What Your Majesty Desires - Chapter 3.2

I didn’t realize I wasn’t wearing shoes until just now, but she didn’t care anymore. If only she could escape this prison-like life.

Finally, goodbye.

The top of the stone tower was quiet. There wasn’t exactly a promise, but the knights held their breath, counting the seconds as they listened to Marilyn hesitantly descend the stairs.

Hernis, from the start, stared blankly at the empty tower entrance where Marilyn had disappeared, not moving at all, and Jerome only kept Aiden in check with his eyes so as not to disturb his superior’s contemplation.

Perhaps it was a small consideration from the killers, wanting to protect her naive innocence, firmly believing that ‘Aiden could save his life if he just surrendered.’

Aiden was grateful for that. He had already been disarmed and outnumbered anyway. Rather than causing a commotion that would make Marilyn sense Aiden’s death, quietly offering his neck here wasn’t a bad option.

“Hernis.” Aiden called him, trying to keep the strength out of his voice. He didn’t want to argue and upset him.

However, if things had already come to this.

“Princess Marilyn was scheduled to be deposed tomorrow or the day after, after your engagement ceremony with Princess Thalia today.” Aiden had to save Marilyn, at least.

“If Emperor Rodri had documented the deposition in advance, would the princess be able to live?”

He had to allow it for Marilyn to live. But whether he heard it or not, Hernis rarely revealed his true feelings on his face.

“Isn’t it enough that we got Dextin Castle? What’s the point of killing one more woman here? Besides, the princess wasn’t even a real royal!”

Only after Aiden raised his voice in frustration did Hernis’s eyes, which had been fixed on the tower entrance, slowly turn to Aiden. But his face remained indifferent.

“Trying to pretend you don’t care?”

Even if he kept pretending, Aiden knew he was very interested in this story.

Just like Aiden had been in the past, Hernis was also very attracted to her.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given her time to dress fully before her execution, or asked pointless questions like whether he had met her before. The key was how much he liked her. Rumors of Hernis’s womanizing and cruel sexual tendencies in bed were more widespread than descriptions of his outstanding war skills.

Even if he took an interest in Marilyn and let her live another day, or kept her by his side for two more days, would it really matter? For the past 10 years, he had cherished Marilyn, afraid she would wear away if he touched her, or break if he held her.

That blood-soaked murderer was not worthy of Marilyn. The fragile Marilyn and this madman should never be entangled.

He knew it, and just imagining it was horrifying, but the scene of the fearful her trembling as she went to the execution ground was more painful to Aiden.

“Or formally propose to Princess Marilyn instead of the dead Thalia.

Wasn’t the royal marriage supposed to be held because of the prophecy anyway? If she has to be executed because she’s a princess, it means there’s no problem with her being the partner for this royal marriage…”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

But Jerome, who was standing next to him, flared up.

“It was already ridiculous that the prince of a great empire was even marrying a Dextin Empire, what? An adopted princess?

How dare you compare her to anyone?”

“What about being adopted? If that’s a problem, you shouldn’t have even brought up the execution in the first place. You don’t want to recognize her as a formal princess, but you have to put her on the list of royal executions. So is our princess a royal or not?”

“He doesn’t even know his place and just spouts off whatever comes to mind…!”

“Enough.” Hernis waved his hand at the two who were getting loud. “Your Highness, don’t listen to this man. The engagement is already broken, and we just need to find the blue diamond.”

“I know.” With an indifferent face, Hernis turned his body.

“The room is messy.”

Then he leisurely looked around the room. Aiden sighed, seeing Hernis so relaxed when he should be deciding whether to save Marilyn or not. Was he visiting a museum right now? Like an invader, Hernis walked clomp-clomp between the broken and overturned ornaments and furniture.

Jerome was as frustrated as the dumbfounded Aiden, and couldn’t stand it anymore, so he went and stood next to Hernis. He scurried over, and Aiden knew what he was going to say.

“Your Highness, with all due respect.”

It was obvious what that guy was going to say.

“I’m worried that our men will get hurt dragging that violent person down there.”

He was saying that they should just kill Aiden here so that the men wouldn’t get hurt. Aiden wasn’t particularly upset because he had already expected the extremely annoying tone. Marilyn would have gone down the stairs by now, and since Hernis wasn’t giving an answer, Aiden prepared himself, sensing the end.

“Is that so?” But Hernis’s answer was ambiguous, whether he was agreeing or asking back.

With an inscrutable face, Hernis indifferently passed Jerome, and Jerome turned to follow him. The place he stopped was the innermost part of the east wall. The only white furniture in this room that hadn’t fallen over was there. Marilyn’s closet.

“If you go down and rest, I’ll take care of the cleanup.”

Despite Jerome’s polite suggestion, Hernis acted as if he hadn’t heard and only looked straight ahead. Inside the half-open door of the closet, Marilyn’s old dresses and scraps of fabric that the knights had rummaged through were mixed up in a mess. Aiden couldn’t understand why Hernis was standing there.

“You barely slept yesterday trying to get the engagement date right. Leave this to me…”

“Is this the emblem of Dextin?”

“Ah, yes.” Well, it is, but.

Leaving the cut-off Jerome next to him, Hernis indifferently caressed the crude engraved decoration on the closet door. It was called the princess’s room, but the things inside the tower were so shabby that they wouldn’t even be in a servant’s room.

It was the result of Empress Deborah’s neurosis, who had emphasized frugality only to Marilyn, but Hernis, who came from a neighboring empire, couldn’t have known the unavoidable circumstances.

Aiden was worried about what Hernis, who was born as the prince of a great empire and had only seen the best, would think when he saw the crude imperial decoration, and whether he would rashly equate this shabby room with Marilyn’s value.

“Is this Nike, the goddess of victory, depicted here?” Pointless questions and.

“It seems so.” Meaningless answers.

“What is this person holding in front of the goddess…”

“It’s probably a palm branch.”

“Palm tree.” After a few more unnecessary chats, he seemed lost in thought, staring intently at the decoration. Aiden was frustrated, wondering what he was thinking.

“Your Highness?” Jerome must have been even more frustrated. “If there’s anything else you’re looking for, please tell me…”

“Aside.”

“Ah, yes.” At Hernis’s chin gesture, Jerome didn’t dare to ask further and quickly stepped aside. As soon as there was space, Hernis immediately pulled on the decoration and opened the closet door. As it had appeared from the outside, Marilyn’s dresses and small items of unknown use were mixed up without order inside the closet. The owner of the closet wasn’t here anyway, and there wasn’t much else to see. But Hernis casually picked up an ivory lace clump from Marilyn’s dress hem, which might have been white originally. Because of that, Marilyn’s dresses, which had been precariously trapped in the closet, fell down with it.

“Are you alright?” Jerome quickly blocked the pile of clothes with his arms, protecting Hernis’s instep.

It was something to be impressed by, but Hernis simply turned his head slightly without any change in expression, even with Jerome’s utmost courtesy. What he was showing great interest in was a small shoe that peeked out from the collapsed pile of clothes.

“Why that…”

Indeed. Why would he need this? He didn’t mind bending down and went to the trouble of digging through the pile to find both complete shoes. And Hernis held out the shoes to the puzzled Jerome.

“Yes?”

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