Invitation.

Aspara pulled her arm free of the slackened grip in one clean motion.

“Excuse me.”

The castle lord’s wife, who had been on her way out for a walk, offered a light curtsy, then disappeared into her room.

Beyond the closed door, not a single footstep could be heard for a long while.

“Um, my lord. It seems she has said she will not go…”

“I know.”

An attendant who had been standing by spoke up hesitantly. The castle lord was glaring at the far side of the door he could not see past.

He looked down at his own right hand, the one that had seized his wife’s wrist. He clenched and unclenched it a few times, as though gauging the slenderness of the wrist he had held.

“The plan does not change. Pack my wife’s luggage for her.”

“But, my lord—”

“My wife simply does not know her own heart. Once we set off, she will come around.”

“Understood.”

Despite the worried look on his face, the attendant, who had no right to defy the castle lord’s word, prepared a carriage bound for the south.

In the days following that rather fraught incident, conversation between Gus and Aspara was all but nonexistent. In the prolonged silence, the time to depart from the castle arrived before anyone was ready for it.

Aspara had no choice but to board the carriage. The awkward atmosphere left everyone sitting stiffly, without a word.

The only one enjoying the journey was Jack, who had come along as her escort knight. Apparently thrilled to leave the snowfields for the first time in ages, he fished a bag of hardened syrup candies from his pack and passed them around.

Jack took a candy wrapped in paper and tried to force it between Aspara’s clenched fingers, pressing insistently.

“I don’t want any.”

When her fingers showed no sign of opening despite his persistent pushing, Jack simply placed the candy on top of Aspara’s head.

“I said I don’t want any.”

“Save it for later.”

After they had been riding for some time, the scenery outside the carriage began to turn green, and the sky itself grew brighter. They had reached the border with the central kingdom.

Crossing the border took quite a while. The carriage halted at a checkpoint, and only after the invitation and various documents of proof were presented and a good deal of back-and-forth exchanged did it finally begin to move again.

“For a king passing through, the inspection is awfully like being treated as bandits.”

“We’re not much different from bandits, as far as they’re concerned.”

Once past the border and across the wide canal that cut through the land, tiled rooftops of fired clay and castle spires piercing the clouds came into view at last.

The air of the central kingdom.

“My, would you look at this population density. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced anything like it.”

The rattling of the carriage shifted to the steady drrrr, drrrr of wheels rolling across brick. The voices of people filling the streets clamored from every direction, all of them with healthy complexions and loud voices.

Even the most destitute-looking passerby wore something dangling from their ears, and the food at the street stalls was without exception fresh and fragrant.

The bleak northern landscape they had been looking at just an hour ago felt like a dream in the face of such vitality.

This is what I stole from her…

Gus looked out at the passing scenery, then turned to Aspara. For the first time, the pallor that had crept into his wife’s skin truly registered; she was noticeably paler now than when she had first arrived in the north.

Aspara kept her eyes fixed on the view outside, the candy still sitting undisturbed on the crown of her head, with no sign she intended to turn away.

But I can no longer send her back.

Gus’s arms, crossed tightly over his chest, clenched a little harder.

They left the bustling streets behind, and the carriage began to pull into an estate that looked more like a castle.

The building was a dazzlingly grand affair, its outer walls a pristine white.

“Is that plaster mixed with pigment?”

“Marble, I believe — carved and stacked, my lord.”

“Huh.”

Such extravagance was only possible in the central kingdom, whose climate was stable and whose wealth was obscenely vast.

He was suddenly reminded of the catfish baron’s estate, now reduced to ashes.

The great gate, carved with a vine motif, swung slowly open.

I want to go home.

Gus and Aspara arrived at the banquet hall.

The spacious hall was only now beginning to fill with guests. Furtive, whispering glances pricked at her from all directions, but no one approached Aspara directly.

That was likely because of the King of Barbarians, who was standing stiff as a stone pillar with an even more fearsome expression than usual.

If it’s come to this, we might as well dance together, but— the aftertaste of their first quarrel a few days ago rolled between them like a grain of sand caught between bare foot and slipper.

The estate went to the trouble of providing an interpreter and everything, and he hasn’t said a single word. After he was the one who insisted on coming in the first place.

Aspara was sipping her drink with listless indifference when someone finally approached her.

“Lady Aspara.”

She turned to find a noble in purple standing there. Not terribly close, but a face she had certainly seen a few times in society.

After offering a very perfunctory and breezy greeting to Gus, the man struck up a conversation.

“Having a good time, I hope? I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”

“Oh, my husband received an invitation from Miss Seven, you see.”

“Miss Seven?”

Oops. Internally, she had been cycling through Seventy, Miss Seven, Seven, Seven-Letters; calling her by so many nicknames that she had slipped.

She had blurted out one of her private names by accident.

“My, so you and Madame Sebinya Gobir are close enough for pet names? What a generous heart.”

Ah, that woman. So that was her real name.

A lucky break.

“We’re not unfriendly, I suppose.”

“How magnanimous. Although I imagine the two of you would have certain things in common. After all, two women who loved the same man — that’s no ordinary bond.”

“Ha ha.”

Aspara kept her smile fixed.

But in her mind, the flashback to a day she had buried deep was already playing.

“I was in love with Sebinya Gobir all along. This forced marriage born of your greed and lust — I’ve despised it from the very start!”

“I beg of you, Lady Aspara. Do whatever you wish with me, but please — give him up.”

Ugh. Why is it always the cringiest parts I remember.

Aspara decided to shake off the flooding memories by focusing on the conversation partner in front of her.

Not that she focused on what he was actually saying; she focused on imagining that his nostrils were his eyes and his philtrum was his nose.

[8.]

“— — —— —.”

“—— — —. —— —.”

Gus wanted to go home just as badly.

The banquet, his first, was bewildering. He could hear the murmuring of people watching and whispering about him from every direction, but the meaning of their whispers was utterly beyond him.

If this had been a battlefield, he would have hidden behind a pillar and silenced them one by one with an arrow through each heart, but the rules of combat in this gaudy arena were plainly different from any he knew.

He had expected the banquet to be dull, of course, but he had thought that at least watching his wife’s face would be entertainment enough.

His wife’s face, however, looked anything but entertained after their pointless little spat.

I’m frustrated.

What he was supposed to do about it, the King of Barbarians had no earthly idea. The drink he had picked up without really knowing what it was turned out to be cloyingly sweet and cold, and he could barely stomach it.

But what bothers me most is—

A few paces behind them, in the crowd, there was a man who kept stealing glances at Aspara. A tall man with the look of a kept pretty-boy.

The man feigned nonchalance, chatting with his own group and pretending he wasn’t looking this way, but a pampered lordling’s petty tricks were no match for the field of vision of a hunter-born like Gus.

Is he looking at my wife?

Gus was certain. Star had fussed over his wife’s appearance more than ever, and she was radiant; that man was staring at her. Just as the man was about to steal yet another glance at Aspara, his eyes finally met Gus’s.

…A man’s jealousy is an unseemly thing.

Even as he thought it, he could not stop glaring at the man. The other seemed to decide there was no longer any point in hiding it and began openly staring back.

The others in the man’s group, wondering what was going on, looked toward Gus, and the moment their eyes met his, they turned away in fright, pretending they had seen nothing.

But that man alone did not turn his head. In fact, he began walking straight toward them.

“What the—”

“Aspara—. ——.”

The man who approached addressed not Gus, but Aspara.

“— ——.”

“— —! — ——.”

Aspara acknowledged his greeting. The purple-clad noble who had been talking (or rather, needling) her earlier exchanged a few brief words with the man, then slipped away with a smooth smile.

“— — — —.”

“This is the master of the estate, Lord Flower. He says it is an honor to meet you.”

The estate’s interpreter, assigned for the northern tongue, relayed the introduction to Gus.

Flower.

Flower. Something about it rubbed him the wrong way.

Flower leaned in and gave Aspara a light embrace, then brought his lips close to her ear and spoke in a whisper.

Watching this, Gus felt something boiling up from inside his heart.

The unpleasant feeling was mutual for Aspara.

“Aspara, you—”

Flower Bel.

No, they were divorced, so he wasn’t a Bel anymore.

His new wife’s of lower birth, so I suppose he’s using his own family name again. Was it Bat, originally?

Flower, Aspara’s ex-husband.

What’s he doing here? Oh, right. Today was the celebration of this fool’s heir. A honeymoon baby conceived two months after the divorce, and this was the party to celebrate.