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Volume 2 Chapter 6
A murmur swept through the crowd for a moment. Father looked even more bewildered than I was as he turned to me.
“What in the world is that child talking about? Did he say something to you? Wasn’t today your first time seeing him again?”
“N-no. He didn’t say anything to me……”
I remembered the events of that night I had thought was only a dream. Calisto had never once mentioned marriage.
<Everything will work out. I promise.>
His gentle whisper brushed past my ears again. Was this what he had meant?
The Emperor’s and nobles’ gazes all focused on me, but I couldn’t say a word. Everything had happened too suddenly. Calisto becoming the Admiral of the North Sea, being acknowledged as the Second Prince—it all still felt like a dream.
But marriage?
And not with Lawrence, but with me?
I only blinked blankly until the Empress’s sharp voice barely snapped me back to reality.
“What nonsense is this? Your Majesty, are you simply going to listen? Isn’t this man going too far?”
The Emperor glanced at her and furrowed his brow. Discord between the imperial couple was nothing new, but raising their voices before the citizens of the Empire was another matter entirely. Yet the Empress refused to back down.
“The young master of House Winyates is already engaged to Roen. Have you forgotten, Your Majesty? No matter who you are, even you cannot revoke an imperial decree once it has been issued!”
The Emperor pressed his lips together in silence.
The Emperor himself did not want Roen and Winyates united either. If Roen married me, it would only strengthen the Empress’s influence. Had the Emperor not been bedridden at the time, the decree would never have been issued in the first place.
But the Empress was right. Even if the decree had been issued by Roen while acting as regent during the Emperor’s absence, an imperial decree was still absolute. No one could defy it. Not even the Emperor himself.
Tension thickened in the air. The Emperor slowly closed his eyes, while an elegant smile rose on Empress Jeanne’s lips. Confident of victory, she opened her mouth.
“Admiral, perhaps you are unaware, but the young master of Winyates is already promised to the First Prince—”
“Wasn’t the decree simply for a prince of the imperial family to marry a child of House Winyates?”
Calisto tilted his head slightly, cutting her off. The Empress frowned.
“That’s correct. So what of it?”
“Your Majesty, it seems you’ve already forgotten what happened just moments ago……”
Calisto smiled brightly, his eyes curving. Sunlight shattered like fragments across his slowly blinking lashes. I stared at him with my mouth slightly open. My mind still couldn’t catch up.
“I am that ‘prince.’ I requested marriage between a prince and a child of House Winyates, so how exactly would that be defying the decree?”
“……What?”
Roen’s expression turned terrifyingly rigid. Trembling, Jeanne pointed at Calisto.
“You… Are you mocking the Empress of the Empire right now?”
“Mocking you, Your Majesty?”
Calisto widened his eyes innocently and shrugged.
“I merely repeated the imperial decree. Have you already forgotten its contents? You must be terribly fatigued.”
“You… you!”
“And Your Majesty.”
Calisto stepped closer to her. His golden eyes shone dangerously as he looked straight down at her.
“You should be more careful with your words when addressing an imperial prince. Surely you haven’t forgotten this is not a private setting?”
“W-what?”
“Would you like me to remind you?”
“Y-you!”
The Empress flinched and took a step back. Yet her blue eyes still glared fiercely at him.
Then Calisto crooked a finger toward the platform below.
At once, the navy soldiers standing in formation slammed their sheathed swords against the ground.
THUD! THUD!
The sound of hundreds of soldiers striking the stone courtyard in perfect rhythm thundered through the plaza. No one even dared breathe anymore.
The only thing filling the space was the oppressive roar created by the emotionless soldiers.
One corner of Calisto’s lips curled upward. Keeping his gaze fixed on Jeanne, he asked gently,
“Why aren’t you answering, Your Majesty?”
The Empress clenched her fists so tightly her delicate fingers turned red. Her blue eyes darted toward the navy troops filling the plaza.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The rhythm grew faster and faster. A menacing atmosphere spread through the ranks of the navy. Standing before hundreds of soldiers at his back, Calisto stared directly down at the Empress.
At last, the Empress forced out the words.
“The Admiral is correct. …Do as you wish.”
Her voice sounded squeezed out through clenched teeth.
Calisto gestured once more toward the troops. The harsh noise stopped instantly.
He smiled sweetly, his eyes narrowing in delight.
“Were you not happy to see me return after so long?”
Then he bent slightly and whispered warmly beside the Empress’s ear.
“Not Admiral. Second Prince, Mother.”
For the week-long celebrations honoring the North Sea Admiral’s triumphant return, Calisto only briefly showed his face at official events and spent nearly all his time coming and going from the Winyates estate. He even postponed the formal ceremony proclaiming him the Second Prince.
His excuse was that he wanted to hold his investiture and engagement ceremony together.
The Emperor, already in high spirits from both regaining Calisto and successfully humiliating the Empress, readily granted the request.
‘An engagement…….’
I sat on the drawing room sofa staring blankly out the window. I still couldn’t believe everything that had happened during the victory celebration. Calisto truly being the famed “Admiral of the North Sea” was shocking enough, but threatening the Empress and changing my marriage partner was even harder to believe.
Becoming engaged to Calisto—the child I had practically raised since infancy—still felt surreal. Though honestly, I doubted it would actually end in marriage.
‘Eventually it’ll probably switch back to Lawrence. Even if the details changed, the overall plot still followed the original story.’
That much was obvious from the fact that Calisto had still ended up joining the navy and becoming an admiral despite all my efforts to stop it. Since Calisto said he had begun dreaming of the future again, his romance with Lawrence—the original male lead—wouldn’t change either. The engagement to me was likely only temporary, a way to protect me from Roen.
‘I’m grateful, but… is this really okay? At this rate, I’m turning into the villainous second male omega.’
It felt like I had only stepped closer to my death flag. I might have changed from a villainous second male lead into a second male omega, but I was still the obstacle standing between Calisto and Lawrence. In the end, things were circling back toward the original plot anyway. Lawrence probably wouldn’t try to kill me, but considering how powerful the original storyline seemed to be, there was no telling what kind of gruesome ending awaited me.
“Young master. The young master… no, His Highness the Second Prince has arrived.”
Cliff’s voice called out to me.
After the victory celebration, Calisto had been staying in the Imperial Palace. I heard he’d been given the palace once used by Consort Marie Louise. Since it had remained empty for so long, renovations to turn it into the new Second Prince’s palace were still underway.
Yet the owner of that brand-new palace spent every single day commuting here instead.
Feeling equal parts happy and worried, I rose to my feet. Before I could even answer Cliff, Calisto strode into the room on long legs and stopped in front of me. My head tilted back again to meet his eyes.
I wasn’t entirely happy about how much he had grown somewhere beyond my sight. I had wanted to witness every moment of his growth. It was all because of Empress Jeanne and Roen. I spoke in a somewhat sulky tone.
“Baby, what are you doing leaving the Second Prince’s palace empty all the time?”
“……Eti.”
Calisto froze for a second before pressing a large hand to his forehead. Smiling awkwardly with softened brows, he looked as beautiful as a doll. He shook his head slowly.
“How long are you going to keep calling me a baby?”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden? You have to be careful. We don’t know what schemes the Empress and Roen might try next, okay?”
“No, that’s not what I mean……”
His elegant brows briefly knitted together before smoothing again. Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he asked gently,
“Forget it… How’s your body feeling?”
“Much better. My fever’s gone too.”
Now that the alpha manifestation medicine had worn off, the period of sickness afterward already felt long ago. Perhaps because Calisto had safely returned and been acknowledged as a prince, even the pressure weighing on me had disappeared. Lately my condition had been better than ever before.
Calisto smiled brightly, clearly relieved.
“That’s good. Once things settle down on my end, I’ll send over an imperial physician. Dr. Woodson is excellent, but he has to care for the entire count’s household. You should have a doctor assigned solely to you.”
“What? Why would an imperial physician be assigned exclusively to me?”
“Because of course.”
Calisto reached out toward me. His once-small, delicate hands had grown large enough to completely cover my cheek.
“You’re the Second Prince’s consort now.”
Rather than his answer, my eyes fell on the small scars scattered across the back of his hand. My chest tightened painfully again. I placed my own hand over the back of the hand cupping my cheek.
Calisto flinched in surprise.
At moments like this, I could still see traces of the child he used to be. The young Calisto who used to flinch every time I hugged him after he first arrived at the estate came back to mind, and I laughed softly.
Just then, Cliff entered the drawing room again to announce another visitor. One of Calisto’s brows rose sharply in annoyance.
“Who? I told you not to let anyone in, Cliff.”
“……Cali, stop that.”
I shook my head, calming him down. Being separated for so long must have hurt him more deeply than I realized, because ever since we reunited, Calisto had constantly tried to monopolize me. Cliff was always the one caught in the middle.
I gestured reassuringly to the troubled-looking Cliff and asked,
“Who is it? I don’t remember having any appointments today.”
“It’s the young Duke of Armagnac, sir.”
“Lawrence? Let him in quickly.”
Busy welcoming Lawrence warmly, I failed to notice the expression on Calisto’s face twisting darkly behind me.
