"Why aren't you opening your mouth?"
Kaian's eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.
I quickly said "Ah" and opened my mouth, but the piece of meat he held was too large.
He withdrew it, used his knife to cut it into smaller pieces, and offered it again on his fork.
"Ah..." Even the new piece seemed too big.
"It needs to be smaller than this," I said quietly.
"That's annoying," he muttered, clicking his tongue as he cut the meat again.
Finally, the piece was manageable. I took it from his fork without comment.
There was nothing wrong with the meat itself. The moment it entered my mouth, juices flowed—delicious and deeply satisfying.
"Do you usually eat so little?" he asked.
"...Yes?"
As soon as I swallowed, he spooned fruit pudding into my mouth.
I took it quickly, eating before he could frown.
*Does he think I eat too little?* I wondered, confused. *But he just watched me empty my bowl entirely. Is he being sarcastic about how much I ate?*
"I asked because you were complaining about it," he said, as if reading my thoughts.
*Just a bite?* I blinked at him. *Do women in Temnes eat more than this?*
The plate I'd just emptied held more food than I'd eaten during good health at Valmonde. I'd never observed other Temnes women eating at Rowan Castle, so I had no basis for comparison.
"The doctor said you need substantial nutrition to fully recover," Kaian said firmly.
"I'm much better now."
"Not even close."
He scooped up the potato dish I'd unconsciously praised as delicious and fed it to me.
I accepted it calmly, eating as he watched. *Does he enjoy feeding me?* I wondered idly.
---
## Kaian
Kaian was drowning in accumulated administrative duties.
The King's sudden marriage order had forced him to travel repeatedly between Rowan and Valmonde. The grand wedding banquet required a month of castle-wide preparation, though it lasted only three days. In warmer territories, such an event would have taken at least three months simply to transport ingredients and alcohol.
Then Claudel had fallen ill. While securing the Herzol cure and hunting wild buffalo, weeks dissolved into critical tasks. Now, with the autumn festival merely a month away, everything had piled up catastrophically.
Rowan remained perpetually warm, so the seasonal festival held no practical meaning. Yet as capital customs spread throughout Oberon's kingdom, festivals were observed everywhere when "autumn" arrived, regardless of actual weather.
*Valmonde's festival is held on ice,* he thought absently, wondering what Claudel looked like celebrating in that frozen land.
---
She was no longer the enemy's daughter.
Before her arrival at Rowan, the sight of Vermont's distinctive red hair had infuriated him. But Claudel herself had dispelled that discomfort almost immediately.
*Why did I feel so compelled to save her?* he wondered, even now struggling to understand.
When she'd collapsed, he could have sent her body back to the Duke of Vermont—who had violated the King's orders by marrying off a dying woman. Kaian could have declared war, questioned whether he'd been deliberately deceived.
He'd spent four years preparing for a territorial war to burn Vermont to ash. When reports arrived of drought and starvation, he'd cut off food exports. A broker caught between both sides had even committed suicide over the accusations.
*How could I so easily undo what I'd meticulously prepared for four years—simply because one woman died?*
Yet Kaian's rationality provided the answer: *I wasn't going to marry twice anyway. She's already been accepted as my bride. I can't undo that.*
The reasoning was cold and practical. Claudel had become his wife. Now she was Temnes, not Vermont.
---
To obtain a wild buffalo calf's heart, Kaian had orchestrated a complex hunt.
He'd dug five deep traps across the grasslands. The adult females exceeded two meters in length, but calves were substantially smaller. Archers fired in succession as mounted knights drove the herd in coordinated direction. Once hundreds of animals stampeded together, there was no escape. Like soldiers in formation, any creature attempting to turn around faced attack from massive horns behind them.
A calf fell into the prepared trap. Even as its mother made anguished cries and turned to look back, the herd's momentum dragged her forward, battering the calf against rocks and earth.
When the stampede ended, two calves were caught. Kaian had quickly extracted them with rope, loaded them onto prepared carts, and departed before the herd's matriarch could return.
It was a flawlessly executed hunt—so clean that even the elite knights who'd observed Kaian's brilliance for five years were impressed.
*Such a task shouldn't be difficult,* Kaian had thought coldly.
Everything required an overarching goal. Blood was unavoidable in pursuit of that goal, but risking elite knights for something he could accomplish alone was illogical.
What made Kaian undefeated was his mastery of both strategy and combat. He would never fail.
---
Claudel, administered two wild buffalo calf hearts, stopped vomiting blood within one day. By the third day, her cough had ceased.
The doctor attributed her prolonged unconsciousness to her depleted body's need for deep rest.
Kaian hadn't worried overmuch. *I will not fail to save her.*
It was his mental landscape that few could access—a place where even bringing the dying back to life was achievable through sheer will and capability. To Kaian, such feats were within his godlike power.
After saving Claudel, his temporarily shaken confidence had fully restored. He alone decided who lived and died. The woman everyone had deemed hopeless had been snatched from death's grasp by Kaian himself.
---
Per the butler's suggestion, Kaian now made an effort to eat with Claudel once daily. It was ostensibly to maintain household discipline and demonstrate the dignity appropriate for future heirs.
"In the past, when I was this busy, I simply ate quickly," Kaian had acknowledged rationally. Five years on the battlefield had honed his efficiency. He'd survived on ham, cheese, and bread sandwiches consumed in his office.
But Claudel, unaware of his sacrifice, seemed tactless about his presence—or perhaps genuinely innocent.
*Still,* he thought, watching her recover day by day, *this serves its purpose.*
---
As Claudel's illness receded, she began to transform.
Like a pale green flower bathed in dawn dew, she was blossoming. Her complexion had regained its natural pallor, and her cheeks—once hollow from weight loss—had filled out attractively.
But what captured Kaian's attention most was her lips.
They'd changed from pale pink to a vibrant red. He found himself unable to look away.
Her small, delicate lips moved continuously as she ate. Kaian cut her portions into dozens of pieces that could be managed with three fork strokes, watching as she consumed them diligently.
The resemblance was almost hypnotic—he could scarcely tear his gaze away.
When her plate emptied and their eyes met, he'd hesitate only briefly before cutting more of his own meat to encourage her to eat further. But her small mouth couldn't accommodate his portions, so he'd cut and cut again until she could manage it.
With each meal, Claudel became more vibrant, more beautiful. Kaian found himself wondering if this was what it felt like to raise a pet.
He'd never done such a thing.
Yet he felt genuinely rewarded—watching her eat well, observing her condition improve visibly with each passing day.
---
A knock on his office door interrupted his afternoon work.
The butler entered. "My Lord. Where would you prefer to dine today?"
"I'm eating with Claudel," Kaian said immediately, standing.
As they walked the hallway, the butler continued, "Madam practiced dancing this morning."
"Dancing?" Kaian's attention sharpened. "Already?"
"Yes. The dance instructor you requested arrived for the first lesson today. The doctor recommends moderate exercise to aid recovery, so I found a suitable instructor among the castle staff."
"Good work."
When Kaian arrived at Claudel's chamber, however, his eyes immediately narrowed.
"What are you doing?"
---