to prepare anything separately. Just take the belongings you brought with you.⌟
Curious about who was outside, Leah opened the door.
The person lingering in front of it froze.
Although the surroundings were dark, she recognized him immediately.
“Your Highness?”
