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chapter 09
Our Engagement Is Void (1)
Serena could hear her own heart pounding loudly in her ears. In Lucas’s arms, she could clearly feel that he was no longer the man from her memories.
Above all, it was unmistakable now—his arms were large enough to hold her completely.
“I came to take back our engagement vow.”
His deep voice resonated right beside her ear. Still shaken by her first experience of such close physical contact with a man, Serena had no composure left to read the emotions buried in his words.
“Serena Astel.”
Lucas, too, was trembling—just like her. He had spent six brutal years training himself solely to say these words today.
“I’m taking my fiancée back.”
The firmness of his declaration snapped Serena back to her senses. The very first thing she did was shove him hard with both hands.
The force—born of sincerity—made even Lucas stagger.
“That is impossible.”
As though her face had never flushed at all, Serena looked at him with a calm, detached expression.
“What… did you say?”
Lucas growled lowly, his elegant brows knitting together.
“I said it is impossible.”
Serena met his gaze without wavering.
She didn’t need to recall her previous life—what she’d experienced at the engagement ceremony six years ago was still painfully vivid.
Trading insults with a much smaller fiancé simply because she was taller.
The laughter and sneers of the nobles gathered as guests.
“You are my fiancée. We already exchanged our engagement vows—”
“That was six years ago.”
Her blue eyes turned cold as she looked at him, then she sat down on the sofa first.
It was a serious breach of etiquette, but after glaring at her for a moment, Lucas sat down as well, without a word.
“This works out well, actually. I never expected Your Highness to come here in person.”
“What do you mean? That doesn’t sound like you’re pleased to see me.”
The child whose eyes had once looked fierce had grown so much—it left him with a strange feeling.
“If you hadn’t come, I would have had to go to the capital myself.”
“You’re speaking in riddles. Isn’t it my duty, as the fiancé, to come and retrieve my fiancée?”
Serena studied the Crown Prince’s rigid face quietly. Aside from her mindset, she hadn’t changed much since she was eighteen—but Lucas seemed like an entirely different person.
“As expected of the Crown Prince—well versed in etiquette and custom.”
Her blue eyes glinted meaningfully. Lucas, of course, knew this was no compliment.
“Then you must also know that our engagement is no longer valid.”
Lucas frowned even more deeply. This reunion—the one he had imagined and longed for over six years—was nothing like this. The atmosphere had already shattered beyond repair.
“I’ll return your words to you. Our engagement becoming void is unacceptable.”
At Lucas’s scoffing laugh, Serena realized that people truly didn’t change that easily. He was just as arrogant as he had been at the engagement ceremony.
“Six years have passed.”
A faint smile appeared on Serena’s lips—like someone holding a hidden trump card.
“So what? Whether it’s been six years or sixty, the engagement vow we exchanged doesn’t change.”
“Yes. That is a historical fact.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at her. His logic was sound—yet Serena seemed inexplicably confident.
“And it will also be recorded in history that our engagement was nullified by custom two years ago.”
Serena smiled, victory already in sight. As with any society, customs formed over countless years could sometimes carry as much weight as law.
“Ridiculous.”
“I have legitimate grounds.”
Despite being the Crown Prince’s fiancée, Serena had been able to leave the capital and freely manage the Astel territory precisely because of that custom.
The first few years, Lucas’s existence had weighed heavily on her, making her anxious. But after four years passed, her worries vanished completely.
“According to continental custom, an engagement is naturally dissolved after four years.”
After the horrific engagement ceremony and her father—the Duke of Astel—irresponsibly leaving on his travels, Serena had been forced to find her own way to survive.
I’ve finally begun a new life. I don’t want to waste it worrying about other people’s gazes again.
She might have preferred to be a moderately wealthy heiress—but being the Crown Prince’s fiancée meant drowning in scrutiny.
Even the engagement ceremony alone had subjected her body to endless mockery. She refused to spend the rest of her life listening to people who had done nothing for her height talk behind her back.
Breaking off an engagement is better than divorce. Especially if the other party is the Crown Prince—divorce might not even be possible. And this world is basically medieval… If my guess is right, there has to be an answer.
Her intuition hadn’t been wrong.
After spending a full month buried in dust at the capital’s library, Serena finally found it.
I knew it!
The ancient tome—so dusty it reeked with every page turned—bore the clear seal of the Papal See. And written plainly within it was exactly what she needed.
“An engagement, like marriage, must be made in the proper name of God…”
She still remembered that moment vividly. Holding her breath, Serena read the passage to the end. Once all the unnecessary preamble was stripped away—
“However, once four years have passed since the engagement, it shall be regarded as implicitly annulled.”
That single line became her light.
In a medieval-like era, for a woman to miss her marriageable years was tantamount to ruining her life. During wars or famines, engagements often ended without marriage—this clause existed as protection.
“Such customary law applies only in wartime, and only to commoners. It has nothing to do with us.”
“It does.”
Serena cut him off crisply and opened the notebook she had been poring over earlier.
“Papal treatise Sacred and Holy Vows, Chapter 17, Verses 3 through 9.”
“…What?”
Ignoring Lucas’s scowl, Serena continued.
“Imperial Household Codes and the Duties of Nobility, compiled under His Majesty the Fifth Emperor of the Tern Empire, Chapter 2.”
“That was deemed obsolete and prohibited within the imperial family long ago. You wouldn’t know—you’re not royalty yet.”
“No. It was revised to fit modern practice in The Imperial Household Primer by His Majesty the Twelfth Emperor, Chapter 4, and again in The Code for the Preservation of Noble Etiquette, Chapter 3.”
Smile.
Like someone laying down winning cards one by one, Serena’s expression was unhurried.
“There are more records. Shall I continue?”
When she asked while holding up her notebook, Lucas glared at her—an unmistakable refusal.
“All currently valid records state that an engagement unfulfilled for four years is void.”
“And you think I’d obey some musty old books?”
In truth, Serena had never imagined Lucas would return like this—strong and resolute. But she had prepared insurance, just in case.
“After the engagement ceremony, I spent several months alone in the capital before coming to Astel. I personally reported my circumstances to the Pope who officiated our engagement.”
“Circumstances?”
“After the engagement, I never once met Your Highness again. I was even instructed not to attend your departure ceremony.”
Though it had been the Emperor’s suggestion after witnessing their clash at the engagement, circumstances could always be framed differently.
“And twice a year, I confessed and repented for my inadequacy—because Your Highness never once sent a letter or messenger.”
Lucas’s mouth fell open soundlessly.
While he had been wandering, rumors about the Crown Prince’s neglected engagement had spread—but he had assumed they could be resolved easily. That assumption was now crumbling.
Worse still, under the guise of confession, Serena had effectively created proof that the Crown Prince had abandoned his fiancée for six years. No wonder the nobles had quietly begun searching for new candidates for Crown Princess.
“I never cast you aside.”
“But you never reached out either.”
Strangely enough, that was a relief.
“Even His Holiness the Pope is well aware of this.”
“Hah.”
Lucas had focused solely on the day he would return strong and proud to reclaim his fiancée, blind to everything else.
Meanwhile, Serena had taken out meticulous insurance against a fiancé who might never return.
“So that’s what you were thinking while I was gone?”
Betrayal and resentment colored Lucas’s voice—but Serena paid it little mind.
“Everything I reported was fact and consequence.”
“Enough with those dusty books.”
“No. This is reality. The engagement ceremony was a disaster, and I am a woman who heard nothing from her fiancé for six full years.”
If Serena had been an ordinary noblewoman bound by the mindset of this era, she would never have survived the humiliation of the engagement—or the six years that followed, which were no different from abandonment.
Even if marriage had taken place, she would have lived forever cowed by whispers.
“I trained myself—for you. To become strong enough to hold you.”
“Yes. That may be how Your Highness feels.”
A faint, unreadable smile crossed Serena’s lips. Looking at him now, his words didn’t seem false.
“But that is selfishness. The world judges only outcomes and what is visible.”
“I—”
For the first time, Lucas fell silent, unable to answer. He had imagined their reunion endlessly—but as Serena said, he had never once expressed himself directly.
“I do not blame you, Your Highness. I simply believe that there was no marital bond between us.”
As Serena spoke calmly, a shadow fell over Lucas’s face.
Only now was he beginning to understand just how long six years truly were.
