Chapter 78
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78.
I narrowed my eyes as I listened to Cassian Artez's words.
'At this point, I've endured so much that even his subtle remarks hardly faze me anymore.'
What can I do? As a fragile subordinate, I have no choice but to accommodate my superior appropriately.
"That's right. I'm keeping it secret because I want to spend quality time with Your Majesty too."
It wasn't even a lie.
I genuinely wanted to return that matter—the one that had been in limbo for so long—properly.
But then....
"...Your Majesty?"
"Sigh...."
At my earnest response, Cassian Artez exhaled a deep sigh.
He even lowered his head in a petulant manner, covering his face with his large hand so that I couldn't read his expression.
"You...."
He opened his mouth with a slight murmur, his face still covered.
"You're truly too much for me."
"I'm sorry...?"
Bewildered by the sudden accusation, I asked for clarification, but Cassian Artez simply exercised his right to remain silent.
*
It took Cassian Artez several minutes to recover after that.
In the meantime, I had nothing to do but gaze out the window.
As I looked at this scenery, I found myself thinking how long it had been.
Forests and fields, and more fields.
Since it was the depths of winter and the earth had been turned over for plowing, it wasn't particularly beautiful, if I'm being honest, but it was a comforting place.
After all, this was the road to the Seaside Village closest to the Salice Barony, so we'd visited often during the summer.
It was a quaint little village that could be reached by carriage in just a couple of hours from the Salice Barony.
While I gazed out the window in boredom with such thoughts, Cassian Artez gently grasped my hand.
"Are you upset?"
"A little?"
"I'm sorry. I was just so surprised. My heart can be fragile sometimes, you know."
I thought it was a word that truly didn't suit him.
But the moment I turned from the window and saw him looking at me, my breath caught.
With an intensity that was almost unsettling.
Like it was back then....
"Are you leaving?"
He looked like that boy again—unable to hold me back, merely asking the question—when I told him our stay at the Seaside Village with my parents had come to an end and I needed to return.
Why did he go to such lengths for me, even knowing full well that I wasn't someone of such delicate sensibilities?
I squeezed the hand Cassian Artez held out and offered him a light laugh.
Would there ever come a moment when I could treat him coldly?
I pretended everything was false, yet in moments like these, I laid bare my true feelings.
"I wasn't upset to that extent."
At my words, he loosened his grip slightly, then interlaced his fingers with mine and held firm.
"Thank you. If I had been disliked on this journey that Roselita prepared for me for the first time, I would never have forgiven myself for the rest of my life."
"...That seems far too much, Your Majesty."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Keep what in mind?
I was puzzled, but I already knew Cassian Artez wouldn't answer even if I asked, so I turned my gaze back toward the window.
I could feel his violet gaze resting fully upon my profile.
*
"This place is...."
The moment we stepped down from the carriage, Cassian Artez wore an expression of genuine surprise, as though he hadn't anticipated this at all.
Yet I found his reaction even more puzzling.
"Why do you look as though you had no idea?"
"Because I didn't know...?"
That couldn't be right—he hadn't avoided looking out the window the entire journey.
In fact, hadn't he even suggested we should stop soon if we wanted to see the sea?
"...Did you perhaps not know this Cottage was in this Village?"
"I knew that much."
The coachman excused himself, saying he would return to collect us when it was time for dinner.
The Cottage sat deep within the Forest that bordered the Seaside Village, so only the occasional breeze filled the silence.
After gazing at me for a moment, Cassian Artez's expression grew weary, and he took my hand, drawing me inside the Cottage.
"We can't have you catching a cold."
He fretted over such trivial concerns.
The interior, too, had changed little in the ten years that had passed, stirring memories of that time.
A young boy lying in bed for days without regaining consciousness, and the scent of medicine I had gathered haphazardly to give to him....
"Of course, it may not be a pleasant memory for Your Majesty—"
As I recalled this, I wondered if I had inadvertently touched upon some childhood wound, and I opened my mouth awkwardly.
"How could it not be?"
Cassian Artez drew me into his arms, enveloping me completely.
"—It's where I met Roselita for the first time. How could I ever—"
His usually composed voice sank low, resonating softly against my ear.
"I said I didn't know."
He tightened his grip around me.
As if he feared I would vanish somewhere if he didn't, the gesture was almost pitiful.
"Since Roselita didn't want to tell me, you...."
Cassian's voice grew quieter with each word.
Not the twenty-three-year-old crown prince who seemed capable of handling anything, but like an eleven-year-old boy with nowhere to turn except a nine-year-old child.
"Even then, even now, you wanted me not to recognize you."
It wasn't resentment—it was more like a pout.
"So I endured it."
"...You didn't endure it very well, did you?"
As I countered to lighten the increasingly heavy atmosphere, a hint of laughter broke through his voice that had been sinking endlessly.
"It was verification. I might have wanted to receive compensation for saving me."
"You really do make a person shameless."
"I'm sorry. That was a lie."
Then Cassian pressed his lips to my chin and buried them against my neck as he whispered.
"It was actually greed—I wanted you to recognize me."
Slowly, Cassian released me, and with his face before mine, he spoke with the fresh countenance of a young boy.
"I hoped that a memory precious to me held some meaning for you as well."
Facing that expression, unlike the Roselita in the original work, I found myself flooded with visions of Cassian's teenage years that I had never witnessed.
The one I had seen was merely an eleven-year-old wounded boy and the smooth-tongued version of him from twenty-one onward.
When I reached out my hand, he readily offered his face to me.
Like a beast cub asking to be loved, disguising its sharpness as charm without knowing its own danger.
That was why my younger self had observed him directly and remained cautious.
I was not unaware that even a beast cub was always ready to sink its fangs into my throat.
But perhaps the time spent by his side had deceived me.
Now even when he appeared as a beast, I found him endearing—truly, my life had become quite the ordeal.
'Perhaps it wouldn't be so wrong to stay by his side a little longer.'
Finding a way to survive in this twisted, terrifying original story should come first.
And yet.
'If I could save him, even briefly, from the loneliness and fear that plague him constantly.'
An earnest emotion settled within me—one utterly unlike myself, surely a delusion.
*
The cottage was frankly inadequate for winter lodging, so when I shivered slightly, Cassian Artez immediately kindled a fire in the hearth.
Though the prepared firewood was scarce, he resolved the matter within moments by wrapping me in blankets and his own overcoat before neatly splitting additional logs.
"Your Majesty certainly wastes your Master-tier power without restraint."
As I spoke while observing the neatly stacked firewood, Cassian Artez regarded me with a puzzled expression.
"Is there anything more important than ensuring my precious aide doesn't catch a cold?"
"...Your Majesty catching a cold instead?"
If that happened, my workload would undoubtedly become overwhelming.
At that, Cassian Artez chuckled and placed two cups of brewed tea on the table before the hearth, then settled beside me.
Apparently deeming even that insufficient, he unwrapped himself from his overcoat and blanket, then pulled me close and draped the blanket over us both.
"I'm cold."
"You've been outside?"
"You said catching a cold would be serious."
"You'll warm up soon enough, being beside Roselita Salice."
Somehow that sounded far more suggestive than it should, Your Majesty.
Of course, I wasn't the type to invite embarrassment upon myself, so I kept my retort to myself.
The grave atmosphere from moments before seemed like a lie—Cassian Artez appeared in remarkably high spirits.
Was he relieved because I'd finally revealed my secret, lifting the weight of constraint?
"Did you know, Roselita Salice?"
"Yes?"
"Even as a child, I never once called you Wilhelmina Lopez to deceive you."
"You did call me that."
"When?"
"Before Wilhelmina Lopez returned, to surprise me."
"That wasn't calling you that."
So that's how he's going to play it....
"Could you let me win just this once? You're my benefactor, after all."
So I resorted to a petty tactic.
"Roselita Salice truly doesn't understand."
"Yes?"
"I'm always letting you win."
In what way, exactly?!
As I turned my head in bewilderment to look at him, Cassian Artez also turned slightly toward me and smiled softly.
"That's why you can now rest against me so naturally."
Suddenly a sense of danger washed over me, and the back of my neck grew cold.
When I gasped in alarm, Cassian Artez laughed and pulled me close again, obscuring his face from my view.
"I'll keep letting you win, so don't run away, Roselita Salice."
He whispered, his voice languid and tender.
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