The flames soared high, casting an orange glow over the faces of everyone looking.
At that moment, Alessia’s eyes seemed to shine a bright vermilion.
Kaon stared blankly at her side profile, thinking that she was more incandescent than the flames embroidering the night sky.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she asked, taking her gaze down to meet his eyes.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw her smile.
“…Yes.” He nodded despite not having paid the display any attention, his uncertain thoughts melting away.
‘Uncertain?’
Kaon paused. His heart had indeed felt strangely heavy… And now that she was smiling like that, it no longer made sense to have that feeling…
“Really? Is it really pretty?” Alessia’s eyes opened wide like an innocent rabbit.
His heart pounded. “Yes, very pretty,” he replied shyly.
Everything about her was. Her smooth forehead, long eyelashes, moderately high nose, and sparkling eyes… were all pretty.
Alessia smiled, suddenly raising her hand. “Even though this ring is the one that made them?”
“What?”
“Is the flame really pretty, Kaon Ferdinand, even though it’s not from me?”
***
Kaon sat up with a gasp. The vivid scene before his eyes had disappeared.
He downed a whole glass of water at once, irritably pushing the sweaty hair out of his forehead. His physical reaction was so extreme that it was laughable.
Kaon sighed, then glanced at the curtain to make sure that he hadn’t woken her up with his restlessness. Fortunately, it seemed like she was sound asleep.
He lay back down, relieved that he didn’t have morning training the next day, meaning that he could sleep in.
Everything would be fine when he woke up.
Drifting off to sleep, he drew a rough schedule of what he wanted to do the next day. They’d go on an inspection in the afternoon, then have dinner together, then…
When the evening came, he wouldn’t have any useless dreams, and…
Kaon’s eyes snapped open. “Dream?”
***
He stayed up all night, too upset to relax. Disoriented as he was when he woke up, he hadn’t been able to set apart dreams and reality for a few moments.
Quickly, though, his memories supplied him with scenes of Alessia turning into a completely different person, one who threatened him with his own weakness. It couldn’t have been anything else but the truth, but it was still absurd.
‘Alessia wouldn’t do that, right? Did I also dream that all up because I keep thinking about her ring?’
Whether he had dreamt up both scenarios or not, the important thing was that he had learned to prepare thoroughly when he wanted to bring something up.
Kaon decided that he would only talk to Alessia about it after considering his thoughts further.
The moment he stepped out of his room, he also heard a click from the adjacent door.
“Ah.”
It felt a bit awkward between them.
Alessia spoke first, a little hesitantly, “Kaon, did you sleep well?”
“…Yes. What about you?”
“I slept well,” she replied lightly.
She didn’t look at all like the girl in his memory-dream.
Kaon sighed in relief, ready to clear the dark thoughts from his mind.
“But I didn’t expect you to sleep that well, actually. If I were you, I would have been tossing and turning all night.”
He looked up in a daze. “Huh?”
The smile was still on her lips. “We made a deal, remember? Don’t even think about tattling to your sister, Kaon Ferdinand,” she whispered, the sweetness totally at odds with what she was saying.
His mouth fell open.
“You didn’t think it was all a dream, did you?” Alessia forced him back to his senses, seemingly pitying.
She sighed, then her face totally transformed. “Oh, Lily! Are you going down? Let’s go together.”
Pushed to the side, Kaon stared blankly as she pranced ahead of him and approached the maid cheerfully.
***
“Everyone worked hard today as well.”
“Hey, what are you talking about? My lady, you’ve been going out here for two months straight, haven’t you?”
“But I’m just following from behind. You and the other knights were doing all the hard work, Niels.”
“That’s not how it is. Rather, we are all grateful to you, so much that we don’t know what to do when you say things like that.”
The middle-aged elite knight seemed moved by her thoughtful words, and the same was true of the knights under his command. Such a reaction was only natural since they were used to dispatched mages being tyrants.
“There’s still a lot of room for improvement. I look forward to working with you in the future.”
“You’re doing a good enough job.”
“It’s the truth!”
“Thank you, everyone.”
It was a heartwarming scene where the knights and the mage showed gratitude and goodwill towards each other, but Kaon could only stand to the side with a grimace.
“Oh, and we mustn’t forget about Kaon either, who went with me every day.”
That was because the mage who was looking at him with the sweetest face in the world was not a real mage. She was a swindler pretending to be one.
“Kaon, you… Are you alright? You don’t look so good.”
Even now, she was pretending to be a caring fiancée.
Well, the reason why his expression wasn’t good was that he’d been seeing that pretentious figure for a whole month, which made her question hard to answer.
“Niels, I’m afraid we have to go ahead earlier today. I’m worried about Kaon.”
“Of course, it’s fine. In fact, I can’t believe you’re fussing over him this much! It’s nice to see you both be like that, heh.”
Before Kaon could open his mouth, Alessia took the lead and pulled him away. He heard Niels burst into laughter.
“I envy you!”
“You’re a lucky man!”
‘Damn it…’
In the amicable atmosphere, he swallowed a curse, just like he’d been doing for some time now.
Sometimes, he wondered if rolling around in the snow with a broken nose and in wet clothes would feel that painful.
A month had passed since the deal-that-was-not-a-deal was made. In the meantime, Kaon had revised all of his thoughts about Alessia Ingelos.
First, she was not kind at all. No, well, she was, but only when there were other people around.
“Hey, can’t you manage your facial expressions?”
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