“It could be given a t-try. My fa…father must also know that fighting…against the Remdragon Knights would cause a lot of da-damage. If our side takes a s-step back…and n-negotiate conditions…”
“The chance to negotiate has already gone. Even the lady knows that.”
Ruth muttered with a grim face. Max couldn’t find any more words to refute and could only clasp her skirt. The Duke of Croix was a person who, above all, valued his dignity as a nobleman, his pride, and the honor of his family. For the first time in the Duke’s dignified life, he was reduced to a crawling, blood-covered mess. Her father will not grow lenient no matter what condition will be offered.
She knew well that there was nothing she could do. Max wrapped herself around her cold forearm and trembled at her helpless situation. Ruth, looking at her in that state, then said.
“Doesn’t the lady seek to get revenge on the duke? Despite him being your father… he had put you through such a situation.”
Max was caught off guard with Ruth’s unprecedented question. After a moment of looking at Ruth with a startled expression, she lowered her eyes and muttered coldly.
“I,I… it doesn’t matter to me whatever happens to him. It’s just…having Riftan or the others… be subjected again to the battlefield… I don’t want that.”
“They have lived on the battlefield their entire lives. And in the future, they will continue to live on the battlefield. It’s inevitable, fearing for them every time they go out to the battlefield would be of no worth.”
Max closed her mouth tightly. Ruth looked at her and sighed.
“I understand your sentiments. However, please side with Sir Calypse’ decision for this matter.”
She nodded reluctantly. No matter how much she has been reeling in her head, she couldn’t think of a way to change her father’s decision, and she couldn’t find any words that would dissuade Riftan either. While biting her lips with a sunken heart, Rudis entered the room with a steaming herbal tea. However, neither of them was in the mood to leisurely drink tea.
Max excused herself from Ruth and returned to her room. As soon as she sat on the bed, she felt her energy drain, perhaps from all the tension she felt from the conversation. She collapsed in bed, recalling the faces of the Duke’s vassal knights. None of them could match Riftan. Although she said to herself to appease her troubled mind, her anxious heart hardly recovered. She then massaged her throbbing temple and shut her eyes.
Preparations for war continued steadily. It was often noticed that the mercenaries and the knights often interacted with each other in the training grounds, and wagons full of ammunition and weapons entered the castle frequently. Max had to keep silent and pretend not to know what was going on. Every time she looked at Riftan’s face, countless words would climb up her throat, but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she had to apologize for being subjected to this kind of situation all because of her or beg not to take revenge for her because she didn’t want that. She couldn’t help but pull away from him several times, and he must have felt the tension surrounding her but Riftan didn’t say anything either. And his attitude also played a big role in driving her to a deeper depression.
He was always more polite and cautious than necessary, and Max feared he had lost his enthusiasm for her. He cared for her more carefully than ever, but his treatment for her was closer to that of caring for a newborn baby than a wife. He hadn’t even told her that he would be pursuing a war.
‘Is he so concerned that if he communicated that fact, I could go into shock?’
Max thought as she looked out the window. The garden was full of workers busily preparing for the winter season. Among them were guards carrying in military supplies. She asked Rudis to fetch details about it and found out that in the next three days, the preparations for the war would be ready. Riftan will lead an army of over four hundred on horseback and march towards Croix. She turned away from the window, consciously trying to put the horrors of war out of her head. Rudis, who was sewing by the fire, looked at her grim face and shot her a worried look.
