Chapter 32
A dark shadow fell over Sian’s face at the desperate and earnest clinging that was easy to misunderstand.
“It hurts.”
“Answer why. I thought we got along quite well in the castle, didn’t you?”
Carl’s voice, no longer needing to use a fake tone, lowered deeply. Neither his manner of speech nor his voice was familiar to Sian’s ears. It was as if she was seeing a completely different person.
Sian unconsciously bit her lip at Carl’s shadow looming over her. The feeling of her heart being squeezed tight. The suffocating sensation she had felt once before in the castle suddenly came back to her.
The low, intimidating voice and awkward speech belonged to Carlston Klaus, the Third Prince of the Empire and the master of Idelin.
Although he had always been the same person, Sian smiled bitterly at this newfound realization that erased even her last hesitation.
“Does it matter whether we got along or not? Morning and night coexist, but they can’t be together. There might be a brief moment when they overlap, but that’s all.”
“Don’t try to evade with ambiguous words.”
Carl narrowed his eyes intimidatingly.
“I’m speaking precisely. Yes, I was scared and nervous, but honestly, I was excited for the first time in a long while staying with you in the castle. But so what?”
Sian twisted the corner of her mouth and clenched her captured hand tightly. Carl no longer held Sian’s tense arm with oppressive force. Her hand was easily released, as if the desperate grip had been a lie.
“I know better than anyone how important honor and justification are to nobles. Even if I, exiled from noble society, were to fall for you, a prince, what could you possibly give me?”
Carl frowned as if struck at a vital point.
“A thoughtlessly thrown stone kills a frog, and a kitten that has known human touch is abandoned by its mother when offered a hand out of clumsy sympathy and pity. I understand that you’re desperate after suddenly falling to rock bottom, but I think you’re clinging to the wrong person.”
As she spoke, Sian rubbed her aching wrist. As the large hand that had gripped her entire wrist let go, her skin throbbed with a dull pain from the lingering heat and heaviness, like an aftereffect.
Carl silently looked down at Sian with his brows tightly furrowed. His expression, as if he had been struck on the back of the head, oddly pained Sian’s heart.
But that feeling was far from sympathy or regret for her harsh rejection.
Through that expression, she confirmed that the prince, who needed to grasp at straws to escape the immediate crisis, hadn’t seduced her with such deep thoughts. If anything, Sian was the one who felt hurt.
“Now that you have plenty of money, why don’t you find other mercenaries to help you? Are you going to the temple next?”
Sian asked, but Carl, far from answering, pressed his lips tightly shut like a stubborn child.
“Just what is your true identity?”
After a moment of silence, the prince, still with a stern face, sharply raised his eyes. Sian immediately recognized the genuineness in Carl’s suddenly sharpened gaze.
“So you mean to say you’re the morning, and I’m the night? Even if you were a commoner, I could have you if I wanted. There must be another reason why you’re concerned about being an exiled noble.”
“That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it? Why I was exiled.”
Sian laughed softly, lowering her voice.
I knew it. Now you’re showing your true colors.
She had known from the beginning that Carl was curious about her true identity. There had been several opportunities to press the issue. Sian had been suspicious all along that Carl might be planning to use her emotions, falling for the seduction that began with naive excuses.
There were several reasons why Sian had rejected Carl’s continued seduction, and that suspicion was one of them. I can’t give in so easily. Just as Sian thought this beyond her quiet laughter…
“No. The reason I’m trying to uncover why you were exiled is so that I can help you.”
Sian froze with the same smiling face at Carl’s follow-up words.
“I can tell what you’re thinking, to some extent. The order is reversed. It’s not that I want to have you to know that; I want to know because I want to have you.”
Carl looked down at Sian and said this in an utterly dry voice and manner, devoid of any hint of humor.
Sian unknowingly gaped up at Carl with a blank expression. The serious teal eyes were unwavering and firm.
What? What did this handsome-faced prince just say?
Belatedly understanding the meaning of his words, Sian suddenly felt as if her breath was caught in her throat.
“What… what do you mean by that?”
“What do I mean? I mean exactly what I said. Why do you always misinterpret my words as having some other intention?”
“That, well… It sounds like Your Highness… likes me or something.”
Unable to finish her sentence, Sian just stuttered, her lips moving uselessly.
“In this kind of situation, should I say that I like you?”
Carl said in a sulky voice. Sian, who was moving her lips like someone with a language problem, saw that Carl’s white face had turned slightly red.
Realizing this, Sian inhaled sharply as if she had seen something frightening. Hearing her gasp of fear that went beyond surprise, embarrassment, or shame, Carl narrowed his eyes.
“What’s with that reaction? I’m trying hard to say this. Just for the record, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever uttered such words…”
“Huk!”
Sian was so flustered that she unconsciously reached out and covered Carl’s mouth. Carl frowned with a bewildered look.
Sian was tightly covering his mouth with both hands, afraid his voice might leak outside. Carl tried to say something, his mouth moving under her palms.
She only then became aware of what she had done.
“Oh my god!”
Feeling his hot breath rising and falling inside her palms, Sian screamed and pulled her hands away. Although it was Carl whose mouth had been tightly covered to the point of redness, Sian reacted as if she had been the one affected.
Carl raised his eyebrows incredulously.
“Your arms are slender, but you’re quite strong. My jaw hurts, so why are you the one screaming?”
“Th-that’s… because you’re saying such terrifying things…”
“Huh?”
Carl was dumbfounded.
“How is saying I like you terrifying…”
“Ah! Don’t say it! Are you crazy?! What if someone hears?!”
Sian tried to cover Carl’s mouth again, but remembering the tingling sensation of his breath on her palms, she flailed her hands in the air.
Ha, Carl laughed again and then burst into laughter as he looked at Sian.
“This…”
“…?”
Carl’s face drew closer to Sian, who wore a terrified expression.
The bewildered expression from just moments ago had vanished like a mirage, and Carl’s lips, casting a dark shadow over Sian’s head, curved into a mischievous smile.
Her heart wasn’t just pounding; it was thundering with a deafening roar. Feeling like her heart might burst out, Sian unconsciously clasped her hands together and trembled.
“If I were to kiss you, would you fall for me?”
Sian learned for the first time that when a face terribly handsome to one’s taste looms right in front of you, the emotion one feels isn’t excitement or heart-fluttering, but an unimaginable terror.
“Y-you’re crazy…”
As Sian muttered quietly in fear, Carl smiled, elegantly curving the corners of his mouth.
“I told you, didn’t I? That I’m in my right mind.”
Sian was dumbfounded. She felt the cold wall touch her back. She had been so terrified that she hadn’t even realized she was backing away.
Carl cornered Sian step by step like a predator hunting its prey, as she backed away, pale as a herbivore about to be devoured.
Finding it both amusing and cute how this usually sharp-witted woman had turned pale at a single word, Carl couldn’t help the corners of his mouth twisting into a smile.
He had spoken out of amusement at her turning pale from a single word, but seeing Sian’s face looking up at him with blue eyes trembling like an earthquake, a strange impulse welled up inside him.
“D-don’t do anything weird…”
“What kind of weird thing?”
“Anything!”
Sian shouted, covering her mouth with both hands. Carl had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to suppress the laughter that threatened to burst out at the sight.
“Isn’t it human nature to want to do something more when you react like that?”
Carl reached out his hand. Sian gasped, breathing heavily in fear.
If that hand were to lunge at her aggressively, she could at least push it away and fight back, but Carl’s hand, hovering in the air, was approaching Sian with a soft and elegant trajectory.
Why that was more frightening was inexplicable.
Sian stared at Carl’s hand with wide eyes. Unlike his face, which suited women’s clothing so well, Carl’s long fingers were thicker at the joints than expected, unmistakably a man’s hand.
It’s going to touch me…!
Sian squeezed her eyes shut.
“Sister! Brother!”
The door burst open. Bill, who had come to call Sian and Carl on behalf of the other mercenaries, opened his eyes wide.
As soon as he pushed open the door handle, there was a crashing sound from inside, as if something had gone wrong. And the scene Bill witnessed was Sian, her face flushed red, firmly gripping the prince’s collar.
“…Huh?”
It happened in the blink of an eye. Just as Bill registered that Sister was gripping Brother’s collar and made a strange sound…
THWACK―!
Sian’s fist, which had been gripping Carl’s collar, drew a fierce arc and landed with a tremendous sound in the man’s side.
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