“Hrmm… is this all?”
The snowmen in children’s picture books aren’t made of just this, are they?
Ares shrugged.
“Twigs, buttons—you’ve got to attach things like that, but we don’t have any.”
For some reason, Grace felt compelled to complete the snowman. Beyond the corridor, in a small flower bed, leafless trees endured the accumulating snow. As Grace headed down to the flower bed, Ares sauntered after her.
“You could just leave it roughly like that. Do you really have to attach twigs?”
“If it’s half-hearted, it’s worse than not doing it at all.”
As Grace bent down under the tree to find a fallen branch, Ares reached out and roughly snapped off a living one.
“That’s enough. Let’s go.”
Given his personality, Ares was someone who would carelessly break off a branch, stick it on haphazardly, and be done with it—if he had even bothered making a snowman in the first place—but seeing Grace draw near and stare so earnestly at the branch in his hand, he felt an overwhelming urge to do it properly.
He snapped the branch to fit the size of the snowman’s head, and Grace, who had been waiting, took it from him. Once the branch was stuck in where the eyes and nose would be, the figure finally looked somewhat worthy of the name “snowman.”
Lastly, Ares cut a branch to about the length of a middle finger and stuck it into the body.
“Only with this can you call it a snowman.”
Grace, who had been quietly gazing at the white snowman, raised her head. So much snow was pouring down that the faint afternoon sunlight felt like a lie. Following her, Ares looked up at the sky.
“First time seeing snow?”
“In Taylor, snow piled up in the mountain ranges would blow in with the wind once every few years. This is the first time I’ve seen such large snowflakes falling. And seen it accumulate like this.”
“Then I suppose you wouldn’t know what sledding or snowball fights are, either.”
*Is he teasing me?*
Grace narrowed her eyes and looked at him. Ares chuckled.
“I know what they are.”
“Theory and practice are always different.”
“…….”
“We don’t have a sled, so that’s out. Want to try a snowball fight?”
At his playful tone, Grace’s heart floated up as lightly as a small snowflake.
“Even if my hands were fine, it would be rather improper to have a snowball fight with Your Grace, and today my hands are in this condition as well, so it would be difficult. Let us take a rain check.”
Ares, who had been smiling faintly, stopped. He turned his gaze to the flower bed where snow continued to fall and fell silent for a moment. Then he spoke abruptly.
“When the snow melts, we have to go to the capital.”
“Yes. We must.”
Ares brushed the snow off the corridor railing and sat on it casually. Now he was at eye level with Grace.
“It is right to revise a plan as you execute it.”
“……?”
“Do you intend to keep fighting under the name of my lover once we reach the capital?”
The bait of being Duke Richmond’s lover was all too appetizing; of course, the hyenas of the capital would try to sink their teeth into her. But—
“If you do, I will have no way to protect you.”
The justification of protecting her merely as a lover was far too weak. Even at Richmond Ducal Estate, the title of lover had failed to protect her completely.
Ares’s gaze grew as deep and dark as the snow-laden sky. Then, just as the sky had abruptly spewed forth the snow it had held all this time without warning, he let out what he had been holding inside.
“Marry me.”
His proposal engulfed Grace calmly, like white snow silently swallowing the entire world.
＊ ＊ ＊
The capital of the Decan Empire, Empire City, was a planned city built on gently rolling circular hills. There were several names for this city. Some called it the capital or the Imperial Palace, while others called it precisely Empire City. However, those who actually lived in the capital called this massive city Saseong.
The reason this place was called Saseong was that the city truly resembled four overlapping castles.
There were four circular walls in the capital. The administrative districts were divided according to these walls, and the first wall was, without question, the wall of the Imperial Palace.
At the very peak of a massive hill with a diameter reaching a staggering one hundred kilometers sat the Imperial Palace, the heart of Decan. Because no building in the capital was permitted to exceed the height of the Imperial Palace, it could be seen from anywhere in the city.
Beyond the wall of the Imperial Palace lay the First Ward, where the mansions of nobles were located. Residing in the First Ward required both money and honor. The nobles granted permission to build estates there included, most notably, Duke Richmond and Duke Taylor; Count Saxen’s family had also been granted residence just over a decade ago.
The second wall of Saseong was located between the First and Second Wards, commonly called the Wall of Nobles. Because a pass was required to cross it, not just anyone could enter the First Ward. That being said, the Second Ward was not where riffraff lived. On the contrary, it was the most vibrant place in the capital.
The Second Ward was a commercial district and a place of exchange where commoners and nobles mingled freely. The famous boutiques that set Decan’s social circles abuzz were located here, and the Chernin Café, which had recently risen to become a social venue, was also in the Second Ward. Wealthy commoners lived there, as did nobles who had not been granted permission to reside in the First Ward.
The third wall of Saseong was the so-called Wall of Money, located between the Second and Third Wards. Crossing the Wall of Money from the Second Ward led to the Third Ward, a collective residential area for commoners. The fourth and final wall was the Wall of Knights, the actual fortress wall that enveloped the massive Empire City.
In the Third Ward, a shabby child had been enraptured for hours watching the procession of wheat that had been ongoing since a while ago.
“Wow……”
The golden wheat piled high on every cart looked like actual gold to the child’s eyes.
“It looks delicious……”
The child’s small murmur was buried by the unceasing sound of carriage wheels rolling by.
The procession of carts carrying golden wheat passed through the Wall of Money and led to a magnificent mansion in the Second Ward. The white marble mansion, also called Chernin Castle, was larger in scale than most estates in the First Ward. The main garden featured an exotic koi fountain imported from the East, and somewhere in the rear garden there was a deep pond. In it lived koi said to have been brought from the East as well.
On the main building’s terrace, a man watched the scene of wheat carts pouring in with languid eyes. He wore glasses said to be extremely rare and had long brown hair tied back roughly. Someone approached him, stood at attention, and offered a greeting.
“Butler. I have returned.”
The man with glasses, the butler of Chernin, silently extended his right hand. However, his right hand was somewhat strange. The spots where the ring finger and pinky should have been were smooth and glossy, as if cut away by something sharp.
While the butler skillfully held the documents with three fingers and reviewed them, the one who had handed them over spoke.
“I heard some interesting news from Taylor.”
“What news.”
“It seems Jack Saxen proposed to Rosette Taylor, settling for second best. The Duke was apparently overjoyed, and Rosette Taylor was, well—crying and making a noisy fuss, they say.”
When the butler, who had been reviewing the documents, fixed his gaze on him, the deputy butler smirked.
“And it seems Grace Taylor is at Richmond Ducal Estate. Everyone wondered who she ran off with after humiliating Jack Saxen, and—heavens—it turns out to be Duke Richmond? As expected of a Taylor lady, even her adultery is high-class.”
The butler’s lips curved upward as well. After organizing the documents, he pulled several shining gold coins from his pocket and dropped them onto the deputy butler’s palm.
“Thank you!”
“You’ve worked hard traveling back and forth. Rest well until tomorrow morning.”
The butler crossed a corridor draped with hanging flowers and headed toward the rear garden.
Passing the deep pond where the koi lived and walking along a circular corridor for quite some time, a building of peculiar form reminiscent of a desert palace came into view. It was a garish structure that felt devoid of any taste, built purely with money. When others had built chapels, the master of the mansion had claimed that he too was building a chapel as he constructed this building.
It was not a lie.
“Impudent Gale, how dare you cover your mouth and nose in a sacred place. If you cannot show reverence, at the very least…”
Hazel Chernin, lying sprawled atop a mountain-like pile of wheat, giggled at the butler Gale, who had covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief upon entering.
“Look at the wheat dust. Do I look like someone who wouldn’t cover his mouth and nose?”
Hazel pretended not to hear and grabbed a handful of wheat, inhaling deeply. How to describe it—a cloying sweetness that felt suffocatingly rich.
“Does this never bore you? How troublesome it is to bring the wheat here only to take it back again—”
“You’re noisy.”
Cutting short Gale’s nitpicking, Hazel sprinkled wheat grains over himself like a child playing in the snow. It was as if gold were pouring down over his head. As Hazel repeated the act, Gale spoke abruptly.
“It seems the Saxen Count’s family sent a marriage proposal to Rosette Taylor.”
Hazel’s movements stopped dead. He raised himself up entirely and narrowed his blue eyes, tilting his head.
“They say Count Saxen collected all the debt he had promised to repay to the Taylors. He even brought payment in kind.”
“That is correct.”
“And after all that, he sent a marriage proposal to Rosette Taylor?”
“He must have some scheme in mind.”
“A scheme?”
Hazel smiled cruelly.
“It would be troublesome if someone had schemes regarding Taylor.”
He stroked the Taylor wheat piled beneath his feet.
“That golden field is mine.”
Gale skillfully tossed a document stamped with Duke Taylor’s seal onto the pile of wheat. Hazel, who easily received it, tapped the wheat ear emblem with his index finger and let out an exclamation of admiration.
“Keuh—I like this emblem too. One day, this will also be mine.”
Just then, a neatly dressed man appeared behind Gale and reported with a serious expression.
“Butler. I think you need to come and see something.”
At that, Hazel, who had been rummaging through documents atop the wheat pile, spoke in a tone of utter disgust.
“The good-for-nothings are here again, I see. Is it two this time, or one.”
“…Two.”
“This is truly getting tiresome.”
Gale also let out a tired sigh and turned around.