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Chapter 1
The short yet dazzling summer of the Velotea Empire.
Cassian Sarkis, who had arrived at the harbor, narrowed his eyes against the pouring sunlight.
“Your Grace, are you feeling well?”
The salt-tinged wind brushed against his sculpted face. Cassian slowly swept his disheveled black hair back.
Even passersby held their breath and stole glances at the man at that picturesque sight.
“My fiancée was planning to defect today.”
Cassian spoke of his purpose first, as if he had no interest in the gazes of others.
“It appears she was planning to board a ship bound for the Kingdom.”
After stirring up his life so thoroughly, she was now trying to run away?
Cassian exhaled a suppressed breath through clenched teeth.
“Is she already on board?”
“Yes, she is. Shall I bring her here?”
Was she planning to go find that useless childhood friend who had moved to the Kingdom?
Staring at the ship, Cassian let out a hollow laugh.
Jealousy boiled vividly in his crimson eyes.
“No. I’ll go myself.”
He forced a proper curve into his lips as he smiled—a smile that allowed no objections.
The narrow corridor in front of the cabin was sparsely populated and somewhat dim.
And there, a woman who didn’t suit such a place at all stood alone, shining faintly.
‘So she really was here.’
Cassian bit his lip slightly, swallowing the surging emotions.
He was relieved to have found her before losing her forever, but the fact that she had truly tried to abandon him was despairing.
“Damia Ponti.”
At the call, the woman turned around in surprise.
Perhaps trying to hide her identity, she was wearing a shabby cloak pulled tightly over her head.
“Why are you so surprised? Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”
He only took a few steps closer, yet he had already cornered her against the wall.
Perhaps shocked by his sudden appearance, Damia’s violet eyes widened like a frightened rabbit’s.
Even now, finding that expression adorable made him feel ridiculous.
“Your Highness the Young Duke—no, Your Grace. Why are you here…?”
“Why do you think? I came to retrieve my runaway fiancée before the wedding.”
“A wedding? You really intended to marry me?”
“What?”
Cassian’s eyes wavered for a moment at her unexpected question.
“And what do you mean runaway? What did I do wrong that I would run away?”
So she wasn’t actually trying to run away?
A small spark of hope rose in Cassian’s chest.
“I’m just… leaving. For a new beginning.”
But despair followed immediately, as if he had fallen into an abyss.
“…And there is no place for me in your new beginning?”
“Huh?”
Damia only answered nervously, looking confused.
“Shouldn’t you get off the ship first? What if it departs if you stay like this?”
“Don’t change the subject, Damia. When you even proposed first, was it all a lie? Have you grown tired of me now?”
“What is going on all of a sudden? You showed absolutely no interest in me throughout the contract period!”
Damia looked around before shouting in a low voice, sounding truly wronged.
“You personally handed me the contract and told me not to misunderstand any kindness. You kept emphasizing that this engagement was only a transaction!”
His momentum weakened, since her point was not entirely wrong.
At that moment, her silver hair, fine like silk, slipped out from under the cloak and fluttered in the wind.
A unique sweet fragrance spread whenever Damia moved. His barely restrained reason felt like it would snap at any moment.
“So, what new beginning were you planning in the Kingdom? Don’t tell me you were going to that childhood friend of yours….”
Damia inhaled sharply and averted her gaze briefly.
Unlike his fiancée who would always meet his cold stare head-on, this reaction was unfamiliar.
“So it really was your intention?”
“No, I—”
A sigh-like laugh escaped Cassian.
Rather than losing Damia like this, he would rather kneel and beg her not to abandon him.
Even though he had never once bowed his head to anyone since the day he was born.
But he was afraid that Damia might grow completely tired of him if he did that.
“You said you loved me, didn’t you? You said you wanted to stay by my side even knowing you would die soon because you loved me too much.”
“That was…”
“When did you decide to leave? Did someone bully you? Or did I do something wrong?”
“It’s not that.”
“…Then don’t tell me you planned to leave from the very beginning?”
“No, it’s just… there was no way Your Grace would fall in love with me again this time…”
Damia muttered something incomprehensible as if she were dazed, but Cassian did not sense the strangeness.
He only gazed at Damia’s violet eyes, which were trembling pitifully.
Her lips, which had been moving restlessly, failed to utter either denial or excuse in the end.
“Ha….”
Seeing that reaction, it became clear today.
He had been secretly nursing a one-sided love toward his fiancée all along.
He felt lost between the clumsy love he had realized far too late and the resentment of betrayal he felt toward Damia.
The breath that grew hot whenever he thought of her. Countless sleepless nights caused by emotions he could not accept.
“Damia, you cannot leave.”
The arrogant boy had vanished without a trace.
In his place remained only a man who looked dangerously desperate.
“Regardless of what your scheme was when you proposed to me, I have no intention of letting you go for the rest of my life.”
“Your Grace, our contract is already over.”
Damia’s voice was very resolute, as if saying that regretting it now was pointless.
He had not expected that childish contract to bind his feet this long.
“Even pity is fine.”
“What did you say?”
“I’ll beg if you want me to. No, I’ll do anything you ask. So please, just don’t abandon me.”
In the end, Cassian begged pathetically.
Damia turned pale as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
“Your Grace, you clearly thought I was bothersome. Then why…?”
The summer air pressed heavily on their breathing, but it was not as painful as the puzzled expression on Damia’s face.
Yes, even the day he first met this cowardly fiancée was like today— a radiant summer day at the age of fifteen.
“I’ll make a prophecy for you. The shining life of the Young Duke will soon fall.”
“…What?”
The fifteen-year-old boy leaning leisurely against a tree and watching the lake—Cassian Sarkis—frowned slightly.
“Instead, I will pull it back up for you. Because I actually love you, Young Duke.”
The girl with silver hair reaching her waist and jade-like violet eyes was thin to the point of looking pitiful, with an almost doll-like pretty face.
And despite making such an abrupt and precocious confession, she remained extremely calm.
“Oh, I am Damia Ponti from the Ponti Viscounty. Since my family is rather humble and I’ve had little presence until now, you probably don’t know me.”
Even her delayed introduction was quite something.
‘What is she talking about…? Is this a new approach? People are trying all sorts of tricks nowadays.’
All the girls of the Velotea Empire were trying strange methods just to gain Cassian’s attention.
Just as Cassian was about to snort and rebuke the girl—
Damia Ponti smiled as if she had already expected it.
“I know you’ve been given a death sentence, haven’t you, Young Duke?”
“…W-what?”
It was a shockingly devastating sentence that froze the boy’s entire body.
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Unfortunately, your denial was a beat late, Young Duke.”
Damia sighed lightly and shrugged.
“You don’t have to hide anything from me. I am on your side.”
Despite looking several years younger than Cassian, her gaze was like she was pitying a much younger sibling.
“Where did you hear such stories…?”
Sparks seemed to fly in the crimson eyes of Cassian.
Such a sharp rebuke would have made an ordinary girl burst into tears, but Damia looked completely calm.
“Now, I will explain my utility value.”
“Do you think you can say something like that to me and get away with it?”
“Please become my betrothed instead.”
Cassian Sarkis, the only heir of the Sarkis Duke Family, had a picture-perfect life.
Until the summer of his fifteenth year, when he received a secret he could never have imagined from an insignificant viscount’s daughter—and was ambushed with a marriage proposal.
