"I never imagined I would see my enemy this close."
...It was a tone of voice that I felt a sense of deja vu.
'I'm sure I've heard something similar in front of the castle gates before.'
As I searched her memory, I remembered when Irena visited Rowen Castle.
'Oh, Your Highness. This is my older sister, Irena.'
When I introduced Irena to my husband who returned from the hunting grounds earlier than expected.
'The day is coming when Vermont will set foot in my castle.'
Kaian's expression of displeasure was fierce.
'And as my guest, at that.'
Evan's attitude of passionately displaying hostility so casually in the heart of Temnes made the atmosphere cold as if it were freezing the emotion of someone who was thought to be dead coming back to life.
"Ah..."
I groaned softly, watching Kaian, the man who had stolen my gaze from the first sight by the black-haired, red-eyed enemy call my name desperately as if boiling inside him.
“Claudel!”
“...Dad.”
Even as I walked the short distance, I felt as if the world had slowed down for a moment.
When I heard from my mother that Evan might be alive, I thought that I might resent my father if I met him.
Why did you leave me alone like that?
How could you leave me like that after bringing me to a castle that was like a voluntary prison where the gates were closed due to the heavy snow and bitterly cold all winter?
“Dad. Since you passed away, I can’t sleep.”
I felt a lump in my throat as I recalled the insomnia that had occasionally tormented me as if I had been carrying an inescapable yoke.
It was all because of him.
He had left me as if I was dead while I was alive, from a child to an adult.
I was worried that my feelings of wanting to blame him would be stronger than my gratitude for him giving birth to me and that I would ruin the moment of encounter.
However, the moment my eyes met with the golden eyes that were just like mine, the resentment that had been tormenting my heart disappeared.
Step by step.
As I approached my father, who was now all grown up and at a different eye level, my soul that had grown up with wounds became younger and younger. When I held Evan’s hand, I felt like I had completely returned to being a child. I had been crying while knocking on the stone coffin that was cold and had not responded no matter how much I called him, but as if my father had opened his eyes and comforted me, saying that it was actually a joke, I was just happy that he was alive.
I barely managed to speak quietly with a choked voice.
“Do you know how much I missed you?”
There were several times when I had barely fallen asleep, wandering the long corridors of the dark castle unconsciously, crouching down and dozing off, and found myself at the entrance to the catacombs.
Sitting in the crack of the door with the big lock and the musty smell of the basement, thinking of my father lying on the other side of the door made me feel a little closer to my parents whom I missed, and I didn’t even realize that it was creepy and strange to others.
That was until the Duke of Vermont, who was disgusted by the rumor that his adopted daughter, who had been officially registered in the family, was crazy, ordered Hannah to sleep with me in the lady’s room.
“...I’m sorry. Ugh.”
Evan roughly rubbed his face, holding back tears.
The surroundings became solemn as the father and daughter were reunited.
The lady who had been forcibly married into the enemy’s family was now called the real power in the castle, but what had it been like at first?
The reason why they took me even more lightly because I was Vermont’s daughter and was because I wasn’t the Duke of Vermont’s biological daughter.
If I was his biological daughter, they wouldn’t have sent me to a place where I would be bullied.
There must have been a few people here who thought that they had the right to bully me, thinking that my fate was not good for a woman with such bad luck.
Here and there, sobbing could be heard at the sight of those with stories.
“Don’t stand here like this, come inside.”
I turned around, wiping my tears with a handkerchief. It was proper manners for Kaian, the master of the castle and the head of the family, to welcome Evan as a guest.
“What if Dad scolds me as soon as he sees Kaian?”
Considering his personality, it wouldn’t have been strange if there had been a huge uproar.
The status difference was such that it wouldn’t have been a problem for Kaian, the Duke, to treat Evan, who was just the second son of the Vermont family and had no title, poorly.
It was very awkward for my father to express his disgust toward my husband before they could even properly greet each other.
“Welcome to Rowen Castle.”
However, Kaian’s attitude was unexpected.
“You must have had a hard time coming from such a long way. Let’s talk slowly inside.”
Even the Duke of Vermont, who never lowered himself, readily offered words that were pleasant to hear.
However, as soon as Kaian opened his mouth, Evan's face crumpled fiercely.
"I..."
"Let's go in and talk."
When he was about to say something explosive that seemed obvious without even having to hear it, Madame Cronach urged him, and Evan's momentum instantly calmed down.
"...Sure."
"Come this way."
The butler quickly walked out and took the nobles inside the castle, causing the others to sigh.
"What happened?"
"That's right. So our Ma'am wasn't an orphan?"
"Then how did her father come from the Sol Continent?"
It was as the commotion spread among them one by one.
"Um. What should we do?"
"That's right. Can we go into the castle?"
The Sol Continent mercenary group members who were watching Evan disappear inside without paying any attention to his subordinates fell into confusion, unable to figure out what to do.
***
Until the tea that had been filling the cup and rising with its fragrant steam cooled down without any warmth, Evan froze with his eyes wide open after hearing Madame Cronach’s story.
He sat there with his face hardened, showing no human emotion, like a large rock mountain.
“You’re saying that Temnes didn’t attack the village?”
The man who had been firing cannonballs at Rowen without hesitation only half a day ago seemed shocked and angry, not knowing what to do.
“It was a situation that you could misunderstand,”
Madame Cronach said, deliberately calmly, not seeming to take anyone’s side.
“I left the house and collapsed inside the spring.”
“I didn’t think to look there.”
He seemed to be deeply ashamed.
“The Arbor house was also completely burned down to ashes.”
How many people could remain calm in the face of the sight of their house, where their wife should have been waiting, burned to the ground and everything?
“I thought the ones who set the village on fire had come back. Those who didn’t even hide their Temnes weapons were stacking firewood and pouring oil in the village where the flames hadn’t died down.”
Thinking back to that moment, Evan’s eyes turned bloodshot and his body trembled as if he couldn’t control his emotions.
“You misunderstood. It wasn’t what you thought.”
Madame Cronach slowly stroked Evan’s arm with her hand.
“If Kaian hadn’t saved me, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Ahem.”
Evan looked at Kaian with a discontented look, but when his eyes met Madame Cronach’s, his eyebrows lowered as if he had lost his cool.
“There’s no evidence, so I can’t believe that the evil Temnes would do such a favor.”
“Evan.”
“...You’re right, but accepting it is another matter...”
“He’s my benefactor.”
“...I’ll try. Why would I owe it to my enemy?”
When Madame Cronach sighed deeply, Evan looked at her.
“But why didn’t you go find Claudel?”
“...”
Evan, who had asked the question as if he was purely curious, made a fierce expression again.
“The Temnes are using the fact that he saved your life as an excuse to threaten you...”
The man who had grown up with the seeds of anger planted in him as his mortal enemy and eventually destroyed his wife and life seemed to have a hard time accepting the truth.
“I went.”
“Where?”
“To the Castle of Valmonde.”
Evan looked blank as if he had been caught off guard by her words.
“Why didn’t you contact me when you were alive?”
It took some time for him to understand why the Duke of Vermont had refused his offer to lend him troops to go fight Temnes.
As the head of the family and the lord, his brother had something to protect and was in a different position from him, who could act however he pleased.
‘I should have taken care of Claudel.’
At that time, rather than the common sense of taking care of his daughter, he only wanted to invade Rowen and set it on fire.
It was extremely regrettable that he was driven out by the Duke of Vermont.
On the other hand, he consoled himself that his generous sister-in-law in the castle, who lacked nothing, would take care of his young daughter who had lost her mother, and that it would be better to be cared for by a noblewoman than by a father who had lost his wife and gone mad.
The Sol Continent was a land where people lived in a wild way.
They would fight and win against those who had taken a stronger position and take that position instead.
With a dream of revenge, Evan killed countless men to become the strongest in that land.
To avoid dying himself.
To avoid losing to those who would risk their lives to take advantage of the authority of the strong that he had acquired.
There was no way he could be the only one clean on the bloody path of revenge.
After struggling so desperately to escape the living hell, he met his wife who he thought was dead.
He just couldn’t understand the Duke of Vermont’s behavior.
“He asked me to take Claudel with him.”
Madame Cronach said with a sad face.
“The Duke of Vermont said he couldn’t acknowledge that I was your wife.”
“Why?”
“Because marriage between nobles and commoners is prohibited in the Kingdom of Oberon.”
She tried to speak calmly to him who stupidly asked, but she couldn’t hide the resentment that had built up over the years.
“Because you and I weren’t legally married.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Evan asked back with a cold face.
“So what you’re saying is that my brother lied to me?”
“I went.”
“Where?”
“To the Castle of Valmonde.”
Evan looked blank as if he had been caught off guard by her words.
“Why didn’t you contact me when you were alive?”
It took some time for him to understand why the Duke of Vermont had refused his offer to lend him troops to go fight Temnes.
As the head of the family and the lord, his brother had something to protect and was in a different position from him, who could act however he pleased.
‘I should have taken care of Claudel.’
At that time, rather than the common sense of taking care of his daughter, he only wanted to invade Rowen and set it on fire.
It was extremely regrettable that he was driven out by the Duke of Vermont.
On the other hand, he consoled himself that his generous sister-in-law in the castle, who lacked nothing, would take care of his young daughter who had lost her mother, and that it would be better to be cared for by a noblewoman than by a father who had lost his wife and gone mad.
The Sol Continent was a land where people lived in a wild way.
They would fight and win against those who had taken a stronger position and take that position instead.
With a dream of revenge, Evan killed countless men to become the strongest in that land.
To avoid dying himself.
To avoid losing to those who would risk their lives to take advantage of the authority of the strong that he had acquired.
There was no way he could be the only one clean on the bloody path of revenge.
After struggling so desperately to escape the living hell, he met his wife who he thought was dead.
He just couldn’t understand the Duke of Vermont’s behavior.
“He asked me to take Claudel with him.”
Madame Cronach said with a sad face.
“The Duke of Vermont said he couldn’t acknowledge that I was your wife.”
“Why?”
“Because marriage between nobles and commoners is prohibited in the Kingdom of Oberon.”
She tried to speak calmly to him who stupidly asked, but she couldn’t hide the resentment that had built up over the years.
“Because you and I weren’t legally married.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Evan asked back with a cold face.
“So what you’re saying is that my brother lied to me?”
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