IWJACM Chapter 8

Elise had expected something like a small stream. She was slightly off. 

What she found when she crossed through the trees was a lake with a waterfall cascading into it.

"The water is cold. Will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine."

"Be careful not to let water into the wound."

"Yes."

Elise answered compliantly while staring steadily at his face.

Rezet Kyrstan's face was not so different from when she had first met him. Eyes unmoved by ordinary things, a nose that gave an impression of meticulous exactness, lips pressed together with characteristic stubbornness. The same blunt delivery.

But a few days ago, before dawn, he had held her in his arms. The heat emanating from a man's body packed with thick muscle—Elise remembered it vividly.

"……."

'Shall I test just one thing.'

Elise stood before him and released the cloak she had been holding closed.

It slid from her, srrk—a soundless collapse of fabric onto the ground.

The dress Elise had been wearing when she fled Argan had long since been soaked through with blood. But there were no women's clothes to be found in an army made up entirely of men, so Elise had been given the high-quality linen shirt and canvas trousers issued to knights.

Whose, it was easy enough to guess. This man's, surely—there would be no reason to give her another man's clothes.

But Rezet's clothes could not possibly fit her, so Elise looked like something stuffed into a sack.

The man did nothing but watch as Elise undid the button at the neck of the collar. No word of restraint. Nor did he turn away.

'Even now I can't read him. What kind of person he is.'

The only time a recognizable emotion had risen plainly in those eyes was the day she had driven the dagger into her shoulder.

What about now.

Without dropping her gaze from those fathomless eyes, Elise undid the second button. The delicate line of her collarbone appeared. The third button came free and a modest curve of her chest was revealed; with the fourth, the tuck of her waist and the smooth shimmer of skin in the moonlight followed in sequence.

Presently the linen shirt slid past slender thighs and settled onto the cloak already lying in the grass.

With so little left to cover her, a fine chill moved through her.

Was it the man watching her without so much as a blink, or the cold night air still holding winter in it? Elise could not tell which was responsible.

He gave no reaction of any kind. Yet she could feel his gaze moving across her body.

Goosebumps rose wherever his gaze rested. Elise's cheeks gradually warmed.

But if she had started, she had to see it through. Her hands, which had been gripping uselessly at the air, found the waistband sitting precariously at the curve of her hips and hooked two fingers under it.

The moment she moved to drag the remaining cloth downward, her hands were caught.

"……!"

Elise startled. Only then did she realize she had stopped breathing.

The man with those overwhelmingly imposing eyes said quietly:

"The air is still cold."

"…I want to wash."

"The water is cold as well. It's been fewer than three days since your fever broke."

"……."

"And."

The low voice seemed to scrape down the length of bare skin.

The deepest part of her abdomen contracted with tension. Fingertips flinched; toes curled on their own. Every part of her—exposed entirely to cold air and to another's gaze—became twice, three times as sensitive.

Elise bit the inside of her lip and barely endured the sheer weight of his presence. She wanted to lift her arms and cover her exposed chest immediately, but she held the shame down. Keeping her gaze from sliding away from eyes that regarded her as though tracing every line of her took a concentrated effort of will.

She managed it.

Rezet finally dropped his eyes. He said, in a voice gone rough as though holding back a groan:

"Do not put me to the test, Your Highness."

"……."

"I told you clearly—I cannot help you. That is as I said."

This was the second turbulence she had witnessed in those blue eyes in the month she had known him.

There was heat in the large hand that covered both of hers at once. The man drew in a slow, deep breath, and then closed his eyes completely.

"The rocks at the water's edge will be mossy. You'll slip."

"……."

"And tomorrow we arrive at a town with an inn. Can you not wait one day?"

"……."

"Even if you take ill again, I cannot delay the schedule by my own discretion this time. You'll know this. That extending our arrival in Van Yela is no longer something I can manage."

This man—Grand Duke Kyrstan—stringing this many words together in a row was the first time.

Elise glanced down at herself. The thought struck her as briefly, darkly funny: standing here with her chest entirely bare in front of a foreign man, an enemy nation's princess—no different from a street woman selling her body.

She was behaving as cheaply as could be, while the other party was an upright knight who knew the meaning of honor.

Neither conversation nor seduction had worked on him.

She wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or to despair. She hadn't even been hoping. There was nothing to do but resign herself to that.

And yet.

"…I'll just wash my hands and feet."

Elise opened her closed throat and said it quietly. Something in the long string of words Rezet Kyrstan had spoken so out of character for himself stirred and shifted in her.

That he could not delay the schedule by his own discretion this time.

'This time…'

Her heart began to beat quietly. Elise washed her hands and feet in the lake and returned draped in his cloak to the campfire.

Even after she returned, she thought about those words for a long time.

And once—briefly, just once—she let herself entertain a small hope: that perhaps, after she had done what she intended to do upon reaching Van Yela, that man might forgive her.

After the incident at the lakeside, time moved quickly. And at last, in the middle of the third month—a month and a half since Elise had been taken by Van Yela's forces.

Elise arrived at Van Yela, the great empire of the continent's northwest.

2. A Lie Always Intended

Unwelcome visitors had arrived at Van Yela's imperial palace ahead of them.

No sooner had the Grand Duke's army crossed the drawbridge and entered the palace than soldiers with dark skin and foreign armor stepped forward to block their way.

"Ughel men."

Ruben muttered, his tone making his distaste plain. Discomfort rose on the faces of the Van Yela knights. Ruben pulled his reins and fell in beside Rezet.

"The Fourth Prince of Ughel—Yanok Sihat. I hadn't thought he'd come here himself."

A flicker of unease crossed Rezet's expressionless face. Yanok Sihat—he understood this to be the man who, alongside his older brother the First Prince, had struck at Argan's capital.

Van Yela had dispatched supporting forces only; the ten thousand troops under Rezet's command had dealt with the allied nations on Argan's western flank. He had never come face to face with the Ughel forces who had taken Argan's heart—the royal palace itself.

"You're Grand Duke Kyrstan?"

Yanok Sihat pointed at Rezet and grinned. The yellowed teeth visible between his thin-cut lips were bared wide.

"I heard you caught Argan's princess fleeing the western border. Is that woman in the wagon?"

Rezet glanced briefly behind him. The prisoner transport wagon was covered in violet satin that showed nothing of what was within. But enough of what was being said outside would be filtering in.

Inside the wagon, Elise had drawn herself small.

'Ughel savages.'

Before her eyes flashed the brilliance of a single-edged blade gleaming with droplets of blood.

Just three months ago, barbarians in armor fashioned from the tough hides and furs of beasts had broken through Argan's gates and poured in like a tide. They swept their broad, curved single-edged blades downward without mercy, cutting through Argan's soldiers. The commander of Argan's imperial guard who had been helping Elise flee had his neck hacked through by one of those blades and fallen.

The barbarians had cut down young pages and elderly servants without distinction. That blade had likely struck Andrei's neck as well.

Elise's hands and feet shook, fear and fury rising simultaneously. The man beyond that cloth was Argan's enemy.

"I went all the way into the palace myself, hoping to see the face of Argan's princess—they say she's a remarkable beauty. And she'd already slipped away, hadn't she? A face worth dying to see just once—I was bitterly disappointed. So I made a request of Van Yela's master. Bring her without so much as a hair out of place, I said. With all due ceremony."

Yanok Sihat sauntered toward the wagon. A faint crease appeared on Rezet's face.

"Since Grand Duke of our brother nation has personally seen fit to capture the princess, I'll receive her with gratitude. You did keep her in one piece?"

Elise glared at the violet satin as though she would tear through it.

The Emperor of Van Yela's order to bring her unharmed—that had meant he intended to throw her alive as a plaything to these barbarians? In the end the Emperor was no different from the Ughel men.

If she was handed directly to the Ughel side like this, Elise's plan would run into an obstacle before it had even begun. Elise ground her teeth.

The strutting footsteps were drawing closer.

'Fine. Come. Come and lay your hands on me.'

The moment those revolting fingers touched her body, she would activate the magic inscribed in her flesh. If she was fated to die regardless, taking an enemy prince with her to the afterlife was not a bad trade. If death was inevitable, she intended to make it worth as much as possible.

A bristle-covered fist closed around the satin covering the wagon. The cloth was hauled upward, and harsh sunlight invaded the dark interior.

Light fell across Elise's slight frame and shoulders, angled across her narrow jaw and the lips pressed firmly together—and in that moment.

The sound of armor striking armor came from directly in front of her. A flat voice followed.

"Stand back."