“Well, I understand my mother was born to one of our family’s vassals, Baron Sonia. How come you met her in the capital instead of your estate first? And in that filthy alley?”

At that moment, I could see his silvery eyebrows wiggling. I thought, looking at my father’s hardened face, ‘Yes, he must be hiding something about her. Then, what Duke Jena told me was not nonsense.’

My father, who was silent for a moment, asked me with a stiff voice, “Who told you that?”

“Well, I accidently found it out while reading a book on the family tree of the vassals of our family in the library.”

I didn’t want to lie to my father, but if I told the truth, I thought that Sir League and other knights were going to have a lot of trouble. So instead of telling the truth, I said carefully, looking down instead of gazing at his navy blue eyes, “In fact, I learned about my mother’s memorial day some time ago. As I couldn’t sleep, I came out… and happened to see you.”

“… Did you? ”

“Yeah. So I wondered what my mother was like, but, well, I didn’t have the nerve to ask you. If I may say, you looked so lonely when I saw you. ”

“So, is that why you asked me why I didn’t remarry?” he asked, looking at me with a complicated expression. Then he continued as I remained silent, “Well, even if I haven’t sworn it with blood, there is another person to whom I have already vowed to give my whole life. ”

“Pardon? What do you mean….”

“The person is you, Tia. When I knew your mother was dying, it was because of you that I never gave up. After hearing about it, you came running belatedly. You were in despair, and when I saw you passing out after crying, I suddenly came to my senses. I decided to live for you as long as you would survive, seeing you almost dying. So Tia, don’t worry about this in the future. I am perfectly satisfied with living with you like this.”

“Dad… ”

When I saw his soft expression and eyes filled with affection, I felt choked up. Was it because I knew my father’s inner thoughts that he rarely revealed? My eyes welled with tears.

My father, who cleared his throat after looking at me blinking my blurry eyes, said with an awkward expression, “Hmmm, by the way, Tia.”

“… Pardon?”

“Sooner or later when they talk about the emperor’s move to the summer palace, I think the knights will be very busy. How about your job as Duke Lars’s assistant? Can you manage it?”

“Ah, yes. At first glance, it seems that I’m snowed under with work, but I can have some free time, to my surprise. ”

“Good. Hmm, I’m worried that the emperor’s health is failing and the crown prince has been tasked with too much work all of a sudden. Besides, if the emperor decides to move to the summer palace, half the government officials and knights will have to take care of him. If you have to plan their work schedule, I think you’re going to be extremely busy for a long time.”

While listening to my father, I suddenly recalled the crown prince that I had forgotten.

I tried to avoid him as much as possible, but when I had to run into him, he was just looking at me as I stiffened before him.

After hearing him asking me if I could reconsider being the successor of my family, I felt so uncomfortable meeting him. In fact, I had some faint hope that I could love him once more, but I was not sure if I wanted the old him or the present him. Besides, the fact that he already noticed I began to look at him through another person made me more uncomfortable and stressed out. I felt really nervous and frustrated because I knew Jiun would soon appear. I didn’t want to have my barely revived life trampled on. So, I thought that giving up such hope from the beginning was the best way to protect my present life.

What did he think when he saw me avoiding him for nearly half a year? At his birthday banquet, where I had no choice but to attend as his fiancee, he sighed with a deep sigh after seeing me who couldn’t even meet his eyes. At the time he told me I didn’t have to reply to his request, saying as I still had a lot of time, I could give it more thought. He also asked me not to avoid him anymore.

At that time, I found wounded feelings in his blue eyes. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it was the scratch on my mind reflected in his eyes. Anyway, at that moment, I turned my eyes without looking straight into his eyes.

It would have been easier if I had drawn a line at his feelings just like I did with Allendis. I felt cursed as I couldn’t. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t do it, when I vowed so many times that I would get free from the fate of becoming the empress, throwing away the old me and making myself anew.

There was one more year until Jiun appeared.

The last six months have been so difficult and awkward to me. How can I endure it another year like this?

I kept sighing before the dark reality. I kept recalling his blue eyes and his request, with his complicated feelings, for me not to avoid him as he would give me more time to ponder over it.

“… Ah.”

“… ”

“Tia.”

“Ah, yes. Did you call me? ”

“Why are lost in thought? Are you worried about something? ”

I was apparently too deep in my own thoughts. I smiled brightly at my father, who looked at me with a worried glance, and said jokingly, “Well, it seems we are only talking shop even outside the palace. When people look at us, they’re going to make a mockery of us, commenting that we are befitting the descendants of the Monique family, the most loyal in the empire.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tia. I didn’t think about that.”

I was embarrassed by his serious apology because I just cracked a joke.

“Oh, no. It was a joke, Daddy. So you don’t need to apologize…”

He had a faint smile, looking at me when I waved my hands hurriedly. I also smiled awkwardly.

Work and dating, and some other things were mixed up in my schedule today, but it was a really happy day because I could feel his deep love. As I got up from my seat to finish the day, arm in arm with him, I smiled brightly at his warm and blue eyes.

“What did you say, Sir Lars? Please say it again. ”

“Allendis left the delegation, saying he wanted to stay a little longer and look around the kingdom, Lady Monique.”

“… When did he say he would come back? ”

“He didn’t say anything about it.”

My heart sank when I heard that. Suddenly, I remembered the time I saw him last. His resigned green eyes, bitter expression on his face, and his unusual requests as if he would not see me forever. What he said and did has been weighing on my mind.

When I handed him a hair tie with his initials embroidered on it, he suddenly stopped while reaching out to me. I didn’t feel good about it. I was also bothered when he suddenly stopped while trying to say something to me.

‘That’s why you deliberately acted like that? So, were you looking at me with a resigned expression? Were you hurt so much by what I said that you wanted to get out of your hometown and leave for a strange place indefinitely?’

My time now is passing differently from the past, and my fate has begun to twist.

Am I disturbing the fate of others under the cause of pioneering my destiny? If I hadn’t come back as a ten-year-old girl, and if he had stayed with his fate as before, Allendis would have led the life of a promising young genius in the government. He would not have felt heartbroken and left the empire because of me.

‘Then, why did God bring me back?’

On the day I visited the temple in an incomprehensible situation, God told me that he decided to send me back because the fate of many people was distorted.

Then, what would God do with the people who led a life that had nothing to do with Jiun, but whose fate began to be disturbed because of me? If the fate of other people began to twist because I refused to live according to my fate, did I complicate the thread of fate more instead of unravelling it rightly?

I let out a sigh in spite of myself.