In the end, Axel threw himself into a demon extermination to address the matter. It wasn’t the season for demons to be particularly active, so this was not an operation planned with any real tactical purpose.
It was simply a means of clearing a head made unbearable by thoughts of Judith.
If he focused entirely on the sensation of cutting them down — nothing else would surface, he had thought.
But it didn’t go as expected. Even in the middle of cutting them down, Judith’s image surfaced anyway, coming and going without his permission.
He had fled to the north like a man being chased, wanting no news of her, no reminder of her — and yet, in contradiction to that very impulse, he kept finding himself thinking about her back in the capital.
More precisely — thinking about the possibility that she was with the Crown Prince right now, in this very moment.
The hand swinging the sword tightened without his meaning it to. Under the relentless, punishing rhythm of his attacks, demons fell without being able to put up any real resistance.
Anyone who thought they could be of assistance and stepped up beside him only ended up in the way.
Most, sensing the sharpness of his mood, didn’t attempt to approach him at all.
“Krrreeee—!”
Even in the midst of dispatching demon after demon, thoughts of Judith obscured his field of vision.
He could picture her in vivid detail — the brightness of her smile turned toward him. Eyes that curved with a foxlike, teasing gleam. A voice full of mischief that never let you know which direction she would dart next.
She had always been entirely unpredictable, always doing exactly as she pleased — but not once, not even once, had she actually irritated him.
Pale pink hair like the petals of something that would dissolve in your palm if you held it too tightly, drifting in the wind.
…And now, beside her, it would be the Crown Prince — not him.
The image formed in his mind reflexively, and Axel’s expression twisted with sharp revulsion. His heart throbbed in a way he couldn’t account for.
In that moment of distraction — a wolf-type demon that had been crouching low and biding its time lunged for him, seizing on the brief lag in his sword arm.
Axel sensed the movement, regripped his sword, pivoted his body, and brought the blade across in a clean arc.
Thud.
The massive demon’s head, jaws bared and teeth exposed, hit the ground in an instant. The cut was clean and complete — but the demon’s final lunge had not entirely missed.
Shuian, watching from a distance, sprinted toward him.
“Your Highness — are you all right?!”
The demon’s claws, honed to a long-ground edge, had grazed his shoulder on the way.
This had never happened before, and Shuian was visibly shaken.
“You — you’re injured — are you all right, Your Highness?”
Axel seemed to register that he had been hurt only after Shuian pointed it out. He glanced briefly at his shoulder.
Blood was dripping steadily from the wound. He looked at it as though it had nothing to do with him — as though the pain didn’t reach him.
Shuian, troubled by the blankness in his superior’s gaze, moved quickly to manage the situation.
“Let’s get you treated, Your Highness.”
With that, he issued the withdrawal order to the knights in Axel’s stead.
But even during the withdrawal, Axel’s mind remained somewhere distant.
When Axel reached his quarters, the physician was already there waiting.
“…For this reason, you must be careful not to aggravate the wound over the next few days.”
“…Your Highness?”
The physician looked at Axel uneasily when no response came. The longer the silence continued, the more the man began to sweat.
He was clearly terrified of having done something to displease him.
It was Shuian who rescued the physician from his quiet panic. He said, briefly:
“You may go.”
“Th-then, if you’ll excuse me.”
With a deep bow toward Axel, the physician departed at speed.
Shuian already understood exactly why his superior was behaving this way.
Which was why he didn’t ask the useless question: is something wrong?
What Axel needed right now was not questions. It was time.
Shuian believed that time, and only time, would resolve this.
Eventually, if we wait, he will come back to himself.
For now, the only thing within Shuian’s power was to do his own duty faithfully.
Shuian approached Axel, who was still staring into the empty air with an unfocused, drifting gaze.
When he drew close enough for Axel to notice, Axel finally lifted his detached eyes and looked at him. His voice was low and hoarse.
Shuian took a step back and extended something toward him.
“A letter has arrived from the Crown Prince, along with an invitation to the National Founding Day party.”
The single word — Crown Prince — made Axel’s brow crash together.
Since the incident with Judith, the Crown Prince had been sending him repeated messages.
“…He says you must attend the Founding Day party. If you refuse, he will come here himself.”
Axel clenched his fists and bit down hard.
What is he thinking. Is he going to humiliate me in front of everyone? Show off that Judith has left my hands and returned to his?
Shuian, keeping a cautious eye on Axel’s darkening mood, ventured carefully:
“…Regardless of the Crown Prince’s words, you are required to attend the Founding Day party, Your Highness.”
For an imperial event, every noble in the capital was expected to attend without exception barring extraordinary circumstances. This was all the more true for someone of Axel’s standing.
Axel was grimacing, running a hand through his hair at the situation that refused to bend to his will in any direction — when the thought came to him without warning.
Judith.
What applied to him applied to her as well. With no extraordinary circumstances to excuse her, she would also have to attend the party.
Which meant she would be there.
Axel sat with a deep, cold expression, lost in thought.
Shuian was watching him with quiet anxiety, half-afraid he would refuse the invitation.
Then Axel spoke.
“Tell them I will attend.”
After a long silence, the answer that came was the last one Shuian had expected. His face brightened at once.
Time passed quickly, and the day of the Founding Day party arrived.
Before the banquet, despite his intention to avoid crossing paths with Judith, Axel’s gaze found her the instant he entered the hall.
Pink hair that caught every eye in the room. Skin as white as unwritten paper.
And something about her now — something faint and fragile, as though she might need protecting at any moment — a quality he had never seen on her before.
When Judith entered the banquet hall, he recognized her immediately and without question.
He stared at her for a brief, unguarded moment — and then caught himself. He moved out of her line of sight and watched her from a distance, doing everything possible to avoid being seen.
But as he watched her, Axel’s expression tightened involuntarily.
That’s…
Because around Judith, unlike any other time, the young nobles of various houses were clustering in numbers.
Every time she turned one of her warm, bright smiles on one of them, something twisted unpleasantly inside him.
Why is she behaving like this? Had she decided to stop performing? Was the Crown Prince not enough?
The veins across his clenched knuckles pressed up in harsh blue lines.
He would have preferred her the old way — losing her temper at anyone who came near her, sharp and territorial. Not offering out the same smiles she had given him, freely, to anyone who approached.
Because of the change in her, men who had never dared come near her before were edging toward her with poorly concealed interest.
A fierce heat burned through Axel as he watched. With great effort, he tore his gaze away and pointed it somewhere else.
If he kept watching, his body would act on its own and drag her back to his side — and he knew it.
I shouldn’t have come.
He had clearly been possessed by something. Nothing else could explain these thoughts that kept surfacing.
He had to come back to his senses now.
Calling on every last reserve of self-control, Axel — face dark and strained — forced his body to turn away from Judith entirely.
