Morning came like a death sentence.
I hadn't slept. Obviously. Would ""you"" sleep if you knew you were meeting the woman who was going to separate your head from your body at some unspecified future date?
I sat at the edge of my bed and stared at the wall. The wall stared back. Neither of us had answers.
"Young master, I've prepared your outfit for the banquet."
Rumia stood in the doorway, holding up a deep blue coat with silver embroidery. It looked expensive. It looked like something a confident person would wear.
Confident people are threats. Threats get their necks cut.
"Do we have anything... less impressive?"
"Less impressive, young master?"
"Something that says 'I am not worth your time or blade.' Ideally both."
Rumia tilted her head. "This is already the least decorated outfit you own."
I looked at the coat again. The silver thread caught the morning light.
""I'm going to die in something pretty, at least.""
"Fine. I'll wear it."
As Rumia helped adjust the collar — my fingers had stopped cooperating about an hour ago — I made the mistake of rehearsing out loud.
"Your Highness, I am deeply honored by this arrangement, however, upon careful reflection, I believe our union may not serve the kingdom's..."
"Young master, are you practicing a breakup speech?"
"It's a ""strategic disengagement proposal."""
"...Before the engagement has even been announced?"
"Rumia, if you wait until the tiger has its jaws around your neck to discuss boundaries, the conversation tends to be one-sided."
She blinked twice. Then, with the serene calm of someone who had long stopped trying to understand me:
"I'll prepare the carriage."
---
The banquet hall of the Royal Palace was the kind of place that made you feel poor just by standing in it.
Chandeliers the size of small carriages. Marble floors polished to the point where you could see your own terrified expression staring back at you. Nobles milling about in outfits that cost more than my entire estate, murmuring to each other behind jeweled fans like they were all sharing the same secret.
The secret, presumably, was that they all hated each other.
Father walked ahead, parting the crowd like a warship cutting through still water. The "Rider of the 13th Seat" didn't need to announce himself. People simply ""moved."" I watched a duke sidestep so fast he nearly backed into a servant carrying wine.
I walked three steps behind him, trying to project an aura of "I am his son and therefore you should not stab me" while simultaneously projecting "but I am not important enough to be worth stabbing."
It's a delicate balance. I think I was pulling it off. My legs were only slightly trembling.
"Naive."
"Yes, Father?"
"Stop walking like a baby deer."
"I'm not , my legs are perfectly—"
"Your left knee has buckled twice since we entered."
He didn't even turn around. How did he — you know what, "Rider of the 13th Seat." The man probably tracked movement in his sleep.
I straightened up. Steady legs. Deep breath.
""I am an ant. A calm ant. A calm, collected, emotionally stable ant that is about to meet the boot.""
Father led me to a quieter section near the eastern terrace, where the royal family held their more "intimate" conversations. Intimate here meaning there were only ""thirty"" people watching instead of three hundred.
"Wait here," Father said. "The Princess will arrive shortly. Remember what I told you."
"You told me to hit my head a few more times."
The faintest crack of a smile on his face. "That too."
And then he left.
And I was alone.
Standing in the corner of a royal terrace with a glass of something amber that I was too nervous to drink, waiting for the woman who was going to kill me to walk through a set of gold-inlaid doors.
""This is fine. Everything is fine. I rehearsed. I have a plan. The plan is to grovel. Groveling is a time-honored survival strategy. Cockroaches grovel. Cockroaches have survived for millions of years. I will be the cockroach.""
""...God, that's depressing.""
The doors opened.
---
She walked in, and the room forgot how to breathe.
I'd like to say I was exaggerating. I was not. A man to my left literally choked on his wine. Another one walked into a pillar. These were grown adults. Nobles. Supposedly dignified.
Adrienne Dragonart.
Silver hair that fell just past her shoulders, catching the candlelight in a way that made it look like liquid metal. Eyes the color of a winter sky , beautiful, and about as warm. She wore a white dress with gold trim, elegant and understated, which told me everything I needed to know.
She didn't need to dress loudly. ""She"" was the statement.
And there, at her hip — no sword. Of course no sword, it was a banquet. But her right hand hung at her side in that specific way. Relaxed, slightly curled, exactly where a pommel would rest.
Muscle memory. Even unarmed, she was armed.
""My survival odds just dropped from "unlikely" to "mathematical error."""
She scanned the room. Slowly. Deliberately. The way a predator surveys a clearing before deciding if anything in it is worth chasing.
Her gaze passed over the nobles, the decorations, the servants—
And landed on me.
""Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. She's looking at you. That's normal. You're her fiancé. Fiancés look at each other. This is a normal human interaction. You are a normal human. You are—""
She started walking toward me.
""I am going to die in this coat.""
---
"You must be Naive."
Her voice was calm. Measured. Like a blade being drawn slowly from its sheath — you heard the steel before you saw it.
I bowed. I bowed ""deep."" Deeper than protocol required. Deeper than dignity allowed. I bowed so low that I could have inspected the stitching on her shoes, which, I noticed in my peripheral vision, were also white and gold.
""Even her shoes are intimidating. How do you make shoes intimidating?""
"Your Highness. It is an honor beyond what I deserve."
"Rise."
I rose. Partially. Enough to make eye contact but not enough to be perceived as "at her level." A carefully calibrated semi-rise. I'd practiced this in the mirror. Rumia had watched. She'd said nothing, which I chose to interpret as approval.
Adrienne studied me.
Not a glance. Not a polite once-over. She ""studied"" me the way you'd study a locked box — trying to figure out what's inside without opening it.
"You're smaller than I expected."
""SHE EXPECTED SOMEONE BIGGER. SHE WAS PLANNING THE KILLING BLOW AND NOW HAS TO RECALCULATE BECAUSE I'M SHORT. I AM GOING TO DIE AND IT'S MY HEIGHT'S FAULT.""
"I... have been told I may yet grow, Your Highness."
""Why did I say that. Why did I offer her a timeline. "Don't worry, Your Highness, I'll be a bigger target soon."""
"Hm." A sound. Not a word. Not agreement or disagreement. Just an acknowledgment that I had produced speech.
"Do you know why you're here?" she asked.
"For the banquet, Your Highness. And... the engagement."
"And how do you feel about it?"
""Terrified. Nauseous. My left eyelid has been twitching for eleven hours. I can feel my heartbeat in my teeth.""
"Honored," I said. "Deeply, profoundly honored."
Her eyes narrowed. Just slightly. A fraction of a degree.
"Honored," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Not nervous?"
"Of course not, Your Highness."
My glass rattled in my hand. We both looked at it. The amber liquid was trembling like there was a localized earthquake happening exclusively inside my drink.
I set the glass down on the nearest surface with the casual ease of a man whose hand was ""not"" shaking badly enough to be detected by seismologists.
"The evening air," I said. "A slight chill."
It was the middle of summer. The terrace was sweltering. A nobleman ten feet away was actively fanning himself.
Adrienne looked at me. Then at the fanning nobleman. Then back at me.
"...Indeed," she said. "Quite brisk."
""She knows. She absolutely knows. She's playing with me. This is the cat-and-mouse part. I am the mouse. The mouse dies at the end. The mouse always dies at the end.""
"Shall we walk?" she said, gesturing toward the terrace garden. "The crowd is... suffocating."
""She wants to get me alone. Away from witnesses. In a garden. Where there are hedges tall enough to hide a body. My body. The body she is about to create.""
"I would love nothing more," I said, with a smile so strained it could pull a muscle.
---
The garden was beautiful. Manicured hedges, stone pathways, flowers I didn't know the names of glowing faintly under lantern light. Under different circumstances , say, circumstances where I wasn't walking beside my future murderer , I might have enjoyed it.
We walked in silence for about thirty seconds. It was the longest thirty seconds of either of my lives.
"Your father," Adrienne said eventually. "The Rider of the 13th Seat. He's quite respected."
"He is."
"And feared."
"...Also that."
"But you're not like him."
""Correct. He is a mountain. I am a pebble that the mountain accidentally produced. Please do not crush the pebble.""
"I take after my mother, I'm told."
"Your mother passed when you were young, didn't she?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
A beat of silence. Something shifted in her expression — just a flicker, gone before I could read it.
"I see. I'm sorry."
I almost tripped. Not over a stone or a root. Over the sheer unexpected sincerity in her voice.
""The psychopath who cuts people's necks just said sorry about my dead mother. What is happening. Is this a trap? Is this a feint before the killing blow? "Sorry about your mother — now join her"?""
"Thank you, Your Highness."
More silence. We passed a fountain. Stone angels pouring water into a basin. Even the angels looked nervous.
"May I be honest with you?" she asked.
""No. Absolutely not. I have never wanted anyone to be less honest with me in my entire life. Please lie. Lie to me. Tell me the weather is lovely. Tell me you like my coat. Do not be honest.""
"Of course, Your Highness."
"I didn't choose this engagement."
""Neither did I. We have so much in common. Let's bond over our mutual resentment and peacefully go our separate ways. I'll send a card on your birthday.""
"Nor did I," I said carefully. "But I am... willing to make the best of the arrangement."
She stopped walking. I stopped two steps later because my brain was lagging behind my legs. I turned back.
She was looking at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. It wasn't hostility. It wasn't warmth, either. It was something between curiosity and... calculation.
"Make the best of it," she echoed. "You don't want to run?"
""YES. YES I WANT TO RUN. I WANT TO RUN SO FAST THAT I CIRCLE THE CONTINENT AND END UP BACK WHERE I STARTED JUST SO I CAN KEEP RUNNING.""
"Where would I run to, Your Highness?"
I said it without thinking. It just... came out. Quiet, honest, a little tired.
And for the first time since she'd walked through those golden doors she, Adrienne Dragonart smiled.
It was small. Barely there. The slightest curve at the corner of her mouth, like a secret she was keeping from her own face.
It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
"Nowhere, I suppose," she said softly. "There really is nowhere to run."
""She said that like she was talking about herself.""
Before I could process it, voices echoed from the terrace entrance. Nobles spilling out, laughter, music — the banquet was moving outdoors. Our private audience was over.
Adrienne turned back toward the hall, her composure sliding into place like a mask being fitted.
"You're strange, Naive."
"I get that a lot."
"I don't dislike it."
She walked away. I stood in the garden, alone, surrounded by flowers and stone angels, trying to figure out if "I don't dislike it" meant "you may live" or "I will enjoy killing you specifically."
My glass was still on the terrace railing where I'd abandoned it. I retrieved it and drained it in one go.
It burned.
I didn't care.
""I survived the first encounter. Step one complete. Only every remaining step to go.""
---
I sat in front of my vanity, unpinning the ornaments from my hair, watching my reflection with the same detached precision I applied to everything.
The banquet was over. The engagement was set.
And I had met him.
Naive. The youngest son of the 13th Seat's Rider. In the memories I carried — memories of a life I hadn't yet lived and now never would — he was ""different."" Taller, perhaps. Harder. Eyes that had seen enough death to stop flinching at it. A man who had carved his way through the Pseudo Gods' domain with nothing but a sword and a promise.
"""I'll find you. Even if I have to cut down heaven itself."""
Those were the words he said. In a future that no longer exists. To a version of me that died before she could answer.
And today — today he stood in front of me with trembling hands and a glass he couldn't hold still, telling me the summer air was "chilly."
I almost laughed. Almost. I hadn't laughed in... how long? In this life? In the memories of the other?
He was weak. That much was obvious. No mana signature worth noting. No combat instinct. When I'd walked toward him, his body language screamed ""prey"" — shoulders turned inward, weight on his back foot, eyes tracking my hands instead of my face.
He was looking for a weapon. At a banquet. In my ""hands.""
Ridiculous.
But then — "Where would I run to, Your Highness?"
My brush paused mid-stroke.
He didn't say it as a joke. Didn't say it to impress me. He said it with the quiet resignation of someone who had already weighed every option and found them all wanting.
That was not the response of a sheltered count's son who had never known hardship. That was the response of someone who understood — truly understood — that some situations have no exit.
""How would you know that, little ant?""
The previous Naive — the one from ""before"" whatever changed him three weeks ago — would have stammered. Would have agreed to everything with empty eyes. Would have been ""nothing.""
This one was still weak. Still fragile. Still an ant.
But ants don't usually look at the boot and ask philosophical questions about the nature of escape.
I set the brush down.
Brother thought he was using me. Marrying me off to a weak house to leash Father's loyalty while keeping me away from the succession. He thought I didn't know. He thought the "Delicate Flower" was too naive — ""ironic, that name"" — to see the chains beneath the silk.
Let him think that.
Father still had years before the crown changed hands. My siblings would make their moves soon. The third prince had already begun gathering allies. The second princess was consolidating the eastern lords. And I —
I had no army. No faction. No regression.
Just memories. And a fiancé who, in another life, loved me enough to fight gods.
I looked at my reflection. Beautiful. Young. Weak.
""He doesn't remember, of course. Those memories are mine alone. In his eyes, I am the monster who will kill him.""
How amusing.
""How... lonely.""
I pulled the last pin from my hair and let it fall.
"Survive, Naive. That's all I need from you right now."
""Because if you die before you become who I know you can be — then I really will have nowhere to run.""