Chapter 11.1

Two maids were holding Annie by the arms. Neither could bear to look, and both had their eyes squeezed shut.

“Y-Your Highness.”

The knight holding the shears faltered.

Esha drew the sword from his scabbard and leveled it at his throat. Gasps rippled through the room.

“You dare to defy an imperial order?”

Her voice was glacial. Faced with no other option, the knight gripped Annie’s chin. In Elendor, an imperial order was absolute.

Annie could barely breathe, as if she might faint at any moment. Her face was ghostly pale, but the silent plea in her eyes earned her no mercy from Esha.

The knight forced Annie’s mouth open, shoving his fingers inside until her red tongue lolled out, slick with spit. Just as the sharp tip of the shears grazed her tongue, footsteps came pounding down the corridor.

“Your Highness.”

At the familiar voice, Esha turned. The moment she heard him, her hands began to tremble, and she gripped the sword’s hilt tighter to keep it from showing.

“Stop this.”

Johan spoke between catching his breath. His flushed cheeks betrayed how fast he’d run, yet his face remained cold. That contrast, for someone like him, was almost laughable.

The knight, upon seeing Johan, silently withdrew his hand from Annie’s mouth and set the shears down on the floor.

Thank heaven. If he had cut that young girl’s tongue, he would never again walk this corridor with a clear conscience.

“And who do you think you are?”

Esha forced a smirk to her lips.

“I’m your fiancé, Your Highness,” Johan answered.

At that, Esha couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh.

“You’ve spent two years avoiding me, and now you suddenly call yourself my fiancé? All for one little maid?”

Her anger ran deep. It was layered and tightly woven, erupting like a dam bursting after two years of suppressed emotions.

“Speak, Johan. Do you really think you have anything worth saying to me? Hm?”

Johan didn’t respond. Instead, he stepped toward her, slowly.

“Don’t come any closer.”

Esha raised the sword toward him this time. But he didn’t even flinch. His presence alone pushed her to take a step back.

“I said don’t come closer!”

{Sister.}

Johan called to her. Then, without hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the blade with his bare hand.

Shocked, Esha looked up at him. The reflection of herself in his deep green eyes looked so fragile, so unstable.

{Go ahead, tell me what you want. You don’t have to grant me any favors. Think of it as a trade.}

Johan said.

Blood trickled from his palm where it clutched the edge of the sword.

{You think you know what I want? You were dragged here as a hostage. There is no way I, a princess, could lack anything compared to you.}

Esha sneered, placing deliberate emphasis on the word “hostage.” But Johan’s expression didn’t so much as twitch.

{Wasn’t it you who taught me to never judge a person by their status, Sister?}

She drew in short, ragged breaths, as if she were drowning. Flashes of the past rushed through her mind. Those foolish days when she had tried so hard to seem like a better person in Johan’s eyes.

{And there is one thing, Sister, that you do not have.}

{…}

She was afraid of what might come out of his mouth. Because if he said it, she knew, without a doubt, that she would give him anything he asked for.

Still gripping the sword, Johan sank down to one knee. Then slowly, he lifted the blade to his own neck.

{Please, marry me.}

The servants, unfamiliar with Atlanian, had no idea why Johan had suddenly dropped to his knee.

{Take me instead, and let that maid go.}

Only Esha understood the weight of his absurd proposal, and her shoulders trembled under the blow of it.

This was the perfect blow against an opponent who had no way to strike back. And Esha had no defense left against him.

For two years, she had resented him, hated him, burned with anger at his cold indifference, but beneath it all, she’d always known. Those emotions were proof she still wanted him.

Johan was like a hunter who knew exactly when, how, and where to aim and and shoot his arrow. She was baring her own weakness before him, and it made her eyes sting with heat.

{I hate you so much.}

It was a pitiful answer.