TWQTFA CH 04

Knock, knock.

Cedric knocked on the door and entered.

“Your Highness. An unidentified person has entered the military encampment…”

He stopped when he saw the unfamiliar woman standing face-to-face with Karion.

His eyes instinctively turned toward Orbin.

Orbin was frantically gesturing for him to shut up and come over.

Cedric quietly walked over and stood beside Orbin.

Karion thought the woman standing directly before him had an unusually powerful presence.

There was no fear in her green eyes.

It wasn’t merely an act of courage. It seemed to be an inherent part of her nature.

It was intriguing, yet irritating.

Whether she was truly the princess or not, how had she managed to make her way all the way into the commander’s residence in the middle of a heavily guarded military encampment?

‘The discipline has grown lax. I need to overhaul the security system and conduct a full inspection.’

Karion tilted his head slightly and spoke.

“I thought this was our first meeting.”

“If you’re asking whether we’ve met before, then no.”

“Let’s say you are a princess. Zephyrus is, without question, an enemy of the Empire.”

The difference in scale was so overwhelming that calling Zephyrus an ‘enemy’ seemed almost absurd, but officially, they were indeed enemies.

“Do you understand how much risk I would be taking if His Majesty were to learn of this meeting?”

“I do.”

“And do you also understand that I could capture you here and have you escorted to the capital?”

“But you won’t.”

Leah replied with a faint smile.

Karion’s expression remained unchanged.

“What makes you so confident?”

“I trust the proposal I’m about to make to Your Highness. It will benefit you far more than capturing me and sending me to the imperial capital.”

“Is that proposal marriage?”

Leah cleared her throat.

“Ahem. I left out a more important part of my introduction.”

“Let’s hear that introduction.”

When Leah glanced toward the others, Karion said,

“There’s nothing they can hear that they shouldn’t.”

Orbin and Cedric stood perfectly still, barely even breathing.

Their desperate body language seemed to say, ‘Please pretend we don’t exist.’

The two of them often clashed because of their personalities, but at that moment, they were thinking exactly the same thing.

Ever since they had entered the service of Prince Karion, they had never experienced a moment this exciting.

Leah took a deep breath before speaking.

“The Kingdom of Zephyrus wishes to bow its head before the Empire’s glorious might and choose honorable submission. I ask Your Highness to present the flag of Zephyrus to His Majesty the Emperor and claim the merit of bringing the kingdom under the Empire’s rule.”

A suffocating silence descended upon the room, so complete that not even the sound of breathing could be heard.

The southern desert kingdom of Zephyrus.

To the Empire, the Kingdom of Zephyrus was like a thorn stuck in its fingertip.

For more than twenty years, the Emperor had waged wars of conquest, winning battle after battle. Yet when he attempted to invade Zephyrus, he lost a tremendous number of troops.

The Emperor’s one and only painful defeat had remained a forbidden subject in the Empire even to this day.

And now, the Kingdom of Zephyrus was voluntarily kneeling and offering itself as a vassal state?

It was an event capable of shaking the Empire to its foundations, and there was no doubt that the position of Fourth Imperial Prince Karion, who would lead such an achievement, would change overnight.

Orbin and Cedric had already wiped every trace of emotion from their faces as they looked toward their lord.

Yet even with such an enormous opportunity right before him, the dryness in Karion’s eyes remained unchanged.

Instead, he asked indifferently,

“There must be conditions.”

“Take me to the imperial capital. As your imperial princess consort.”

Leah was inwardly perplexed as she looked into his cold, sunken eyes.

Since he showed no reaction whatsoever, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“The center of the world has already become the Empire. Zephyrus has maintained a policy of isolation for a long time. The kingdom has no foundation within the Empire. I want to see and hear what is happening at the heart of the Empire. A princess who is merely a hostage of a vassal state cannot do that, but an imperial princess consort can.”

“I refuse.”

“…Pardon?”

Leah had always thought that saying ‘Pardon?’ in response to someone’s words made a person look foolish, but she couldn’t help asking anyway.

“If what you need is the position of imperial princess consort, there are other princes besides me. I’ll gladly arrange an opportunity for you.”

“I want to make a deal with Your Highness.”

“Make that deal with another prince. I have no intention of earning merit, nor do I have any intention of getting married. Cedric. Escort our guest.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Leah bit her lip as she watched him turn away without a trace of hesitation.

She had a feeling that she needed to retreat for now.

So she obediently followed Cedric out.

Cedric led her to a guest room inside the commander’s residence.

In a flat tone that suited his neat and strict appearance, he said,

“Please refrain from leaving the room until your identity has been confirmed. Someone will be sent in shortly to attend to you.”

“All right. People from the kingdom will be visiting within the next few days.”

“Yes. I will inform you as soon as we receive word.”

Once inside the room, Leah collapsed onto the sofa.

It felt as though all the tension had suddenly drained from her body.

She stared at the closed door.

There were undoubtedly soldiers standing guard outside.

She had been prepared for much worse treatment, so she had no complaints.

Leah leaned back against the sofa and replayed her conversation with him in her mind.

She had only ever heard about him through rumors.

The wandering commander.

The unleashed hunting dog.

The lawless man of the Northeast…

She didn’t know whether people still called him those things, but ten years from now, he would be saddled with quite a few unpleasant nicknames.

Because of that, the Prince Karion she had imagined before meeting him had been eccentric, ferocious, and far more emotional.

Besides, he was only in his early twenties now. Wasn’t that the age when emotions tended to run wild?

Yet the man she had actually met barely gave off the rough aura of a soldier.

If anything, he seemed remarkably good at controlling his expression for someone his age.

‘…He looks like her.’

Leah had been startled the moment she first saw him.

If she hadn’t been wearing her hood, she probably would have stared at his face as if spellbound.

‘Who would have thought Prince Karion was that handsome?’

Every now and then, she could see the face of his mother, Nella, the King of Nortia, superimposed over his features.

Who could possibly claim that he wasn’t her son?

He had inherited Nella’s cool yet captivating eyes and her sculpted nose almost perfectly.

Nella had a strong jawline for a woman, but on a man, it suited his face perfectly.

It was astonishing how much a son could resemble his mother.

‘Oh, dear.’

Leah covered her face with both hands.

For the first time in both of her lives, the humiliation of having her marriage proposal rejected outright was finally sinking in.

⌜It’s a deal where both sides gain something. Unless that man is an idiot, he won’t refuse.⌟

This marriage was a plan that Nella and Leah had devised together, and it was their best strategy.

‘What am I supposed to do, Your Majesty?’

Your son is an idiot!

She had never considered the possibility that he might reject the marriage.

‘Does he not like me? …Of course, that’s possible.’

Leah covered her flushed cheeks with her hands.

What had she been so confident about?

Why had she simply assumed that the other person would accept just because she asked him to marry her?

At dawn, Karion tossed and turned in bed before abruptly sitting upright.

His forehead was drenched in cold sweat.

Suppressing a groan, he grimaced deeply and clutched at his chest.

It felt as though he had swallowed a ball of fire, and that burning mass was rampaging through his body of its own accord.

“Haa…”

His stomach felt as though it were burning away, while a scorching heat rose beyond his throat, making it feel as though his throat would be seared every time he breathed.

The pain was barely bearable, yet at the same time, an overwhelming urge to plunge himself into ice-cold water surged through him.

But he already knew.

Even if he submerged himself in ice water until his jaw trembled, even if he drank as much cold water as he could, it would do no good.

These cursed attacks, which struck intermittently, had no known cause and no known cure.

All he could do was grit his teeth, endure the pain, and wait for the moment when it reached its peak.

If he relaxed his clenched jaw, he felt as though a scream would tear from his throat. Once the prickling sensation running up the back of his neck passed, the pain would gradually begin to subside.

Sweat dripped down along his tightly clenched jaw.

Soon, the bulging veins on his forehead slowly disappeared.

“Phew…”

He let out a long breath before collapsing back onto the bed.

He stared up at the dark ceiling, breathing heavily.

At least there were no aftereffects.

It was also fortunate that the attacks occurred mostly at night, so there was little chance of anyone seeing him like this.

After lying there blankly for quite some time, dawn finally arrived.

He slowly rose from the bed.

There was no point trying to sleep again, so he went out into the inner courtyard to breathe in the early morning air.

‘The wind?’

Karion felt that the breeze brushing against his face was surprisingly warm for dawn.