I attended what would be my last Mid-Autumn banquet in my homeland.

By the time I arrived, the great hall was already alive with low music and candlelight—and with tears.

Elara stood at the center of a circle of noble ladies, her eyes rimmed red, her voice trembling just enough to draw sympathy without breaking entirely. She clutched a silk handkerchief as though it were the only thing holding her together.

“So after the festival, Princess Elara will be sent beyond the northern border…” one lady sighed loudly.

“How tragic,” another murmured. “And the Crown Princess does nothing—nothing at all—except chase after General Adrian’s favor.”

“At least Elara understands duty,” someone added. “Such devotion to the realm…”

Elara’s shoulders shook. Beneath the sleeve that hid her face, a flicker of something else passed—brief, sharp, satisfied.

Then she saw me.

Her breath caught.

I had never liked these gatherings. In previous years, I rarely attended the Mid-Autumn banquet at all.

She had counted on that.

I met her gaze from across the hall, curved my lips into a faint, unreadable smile, and took my seat without a word.

The murmurs sharpened instantly.

“What was that look supposed to mean?”

“How heartless—looking down on someone about to be sent away.”

“If she’s so proud, why doesn’t she go marry the northern king?”

“Just because her mother died young, she acts as if the whole kingdom owes her…”

I didn’t respond.

In my previous life, when the enemy breached the capital, many of these voices had screamed just as loudly—only then, no one had come to save them.

A few cruel words now were lighter than ashes and blood later.

I left the hall alone, wine untouched, and walked toward the moonlit pool to clear my head.

“—Elise.”

I stopped.

Elara approached me slowly, her steps careful, her expression gentle in a way that never reached her eyes.

Her chest rose and fell sharply.

Then her gaze slid past my shoulder—and curved.

Before I could react, her hands flew to my throat.

We fell together into the water.

“Help!” she screamed the moment we hit the surface.

“Elise—why would you push me?!”

I couldn’t swim.

Water rushed into my lungs, stealing my voice, my strength. I flailed blindly—

And then I saw him.

“Adrian—!”

I tried to call out. Only choking sounds escaped.

He didn’t look at me.

He dove straight toward Elara.

I reached for him—my fingers brushing empty water—as he lifted her effortlessly onto the stone edge. She was unharmed. Barely shaken.

Only then did my maid scream.

Guards plunged into the water and dragged me out.

I was soaked through, shivering, barely conscious.

Elara was sobbing against Adrian’s chest. He shrugged off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders without hesitation—then turned to me.

His face was rigid.

Not disgust.

Not hatred.

Anger—raw, restrained, barely held in place.

“Have you lost your mind?” he demanded.

“Killing her—what do you think that would accomplish?”

His voice dropped, sharp with disbelief rather than cruelty.

“If she were gone,” he said, “do you honestly believe you wouldn’t be the one sent north in her place?”

As if the thought itself offended him.

As if the idea of me being sent there was something he couldn’t bear to imagine.

I coughed violently, water burning my lungs.

“Adrian… I—”

“Enough.”

His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping once beneath his skin.

“I thought you were merely spoiled,” he said coldly.

“But I see now—you’re jealous, cruel, and vicious.”

“You lack her sense of duty, yet you’ve mastered every skill of a shrew.”

Each word struck harder than the last.

“You disgrace your title,” he continued.

“The people deserve better than this.”

“And thank the gods your mother didn’t live to see what you’ve become.”

“Adrian.”

Steel rang.

I drew my blade as I rose unsteadily. He answered in kind—just as he had years ago, just as he would again in a future neither of us yet understood.

Eight years of marriage in another life.

Eight years of drawing swords over Elara.

Never striking. Never yielding.

My strength failed.

My legs gave out—and I fell forward.

Strong arms caught me.

For the briefest moment, panic flickered across his face.

“…Elise?”

I clenched his collar with the last of my strength.

“You have no right,” I whispered fiercely,

“to speak of my mother.”

The world tilted.

I felt myself lifted, carried.

Behind us, Elara’s voice trembled:

“General… I—”

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t turn back.

He carried me out of the banquet hall, leaving her standing there in borrowed sympathy—and a truth that had not yet caught up with him.

Adrian stood outside my chamber for an entire day and night.

I never opened the door.

On the eve of the political marriage, moonlight traced his silhouette across the threshold—tall, rigid, unmoving. At last, his voice broke the silence.

“Elise,” he said at last.

His voice was low, restrained—too controlled for a man standing on the edge of a choice he did not fully understand.

“I will marry you.”

I leaned my back against the door and did not reply.

“I will spend my life answering for that blade,” he continued.

Each word came carefully, as if chosen from a code he had lived by since boyhood.

“I swear it—not as a lover, but as a soldier.”

There was a pause.

“I will guard you as I have guarded this realm,” he said finally.

“With my body.With my life.”

He did not say love.

He said the only things he had ever been taught to mean forever.

I remained silent.

After a while, his steps moved away down the corridor—measured, controlled, as though leaving were simply another order he had accepted.

Inside the room, I rested my forehead against the wood.

My mouth curved, almost unconsciously, and a single tear slipped free.

At dawn, when the envoy crossed beyond the border,

I rode out in crimson.

Alone.No ladies-in-waiting.No banners.No farewells shouted after me.

This was not a journey meant to be watched.

Only carried.

This was a burden meant for one person only. Dragging others into it would be needless cruelty.

It was also the day Adrian was meant to wed Elara.

By now, he should have received the surprise I left behind.

What I did not expect—

was to see him waiting on the road that marked my final path out of the capital.

A veil covered my face.

His gaze lingered on me for a long moment before he spoke.

“I’ll ride with you.”

I didn’t respond.

I urged my horse forward, passing him without pause.

He turned and followed.

“Do you resent me,” he asked, riding alongside, “for marrying your elder sister?”

I stiffened for a heartbeat.

So that was it.

He thought I was Elara.

Which meant he had been waiting here—

long enough to miss the truth I had left behind.

“But this is a debt I owe her,” he continued.

His tone was steady, almost disciplined.

“I failed her once. I won’t fail her again.”

I kept my eyes forward and said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he added after a moment.

“Even now, I couldn’t stop the crown from sending you away.”

Then—suddenly—

“If you want to resist,” he said, reaching out and catching my reins,

“I can take you away. Now. Tonight.”

His grip was firm, decisive.

The kind of certainty he only ever used on a battlefield.

“I won’t let a princess be traded for peace,” he said.

“Not again.”

I turned and looked at him.

In his eyes there was no longing.

No romance.

Only something harsher—

a refusal, deeply ingrained, to watch someone be sacrificed in the name of order.

To him, this was duty.

To me, it sounded like love.

Then I pushed his hand aside, pressed my heels into my horse’s flank,and rode on.

In a world where royal brides were meant to be delivered with ceremony and guard,she rode out as if she were already forgotten.

Adrian remained where he was.

He stood there long after the sentries closed the gate behind her,long after the road had emptied.

Only then did he turn back toward the capital.

Something was wrong.

He did not yet know what.

Elara had been… different the day.

She had dismissed the honor guard assigned to her.

Refused the ladies meant to accompany her to the border.

She had not spoken a single word—not to him, not to anyone.

Not a plea.

Not a farewell.

Not even a glance back at the city she was leaving behind.

It unsettled him more than tears ever could have.

He had seen this departure once before.

In that other lifetime—though he did not think of it as such—

Elara had wept openly, clinging to her attendants, begging him with her eyes to stop what could not be stopped.

He had ridden beside her then, silent, grim, convinced that endurance was all he could offer.

This time, she had not cried.

By the time he returned to the capital, dusk had already settled into night.

He approached the bed and reached for the bridal veil with hands that felt strangely distant, as though they no longer fully obeyed him.

When he lifted it, the world tilted.

The face beneath was familiar—too familiar.

“Elara!”

Terribly wrong.

And for the first time that night, the unease he had carried since the city gates had closed finally found its shape.