“Ah… did I startle you?”
Bluoa finally removed his hand from Anya and asked in a slightly flustered voice. Anya had weak immunity to sudden contact with people. Bluoa whispered a small apology. Then, as the pressure on his still-held wrist gradually intensified, he grimaced and turned around.
“Let go of this first, would you?”
Bluoa complained, shaking his captured arm limply. Evernight released his wrist roughly with a displeased expression. Although Evernight and Bluoa were similar in height, the difference between a knight who had climbed up from the bottom, rolling through the muddy fields of Redcoast since childhood, and a young master raised like a hothouse flower showed in their strength.
At Evernight’s slightest movement, Bluoa’s body fluttered like a paper doll. His pride wounded, he glared at Evernight with triangular eyes before sighing and collecting himself. After all, in this remote forest, the one who would lose out from picking a fight would be him. He should have brought attendants—belated regret washed over him.
“Your Highness, you’re sure there’s nowhere uncomfortable, right?”
As far as Bluoa knew, early pregnancy was a period requiring extreme caution. Otherwise, it could easily result in miscarriage. That’s why his mistresses used to exploit that excuse to thoroughly milk him.
“He’s not a child. Stop coddling him appropriately.”
Evernight seemed uncomfortable somehow. Anya suddenly recalled how he had shouted at him a few days ago about the mistress’s duties, and a wave of embarrassment rushed over him. And yet here he was showing such weakness—regardless of his feelings toward him, it didn’t seem like a very responsible attitude.
Anya pushed Bluoa away. Your Highness? One of Bluoa’s eyebrows rose sharply, and a somewhat agitated voice flowed from him.
“Lord Evernight. Do you know what Imperial Prince Royster just did?”
At those words, Sisou, who had been silently watching the situation with bated breath, jumped.
“What did he do? Look, Commander. That damn prince again!”
Evernight didn’t spare a glance at the wildly raging Sisou, only staring fixedly at Bluoa standing as if nailed beside Anya.
“Mind your own business.”
It was an extremely cynical response. Bluoa glanced sidelong at Anya, who was turning pale with each word Evernight spat out, and clenched his fists.
“How can I not care?”
At those words, Evernight let out a pfft of derision as if he’d heard something ridiculous.
“Have you developed feelings for my partner? Well, your heart was cheap goods you gave to just any woman anyway.”
Evernight easily recalled the image of Bluoa surrounded by dancers at the Vudeo Hall banquet, performing dance moves, and his manner of speaking about preferring men and whatnot.
“Why is the conversation flowing in that direction?”
Bluoa was momentarily indignant while simultaneously engulfed by an intense urge to provoke Evernight. He instinctively wrapped his arm around Anya’s shoulders while consciously letting out a thick laugh.
“It’s just humane compassion, compassion.”
A cool gaze lingered slowly on the hand placed on the shoulder, then lazily met Bluoa’s eyes. For a moment, Bluoa felt intense goosebumps as if meeting the god of death with his entire body in the middle of frozen earth. Because the man’s pupils were briefly filled with uncontained killing intent. But it was only for an instant.
As if it had never happened, Evernight’s red lips curved up languidly. Bluoa grimaced unconsciously.
“If that’s the case…”
Evernight smiled, sweeping back his ebony-like hair that had slipped down slightly from riding for so long.
“Fuck, act properly so there’s no misunderstanding. Lord Duke Bluoa.”
This bastard. Bluoa bit down on the soft flesh inside his mouth and smirked.
“Lord Evernight, isn’t your language a bit harsh? Where did you sell your manners?”
Uncharacteristically sarcastic, Bluoa fully displayed the swaggering manner that Madame Shonda always counted among behaviors he shouldn’t exhibit—like some street thug.
“Who made his partner participate in this ruthless hunting festival in the first place?”
Not even knowing your partner is pregnant right now… Bluoa snorted inwardly to his heart’s content. Now he understood why Anya was hiding his pregnancy. If he found out about this, Evernight was the type of person who would tell him to abort the child and then some. Though he didn’t know why he was so averse to the issue of succession…
“Are you in any position to say that? You approached him in the first place to satisfy your fucking vulgar and base amusement.”
At those words, Anya’s shoulders beneath Bluoa’s hand flinched and trembled. Evernight’s sharp eyes, like a forest predator, didn’t miss even that small movement. The smile coldly disappeared from Bluoa’s smirking face.
“S-stop it. I participated because I wanted to. So st-stop here.”
Anya grabbed Bluoa’s hand resting on his shoulder and brought it down while urgently crying out. At the briefly intertwined fingers, Evernight’s gaze pierced in with obsessive intensity, making Anya suddenly fear that he had done something terribly wrong.
“Affection deficit… something like that. If you treat him just a little kindly, he loses all discernment and is so busy following you around devotedly.”
Evernight looked down at Anya with an indifferent expression and muttered. It was a face showing no emotion, but Anya could read enough contempt and disgust within it. Then, as if suffering from indigestion, he rapidly turned cold.
“Ah, Your Highness. Since you won’t be able to continue the ‘succession’ in Tildyen anyway, how about coming to Runfield instead?”
Bluoa deliberately emphasized the word succession and sneered. At the words dancing around the truth, Anya turned deathly pale and grabbed Bluoa’s collar, fearing that Evernight might catch on to the pregnancy.
“……”
Is Lord Evernight planning to torment me to death? He didn’t break his obsessive gaze filled with cynicism even at Anya’s slightest movements of fingertips or toes.
“Everyone’s making such a fuss about not being able to have a child.”
He smiled brightly and muttered. At the obvious mockery, Anya’s fingertips holding Bluoa’s collar trembled finely.
“Even now, Madame Shonda is quite troubled by your complicated mistresses… If you said it was a child born by a man, even that fine woman would foam at the mouth.”
“Lord Evernight!”
Bluoa shouted as if about to spring up. Evernight turned his body as if he no longer wanted to deal with them, like a languid lord facing bothersome things.
“See how well you do.”
Anya wanted to grab onto Evernight but couldn’t. Was he perhaps suspecting something between Bluoa and himself? At that thought, a strange elation arose. Anya’s thumbnail scraped roughly against his palm. So joy and hatred can coexist simultaneously. Anya suddenly realized.
“…Will you really come to Runfield?”
Watching the back of the horse moving away deeper into the forest, Bluoa asked as if deflated. Anya smiled slightly and shook his head.
“Sir… let’s go too.”
Anya mounted Mil and caressed his still-flat belly. Even if I give birth to the baby, would he believe it’s his child? Giving birth secretly isn’t the end. Indeed, all things are like a double-edged sword.
* * *
Bluoa stubbornly insisted he wouldn’t go all the way, but when Anya silently tracked the footprints and steadily advanced, he had no choice but to follow.
“I’m telling you, you can r-really go.”
“When Evernight said things like that, what would I become if I left here?”
Bluoa was still upset, not even adding the honorific “Lord” as he cursed Evernight without hesitation.
“It’s not your f-fault, sir. It’s all my f-fault.”
Dusk was gradually descending. The white light flowing through the dense leaves became tinged with red, somehow making Anya, who spoke so calmly, look lonely.
“What fault did Your Highness commit? Where is there a mistress who participates in a hunting festival like this?”
“It seems… whenever I touch something… th-things always get complicated.”
Anya’s voice became gloomily wet. Shouldn’t he give up and go back even now? Perhaps Evernight wanted that too. He was always dissatisfied with everything he did.
‘Even so, he always gave me chances… but why am I always like this… and even got pregnant. I don’t have the confidence to face him anymore.’
“Maybe L-Lord Evernight’s words are right. If I just stay q-quiet… it would benefit everyone… Then Sir Bluoa wouldn’t have to s-suffer like this either.”
Actually, getting pregnant too—if I hadn’t fallen from the wall, there would have been no reason to have relations with him. Anya pretended to be composed in front of Bluoa, but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to disappear from this place forever.
“Y-Your Highness, let me make a correction.”
Bluoa spoke in a cheerful tone while making clapping sounds with his hands.
“First of all, first. The reason I’m suffering like this is entirely due to my wretched curiosity.”
He made the number two with his fingers.
“Second. Have you read novels where heroes or knights are the protagonists?”
Anya easily recalled the novel *The Great Knight, Thorn* that he had always crouched in a corner of the detached palace reading.
“Think of the protagonists in those novels. Incidents never ceased around them, right?”
Anya nodded unconsciously. Wherever Thorn went, demons always lurked and incidents never stopped.
“Originally, heroes in turbulent times are bound to get caught up in various matters.”
Bluoa grinned and gave Anya a thumbs up. And at the same time, the two finally emerged from the dense undergrowth and reached an open cliff. A massive sunset hung magnificently beyond the horizon.
