Chapter 236
Until that moment, Kazhan had vaguely assumed his feelings for Ysaris were mere admiration.
‘She was radiant, brimming with a light I could never possess—I just wanted to share the same air as her.’
And when he did, something soft and fluttery stirred inside him. Winter winds felt warm. The world grew brighter.
Kazhan called it the “Ysaris Effect.” He thought her sunlike presence naturally influenced everyone around her.
……What a colossal delusion. He only realized the truth when Ysaris received a public marriage proposal.
“The Rinter March holds the largest trade guild in the Pyrein Kingdom. Wouldn’t they be a flawless match for Her Highness the Princess?”
“That decision rests with me and His Majesty, not you. Consider your words unheard, young lord. You may leave.”
“Did you never harbor even a shred of affection for me? After all your kindness!”
“How uncouth for nobility. I’ve already issued my refusal, Young Lord Rinter.”
“Once I graduate from the Academy, my house will formally send a marriage proposal—with a dowry worthy of royalty. If you’d only nurture our connection now—”
“Did Her Highness not tell you to withdraw?”
Kazhan, playing the role of Ysaris’s knight as usual, drove the young lord away. He endured the ensuing insults, but his rage wasn’t for himself.
No, Kazhan was furious. The emotion that had quietly expanded within him now erupted in flames, scorching everything in its path.
This wasn’t hostility or bloodlust. It was pure, undiluted wrath—something he hadn’t even felt when his own family died.
Yet Kazhan couldn’t pinpoint its source. How could he feel such anger beside Ysaris, who always brought him peace?
Because some lordling dared disrespect her? Because a noble brat ignored his princess’s command?
He spent weeks searching for answers, finding none—until a raucous tavern conversation struck him like lightning.
“So I grabbed the bastard’s arm—snap!—and growled, ‘Keep your filthy hands off my woman!’”
“Hah! Now that’s a real man! What happened next?”
“The fool came at me, so we fought to the death. Lost an eye, but I won!”
“Heh, no wonder you’re whipped. That wife of yours must be something.”
“Her beauty’s unmatched—wait, listen here. If anyone even looks at Junie wrong, I’ll crack their skull myself!”
“Hah! Who’d dare? She’s already borne your child!”
“You calling my Junie used goods—?”
“Mercy! Damn, your drunk a*s—”
Thud.
Kazhan bolted from the tavern. A single word gutted him.
‘Love?’
‘Love?’
So this rage—was it what books called… jealousy?
He reeled. He’d often found Ysaris lovely, but that was objective appreciation. Not… this.
It had to be a mistake. Those drunkards didn’t know anything.
……
From that day, Kazhan buried himself in the library. The sword-obsessed knight devoured books on human emotion instead.
When Ysaris noticed, she poked his cheek, teasing.
“Kazhan reading romance novels? Did you eat something rotten?”
“Perhaps I did.”
“Huh? Are you actually ill? No fever…”
Her playful tone vanished as a soft hand pressed to his forehead. Concern filled her eyes.
Thud. Thud. His heart hammered. After days of research, the sound was unmistakable.
“Lovely” was never an objective term. He’d just found everything about Ysaris unbearably so.
A man wearing the hollow title of a fallen noble had fallen for a princess.
A tragedy foretold.
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