Chapter 191

“Stand by until further orders.”

The knight who had brought the report hesitated. It was a critical moment—perhaps their best chance to strike back at Pahan. This was the time to sweep down and swallow the central plains whole, not to be told to wait indefinitely.

But the knight offered no objection. The people of Rotiara obeyed their Grand Duke—their living bulwark—without question.

Instead, he withdrew the second matter he had been instructed to deliver.

“Sir Ruben asked me to relay one more report. It concerns information about Taham, King of Ugel, drawn from consistent traits observed among the barbarians captured in the gorge.”

***

The night that the midwife and the physician had both warned would be the turning point passed. Fortunately, Elise’s condition did not worsen.

A day later, the irregular contractions of her womb finally began to settle.

“With the baby moving so strongly, I’d say the child is healthy. It’s a miracle in itself.”

The midwife offered her encouragement. Elise, drifting in and out under the effects of the medicine, felt hope kindle in her dim eyes.

“It’ll be hard, but let’s endure just one more month. Just one. In return, you mustn’t move carelessly anymore. Not just the room—you are absolutely forbidden to leave this bed. If you do, both you and the child could die!”

Rezette’s face drained of all color again.

From the village where they had settled, there was no view of Riosa Castle. No traces of battle could be seen anywhere, but Rezette had drawn the curtains shut so Elise could not glimpse the outside world. And he had not said a single word about what had happened during the three days she had been unconscious.

Even when Elise regained enough composure to bring it up, his response was the same.

“Rezette… what about the allied forces? Why are you here?”

“I do not know,” he replied flatly.

“What?”

“Such matters are not important. Do not trouble yourself.”

“How could they not be important? Your entire strategy is unraveling—”

If they delayed any longer, the allied troops carefully positioned across the wilderness would lose their purpose. Before news of Ugel’s annihilated forces spread, they needed to march with full force and strike Pahan, the enemy capital.

But Rezette did not deliberate long.

“The opportunity will come again,” he said quietly.

“An… opportunity…”

“I will bring you the king’s head later. A little later. Right now, nothing is more important to me than you.”

Elise closed her eyes, feeling the gentle fingers combing through her hair.

On the physician’s strict orders for total bed rest, she was not allowed to leave the bed—more precisely, her husband’s arms. One of her hands remained in his the entire time.

Once her mind began to clear, her neglected sense of the world around them returned.

“Then… what about me returning to Rotiara? Your people are there.”

“And how would you get to Rotiara? If you intend to use teleportation, dismiss that idea immediately.”

“It isn’t impossible. I have the circuits—”

“Cherry will dislike it.”

“If I divide it into several small jumps—”

“Cherry will suffer.”

“If I go back quickly, then you’ll be able to attend to your duties with peace of—”

“Even if you go, I will not be at peace. And I can’t believe Her Highness is speaking such nonsense right now. If you’re not trying to drive your husband to an early grave, then please stop.”

He still sounded composed, cold as ever, and yet something was clearly disordered within him. The way his formalities tangled—honorifics, titles, and endearments mixing at random—was proof enough.

He begged her, almost pathetically, not to use any magic other than healing magic. Elise’s circuits were tangled, intermittently blocked, refusing to let her power flow normally.

The midwife had warned that even a slight disturbance to Elise’s body could trigger labor. If her waters broke, the situation would turn dire.

Rezette bit his lip in agitation.

“I should have brought the royal physician from my castle,” he muttered.

He had rushed the journey and failed to prepare the most crucial things in advance. He had sent for additional people from Rotiara before attacking the gorge, but who could say when they would arrive? His own negligence disgusted him.

Elise gently pulled away the hand that had been checking her temperature for the twentieth time.

“In my opinion… it may be better for you to deal with it quickly. Judging rationally, I mean.”

“A rational judgment?” Rezette repeated, incredulous. “I am not capable of anything rational right now.”

“But—”

“Do not expect so much from me, Elise. You’re lying here like this—how am I supposed to stay sane? If I look away even for a moment, you might—!”

He could not shake the terror. Every time he blinked, he pictured her turning cold in his arms. Even though he had checked her wounds and confirmed they were healing at a normal rate, the fear refused to leave him.

“But if we miss this moment… later, you’ll have to leave me again,” Elise whispered weakly.

“To conquer Ugel from the start all over again… who knows how long that would take? And the baby will keep growing in the meantime. I hoped we could raise the child together…”

“That can be decided when the time comes.”

“I’ll try to endure one month. They said the most dangerous part has passed, so I’ll rest here for just one month.”

“Elise, please. Whether it’s one month or two, that isn’t something you can decide. Don’t tell me to go.”

Frustration surged in Rezette’s chest. He wanted to shout that nothing mattered more than staying by her side—that her safety outweighed kingdoms, campaigns, and crowns. The words rose to the back of his throat.

But Elise’s next whisper sealed his mouth shut.

“I want his head,” she murmured.

“…What?”

“The head of the King of Ugel.”

She recalled the barbarians who had died calling out their sovereign’s name. The architect of this long war, the source of all this suffering. The king who had shamed Argan, slaughtered its people, and cast a stain on their history. As long as he lived, the barbarians would cling on like cockroaches, crossing Argan’s borders again and again.

And now, the perfect chance to eradicate them lay before them.

Argan and Regal’s advance party had already withdrawn from Riosa and were marching to reclaim the imperial capital. The northern alliance was to strike Pahan. One month was all it would take.

If the northern alliance failed to attack Pahan now, Ugel’s capital would immediately dispatch reinforcements to the troops stationed in Argan. Those reinforcements could prevent Argan and Regal from retaking the imperial city.

If they failed to retake it, the Ugel army in Argan would return to Pahan and fortify it against the northern alliance’s assault.

Thus, Argan, Regal, and the northern alliance were tightly interlinked. If they did not strike their targets at the same time, both fronts would fall into disadvantage.

And naturally, the center of the northern alliance—the keystone of all its mobility and strategy—was Rezette. The tactics, the encirclement, the ability to storm the palace in a straight thrust… all of it relied on him.

In the end, Rezette must go. Without him, Pahan will become a long, draining war of attrition, Elise thought. And in the desert and wilderness—the barbarians’ home terrain—time only favored the enemy.

If Rezette returned, they would win. If he stayed at her side, they would lose. All of them—Argan, Regal, and the Grandel Northern Alliance.

Rezette understood all of this as well as she did. He was simply pretending not to.

“Severed heads aren’t pleasant things to look at,” Rezette murmured.

He bent over her and silenced her lips with his own. His hot tongue pushed between her parted lips, urgent and overwhelming. The heat of him surged through her, dizzying.

His hand gripped the back of her neck, holding her still as she tried to turn away. His voice trembled with impatience.

“Say something else,” he begged. “Anything else, Elise. I’m begging you.”

Pinned sideways with no room to retreat, Elise received his kiss helplessly. He curled his tongue around hers, rubbing insistently. When he grazed the sensitive underside of her tongue, her heartbeat jolted violently. The deliberate, almost desperate intimacy made her head swim.

“Haa… mm…”

Only when Elise looped her arms around his neck and stroked the back of his head again and again did he finally release her, their tongues separating with a slow, wet pull.

He licked her dampened lips as Elise whispered, “I’ve always wondered why the people of Ugel were so obsessed with Argan’s magic.”

Prince Rihan, even on the verge of death, had screamed that the Kingdom of Ugel was far greater than anyone believed. What had fed that confidence?

What did they know that made them eye Argan for half a century?

“The King of Ugel has never shown himself to the public, right? Only his four sons have ever been seen. I want to know what kind of man he is.”

Rezette said nothing.

“If I could, I’d go take his head myself. But since I can’t… I want to send my knight in my place. What do you think?”

She remembered the day Rezette had called himself her knight. She had not understood the weight of it then. Only afterward had she realized.

“You said there were many things you wanted to bring before me.”

He would gladly be her knight—leaping across the board, toppling kings, winning wars. Elise could not relinquish this absolute weapon called Rezette Kirstan.

So although she framed it as a question, it was in truth an order.

Rezette’s expression twisted with pained conflict.

“You said you were afraid,” he whispered.

“That was because… the pain came on so suddenly three days ago,” she replied.

“And what if it happens again while I’m gone?”

“I’ll try to be brave… I’ll try.”

“If anything happens to you while I’m away,” Rezette said, his voice breaking, “I will never forgive myself. Not for the rest of my life.”