My Former Disciple Wants Me as His Bride

“Yes. Keep doubting me, just as you are now. I’m only here to do the job I was paid to do. I won’t be offended if you don’t trust me.”

She meant every word.

Eris sincerely hoped Ciel would do exactly that, but her answer only drew an inscrutable smile from him.

* * *

‘While you were out at sea, some rather interesting information came in.’

Ciel had come to the Kingdom of Celis with only one mission in mind.

To find The Trail of Black Blood.

Forbidden books woven from ancient curses and dark sorcery possessed an eerie immortality that made them impossible to destroy.

To contain the vicious records left behind by their ancestors, the Five Great Houses that upheld the Empire—including the imperial family—had divided the books among themselves and sealed each one deep within their respective abysses.

As a result, they were now little more than relics briefly mentioned in academy history lessons, and most ordinary citizens of the Empire believed the forbidden books had long since disappeared.

But they still existed.

Hidden deep in the darkness, they harbored their malice while awaiting the day the lost magic within them might be resurrected.

The Trail of Black Blood that had recently escaped confinement was the very abomination House Silverion had guarded for generations.

Unfortunately, one of Ciel’s idiotic relatives was responsible for its disappearance. As the heir to House Silverion, Ciel had no choice but to clean up the mess somehow.

‘That woman. She was from the Kingdom of Celis, wasn’t she?’

‘Speak plainly.’

‘Your first love.’

‘…….’

‘I’ll give you a nice long vacation while we’re at it, so why not visit Celis? You can track down the missing forbidden book and maybe even reunite with that wistful first love of yours.’

The Crown Prince had always enjoyed making pointless jokes.

Even while assigning Ciel an important mission, he had somehow managed to throw in something utterly irrelevant just to disturb his composure.

As always, Ciel should have simply let it go in one ear and out the other.

There had been moments during their years apart when he had wondered how she might have changed, but that was as far as it went.

‘Eris Blaine’ had never factored into Ciel’s plans for this extended journey. At least, that had truly been the case until he laid eyes on her again.

Beneath a black robe that completely concealed his large frame, Ciel held his breath.

Hidden within the shadows of a narrow alley, he stared fixedly at a single point.

A woman stood at the harbor, waiting for a ship that had yet to dock while the briny sea wind swept around her.

As Ciel watched her, the corner of his mouth slowly curled into a cool smile.

“…Found you.”

Beneath the brilliant June sunlight, her hair gleamed a deep wine red, while her green eyes were the color of tender leaves just beginning to unfurl.

Even after eight long years apart, she possessed an allure powerful enough to seize Ciel’s attention in an instant.

“It really is that Eris Blaine.”

He had confidently assumed that seeing her again would stir nothing in him, yet he found himself unable to tear his gaze away.

“…Interesting.”

He had thought all he needed to do was recover The Trail of Black Blood that had escaped from the depths of his family’s estate.

Perhaps he had miscalculated.

Simply looking at Eris from afar was enough to make the remnants of the past begin stirring back to life, one by one.

The shock was almost comparable to the first time he had dreamed of holding her in his arms and giving free rein to his desire for her.

‘If this is fate, it has a cruel sense of humor.’

Even if Eris Blaine was not a knight of the Celis royal order, the fact remained that she had been assigned to him by the prince.

Which meant he could never trust her completely.

Everyone back in the Tervanne Empire had warned him that escorting him was unlikely to be her only mission. Even the Crown Prince, who had teased him about reuniting with his ‘first love,’ had cautioned him about that much.

Of course, the Crown Prince could never have dreamed that the escort chosen by Prince Lakan would turn out to be none other than Eris Blaine herself, Ciel’s so-called ‘wistful first love.’

“I’ll say it again, but an escort assigned by a prince of this kingdom should never—”

“She’s not one of ours, so don’t trust her and make sure she learns nothing about the forbidden book.”

Cutting off the warning coming from beside him, Ciel paused to draw a breath.

“Avis, do I look like an idiot to you?”

“…No, sir. My apologies.”

Avis, the subordinate standing beside Ciel and keeping watch on the situation, shifted his eyes uneasily before falling silent.

His superior had always possessed an unpredictable streak that made it impossible to tell what he might do next. The recent naval campaign, in which the lives of countless subordinates had rested in his hands, had been no exception.

Ciel had discarded the plan they had spent an entire night preparing and ordered them to infiltrate the enemy position by an entirely different sea route.

And he had done so only after the enemy fleet had already begun to appear on the distant horizon.

The battle had ended in a decisive victory because of that choice. By changing the fleet’s course, they had even managed to cut off the enemy’s retreat completely.

In the end, his superior’s decisions almost always proved correct.

But life was not something one could judge solely by results. Because of that, whenever Avis looked at Ciel, he sometimes found himself feeling like a father tasked with raising an exceptionally capricious boy.