Chapter 2: Alicia’s Choice

Alicia slammed the third document onto the desk.

She was utterly fed up today.

“Deputy Commander, the Haisen Family sent this over.”

Her aide knocked and entered, handing over an exquisite gift box.

Inside was a pair of sapphire earrings.

The card in the box read: Congratulations to my daughter for breaking free from her shackles.

Alicia, however, casually tossed the box into a drawer, where it joined over a dozen other gift boxes.

Three days.

It had been exactly three days since the night she called off the engagement.

The Haisen Family’s doorstep had nearly been worn down by the wheels of countless carriages, all coming to “offer congratulations.”

Her father couldn’t stop smiling, and her mother had even begun arranging her next round of matchmaking meetings.

Alicia closed her eyes.

The scenes from that night flooded her mind…

Rex standing in the corner, holding a wine glass, listening to her finish speaking with an utterly expressionless face, then saying only, “I understand.”

Not anger, not questioning, not even a hint of sadness in his tone.

When she had turned and left in a fury, he hadn’t even looked back.

She didn’t know what reaction she had expected from Rex.

Maybe for him to smash his glass?

Maybe to storm over and demand why?

Even if he had called her ungrateful, that would have been something.

But he had only said congratulations.

As if…

He had been waiting for this day all along.

“Deputy Commander?”

Alicia opened her eyes.

“Is there something else?”

“The Commander said you must attend the afternoon meeting. It’s about the northern border defense.”

The northern border.

Her fingers tightened slightly.

“Understood.”

After her aide left, Alicia stood up and walked to the window.

She looked down at the bustling streets of the imperial capital, the faint cries of vendors barely audible.

This city was always lively, always noisy, forever filled with countless smiling faces hiding their own calculations behind masks.

But when she was little, she hadn’t seen anything wrong with that.

Back then, her mind was full of sword practice, studying magic, and those words: “Ali! When I become a Dragon Knight, I’ll ride a dragon and take you for a spin in the sky.”

That was what Rex said when he was ten.

They were about the same age back then.

Their family mansions were only a few hundred meters apart, and Alicia ran over to the Klein Family house almost every day.

Uncle Wilhelm was very strict with Rex, dragging him out of bed before dawn every day for sword practice.

She would sit quietly on the steps by the training ground, hugging her knees and watching.

“Why do you come every day?”

Rex had asked her once.

“Your family’s cook makes good snacks.”

“You’re lying. You don’t even like sweets.”

Alicia didn’t answer, just buried her face in her knees.

Rex didn’t press further and went back to hacking at the training dummy.

Later, Rex figured out why she always came.

Her father and mother fought every day, arguing so much that Alicia didn’t want to go home.

He never brought up that secret.

That summer was especially hot.

One day, after finishing his practice, Rex collapsed on the steps and suddenly said, “Ali, when I become a Dragon Knight, I’ll ride a dragon and take you for a spin in the sky.”

She had laughed then.

“A Dragon Knight? The Empire doesn’t have any Dragon Knights now. Are you dreaming?”

Rex said seriously, “My dad said the Klein Family has produced three Dragon Knights! Why can’t I be the fourth?”

The sunlight happened to shine on his face just then, and his eyes were startlingly bright.

Alicia stopped laughing.

She suddenly felt that Rex really could do it.

Later, the elders of both families arranged the engagement.

That night, her mother, unusually gentle, stroked her head and said, “Alicia, an alliance between the Haisen and Klein Families is good for you and for the family. I’ve watched that boy grow up. He’s outstanding and completely worthy of you.”

She had said, “Who wants to marry him?”

But her ears turned red.

Those few years were the happiest times in Alicia’s memory.

Growing up together, training together, attending noble gatherings together.

Rex always stood half a step behind her, saying little, but if anyone spoke disrespectfully to Alicia, that person would inevitably have an “accident” the next day.

Only she knew who was responsible.

“Rex, did you again…”

“Wasn’t me.”

Rex would put on an innocent face.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Back then, she thought, spending a lifetime like this would be just fine.

Until the year she turned fifteen…

Rex suddenly disappeared.

Alicia’s fingers unconsciously tightened on the window frame.

She only remembered that Rex’s disappearance that day had no warning.

They had met just the night before.

Rex came to see her, standing in the shadows by the Haisen Family’s back door, his expression a little different than usual.

“Ali, I have to go somewhere.”

She didn’t take it seriously.

“Where? Don’t we have class tomorrow?”

Rex was silent for a long time.

“If I don’t come back… forget about me.”

She was stunned.

“What are you saying?”

He had already turned and walked away, his figure quickly disappearing into the night.

The next day, the Klein Family was in an uproar.

Rex was gone.

Uncle Wilhelm practically turned the imperial capital upside down searching, then the entire Empire.

One year, two years, three years.

Just like that, no sign of him alive, no body found dead.

Everyone said he had died in the wilderness, eaten by beasts.

But Alicia didn’t believe it.

She stubbornly waited for five whole years.

Refused all marriage proposals, withstood all the pressure.

Her mother called her foolish.

Her father said with a cold face, “The Haisen Family can’t wait for you forever.”

She just shook her head.

“He’ll come back.”

She didn’t know why, but she just knew.

Until the winter of the fifth year, Rex really did return.

That day, upon hearing the news, she rushed out and ran straight to the Klein Family’s gate.

She saw Rex standing at the entrance, talking to Uncle Wilhelm.

After five years apart, he had grown much taller, his shoulders broader, his features more defined, even more handsome than before.

But those eyes…

Why?

Alicia stopped in her tracks.

Why were his eyes now as calm as a stagnant pond?

Not cold, not hostile, just…

Empty.

Rex noticed her.

She waited for him to run over, to call her “Ali” like when they were kids.

But Rex just nodded slightly and silently turned to enter the mansion.

She stood there dumbfounded…

At first, she thought Rex was just tired.

After being missing for five years, he must have suffered a lot.

She told herself to give him time.

He would come back to himself.

But a month passed, then two months, then a year.

Rex was never the same person again…

He stopped practicing swordsmanship, stopped studying magic.

Every day, he either drank and wandered around or just basked in the sun.

When others mocked and insulted him as “the Klein Family’s trash,” he would just smile faintly and never argue.

She finally couldn’t take it anymore.

One day, she confronted him.

“What’s wrong with you? Where did you go for those five years? Why won’t you tell me?”

Rex looked at her, his gaze no different from when he looked at anyone else.

“It’s nothing.”

“What do you mean ‘nothing’? Look at yourself now! You weren’t like this before!”

“Before was before.”

He stood up and walked past her.

“Ali, forget about me.”

She couldn’t forget Rex, so she chose another, extreme path.

Since gentle methods were useless, she would use a harsh one.

Breaking off the engagement—it was the only way she could think of to make him angry, to wake him up, to make him return to that boy with the startlingly bright eyes.

She thought he would try to stop her…

Thought he would come and demand an explanation…

She thought…

“Congratulations.”

That was all he said.

Alicia pulled herself from the memory and realized her fingers were clenched so tightly they were white.

A knock came at the door.

“Miss, the master requests your return. There is important business to discuss.”

…

In the Haisen Family’s drawing room, her father sat in the main seat, drinking tea.

He lifted his eyelids as she entered.

He gestured for his daughter to sit.

“Rex has already gone to the northern border,” Duke Haisen set down his teacup.

“Let this matter end here. Prepare yourself. Next week, you will meet a new potential match. The eldest son of Duke Orland. He’s three years younger than you, but his talent is good. He is a suitable match.”

Silence.

“What? Not satisfied?”

“Father.”

“Hmm?”

“You and Uncle Wilhelm were once comrades who faced life and death together, correct?”

Duke Haisen’s expression stiffened for a moment.

Then he smiled, a smile carrying something Alicia couldn’t quite decipher.

“Comrades who faced life and death?”

He repeated the phrase.

“That was when we were young. Later, we each had our own households, our own responsibilities, you children…”

“And so?”

“And so, Alicia,” Duke Haisen looked at her.

“Daughter, in the face of interests, what does friendship count for? The Klein Family has completely fallen now. Their son has been thrown by his own father to that wasteland in the north. You are my only daughter. I cannot let you jump into a pit of fire.”

Alicia didn’t speak.

She just stood up and walked toward the door.

“Alicia.”

Her father stopped her.

“You did nothing wrong. Remember that.”

Alicia listened, then silently pushed the door open and left.

The imperial capital at night was still bustling.

Alicia stood by the window in her room, looking toward the northern sky.

Her mind was filled with Rex’s words from that night…

“The northern border. The Klein Family’s original fiefdom, isn’t it?”

He chose it himself.

Why?

That place had been abandoned for over a hundred years.

There was nothing there.

Why did he have to go there?

She remembered, before he disappeared all those years ago, he had come to her to borrow a map.

She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, just casually gave him a map of the entire Empire.

She hadn’t paid it any mind at all.

Alicia suddenly realized something: she couldn’t leave.

Her position in the Knight Order was here.

The Haisen Family was here.

Her father’s arrangements were here.

Next week’s matchmaking, next month’s regular meeting, next quarter’s inspection tour.

Her life had long been planned out, every step falling within the squares others had drawn.

The northern border was too far.

So far that even thinking about it seemed absurd.

But that thought had taken root in her mind and couldn’t be pulled out.

She didn’t know if she couldn’t go, or if she just couldn’t go now.

Perhaps it was both.

After closing the window, the room fell quiet, with only the faint crackling of the candle flame.

Alicia lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Rex should be settled in by now. What must that castle, abandoned for a century, look like?

She closed her eyes.

In the darkness, a voice kept repeating in her heart…

“Rex, you’ll regret this.”