Chapter 19
And she quickly snapped her mouth shut, saying, “Whoops.”
She made a mistake. Seirena’s expression hardened. She had made a mistake in front of the sharpest person.
Ash’s eyes narrowed. The words, I can’t, meant that someone had left trauma on her. It meant that her statement that she simply didn’t like it was a lie.
For the first time, Ash was intensely angry. Someone had attacked Seirena from behind. He slowly opened his mouth.
“Just tell me the name.”
There was no anger felt in his quiet tone. But Seirena realized he was angry by looking into Ash’s eyes.
Why? She was flustered by his unexpected reaction. Why is this man getting angry?
“Squadron Commander…”
“Ash.”
“Pardon?” Seirena’s eyes widened. I know your name is Ash, though. Before she could say that, Ash spoke.
“Call my name. We are engaged.”
But we are going to break off the engagement soon. Ash spoke again to the murmuring Seirena.
“People will think it’s strange, won’t they? Did you forget why we got engaged?”
She had half-forgotten. Fortunately, his words made something pop into Seirena’s mind with a flash. To stop strange rumors. This was, in a way, a punishment for the Duke of Greywind.
“Why did His Majesty punish you?”
Seirena asked this without thinking.
No matter how much she thought about it, this engagement was a punishment for Ash.
She was a young lady from a fallen count’s family, burdened with the task of becoming a count soon and restoring the family.
But Ash was not. He was the King’s nephew, a promising squadron commander, and a Duke.
Ash narrowed his eyes at Seirena’s question, then smiled faintly. He didn’t know she would think of it as a punishment too.
“Well. Perhaps he was worried about his nephew who hadn’t even gotten engaged yet.”
He tried to pass it off as a joke, but he was wrong. Seirena shook her head.
She knew the King. He was a greedy, perverted, insane bastard. The King didn’t even love his own children.
And yet, he worries about his nephew?
When she was the Queen, the King hated her even encountering Ash. At the time, she just thought he was worried that his young wife might have an affair with her peer-aged nephew.
Thinking about it, Ash was also unmarried at that time. Only then did Seirena realize it was strange.
Before she returned, Seirena was twenty-nine, so Ash would have been thirty-three or four. It was strange that a Duke didn’t even have a fiancée at that age.
Just as she told Moana, she was only now beginning to see the world from a different angle.
“Why didn’t you get engaged?”
At Seirena’s question, Ash shrugged and said as if it were nothing.
“I did.”
With you.
He was engaged to Seirena Hunter. By the King’s command. But that was not what Seirena was referring to.
“If it’s the Commander, you should already have a fiancée.”
“Ash.”
Ash said in a low voice again. Call me Ash.
But Seirena hesitated. Calling his name felt too intimate. And she didn’t want to be intimate with him.
“I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
At her sharp words, one of Ash’s eyebrows went up. He spoke with a slightly annoyed expression.
“Then even stranger rumors will spread, won’t they?”
What rumors? For the bewildered Seirena, Ash slowly explained.
“Since we got engaged to quell rumors, it would be best to be as amicable an engaged couple as possible. What would people think if we had a stiff relationship where we only call each other by our surnames?”
“They’d think it’s an engagement between families.”
“Is that so?”
Ash raised one eyebrow again.
Damn it. Seirena’s face flushed. She knew what he was talking about.
A fallen count’s young lady and a promising Duke. The two of them were not the kind of people who would engage for the sake of their families.
Ash was conveying this in the most roundabout way possible.
“If we say it was promised in advance…”
“And they only announced it now? What about your uncle?”
When Gail popped up in the story, Seirena bit her lip.
Gail’s existence was the obstacle.
Count Hunter would have definitely told his younger brother that he had engaged his daughter to the Duke of Greywind.
However, she didn’t want to tell her uncle that they were engaged by the King’s command due to unavoidable circumstances.
Although she disliked Ash, Seirena didn’t know what Gail, who had a weakness on him, might do. She was less concerned about disliking Ash than she was about not wanting to give Gail anything he could use.
“I don’t want the rumor to spread that we got engaged by His Majesty’s command. It won’t be good for either of us.”
I agree. Seirena nodded and said.
“I also don’t want to tell my uncle the reason we got engaged.”
And not Ezra either.
As her thoughts shifted to Ezra, Seirena sighed and said.
“Ash.”
She felt strange. Saying that name, which she had never once called in her life and never even thought of in her life before returning, Seirena felt somehow peculiar.
“Seirena.”
Ash called Seirena’s name and then grinned. And he said playfully.
“Or should I call you Siren?”
No.
Seirena glared at Ash without realizing it. People called her that when she was the Queen. An extravagant wanton woman. A witch who seduced men like a Siren.
“The end of my name is rena. Not ren.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed at her strong reaction. Was she teased when she was young? He soon smiled faintly and said.
“Then, Rena.”
No, my name is Seirena, not Rena. But before Seirena could say anything, Ash spoke again.
“Fine, Rena. We have to announce the engagement before the end of the year.”
“You announced it at the training ground just now.”
“That was to quell the disturbance.”
If they abruptly announced the engagement without saying anything to the knights, the squadron would be stirred up.
Ash pointed that out.
“I’m fine with whenever.”
Seirena said nonchalantly. It was a fake engagement anyway. It didn’t matter when they announced it.
Then Ash said.
“How about on your birthday? In a week.”
“Huh?” Seirena’s eyes widened. My birthday? She blankly uttered a groan.
“Ah.”
“Ah?” One of Ash’s eyebrows went up. He was dumbfounded by her attitude of not knowing. But come to think of it, she had many incidents and accidents this month.
“It’s been a hectic month.”
Seirena nodded at Ash’s comforting words. She remembered it when she came back, but had forgotten it due to one thing or another.
I held my parents’ funeral, and my uncle and Adrianna came. We held a memorial service, and I sparred with Eugene. And I cut my hair.
Seirena’s hand touched her shortened hair. Following that movement, Ash’s gaze also turned to her hair.
“Don’t you regret it?”
At Ash’s question, Seirena pondered for a moment what he meant, then answered.
“No.”
If anything, she felt relieved. Before, she cherished it so much, applying oil and brushing it a hundred times every night. But cutting it helped her more.
Because every time Anna complimented her hair, it reminded her of her time as Queen.
“If that’s what you think.”
Ash said so and shrugged. In fact, he thought it was a waste. Seirena’s hair stood out conspicuously. When she walked by with her long hair flowing, everyone would turn to look at least once.
Everyone said she was beautiful or pretty. Although he had never said it out loud, he thought so too. But it was her hair, and it was Seirena’s freedom to cut it or not.
“Oh, and.”
Ash opened his mouth again before Seirena could leave the office.
What now? When she turned back with a disgruntled expression, he grinned and said.
“You have to receive the real punishment.”
“How was it?”
Moana, who had been waiting, asked Seirena as she exited the knight squadron building.
You must have been cold. Seirena linked arms with her and said.
“Why are you here instead of waiting inside?”
“Ah, it smells inside.”
It made sense that it smelled since they were sweating without opening the windows in the middle of winter.
Moana grumbled at the bitterly smiling Seirena.
“How do you train in there?”
“Once you get used to it…”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to say it’s okay.
Cleaning was originally the job of the pages. But this time, Eugene was doing it as a punishment. Since she didn’t think he would do a clean job, Seirena changed the subject.
“But why were you waiting?”
“Why else?”
Moana widened her eyes and looked at Seirena.
“Huh?” Moana slapped her bewildered shoulder and said.
“I waited because I was curious. Tell me. What did you talk about? What did the Commander say?”
Ah, that. Only then did Seirena realize why Moana hadn’t left and had waited for her. No wonder she was standing there waiting despite the cold.
“Um, I got punished.”
“Punishment?”
“Yes.” Seirena nodded.
Moana seemed to have thought the two of them had a friendly conversation, but she was completely wrong. She chuckled, looking at Moana’s wide eyes, and said.
“I got scolded for sparring with Sir Lambert recently.”
“You get scolded for sparring?”
So that’s why I got punished, right?
When Seirena nodded, Moana muttered that she didn’t know that.
She hadn’t really sparred herself, so she didn’t know if they got scolded.
“So Sir Lambert got punished. Cleaning the training ground.”
“Ah, no wonder it smelled recently.”
Moana covered her nose and grumbled. It would be difficult to clean such a large training ground neatly by himself.
I must not go near the training ground while Sir Lambert is cleaning. Moana resolved this and asked Seirena.
“What punishment did you get? The Commander is giving the punishment, right?”
“Yes. Well.”
Seirena made a disgruntled expression. She didn’t know if it was a punishment. But since he said it was a punishment.
“What punishment is it?”
“Organizing the archives.”
“Organizing the archives?”
“Oh?” Moana tilted her head. Her brown hair lightly swayed with the movement.
“Do we have archives?”
“That’s the question.”
Neither Moana nor Seirena had ever seen archives since joining the squadron. They didn’t even know such a thing existed.
The two found out the identity of the archives the next day.
“Ah, here.”
The next day, Seirena, who visited the main squadron building, involuntarily groaned in front of the room she arrived at, guided by the administrative knight, Sir Belmont.
She knew where it was. The place located in the most secluded corner of the main squadron building.
“This was the archives?”
Moana’s astonishment followed, as she had come along out of curiosity.
“It’s the archives and storage room.”
Sir Belmont said calmly in front of the two most beautiful women in the squadron.
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