It must have been a few months before her sixteenth birthday.

Anxiety over the fact that she would soon become an adult had made her cling to him even more than usual, pestering him endlessly to choose dresses and accessories for her. It was a pitiful attempt to draw his attention.

Even Varkas, who normally would have ignored such demands outright, eventually began obediently offering opinions, perhaps worn down by her relentless nagging.

Maybe he had simply grown more lenient because he believed that in a few months he would finally be free of her.

The thought made her want to kill him.

And yet, if she could only keep Varkas bound to her side, it felt as though there was nothing she would not do.

Because the end that had once seemed like it would never arrive was now drawing near.

“How about this one? For my coming-of-age ceremony.”

Wearing a lavish silk dress imported from the South, she deliberately leaned her upper body toward him as though flaunting herself.

As always, Varkas merely cast a dry, indifferent glance her way.

Under that calm gaze, her face gradually began to burn.

By then, he was moving from nineteen toward twenty, and the body that had only recently shed the last traces of boyhood had hardened beautifully into manhood. If not for those dead, emotionless eyes, he might have looked like an angel descended from heaven.

Talia deliberately raised her voice to hide the foolish trembling in her chest.

“I asked what you think!”

“......It looks like a child stole an adult woman’s clothes.”

At last, those tightly sealed lips parted.

Her eyes narrowed sharply. The man added another sentence, sounding thoroughly irritated.

“It suits you terribly.”

Her face flushed crimson as she glared at him. But she had been the one who asked for his opinion in the first place, so there was little she could say in rebuttal.

Fixing him with a venomous stare, Talia stomped behind the dressing screen. Then she began rummaging violently through the mountain of clothing piled there.

She was determined to make that corpse-like man blush no matter what.

After a long while, she selected something even more daring.

It was a scandalously revealing dress with a neckline cut dangerously low. Talia hesitated for a moment, wondering if it might be excessive, but soon steeled herself and hurriedly slipped it on.

When she looked into the mirror, an unbearably beautiful girl stared back at her.

She examined herself from every angle with satisfied eyes.

The body that had once been as thin and bare as a birch branch had begun slowly changing after she turned fourteen. Her flat chest had budded softly before swelling into the size of small apples, and little by little her narrow hips had begun to fill out as well.

Talia was strangely proud of those changes.

The thought that she was gradually approaching the flawless beauty possessed by Senevier filled her with endless excitement. Once Varkas realized what she possessed, surely he would begin seeing her differently.

Soon, she would become the most beautiful woman in the world.

Bursting with hopeful anticipation, she hurried out from behind the screen.

“How about this one?”

Varkas, who had been staring out the window with a bored expression, finally turned toward her.

For the first time, something that resembled emotion surfaced on his face.

Unfortunately, it was not a positive emotion.

His brow furrowed as his gaze swept over her, and he spoke with faint impatience.

“The very first dress.”

After taking a deep breath, he added bluntly,

“Wear that one.”

There was not even the faintest trace of admiration or agitation in his dry voice.

And yet, merely realizing that he remembered the very first dress out of the dozens she had shown him made Talia feel as though her heart might burst.

She deliberately curved her lips into a suggestive smile.

“What’s this? Pretending to be uninterested, but apparently you were paying close attention?”

He gave no reply.

Whatever he was thinking, he merely looked eager for this exhausting fashion show to end as quickly as possible.

For a moment his arrogant attitude irritated her, but Talia decided to be generous and let it slide. Had she not resolved to show him, little by little, that she was changing?

Humming to herself, Talia picked up the first dress she had worn.

It was a delicate and elegant velvet surcoat embroidered densely with fairyfolk stitching.

This dress would never leave her wardrobe for the rest of her life.

Because it was the one that had caught Varkas’s eye.

After quickly changing back into it, she emerged and spun around proudly in front of him.

“This one, right?”

He quietly watched her.

He did not even seem to find it strange that the woman who had spent all day throwing tantrums was now grinning like a drunkard. Perhaps whether she rampaged like a monster or giggled like a lunatic made little difference to him.

Still, Talia wanted to believe that his attitude toward her had changed.

Because at some point, the indifferent gaze that had once passed over her without pause had begun lingering around her face for long stretches of time.

And that was not all.

Even the way he spoke to her seemed gentler than before.

Sensitive to those subtle changes, Talia felt a threadlike hope stirring within her chest.

Could it be that Varkas regretted parting with her too?

After spending such a long time together, perhaps ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ even he had developed some lingering attachment to her.

Talia clung pitifully to that worthless hope.

“If I danced in this dress, I’d look just like a fairy queen, wouldn’t I?”

At her question, a faint crease formed between his brows.

Was he simply exhausted by her endless questions?

No.

Perhaps he was actually considering how to answer her.

Talia decided to think positively.

“Stop standing there like a statue and rehearse with me.”

Before he could even respond, she abruptly grabbed his arm and yanked him toward her. In the past, he would not have budged an inch, but now he allowed himself to be dragged along as though reluctantly indulging her.

See? Talia felt triumphant.

Something really had changed.

She pulled harder on the stiff man, who still did not seem particularly eager to cooperate, and spun in circles with him.

Then her foot caught on a trunk lying on the floor, and she lost her balance.

Instinctively, Talia seized his arm.

Varkas muttered something unintelligible and hurriedly wrapped an arm around her waist.

But the room was such a disaster that there was nowhere proper to step. The heaps of clothing tangled around his ankles as well, and the two of them collapsed together onto the carpet in a tangled heap.

Talia let out a small curse.

“You should’ve cleaned this room up properly in the first place!”

One of Varkas’s brows lifted after suffering this disaster while trying to shield her.

He was merely her guard knight, not a servant. It was unreasonable to force trivial chores like tidying onto him.

Even though she knew that perfectly well, Talia lashed out irritably anyway.

“If my backside bruises, I’m not letting you off easy. You useless excuse for a guard knight!”

Still grumbling, she tried to push herself upright, only to feel a sharp sting in her scalp.

Talia stared at him in disbelief.

“Did you just pull my hair?”

A short sigh escaped his lips.

“It seems your hair caught on my sleeve button.”

Then he slightly drew forward the arm wrapped behind her back.

A sharp pain tugged at her scalp again, and Talia shrieked before pounding against his chest.

“That hurts, idiot!”

He stopped moving and quietly looked down at her eyes, blurred faintly with moisture.

Though she inwardly flinched, Talia stubbornly glared back at him.

After releasing another low sigh, Varkas wrapped his arm around her once more.

Then he cautiously began moving his hand, apparently trying to untangle her hair.

Sitting between his knees, Talia’s eyes darted about anxiously.

Only now had she become fully aware of how improper their distance and posture were.

The faint scent of soap and mint drifting from his body made her heart pound so violently it felt ready to explode.

It almost seemed as though Varkas would be able to hear it too.