19.

‘Poison.’

Just the thought made the delicate handle of the teacup, fragile enough to snap with a single misstep, loom with an intimidating presence.

Leo glanced at Jinpetsu after his silent standoff with the teacup. Jinpetsu shook his head resolutely.

He hadn’t been planning to drink it anyway. What was he, a child?

Leo spoke indifferently, his interest lying not in the tea itself but in how it had come to be served with his meal and the intentions behind it.

“Well, I wouldn’t know much about tea. Growing up in the countryside, I never acquired such refined tastes.”

“Is that so? Tea doesn’t need to be a cultivated hobby to be enjoyed with a meal—”

Ateira tilted her head slightly, a hint of curiosity in her gaze. Then, as if realizing something, she lowered her eyes and pressed her red lips together.

“…Forgive me. When it comes to tea, the person who prepares it can be as important as the type of tea itself.”

A faint smile crossed her lips, a polite explanation about tea etiquette that lightly masked her underlying challenge.

Oh, so the idea of drinking something I prepared scares you, doesn’t it?

“The baron’s kitchen went to the trouble of procuring a fine tea for us, and it would be rude not to offer it to those present,” she added lightly.

“…”

“I understand,” she thought, with a trace of amusement.

The fear of drinking it.

You have every reason to be wary of me.

Ateira’s gaze briefly flitted to Leo’s left hand. Most knights, particularly those who prided themselves on strength, would bristle at such implications, especially if the remark came from a seemingly fragile woman who could be crushed with a single twist of their hand.

Ateira continued her subtle provocations, probing to see if Leo was that sort of man.

What kind of person was he? What did he dislike, or enjoy?

She realized that she’d never before invested this much effort into understanding someone. Love and hatred, they said, were similar emotions. And indeed, it seemed so.

There was something strange about it. From a distance, the injury she’d inflicted on him seemed oddly faint.

‘…Does a wound like that heal this quickly?’

Having little experience with significant injuries, Ateira found it hard to judge.

“Thank you for understanding.”

Leo gave a faint chuckle as he replied, and the knights around them showed no reaction. Only Jinpetsu’s gaze remained keen.

‘Seems he doesn’t respond to such obvious provocations.’

“It’s nothing,” Ateira replied with a slight nod.

Leo, however, was just as curious to assess her. Calmly tracing his finger along the rim of the teacup, he added in a nonchalant tone, “Had I known earlier, I might have tried some when I was in Ledetian. But I was busy back then. A shame.”

“…I see. That is indeed a shame.”

The princess’s eyes narrowed briefly, her expression transitioning smoothly into a polite smile.

‘…So, he doesn’t let things go easily and insists on paying back in kind.’

A man with a childish streak.

If he’d been busy in Ledetian, it could only have been with battles. Ultimately, he was telling her, to her face, “I was too busy wrecking the Ledetian Empire to drink tea.”

Leo’s pale blue eyes gleamed, as though eager to see her response. There was no way she’d give him the satisfaction of seeing her falter. Ateira stabbed her knife into her meat and began to slice it slowly.

The simmering hatred she had forced herself to suppress in order to observe him objectively rose within her.

Instead, any trace of sympathy or guilt she might have felt as a human being was steadily snuffed out.

Leofric Helton, enemy of Ledetian. A devil of a man. A war demon. When she only knew him by these titles, hatred had come easily and purely.

But now that Leo was right in front of her—close enough to stab, to clash with, to exchange words with—a strange mix of emotions had begun to complicate her thoughts.

It wasn’t as if her hatred and anger had lessened.

No matter how much she refused to regret her actions, the feeling of having harmed another person unsettled her.

It irked her even more to accept help from someone she despised. Gratitude was out of the question.

And seeing him risk himself to save that bird… it felt unnerving and strange, like discovering he had a sliver of humanity, that he was capable of caring for something.

Watching someone in Thornfeld exploit him to utterly destroy his own homeland stirred a reluctant trace of sympathy in her. She found herself wondering if this man hadn’t simply chosen the wrong figure to be loyal to.

“Well, if I ever find myself in Ledetian’s Sumertha Territory on the king’s orders, I might finally get the chance to taste it at the source.”

Whatever softness she’d momentarily felt vanished with Leo’s next words. Her knife continued to shred the meat on her plate into smaller pieces.

“….”

“Ah, if you’ll be joining me, how about preparing it yourself, my dear fiancée?”

Leo propped his chin on one hand and asked with a sly grin.

The one who’d once said she’d rather die than marry him. How will you respond to this, Princess?

‘There has to be a reason she’s acting this way so suddenly. What’s her game? Show me, Princess.’

Is this resignation? Does she feel there’s no escape?

Ateira’s knife, poised over the meat on her plate, momentarily froze.

An unexpected silence fell. You could have heard a strand of hair brushing against fabric.

It was a remarkably marriage-centric conversation, considering it was between a woman who’d attacked him to avoid this union and a man who had no intention of marrying her either.

In truth, it was merely a series of provocations, an exchange intended to elicit reactions and read intentions. The atmosphere was prickly, as though filled with invisible barbs.

Caught in this tense mood, the knights resolved to pretend they hadn’t heard anything, focusing determinedly on their meals.

“The meat’s good.”

“So this place uses wheat flour for bread, huh?”

“That explains it. I could taste it in the bread.”

They babbled about anything at all, conveying their utmost determination to remain oblivious.

A pair of clear, red eyes watched Leofric’s face. Her expression was unreadable.

“…Gladly. I’ll serve you with the Ledetian royal family’s special recipe,” Ateira replied, thinking of the poison vial hidden within Dermin’s jeweled pin.

“I look forward to it.”

Leo met her with a matching smile, as Ateira set down her fork and knife.

Lifting her cup, she took a delicate sip, then placed it back with perfect grace. She spoke in a soft voice.

“It’s delicious. I hope it suits your taste in the future.”

The meal ended uneventfully.

* * *

Ateira walked out of the dining hall with poised steps, but her pace gradually quickened. She wanted to distance herself as fast as possible.

Busy in Ledetian, was he? How conveniently he spins his tale.

The shameless smile he’d given her, devoid of any hint of guilt, was infuriating.

Her grip on her dress tightened until her knuckles turned white.

‘Getting closer, indeed.’

He was the one who’d said he didn’t want to marry, and yet here he was.

Instead of keeping her composure and observing him, she’d allowed herself to get swept up in his childish provocations.

Just thinking of that smug, taunting face reignited her frustration.

Despite his good looks, there was something deeply petty and childish about him.

Yet, annoyingly, he didn’t react as easily to her provocations as she’d hoped. He was sly, cautious, like a fox. But if he was no better at handling it, he certainly didn’t respond in a mature way either.

So petty in his comebacks, so determined not to lose.

Seeing him goad her only to retaliate even harder when she responded made her think that, at the very least, he wouldn’t avoid dining with her just to dodge confrontation.

There was potential here.

* * *

“So, let me get this straight.”

After Ateira left, Leo tapped his finger on the teacup’s rim.

“Nothing in it, then.”

She’d undoubtedly sipped the tea before leaving just to show that, just as she suspected, he wouldn’t drink it. Especially that calm expression she wore before departing, as if to say, *I knew you wouldn’t touch it.*

He hadn’t expected the tea to be poisoned.

After all, this wasn’t her own palace, and it was unlikely she had anyone loyal enough within the baron’s house to attempt it. Besides, after the last incident, Count Zellered had tightened his watch on her to the point that this was the first time she’d been allowed out of her quarters.

It wouldn’t be easy for her to attempt poisoning.

Still, her insistence that he drink it had seemed like bait, so he hadn’t touched it. Now he wondered if he should have just drunk it to spite her, seeing as it was harmless.

In the end, he felt as though he’d played the fool.

What was so special about this tea, anyway?

With a slight frown, he grabbed the teacup handle and downed it in one go. A bitter, unfamiliar taste spread across his tongue.

“Commander!”

“Argh!”

“Spit it out!”

Jinpetsu and the knights cried out in alarm. Leo waved his hand dismissively as he set down the cup.

“There’s nothing in it.”

“Commander, even so…”

“We all know how stubborn he is,” one knight grumbled.

“Watch your tongue.”

Jinpetsu issued a stern warning to the knights expressing their irritation too openly. One of them muttered “personality” under his breath, then hastily buried his face in his soup.

“Hmm.”

Leo’s eyes widened slightly.

A strange tingling spread across the tip of his tongue.