The day Axel finally witnessed the truth — the secret meeting between Judith and the Crown Prince.
The day he came to understand everything.
He had been certain, in that moment, that he had made a decision.
He would no longer be moved by her. He would put an end to this absurd, laughable arrangement, once and for all.
But the moment she appeared before him, that resolution crumbled — swept away like a sandcastle in a wave, without the slightest resistance.
He wanted to give her a chance.
Even with every circumstance pointing toward a single, inescapable answer, he wanted to deny it. He clung to a fragment of hope.
A sharp sound of surprise escaped Judith’s lips. The way she clearly recognized the place — as though she knew it — brought a short, bitter laugh to Axel’s mouth before he could stop it.
Axel hid the expression and asked her calmly:
“It seems you know where this is, Lady Melberine?”
Ah.
Whether the answer had slipped out without her meaning it to, Judith quickly pressed her small, pale hand over her mouth.
The sight of it made Axel’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.
Please don’t let it be.
He pressed his fists together and asked her the next question.
Still apparently not reading Axel’s expression clearly, Judith poked her own cheek with one finger and began to play innocent.
“That… hmm, I don’t really know. I must have overheard it somewhere — I can’t remember who told me, Your Highness.”
She seemed intent on denying it to the end. With a smile of practiced guilelessness, Judith scratched the back of her head.
At that sight, a strange sound came from inside Axel’s leather-gloved hand — the sound of something very quietly cracking under pressure.
“…Then let me ask you just one thing.”
As he said it, Axel prayed.
This is the last chance. Please. Just tell me the truth this once.
If you tell me the truth, I can let it go. I can pretend not to know.
He swallowed against a dry throat and opened his mouth slowly.
“Did you stop anywhere before coming to my office?”
Judith’s body went still at the question. Axel saw it, and understood in that instant.
Just say it. Tell me the truth. He looked at the small pink curve of Judith’s lips and bit down on his own.
But as though mocking the very hope he was holding onto, Judith shook her head from side to side.
“No — where would I have stopped, Your Highness. I came directly.”
A sound escaped from between Axel’s teeth — a sigh unlike any before. Colder and more unsteady than it had ever been.
Only then did Judith seem to look at his expression properly. The faint curl at the corner of his mouth from a moment ago had gone rigid. The eyes watching her had gone cold beyond measure.
Axel let out a helpless, derisive laugh that he could no longer contain. His expression twisted along with it. He seemed less angry than simply unable to accept what was happening.
“…And yet—”
His voice, tight with everything he was holding back, continued.
“You don’t know, Lady Melberine — I spent less than a month living here. Because of that, there are very few people who even know I once stayed in this place. Most of the palace servants couldn’t tell you what this building is. And yet Lady Melberine apparently knows. I find myself wondering how.”
Judith pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Yes.
Of course you can’t say it. You think I don’t know. You think I was in the office during those hours — that I couldn’t have seen or heard anything.
Axel stared coldly down at the still-silent Judith and spoke.
Judith’s lashes trembled. She glanced up at him and opened her mouth.
Every answer that came back felt like something sharp being driven into his chest. She wasn’t going to change her story now — she was going to deny it to the end.
You really are going to do it. Right until the last…
He had said it was the last. And yet, even now, some part of him had wanted her to tell him the truth. But as though laughing at that foolish hope, Judith was busy burying her own mistake rather than confessing to it.
Axel could not suppress the hollow laugh that escaped him. His expression twisted along with it. He seemed not angry so much as unable to make himself accept this.
“…What?”
Looking at Judith’s trembling pupils, Axel released the words he had been holding in his heart.
His words landed cold and hard. Judith stared at him, so still she had stopped breathing. Her fingertips were trembling faintly. Which meant, it seemed — all of it was real.
“N-no… that’s not—”
Judith couldn’t manage to string the words together. At the sight of her, Axel let out a cold, contemptuous laugh, and began to press harder.
The more Judith’s face drained of color, the more Axel’s own clenched fist began to tremble.
Eyes blotted out with distrust — eyes from which not one fragment of light remained — turned on her. Under that gaze, the air began to grow too thin in Judith’s lungs.
“So — was the date with the Crown Prince at the dressmaker’s studio enjoyable?”
‘Please believe me.’
Ah, you really are… How could someone with such a guileless, innocent face say something so cruel.
After all the lies she had told him, she had the audacity to ask him to believe her. It was almost laughable.
Axel could not hide the way his expression was falling apart as he met her gaze.
“…And you said you went there to give me clothing as a gift?”
Axel cut her off sharply and pressed her harder. Judith could do nothing but open and close her mouth soundlessly.
Her trembling eyes met the cold, unyielding ones above. Under that gaze, something in Judith’s chest seemed to freeze solid.
She’s already working out what lie to give next.
Axel felt he had read her pattern entirely now, and his contempt showed.
“How entertaining it must have been. Performing your devotion to my face — insisting everything was sincere — while laughing at me behind it all. Watching me fall for your perfectly executed act so completely. I wonder how ridiculous I must have seemed. Like the whole world was sitting in the palm of your hand.”
“No, Your Highness! It was never a performance — I truly, genuinely—”
The word sincerely landed in Axel’s ears, and his expression hardened into something beyond anger.
Something seemed to register at last in Judith — her entire body had begun to shake, leaf-like. She understood now. Those questions, from the very start, had been the last chance Axel was extending to her.
Judith reached out to hold him back, her voice splitting and breaking apart.
He had never once used that kind of voice on Judith before. A harsh, savage cry — the kind she had never heard from him. And at the sound of it, Judith froze — a small creature cornered by a predator.
Axel looked down at her where she stood, and opened his mouth.
Judith’s face looked up at him, still without words — and something Axel could not name surged upward in him, sharp and undeniable.
