Chapter 5

It wasn’t long before the room became quiet.

I lowered my arms that were wrapped over my head and my eyes grew wide.

The intruder was slowly disintegrating, falling to the floor like a dead moth, black smoke rising from the remains.

A man standing with a shining blue sword turned to me. My heart pounded. I didn’t know if it was because of what just happened or because of the unexpected first encounter.

Or is it because of the overwhelming aura that flowed from him? His silvery blue hair, clear red eyes, sharp jawline, and defined facial features were quite similar to Ellenia’s.

However, their personalities were quite different, and if Ellenia was like an ancient, cool-headed ice princess, this man felt much more barbaric and dangerous.

The gaze directed at me was so overwhelming that it made me flinch.

Why are you staring at me like that?

“What’s the reason?”

“What?”

“Why did you turn that off?”

Had I been the culprit who had turned off the torch, that tone of voice would have reduced me to a blubbering mess, who couldn’t even give a proper excuse.

Do you think I made this fuss on purpose?

“I don’t know why…”

“You didn’t even have to do this. Don’t you have enough attention already? Or is this one of the excuses to use for later?”

He seemed to think that I was already trying to figure out an excuse for breaking up. I knew he wouldn’t like me, but this is one of the worst first images I’d ever made, so there’s a long way to go.

It was then that Ellenia came up.

She said calmly, facing her brother, “Don’t rush her, brother. We don’t know who did it yet. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have expected this to happen. In Romagna, you wouldn’t have had torches like here.”

I love you, Ellen. Even if I die, I will save you and die.

I reached out to Ellenia’s back and clasped her dress.

She was dressed in casual clothes, not pajamas.

She was probably drinking tea or something.

“I was just so cold that I woke up…”

“What? Speak up.”

He was quite the character.

I took a short breath. It was very natural for tears to form around my eyes. But it was not just acting that made my voice tremble.

Holding the sword, with a heated gaze, was my husband. He looked like Satan incarnate who had just come out of the desert.

Che, Cesare’s equivalent was right here.

“I woke up for a second and saw the torch was blown out…”

“Ah, so it was someone else. Who was it? My sister? Me?”

“Brother.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I turned it off because it was too hot. I’m sorry for the disturbance. I wasn’t thinking. I won’t let this happen again .”

There was a moment of silence as I blurted this out with a whimper and a piteous expression. Izek looked at me, biting his bottom lip as if he was searching for something, while Ellenia gently stroked my shoulder.

My face will start bleeding if he stared this much.

“There’s something I want to ask you…”

“Yes?”

“…no, leave it,” He left the room, clicking his tongue with one last glance.

What was he trying to ask?

***

After our unexpected first meeting, my husband seemed to have disappeared again.

I had breakfast alone with Ellenia.

There was silence for a while.

Ellenia focused on her meal with an expressionless look, making it hard for me to know what she was thinking. I was conscious of what happened earlier and ate as timidly as possible.

If I ate, I had a good excuse to throw up anyway…

“It’s not going to happen again.”

“What?”

“Waking up from the cold.”

I gently lowered my fork and raised my head.

Ellenia was still stirring the mushroom soup with her eyes cast down.

So, she noticed that someone was playing around.

I never thought someone would do such a childish thing in the first place, but, I responded with, “Thank you.”

“You’ll be at the court banquet in four days. Let me know if you need anything by then.”

Right, there was a banquet. As the royal family had arranged this marriage, it was only obvious to go to greet the king.

At the same time, it was a banquet to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the King and his wife.

“Ellen, if you do not mind, could you introduce me to a seamstress?”

“Seamstress?”

“Yes. As you know, the only clothes I bought are Southern ones, so it would stand out too much. I also heard that the summers here are very short.”

There was a moment of silence. Ellenia, looking back at me who was smiling carefully, turned her gaze back.

Somehow, it felt embarrassing.

“You’re right. I should have thought about it in advance and prepared for it. I’m ashamed of myself.”

Of course she didn’t think about it. Goddamn, they’re all betting on when I’ll go back to Romagna.

Furthermore, as I recall, the original Rudbeckia didn’t care about the northern customs.

“I’ll call my own seamstress. It will be difficult to make new clothes in four days.”

“It can’t be helped this time. Thank you.”

“I’d love to lend you my dress, but it’s too big for Ruby. To be honest, Ruby is too thin. You need to eat more to survive Elendale’s winter.”

Indeed, our heights were quite apart too, and if I wore Ellenia’s clothes, I would probably look as awkward as an immature teenager who stole her sister’s clothes.

That would just be sad.

Anyway, it will be my first time here in a crowd, so I’ll have to be careful to make an impression.

My husband, who is the most important person, seemed to have had the worst impression already.

“Then that day, Lord Izek… I mean…”

“I hope you don’t mind what happened today. He just overreacted because he is particularly sensitive to safety. Usually, the torch doesn’t extinguish easily. Therefore, it is very rare for a demon to break in, so we were also very surprised.”

Ellenia seemed to have decided that I was terrified of Izek.

Were his arms bent inside out?

He must be really sensitive.

Haa, what an ideal brother and sister.

“I’m not going to take it badly. I’m just a little sad because I think he’s misunderstanding me. I’m sure he doesn’t like me, but…”

“Brother doesn’t hate Ruby.”

It was quite a serious tone for empty consolation.

Ellenia gave me a dry look, as my eyes widened.

“He’s an ordinary person who avoids people he really hates. You never know when he’ll lash out.”

That was an extraordinary and unique personality. He turned out even more twisted than I thought.

“But…”

“He just doesn’t like the current situation, so he’s looking at everything in a crooked way. I don’t know about you, but I could never imagine my Brother getting married.. even if it was to anyone other than Ruby. It must have been hard.”

It didn’t really make sense.

He was from an ordinary family, and not like me, Rudbeckia de Borgia. But if it were someone ordinary, he wouldn’t have misunderstood that I was already trying to break us up.

He would have been nicer if I was his childhood friend.

Nevertheless, if Ellenia’s testimony to Izek’s unusual behaviour was true, I felt a little bit settled.

Even if there were endless reasons why he disapproved of our marriage, there was little hope unless his hostility was purely directed at me.

How would I handle him from now on? First of all, I had to understand his tendencies.

“Ellen, I have a favor to ask of you.”

After all, you have to figure out the opponent first to play the game.

My ultimate goal now was not to die at the hands of my husband.

Trying to look as harmless as possible was a kind of insurance policy. I couldn’t continue to live here if I didn’t prevent my husband’s sister, Ellenia’s death..

The History of Borgia family assassins was already an open secret.

For example, Cardinal Iliope, who came to know of my birth issue, it was officially declared that he was killed by a knife in a brothel, but rumors said that it was actually done by my brother and sister.

Besides, the reason Ellenia was poisoned was that she had become engaged to the prince Dorias by that time.

It was only right to doubt us because it is unclear what would happen if the Prince of Dorias, who did not get along well with the Pope, and a woman from one of Britannia’s noble families got married.

I also felt that it was quite absurd for Rudbeckia to just poison Ellenia for such a situation.

Even if it’s the epitome of a crazy family, Cesare was a pretty particular man. The Holy Grail was stolen at the last minute, and the failure just seemed so…

Anyway, I couldn’t tell anyone about this story in advance, and who would even believe the beloved princess of the Pope’s family?

Even if someone believed me, Father’s spies were planted throughout Elendale. I couldn’t say anything because of that.

I didn’t want to be dragged home when that rumor started circulating.

So I had to seem good to Izek, the person who was going to kill me.

I didn’t care about anyone else.

It would be very difficult if he didn’t believe me, or took it in the wrong way. A little bit of favor and compassion, maybe a little mercy… maybe that would make him believe my warning.

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