Chapter 106
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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Chapter 106
"Are you still feeling unsettled?"
"Ah, well... somewhat, yes."
I answered with embarrassment. Crown Prince Kiaros then asked slowly.
"Could the spy be Victor?"
"Pardon?"
"I heard Victor Awin confess to you in quite an unusual manner on the night of the banquet."
"Yaaawn... My apologies, Your Highness. The sedative's effects are making me yawn constantly."
After a wide yawn, I murmured thoughtfully.
"It was certainly a rather twisted form of affection. Still, I do somewhat agree that the timing wasn't right."
He came of age four years before me, and just as we both reached adulthood, he was sent abroad on an extended assignment...
"Perhaps there was more he wanted to say to me. Though it seems he quickly avoided me because he misunderstood that Your Highness favored me."
"A misunderstanding? It seems the entire Imperial Palace knows about it."
Crown Prince Kiaros looked at me with amusement and smiled slightly.
"Ah, and lately there's also a rumor that I've grown so fond of Namia that I've confined her to the Imperial Palace, and I visit her daily offering blood and tears?"
His crimson eyes gleamed mischievously. I hurriedly lowered my head.
"If I've offended you, I'm truly sorry. I was simply setting a trap to catch the Gaejo Faction..."
"Why apologize? I was the one who said you could sell my name."
Right? It's fine, isn't it? Truth be told, I'd only said it out of courtesy.
"But I never expected you'd sell it this thoroughly."
Or was I wrong? Either way, what choice do I have but to accept it...
Just as I was about to bow even deeper and recite another apology,
"It seems I'm still quite difficult for you to handle."
What does that even mean...
Where in this Empire could there be anyone who finds Crown Prince Kiaros easy to be around?
As I remained silent and bowed lower,
"Lift your head. I was only joking."
I hastily raised my head.
"It seems Crown Prince Kiaros Polariud can only meet Namia's eyes when giving her a command."
His crimson eyes, full of playfulness, somehow looked melancholic.
I parted my lips but ultimately let out the yawn I'd been holding back.
"Yaaawn... My apologies. This absolutely doesn't mean I find this conversation boring..."
"Enough."
Crown Prince Kiaros waved his hand dismissively.
"Lately, even The Ravens look at me with expressions of pity. I wonder where they've been hearing such things..."
"Ah... Still, once you take a Crown Princess, all those rumors will disappear."
"Really?"
"At least in front of Your Highness and the Crown Princess, I guarantee it."
Everyone values their lives too much to gossip then...
"Is that so?"
My sincere words only made Crown Prince Kiaros laugh with even greater playfulness.
"Miss Namia, do you truly believe there exists a woman willing to marry me in these circumstances?"
Even in the darkness, Crown Prince Kiaros's boyishly mischievous smile was breathtakingly beautiful.
I had to steel my optic nerves to resist being enchanted by that expression.
His appearance was truly flawless—so perfectly refined that even this moment of conversation between us felt surreal.
"Of course. Your Highness need never worry about such matters."
In the end, I pledged with my entire heart, sincerity, and soul.
"Ordinary women would naturally, without question, begin imagining their children's names the moment Your Highness so much as smiled with your eyes."
"Is that so?"
Crown Prince Kiaros then gazed at me, his eyes curving into crescents.
The under-eye aegyo that normally went unnoticed now curved upward in full prominence.
His lashes cast shadows around those glimmering crimson eyes.
Confronted with such dazzling beauty for the first time, I felt my heart stop.
Crown Prince Kiaros whispered in a voice as honeyed as sweetness itself.
"Will this do?"
Completely enchanted, I found myself answering without hesitation.
"If a daughter, I would name her Anastasia. If a son, Victor."
At my unhesitating response, Crown Prince Kiaros immediately grew stern.
"You have a remarkable talent for shattering the mood in the strangest ways. I would never name my son Victor."
"My apologies. In truth, I've never once considered children's names throughout my life, yet these two names have been occupying my thoughts constantly. I'm truly sorry."
There was nothing I could do about it.
Though I had answered while enchanted by Crown Prince Kiaros's eye-smile, honestly speaking, I had never truly imagined myself marrying and bearing children.
Because finding my father has always been my life's first priority.
I had vaguely wished to marry and build a family, yet I never placed that desire above my longing to live with my father again.
Somehow, that felt like a betrayal of my father, who sacrificed his life for me.
Crown Prince Kiaros pressed his forehead in exasperation, his voice tinged with displeasure.
"Still, what kind of madman names his child after his rival?"
"Ahahaha, a rival, you say?"
Being interrogated—if not quite interrogated—by none other than the Crown Prince himself made me wonder if I might be executed for this.
In the end, I defended myself in a subdued voice, carefully gauging his reaction.
"The rumors that Your Highness favors me are merely gossip. The truth is quite different, isn't it?"
During this dark period of seclusion, weren't you simply exploiting the fact of my heartbreak?
So I had been carefully avoiding steering the conversation in that direction, but the injustice of it finally made me speak.
"We haven't done anything particularly significant together... I simply surmised that Your Highness, too, has your own reasons for utilizing these rumors."
"Is that so?"
Crown Prince Kiaros regarded me quietly.
"So that's what you believed, Miss Namia."
As I fell silent, Crown Prince Kiaros added softly.
"Or perhaps what you wished to believe."
His eyes held an indefinable sorrow. As an awkward silence settled, I laughed uncomfortably and waved my hand.
"No, well... honestly, we weren't really that close to begin with."
"That's true. I've been the only one faithfully devoted for fifteen years."
Faithfully devoted? What an odd choice of words.
That's when Crown Prince Kiaros's face suddenly tensed.
My eyes widened as well.
The sound of footsteps grew closer, steady and deliberate.
Before I could identify who was approaching, I glanced at Anastasia's and Victor's desks in the empty office.
In Victor's pen holder, a single pen still stood—the very one I'd bought him and Kibon had broken.
'He still hasn't thrown it away.'
When I was young, Victor was the only one who extended his hand to me.
If he had confessed back then, I would have accepted. If he had asked about my circumstances, I would have told him everything.
There was a time when I desperately needed 'that one person.'
Then my gaze slowly shifted to Anastasia's desk.
'Ah... so this is what she's reading these days.'
On Anastasia's desk lay a book titled "The Perfection of Obsession Is Escape," placed neatly in place.
Always handing over coffee with shy hands, and without hesitation rejecting Riedan with coffee grounds and hot water.
'Now I can finally confirm which one it is.'
I let out another thoughtless yawn and quietly gazed out the window.
Anastasia, wearing a robe, walked through the corridor in the darkness.
'Ah.'
She passed by the Scroll Department Office at an unhurried pace, then entered the Production Workshop without hesitation.
My eyes met Crown Prince Kiaros's. In the darkness, his crimson eyes gleamed, but I couldn't read his expression.
After some time had passed, Anastasia emerged from the Production Workshop. In her hands was unmistakably the beaker containing dragon's blood that I had been experimenting with just moments ago.
'Good heavens.'
As Anastasia slowly passed by and I let out a quiet sigh, tears welled up in my eyes despite thinking I had already prepared myself emotionally.
That's when it happened.
"Wait."
Crown Prince Kiaros whispered, looking at me. He had already moved close to my side.
"Excuse me for a moment."
"Yes?"
"Something feels off. I think I need to follow this through to the end. Can you lean against me for a moment?"
In the same instant, my body was lifted off the ground.
He, holding me, swiftly opened the window of the adjacent office.
"Don't scream."
And then he leaped out. It happened in the blink of an eye.
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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