Take Off Your Clothes

I hung onto Varkan's thick forearm, practically dragged along through the snow.

The savage blizzard, with its blinding white fury, lashed at my face. It was only after we stumbled into the cave that I could finally open my eyes.

"We'll have to shelter here until the storm dies down."

Varkan said it offhandedly, brushing the snow from his head.

"Shelters like this one are scattered throughout the Pedrica Mountain Range in case of the Veil of the Gods."

He moved deeper into the cave as he added, "They're stocked well enough to survive comfortably for a week or so, should the need arise."

"A—a whole week?!"

At my astonished question, he glanced briefly back at me before continuing on his way.

"Most blizzards stop within half a day."

"Oh…."

Thank goodness for that, I answered inwardly, letting out a breath of relief.

Only then did I look around the cave's interior, rubbing at my cheeks, which stung from being battered mercilessly by the storm.

Firewood and crates were stacked against one wall. Supplies, no doubt, laid in so that a person could survive a week in this cave without freezing to death.

I stole a glance at Varkan's back as he headed toward the woodpile.

"That's why I came, didn't I."

The black eyes and voice he'd turned on me through the whirling blizzard were unusually vivid in my memory. Those words—words from the man who had backed me into a corner—had sounded, somehow, like I came to save you.

Perhaps my reason had simply short-circuited in the face of a murderous blizzard.

'Honestly, I have no idea.'

Either way, what mattered was that the Grand Duke hadn't abandoned me and left alone.

Turning my eyes from him, I hugged my shivering body close and surveyed the cave from corner to corner. Outside, the blizzard still raged with savage ferocity, devouring every scrap of midday light, while inside we hadn't lit so much as a single torch.

And yet, strangely, there was enough light to make out the objects around us.

'Why is it so bright in here?'

Puzzled, I looked around and found the answer without much difficulty.

'Oh…! It's glowmoss!'

Moss clung thick along the cave ceiling, radiating a soft blue glow—like a night sky threaded with the Milky Way.

In the Luminous Continent, glowmoss itself was nothing special. It flourished anywhere damp and rarely trodden by human feet.

But this particular moss had one hidden property—one that only I could know, after chewing and mixing and smearing and drinking my way through countless herbs and poisons.

'Then again, maybe not. Somewhere else on the continent, another person like me might have discovered it too….'

Still, so few people knew of it, and its effect was recorded in no book anywhere.

'Boil it five times, roast it five times.'

Dry it out crisp, grind it to powder, then mix it with the sticky violet sap of a velostine flower—and you had a natural luminescent dye that glowed only in darkness. Normally colorless and odorless, the dye revealed its traces only in the dark, and once applied, no ordinary cleanser or spell could wash it away.

'I was going to need this anyway—perfect timing!'

Fighting to conceal my excitement, I slowly drew my fingertip down the cave wall. The moss beneath my touch was damp and soft. Sliiide—in the wake of my fingertip, a stronger blue light bloomed, as if the moss were responding to the stimulation.

Holding its moisture even in this freezing cold. It truly was as hardy as they said.

After fiddling with the moss for a moment, I sneaked a glance at Varkan. He was moving a stack of firewood in the corner, preparing to build a fire. Just then, those broad shoulders turned away from me again.

'Now's my chance.'

Carefully drawing the trowel from my coat, I scraped at the wall, keeping the noise to a minimum.

Scritch, scratch.

The trowel biting into the cave's hard stone made a faint grating sound, but the clatter of the firewood being stacked covered it well enough that nothing stood out.

Tap, tap. Clumps of moss, still glowing blue, fell away in chunks and lost their light. That was fine—the glow was gone, but the properties remained.

I hurriedly tucked the clumps of glowmoss into the herb pouch inside my coat. Just then, Varkan's low voice reached me from behind; he had already gotten the campfire going.

"You look suspicious enough as it is, so wrap it up and come over here."

"……"

I discreetly pocketed the trowel and herb pouch, then turned to face him with perfect composure. And with a bright smile, I answered.

"Suspicious? I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

"……"

A crease flickered between Varkan's brows. For some reason, his gaze made me feel like he was looking at a madwoman. Which meant I was doing an excellent job, surely.

Then he let out a short sigh and jerked his chin toward the spot across from him.

"Come here and warm yourself. Unless you want to freeze to death."

"……"

Ahem! I cleared my throat and scrubbed my moss-dusted hands against my damp cloak. Then, after a moment's wary study of Varkan's face, I sauntered toward the campfire as nonchalantly as I could manage.

Because, as he said, I would really rather not freeze to death.

I plopped down across the fire from him. His face wavered on the far side of the flames.

The sharp line of his jaw and the high bridge of his nose, thrown into deep relief by the firelight, looked irritatingly, uselessly handsome.

And then, out of nowhere, a voice flashed through my mind.

"All you have to do is seduce the Grand Duke and bear his child."

'Bastards.'

Crushing the curse inwardly, I stared at Varkan. Those cool eyes that looked ready to cut down anything in their path, that taut aura of menace that seemed poised to shred anything that dared approach uninvited.

'Not killing me is already an exercise in monumental patience on his part—and they expect me to seduce a man like that?'

In a few months, once the wedding was done, the Grand Duke and I would naturally spend our wedding night together anyway.

But the Guild didn't know that. They didn't know that, according to the flow of the original story, the princess and Varkan were destined to marry.

'That's why they told me to hurry up and seduce him, to make a child first—before the princess dies or gets cast out.'

And I couldn't exactly reassure them, either—couldn't say don't worry, the two of us will absolutely be getting married in the near future anyway.

'And it's not as if I could actually seduce the Grand Duke and conceive a child before then.'

I thought of the Helbine lying dormant in my belly.

Even with my life on the line—spending the night with a man I felt nothing for, carrying his child….

'Still, I… don't want to.'

But the Guild didn't seem likely to wait that long.

They would undoubtedly use the Helbine inside me to tighten the screws.

Could I really defy their orders while enduring the agony of my innards being chewed apart?

'How long could I actually hold out against torture like that?'

What if, in the end, I broke—crawled on my own to the Grand Duke's bedchamber, just as they commanded…?

Not that the Grand Duke would ever fall for a flimsy little seduction of mine, of course—

That was when it happened.

Varkan abruptly rose to his feet. My head, which had been buzzing with worries about my own future, went blank white in an instant.

Because the Grand Duke, standing there, had just begun to take off his clothes.

'Wh—what?!'

With the utmost nonchalance, he undid the clasp of his cloak and let it drop to the floor. The broad shoulders that had been suppressed beneath it emerged, unmistakably.

Then, without pause, he began unbuttoning his black uniform, one button at a time. The gold buttons fastened over his solid chest popped loose, one by one, under his long, rough fingers.

'No—wait. Why is he—what—?!'

Unable to tear my eyes away, I swallowed dryly without meaning to.

His gaze—cool and detached, and at the same time as deep and dark as the abyss—turned toward me.

Holding my eyes as he looked down at me, he undid the last button of his shirt and spoke in a low voice.

"Take off your clothes."