HSMDW 8

Chapter 8

“Woman?”

Aden repeated the word in disbelief, almost as though asking a question.

The small woman looked up at him as if responding to his voice.

Her deep violet eyes trembled.

Perhaps because she had confirmed that he was human, a shallow breath escaped her.

As the breath she had been holding in finally spilled out, Aden was overcome by a strange feeling.

“…….”

It was a quiet, gentle scent.

A scent that could never be found in Biplten, a place that had long since lost all warmth.

Even though the woman was trembling from the cold, unable to withstand even this brief moment of winter, she somehow carried an unbelievably warm scent.

She had somehow managed to remain standing amid the fierce snowstorm that seemed intent on burying her alive.

—Kyaak!

At that moment, one of the Mollies chasing her pounced from behind.

Without thinking, Aden raised his sword and drove it into the creature.

—Kieek!

The Molly, its life extinguished, trembled before collapsing.

Even at the moment of death, its heartbeat had been stronger than the woman’s.

From the woman before him came only the faintest pulse, as though she might disappear at any moment.

“Ah…….”

The woman’s voice trembled.

Perhaps she thought he was about to cut her throat. Her tightly shut eyes quivered.

As Aden quietly looked at her, he noticed something lying at her feet.

“This is…”

The sacred relic of the Blue Noz.

In an instant, Aden came to his senses as though someone had poured cold water over his head.

He narrowed his eyes and bent down beside the woman.

She was so fragile she looked as though she might break, yet her presence was overwhelming.

The full, rich scent that seemed to fill the space around her engulfed him, as though he had stepped into her very world.

A warm scent that had absolutely no place in Biplten.

“……If you don’t want to freeze to death just like this.”

He slowly lowered the sacred relic of the Noz over the woman’s head.

Once the object from Biplten covered her, he felt a pang of disappointment as that deep scent seemed to disappear beneath it.

Without realizing it, he drew in a deep breath, as though trying to inhale even the lingering trace of her scent.

“Keep this safe.”

What am I doing?

He asked himself.

It just happened to be a woman inside the Blue Noz’s carriage.

He had happened to save her. That should have been the end of it.

Whoever she was, she was of high enough status to possess and use a sacred relic.

Even if he had no interest in women, he could tell that much.

He could simply consider the matter a debt owed to the Blue Noz and turn away.

But he couldn’t turn around.

That deep, warm scent continued to draw him in.

He, who had never once seen a bright season, realized it only then.

What came from her was the scent of summer.

“Your Highness!”

At that moment, a knight of Delrose shouted from afar.

Aden saw the woman quickly lower her gaze.

He looked down at her.

He knew exactly what she was thinking beneath that blue cloth.

I mustn’t make eye contact with the Duke.

“…….”

Aden turned away.

You freeze if you make eye contact with the Duke.

It must be because of that story.

She didn’t even seem to realize that the person whose eyes she had just met was the Duke himself.

After all, apart from the Delrose knights who fought alongside him on the battlefield, only the elders of each family knew the truth.

And even they had sealed their lips.

They had sworn to do so at the funeral of the previous Duke.

It had been shortly after they learned that the Winter Duke was, at least within Biplten, a monster.

That the story about people freezing when they met his eyes wasn’t entirely a lie.

When he turned away, the scent of summer grew faint.

Strangely enough, Aden found that irritating.

---

The time he had spent sharing breaths with that woman had been incredibly brief.

They hadn’t even been all that close.

They had merely been close enough for their breaths to barely touch.

Even that brief contact was quickly scattered by the fierce snowstorm.

He couldn’t understand why that fleeting moment remained so vividly in his memory.

Aden wondered if perhaps it had all been an illusion.

That figure which had been so utterly out of place in Biplten.

Don’t pay attention to it.

She was a member of the Blue Noz, after all. There would be no reason for him to meet her again.

“This is the young lady who has come from the Sunlands.”

He had thought they would never meet again.

“A Sunlander?”

Yet the woman he encountered in the mansion, where there was no snowstorm, looked far more full of life.

And that scent of summer was still there.

As though proving it had never been an illusion.

“My name is Illin de Arlen. I came from the Empire.”

At that moment, Aden was uncharacteristically startled.

[I will become your bride.]

She was the owner of that audacious letter.

The violet eyes looking straight at him were clear and unwavering.

A woman who did not belong in winter.

Aden knew one other person like that.

She, too, had been a Sunlander, but she had carried the scent of a withered winter.

He had never known what she had been like when she was still a Sunlander.

Because she had been his mother.

‘Den, let me get out of here.’

She had said that every time she met him.

Until the day she died.

That was what a Sunlander was.

Someone who withered when touched by winter.

That was what he had believed.

“I am Den of the Red Delrose.”

The fact that the words he had barely managed to utter were a lie bothered him.

Although, strictly speaking, it wasn’t entirely a lie. Within the mansion, he was indeed the commander of the Red Delrose Knights, Den.

A Sunlander…….

“Thank you for earlier.”

That simple remark kept pounding against his thoughts.

She definitely wasn’t a woman of the Blue Noz.

Above all, that scent of summer was something no one born in a winter land could ever possess.

A slender, pale neck.

A soft little laugh.

Violet eyes curving like crescent moons, partially hidden by their delicate lids.

Her dainty eyelashes trembled over them.

Even within the mansion, she could feel winter. She was someone who did not belong in Biplten at all.

In winter, she was so delicate that it seemed the snowstorm would erase her in an instant.

“……There is nothing good that can come from staying in winter for too long.”

That was his last act of kindness.

No, his last act of reason.

He didn’t want her freshness to be covered by the dry winter.

[I will become your bride.]

But would that audacious bride really return to the Sunlands?

“……It’s soft.”

And when he encountered her in front of the mansion, she seemed much more accustomed to winter.

Even as she swayed in the cold wind, she still carried that scent of summer.

“Do you intend to stay here for long?”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation in the bride’s answer.

She was a strange woman.

On her very first day in Biplten, she had been chased by a Molly and nearly died.

That trembling breath had been real.

And yet she wasn’t going back.

In Aden’s eyes, she was foolish.

“Even if the head of Delrose has no interest in you?”

“Even so, if I can remain here safely.”

She could remain here, at least…….

If you became close to the Blue Noz.

For some reason, his insides twisted unpleasantly.

The blue cloth covering her head irritated him so much that he wanted to tear it apart.

“Even if you could never see his face for the rest of your life?”

“Of course.”

He had never paid any attention to the bride recruitment, but the absurd marriage conditions made it impossible to ignore.

This was a land where one had to live without even knowing the face of the husband with whom one would spend a lifetime.

For a Sunlander, it was an unbearably hostile winter land.

Could you endure it?

“Then what will you do if the Duke refuses the marriage?”

It was a teasing question.

If you’re someone who will gradually fade away and wither in winter, leave while you still can.

The bride smiled gently at his question.

“I’ll have to think about that if I’m rejected.”

Unlike his mother’s clouded eyes, hers were clear and vivid.

Even against the snowfield, she remained bright.

With a fresh, dazzling smile, she gave off the radiant scent that only a Sunlander could possess.

For a moment, Aden couldn’t breathe.

Wow.

That was unfair.

---

After that day, Aden rarely left the mansion.

Because the woman precariously standing within the winter mansion had begun to concern him.

Yet approaching her was difficult.

It was strange.

Illin believed he was the commander of the Red Delrose Knights.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a lie.

Whenever he showed his face around the mansion, he was simply the commander of the Red Delrose Knights.

It bothered him that he was hiding his true identity, but thanks to it, Illin wasn’t afraid of him.

“…….”

Aden tapped his desk.

The knights outside, realizing that he was in a foul mood, held their breath.

The Delrose Knights’ quarters where he stayed instead of the main building seemed to freeze even more coldly than usual.

One must not make eye contact with the Duke of Biplten.

That was why he couldn’t appear before his bride.

A bride who believed that rumor wouldn’t be able to treat him the way she treated ‘Den.’

[The Duke of Biplten can freeze a person simply by making eye contact.]

It was a rumor that had made things easier for him from the moment the young Aden inherited the title of Duke until now.

But this time, he hated that rumor.

It was inconvenient.

That rumor standing between him and his bride made him unbearably uncomfortable.

“Lord Aden. The elders have come to see you.”

Aden stopped tapping the desk.

“Let them in.”

Soon, the previously quiet knights’ quarters began to grow noisy.

The presence of people who weren’t knights was always this loud and irritating.

Aden thought of that thin heartbeat, so faint it seemed to stop even the sound of breathing.

If it were a fragile presence like Illin, that Sunlander, he wouldn’t feel like killing it.

“Your Highness.”

The elders of the three families bowed deeply.

Aden knew.

What moved them wasn’t loyalty, but fear.

“What is it?”

“The wedding is approaching.”

Lidan of the Blue Noz brought up the matter.

At least I was more concerned about it than they were.

Aden found himself thinking that without realizing it.

“The wedding preparations will be handled by our Mille—”

“What are you talking about? I was under the impression that the ceremony would naturally be held in the radiant Ello.”

Had these three come here together without even agreeing on what to say?

Aden watched their argument with a bored expression.

“Until now, marriages have been overseen by Green Mille.”

“That was when the other party was from the winter lands. Didn’t the former Duchess also favor Ello’s ceremony hall the most?”

The former Duchess.

They were talking about his mother.

His mother, who had been a Sunlander.

Aden’s gaze fixed on the elder of Ello.

The elder cleared his throat beneath that stare.

“She must have liked it because she had spent so long in Biplten. Even if someone who had been in the Sunlands until only a few days ago were to see the light of that ceremony hall, would she really be moved?”

The elder of Mille retorted, unable to contain his agitation.

Aden raised a hand.

It meant shut up.

He slowly opened his mouth.

“I don’t know why you’re speaking of Ello or Mille as though either is a given.”

Aden thought of Illin.

Even during the several days he hadn’t seen her, she had occasionally wandered outside the mansion, saying that she needed to adapt to winter. Sometimes she even left the windows of her room open.

But she was still someone who didn’t dare go outside without the sacred relic of the Noz.

Aden had no intention of letting her leave the mansion.

“Skip the unnecessary procedures. The wedding will be held here at the mansion.”

Just like that, all the way through the wedding night.

---

This marriage was an especially unusual case, even in Biplten.

The fact that the bride was a Sunlander alone made it unusual, but since the former Duchess had also been a Sunlander, it wasn’t quite enough to make one’s eyes pop out in astonishment.

However, the former Duchess’s marriage had been a love match.

She had stayed in Biplten long enough to adapt to the climate before traveling to the radiant Ello for the wedding ceremony.

In Ello, there was a ceremony hall filled with dazzling lights like the sunlight of the Sunlands, which she hadn’t seen for a long time.

She had loved it very much.

But this bride’s circumstances were very different.

Above all, this was a contract marriage.

The bride could leave whenever she wanted.

Aden thought of Illin’s eyes.

Those clear violet eyes were strong, unlike his mother’s.

She had no intention of leaving this land.

At least, not for now.

“Sunlanders are weaker than people from Biplten. Naturally, they’re also more vulnerable to the cold.”

“We must treat her as gently as possible.”

Advice disguised as interference poured in from every direction.

In the end, all the troublesome wedding procedures were omitted.

Illin’s side had also been informed that if they held a wedding ceremony, she would have to endure the cold weather outside, and they had agreed.

It was a contract marriage, anyway.

The bride had come to Biplten to obtain something, and Aden had begun the bride recruitment in the first place to silence the elders’ incessant nagging.

As long as they got married, it didn’t matter.

After the marriage, the elders would demand an heir, but the next succession ceremony, which was held periodically, wouldn’t take place for another three years.

Until then, the elders would have no choice but to keep their mouths shut.

“…….”

The bride could be seen in the distance.

She was looking at the marriage vows placed before her.

As usual, she had a blue cloth draped over her head and was wearing a light coat.

It looked unusually large on her, like the robes worn in Biplten.

Aden didn’t know it, but from the perspective of someone from the Sunlands, it would actually have been considered fairly thick winter clothing.

She looked as though she had been swallowed up by the clothes.

That was what Aden thought.

He approached his bride without making a sound.

The thought that she would be startled enough to faint if their eyes met sent complicated emotions swirling through his mind.

It was a loveless marriage, anyway.

Aden settled his thoughts that way.

And yet his heart was pounding.