“What do you mean?! What exactly did you just say?!”
“P-please, Your Grace.”
What is all this noise?
Odette’s brow twitched.
“You incompetent fool! Are you absolutely certain? Is what you just said absolutely certain?!”
“Yes… yes, Your Grace.”
That shaking, retreating voice — it belonged unmistakably to House Tyrot’s personal physician.
“God in heaven — you impossible, wretched—!”
Her father, incandescent with fury.
He’s still angry? Should I open my eyes yet?
She was weighing the question when her face apparently betrayed her.
“Odette, darling! Are you awake?”
The voice of her mother — who was, unconditionally and in all circumstances, on Odette’s side — made her open her eyes in an instant.
“Mother…?”
The Duchess was seated at her bedside. The moment she saw Odette’s eyes open, the tears she’d been holding back spilled over.
“Oh, you impossible, reckless child… What are we going to do with you.”
“Mother… why are you here? Am I ill?”
“Odette, that is—”
“Ill?! She’s not ill — she’s a disaster! An absolute catastrophe! How do we even begin to recover from this disgrace?!”
Odette looked at her father’s blotchy, furious face and shot her mother a look that said plainly: help me.
The Duchess snapped back, sharp with nerves.
“Would you please stop?! Your daughter just collapsed and you’re standing here shouting at her?!”
“She’s like this because of you! Because you let her run wild!”
“So her being pregnant is my fault now?!”
“Isn’t it?!”
As her parents hurled words at each other across her bed, Odette suddenly stopped hearing them properly.
“Wait. What did you just say, Mother? Pregnant? Who is pregnant?”
A silence fell, sudden and heavy, over both of them.
She watched their faces — identically stricken, identically closed — and felt all the color leave her own.
“No. That — that can’t be right. I took the medicine Mother gave me. Every day, I took it—”
About a year or two ago, when Odette had first started causing problems with men, the Duchess had produced a small bottle of something.
You can enjoy yourself — but don’t leave evidence. You don’t want unnecessary blemishes when the time comes to marry.
It was an expensive contraceptive, produced according to a recipe that circulated quietly among noble women. It was highly reliable, and once stopped, fertility returned immediately — which was why noble houses paid handsomely for it.
“You’re sure you took it every day? I’ll have this apothecary’s neck for this.”
The Duchess muttered dangerously to herself. And then something came to Odette — a memory from the past several months. There had been a few days here and there, two or three at a time, when she’d simply found it too much of a bother to take it.
Surely not, even so…
Odette bit the inside of her lip.
The Duke drew a breath.
“There’s nothing to be done. A decision has to be made.”
The heaviness in his voice was unmistakable. Odette softened hers into something as fragile as possible.
“A… decision? What sort of decision, Father?”
“We bring in a live-in son-in-law.”
“What?”
She sat straight up in the bed.
For a great house’s only daughter to take on a husband of lesser standing, someone who would take her name and live under her roof — it was not unheard of. It happened.
But not for Odette. Odette had never once entertained the thought of marrying such a man.
Her husband had to be the most perfect man in the empire, without exception. Someone like Leon Aranias.
The Crown Prince would have been the most perfect match by any objective measure, but he was not someone Odette could manage. She had no illusions about that.
But Leon was different.
He had all the rigid chivalry of a man who would never stray — and yet in him she had always sensed a pure, devoted sincerity, the kind that would hand over everything to the woman he loved without a second thought.
A rarity. A genuine man. That quality existed in Leon — undeniably — alongside that worn, exhausted, devastating appeal of his.
“I refuse, Father. You know me. If it isn’t someone I want, I won’t have them.”
“Wake up!”
The Duke’s voice cut through her like a blade.
“Once it comes out that you were supplying Tali to other nobles, your marriage prospects are gone regardless. Which family of standing would accept you as their mistress? Other than one that has truly lost its mind over money.”
“But—!”
“Better to bring in a son-in-law we can control than let some money-hungry house drain us dry. At least then we’re the ones holding the reins.”
“That does make sense. But even so, no matter how modest the family — if he notices the pregnancy—”
Even the Duchess was backing the Duke now.
“Which is exactly why we have to arrange this quickly, before she starts showing! Or we pick someone from the parade of idiots she’s been keeping company with and choose the least worst option! It’s not as though there’s a shortage of them!”
Odette felt as if she might genuinely go out of her mind.
How, in a single day, had her life been thrown headfirst into the gutter? She could not make any sense of it.
I’m Odette Tyrot. I’m supposed to get everything I want. The man I want!
“I won’t, Papa! You promised me! You said you would make sure I got Leon Aranias!”
“Have you lost your mind completely?! Did you not hear a word I said?! That man is personally dismantling our trading company as we speak!”
“Even so! Even so, I want him — him and no one else!”
Odette had, ever since childhood, gotten what she wanted through days of relentless crying and demanding. The Duke and Duchess rarely held out against their only daughter’s iron will.
“Pull yourself together!”
But the Duke was, today, cold in a way she had never encountered before.
“Do you think Leon is anything like those other foolish men you’ve been playing with? He is a holy knight. A holy knight! If he found out about the pregnancy, what do you think he would do? He would report you to the temple for moral degeneracy and reduce our house to rubble. What you need to find is a husband who, even knowing your failings, would not dare make an issue of them — because we have enough of a hold over him.”
“But—! But—!”
“Enough. Odette Tyrot.”
“……”
“No matter how much I love you — you have endangered the lifeblood of this house, and that I cannot forgive. As it is, the Lenomer trading company is already tying itself to Rüschino with that magical instrument business, and our long-standing partners are peeling away one by one! And on top of that, you do this?”
The moment the name Rüschino left her father’s mouth, Odette’s eyes went sharp and ugly.
But even Odette could not push back against her father when he looked like this.
Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess had already moved on to practical alternatives.
“What about Timothy Colin? You’ve been spending time with him lately, haven’t you?”
The Duchess shook her head.
“Timothy Colin, of Viscount Colin? The man’s notorious for doing nothing. Even if we bring in a son-in-law, I won’t watch some layabout live off Odette.”
“True. What we need is someone who’ll follow orders and do the work without causing trouble. Now let me think — what about that one? Simon Blanche. The fact that you recommended him to the trading company yourself suggests you’re fairly close.”
Every name her father suggested was wrong, but at this one Odette’s expression curled with open disgust.
It was true she had been spending time with Simon recently — but only with the intention of using him. To bring Kasha Rüschino down.
He had been obedient enough that she’d found him useful. But marry him?
The third son of a Baron, born to a secondary wife at that. And besides — whatever had happened between him and Kasha Rüschino was shrouded in an opacity that made her uneasy.
“No, Father. Have you lost your senses?”
“You are the one who needs to come to her senses! The marriage will be arranged within one month — you will take note of that.”
“One month?!”
“A grand house taking on a son-in-law will be newsworthy in itself — it should draw enough attention to keep people occupied while the Holy Order roots through the company. We cannot let the company’s reputation be destroyed. So this wedding will happen. Before the pregnancy is discovered — and quickly.”
Odette could see the cold calculation flickering in her father’s eyes.
And she understood: for the damage she had done to his wealth, he would no longer protect her the way he always had.
As the reality of that settled over her — settling like something cold and heavy — Odette tasted, for the first time in her life, the particular flavor of genuine despair.
Several days later. Darius Park — site of the imperial garden party.
Along the banks of the Arnin River that wound through the capital, a beautiful promenade and delicate pockets of woodland shimmered in the late summer sun. The pathways were already bright with the scattered colors of noblewomen’s dresses.
Ladies with lace parasols and fans on their arms gathered in small clusters with their escorts, flowers of conversation blooming wherever they gathered.
“They still haven’t found who killed Baron Marquis, have they?”
“Well — he was said to have made quite a number of enemies during his life. Even identifying the suspects has apparently been difficult.”
“Goodness. Even so — a nobleman murdered, and it simply passes without resolution?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“And there are rumors of someone abducting and killing children, targeting young ones specifically… The mood in the capital has been unsettling lately.”
“Hasn’t it.”
“Oh — have you heard the news about House Tyrot?”
“Surely it isn’t true? That they’re taking Simon Blanche in as a live-in son-in-law?”
“Oh, come now. Can you imagine? Odette is so proud — she’d never accept Simon Blanche as a husband.”
“Shh. I heard this from someone who visited the temple where my uncle serves as a priest — apparently they’ve formally requested that Father Almans officiate the ceremony!”
“Good heavens — is that why Odette has stopped coming to parties and gatherings?”
“That’s what I heard, but — they say she does plan to attend today’s garden party…”
With so much captivating material to work through, the garden party itself had become almost an afterthought. Everyone was far too busy talking.
And then, all at once, something caught their eyes.
“Oh — isn’t that Leon?”
Among all the elaborate finery of the gathered nobility, this man was simply impossible to miss. His platinum hair blazed more brilliantly than the late summer sun itself, and the solid form that moved beneath his Holy Order uniform drew the eye of everyone — young and old, men and women alike. But today, it was not only his appearance that commanded attention.
“Kasha! Wait — please, just a moment—!”
The beautiful, noble holy knight — the one whose mere arrival set every young woman’s heart racing — was calling out after someone with an urgency that bordered on desperate.
As those closest to him turned to identify who he was pursuing, the emotions that passed across their faces were varied and vivid.
Jealousy. Envy. Curiosity. Shock.
Feeling all of it prickling against her skin, Kasha Rüschino slowly turned around.
The grey, understated dress and the wide-brimmed hat she had selected precisely to avoid attracting attention had been entirely useless. With this man beside her, she became the centerpiece of every space she entered, without trying.
From several directions, the whispers reached her.
He took her all the way to the Grand Duke’s villa at Elore Bay, they say…
She refused the Crown Prince’s invitation…
“I told you I wanted to walk alone, Leon.”
Her voice was even as she finally spoke, her face closed — but Leon could not tear his eyes from her.
