Chapter 141
“We’ll have to deal with them together. Duke?”
While he could handle the Third Prince as he pleased since he was of imperial blood, Jane, the mentally ill woman, was officially a person of the Bolshevik family.
First, he needed the Duke’s permission…
“Make it thorough.”
At the Duke’s permission, which was not just crisp but ice-cold, Einar smiled fiercely, showing his teeth.
“How will you do it?”
“Well. First, I need to find out exactly how Smith plans to assassinate His Majesty.”
“That shouldn’t be difficult. And then?”
The answer came not from Einar, who was receiving the Duke’s gaze sharper than a hawk’s, but from Riina:
“We should use their plan. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If they’re trying to frame someone, we should help their plan succeed and then let them fall into the abyss, shouldn’t we?”
She proposed a method to cleanly dispose of the two people with such calmness, and the Duke looked at his daughter with a smile so faint it was difficult to discern.
As if seeking his permission, the Duke gazed into her spotlessly clean blue eyes and answered with just one word.
And for Riina, that one word was enough.
“Proceed.”
“Shouldn’t we start right away?”
As they left the Duke’s office and headed toward Riina’s office, Einar led her to the garden, and she, who was matching his pace without particular resistance, asked:
“Since we decided to use Smith and Jane’s plan, we have some time until they begin something.”
“That’s true. Besides, those two don’t seem likely to have a very meticulous plan.”
At Riina’s scathing assessment, Einar burst into light laughter and nodded.
Finally, they arrived at a part of the garden where pansies bloomed profusely, creating waves of purple, and Einar stopped.
As Riina, who had stopped simultaneously with him, looked up at him, Einar opened his mouth impatiently:
“I’ll be going to the border soon.”
At these completely unexpected words, Riina blinked for a moment before parting her slightly dry lips:
“The… border? Why the border?”
She couldn’t hide her bewilderment and was truly confused.
This was because the conspiracy of the suspicious foreign groups, which had caused the border dispute before her regression, had already been crushed.
His Majesty the Emperor had personally taken action, and his closest confidants who supported the empire had handled the matter.
Naturally, they would have purged all the greedy groups that had been eyeing the empire’s territory before they could cause disturbances at the border, wouldn’t they?
Pursuing groups that had already returned to their countries would be a mere mouthful for the empire.
Spies and collaborators planted in each kingdom would skillfully deal with them.
So why was Einar going to the border? Why?
“His Majesty asked me to finish things properly. He wants me to perform a sword dance there.”
“A show of force, then.”
If he just set his mind to it, there would be no one on the continent who could defeat Einar.
Furthermore, there would be no one who wouldn’t kneel before him.
If such a person swept through the border, there could be no clearer warning to foreign countries.
“Something like that.”
“You didn’t refuse?”
Einar didn’t answer and only smiled faintly.
‘If I’m pleased with how you handle your task at the border, I’ll actively push for your marriage with Bolshevik. The Duke is quite the daughter-doting father, isn’t he? He firmly said it’s only an engagement with you. Well, if you don’t like it, there’s nothing to be done.’
After hearing such conditions, there was no way he could say he wouldn’t go to the border.
But if he relayed those exact words, Riina would immediately get angry, hiding her worry by calling it a foolish decision, so he just smiled.
Before Riina could say anything more, he quickly bent down and reached for the pansies spread all around.
“Well, with so many here, I’m sure the gardener will forgive this much.”
Saying this while busily working with his hands, Einar soon placed a flower crown on Riina’s head.
Green leaves and purple flowers intertwined among her red hair.
“Where did you learn to make this?”
Riina asked as she touched the small flower crown sitting neatly on her head.
“I just watched over someone’s shoulder outside the imperial palace. I’m glad you like it.”
As he smiled freshly and looked at her as if she were dazzling, Riina, who was about to blurt out sharp words due to the sudden surge of embarrassment and excitement, nibbled her lips and kept them tightly shut.
How many times had she done such childish things, saying sharp words out of embarrassment in front of him?
A pansy petal floated down onto Riina’s cheek as she lowered her head to hide her reddening cheeks, her lips pressed together.
The next moment, Einar drew close in an instant.
After kissing the petal, soft as cat’s fur, he quickly moved away, and the purple petal remained stuck to his lips.
As Riina, who had been watching him without even blinking, reached out to grasp that petal:
Smooch.
Einar kissed Riina’s smooth fingernail, which had grasped the petal, with an explicit sound.
Einar became the wind, creating ripples in Riina’s blue lake, and Riina became the light, piercing his ashen plains.
How long had they been gazing at each other as if they were the only two in the world? Einar’s mouth opened:
“Don’t make that face.”
At Einar’s words, exhaling a breath hot as boiling water, Riina’s lips parted.
She couldn’t bring herself to ask what face he was referring to.
Because her instincts screamed that the moment she asked, she would be devoured by him.
As the gently blowing wind swirled between them, petals began to fall one by one from Riina’s flower crown.
As the petals floated into her clear blue vision like a cloudless sky, Einar lightly gripped Riina’s chin and lifted it slightly.
He bent his head down and looked persistently at Riina’s red lips.
“May I kiss you?”
His low, whispering voice seeped beneath her skin, making Riina’s fingertips tingle.
As subtle heat rose from Einar’s thumb caressing her pointed chin, Riina’s eyes flushed for a reason other than embarrassment.
She answered without avoiding the ash-gray eyes that held her image:
“Don’t ask every ti— Mmph.”
Before her permission could finish, he captured Riina’s exhaled breath.
Their lips collided, but neither of them closed their eyes.
As if the time to contain each other, to hold each other, was insufficient.
Einar instinctively pulled her waist, but no strength entered his arms, which were harder than steel.
If he applied force now, this slender waist, which could fit in one of his arms with space to spare, would break.
Unconsciously relaxing his strength, his back suddenly tensed the next moment.
This was because Riina had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him strongly toward herself.
The breaths of the two, who had overlapped even more deeply, mixed until it was impossible to tell whose was whose, scattering and regathering repeatedly.
With their lips still touching, Einar whispered:
“Riina.”
As her trembling lips against his were transmitted to him fully, Einar smiled with the corners of his eyes crinkling.
He held Riina tightly in his arms and supported her deer-like neck, which was slowly arching backward, as he inhaled her deeply.
Even though her vision spun due to Einar, who was delving deeper than before, only the shared breath and warmth remained clear.
Riina clung to his neck as if hanging on for life.
As only the sound of the wind, resembling him, buzzed and echoed in her distant ears, drops of tears formed at the corners of her eyes, as if she had reached her limit.
“Umm, haah.”
As her eyelids slowly opened after exhaling a shallow breath from the breath he had returned to her, her blue eyes, hazed and blurred with heat, were filled entirely with his distorted image.
And his eyes, resembling ashes that remained after burning everything, contained only her, with a heat hotter than anything else.
Eventually, Riina stroked the corner of his eye and whispered:
“I’m going to the border too.”
“Riina…”
Einar’s objection disappeared before it could even begin, consumed by her, and for a long time afterward, the breaths of the two became one.
“Brother!”
Sierre, who came running with quick steps and clung to Einar’s leg, opened his already large eyes even wider and said:
“I heard you’re going to the border.”
His expression was a mix of bewilderment, anxiety, wonder, and surprise, but even so, he was wise enough to keep his voice low.
Einar roughly tousled Sierre’s hair, now quite accustomed to the child’s familiar manner toward him.
“Who told you? It should be confidential among confidential matters.”
“His Majesty the Emperor told me.”
“Oh dear.”
Einar swallowed a faint groan.
If the Emperor personally informed Sierre of such confidential matters, there must be some scheme.
Sierre seemed to notice Einar’s demeanor and answered with a bright smile:
“He said he’s entrusting all your tasks to me.”
“To dump work on you as soon as he confirmed your health condition, how very like His Majesty.”
“He is His Majesty, after all.”
The brothers, who had been exchanging ambiguous words that could be either praise or criticism, eventually burst into laughter simultaneously.
Einar roughly tousled the hair of Sierre, who laughed much more childlike than before, and called him with a voice tinged with laughter:
“Sierre.”
“Yes?”
“May I ask you for a favor?”
