Chapter 17

“The Emperor is wary of your wealth… No matter how much you have, that’s…”  

Asla trailed off.

She understood that the world was rapidly changing.  

As industries advanced and technology became more important, money had begun to outrank noble blood.  

Wealthy commoners were rising into the new gentry class, blurring the boundaries of the old hierarchy.

Thus, when Emperor Rosenberg Aurisk ascended the throne twenty years ago, he established a cabinet and introduced a parliament that included commoners in the lower house—a gesture reflecting the rising importance of public sentiment and money.

Even so, the idea that a duke could pressure the sovereign, the Emperor himself, was still difficult for her to comprehend.

Watching her blink in confusion, Enoch clicked his tongue shortly.

“I thought keeping you safely tucked away in the Ventus territory would be for the best… but it seems I made you completely ignorant of how the world works. I apologize.”

He reached his hand across the table, and instinctively, Asla offered the hand she had hidden below.

The moment her pale hand was wrapped in his warm one, her heart fluttered again.

Enoch shook her hand lightly in apology, but didn’t let go.

Asla frowned in mild discomfort.  

What was she supposed to do?  

Ask him to let go? Or just slip her hand away discreetly?

Yet for some reason, the moment he held her hand, her trembling stopped, and her heart calmed.

His warmth… she didn’t want to lose it.

Staring down at their joined hands, Asla asked in an even voice, “Should I pull away?”

“If you want to, go ahead. I don’t want to.” Enoch replied calmly to her blunt question.

Asla remembered what he had said before—how he didn’t want the divorce and asked her to reconsider.  

‘Is that why he’s doing this now?’

She decided to continue the earlier conversation.

“So Emperor Rosenberg wasn’t threatening you?”

“I’ll make it clear again. It was a ‘discussion.’ A ‘negotiation.’ I’m Duke Ventus—one of the wealthiest nobles in a world shifting toward money and power. Among the potential candidates to counterbalance the temple, I was the most suitable. And I accepted His Majesty’s proposal.”

“…There were other candidates?”

So the Emperor didn’t push for their marriage out of fear of Enoch’s growing fame and wealth?  

Asla was visibly puzzled.

Seeing that, Enoch gently stroked the back of her hand.

“Do you want to know who the others were?”

Tilting his head slightly, Enoch looked up at her with languid eyes, his gaze angled and slow—a little too seductive, almost sinfully so.

Asla gulped and quickly leaned back, pulling her hand from his grasp.

Enoch curled and uncurled his now-empty hand as if reluctant to let her go.

“You don’t need to know. They were men too powerless to protect you anyway.”

His voice was firm with certainty.

Asla felt strangely conflicted.  

He’d repeated it several times now—how he had tried to protect her.

There was clearly something she didn’t know.

‘Were there really mobs trying to harm me?’ That seemed plausible.

From the moment she was born, the Holy Kingdom’s lands began to wither, and many had whispered that she was the cause.

‘So that’s why he tried to protect me?’

A shadow fell across Asla’s face.

The time she’d spent in the Ventus estate couldn’t be called protection.  

It was Enoch’s selfish arrogance.

She thought of the day they were married, in the garden of the Ventus mansion.

The day before the wedding, she had arrived at the estate.  

At first, the maids treated her with deference—as the princess of the fallen Holy Kingdom.  

But once Enoch left abruptly for the capital without even spending the wedding night with her, and didn’t return for a long while, their attitude shifted.

They quickly began to disregard her.

To the point where Asla had thought it might have been better to endure the grueling schedule at the Great Temple instead.

Scorn. Disregard. Mockery.

The days when even Margo’s torment was added to it all had been overwhelming—even for Asla, who had been raised to value patience above all else.

She recalled the hardest day of all, and a bitter smile crossed her lips.  

Was it early winter?

Having grown up in the southern part of the continent, Asla had found it incredibly difficult to endure her first winter in the northern Ventus territory.  

She kept telling herself she needed to adapt, but it was impossible to get used to.  

As the days grew colder, her fingers and toes froze so badly she could barely move.

Of course, the maids offered no consideration.  

They dressed her in a thin coat, saying it was what northern ladies typically wore this time of year.

But unable to endure the bone-chilling cold of the North, Asla—just that one time—begged the maids.  

She pleaded for warmer clothing, or at least to be allowed to layer the thin garments.

One of the maids looked troubled.  

The Duchess of the Ventus domain couldn’t show such weakness to the cold, she whispered.  

She told Asla to consult with the Lady Dowager—Margo.

She added that the Dowager Duchess was out walking near the lake in the garden, and maybe Asla should go see her.

Shivering, Asla ran out to the lake where Margo was walking.

Margo met her with a pitying smile—and rejected her.

She scolded Asla in a roundabout way, saying, “I’m wearing this thin coat myself. How could someone beneath me wear anything thicker?”

Someone beneath her.

Asla couldn’t bear being referred to that way.

She had lived a life of discipline and restraint, yes.  

But she was still royalty. A princess.  

Never in her life had she been “beneath” anyone.

Margo had wounded Asla’s proud, noble dignity.  

Asla stared back at her with a silent, composed gaze—and that had been her mistake.

Irritated, Margo had walked right up to her.  

She said she’d help Asla become a true Duchess of Ventus, someone who could handle the harsh northern climate.

Then she ordered several maids to push Asla into the icy lake.

The water was shallow—barely reaching her waist—so she didn’t die.  

But Asla had wished she could. That’s how much she suffered.

The cold slicing into her flesh was unbearable, but what chilled her even more were the mocking, amused eyes of Margo and the maids watching her shiver like a toy.

Asla barely managed to crawl out of the lake and fell ill for several days.  

Yet the physician of the Ventus household didn’t even prescribe her proper medicine.

“I’m sure the divine will protect the Holy Kingdom’s princess. Don’t damage her pride carelessly.”

Asla had heard Margo whisper that to the doctor as she lay feverish.

Then came the news that her old nanny had died.  

She wept for the first time in a long while.

That day, in that lightless place, she had thrashed in despair, wondering how much longer she could endure.

For the first time, she resented Enoch deeply—the man she had loved from afar for so long, who had abandoned her to this place and never even returned.

“Asla.”

Enoch’s voice brought her back, and she looked at him, awash with emotion.

‘I hate you. For abandoning me, for humiliating me like that… I hate you so much.’

But gathering herself, Asla asked calmly, “When I was at the Great Temple, before our marriage…why did you watch me every week?”

Enoch’s eyes widened, his pupils trembling.  

But he soon regained his composure and stared at her steadily.

“…Why?” she asked again.

He didn’t answer. Instead, his sharp eyes traced her figure from head to toe, making her skin prickle.

“Tell me clearly.”

“Tell you what?”

“Whether you knew already—or if that too came from Ian Hertha.”

The mint-green eyes that resembled a clear sea darkened.  

There’s no way he’d known. If he had, things would’ve turned out very differently.

Asla slowly shook her head.

“I won’t answer. You didn’t answer my question either.”

“…Asla.”

“You said you’d answer anything.”

When Asla narrowed her eyes and glared at Enoch, his sharp attitude softened.  

He hesitated, then averted his gaze and stammered, “Yeah… I did.”

“Why? Did you have a lot of business at the Grand Temple? Did you stop by to see who your bride-to-be was?”

Asla, flustered by how readily he admitted it, ended up rambling.  

But Enoch found her babbling strangely endearing and let out a faint laugh.

“I’m not a priest. Why would I have any reason to visit the Grand Temple so often? None at all. Really, truly—only to see you.”

“Why.”

She couldn’t stop asking the same question.  

She couldn’t make sense of the man he used to be.  

It had almost been easier when she convinced herself he was cold-hearted and indifferent, simply neglecting her.

Her eyes blinked slowly, but she couldn’t look away from Enoch’s face.

“At first, His Majesty asked what I thought about marrying you. So I went to see. I wondered how the little princess I’d once met in the Holy Kingdom’s rose garden was doing.”

“Little princess?”

“You were little.”

When she latched onto that small detail, Enoch repeated it more firmly.  

It had been the age when Asla had first fallen in love—but to Enoch, was she really just a child?

Maybe what Robert said in the dream, about Enoch falling for her, really had been nonsense.

Asla narrowed her eyes and pouted slightly, and Enoch tilted his head, puzzled.

“What is it?”

Startled, she quickly straightened her lips into a flat line.  

“It’s nothing. So then, why did you keep coming after that?”

“Because I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were so precarious. A princess embodying the divine teachings with her whole body, isolated from the world… It was harsh, the way you carried on with all those grueling rituals for the sake of the Holy Kingdom’s purification. I thought you were incredibly strong—but I also pitied you.”

Asla listened to his words with a bitter smile.  

The deepening sunset spilled through the train car, bathing it in a growing red glow.

‘You pitied me…’

Something sharp ached in her chest.