DDW 2

Not long after leaving the palace, Mirane was summoned by his father the moment he stepped through the front door.

“The Count is calling for you, Young Lord.”

Mirane turned and his face stiffened the instant he saw the servant’s pale expression. In that moment, he felt a sense of dread akin to a premonition.

Struggling to suppress the feeling that something was going wrong, Mirane spoke.

“I understand.”

Heading toward his father’s room without a moment to recover from his fatigue, Mirane had to force his racing heart to calm down.

Why was he so anxious?

Because of their distant father-son relationship?

Because such a summons was unusual for them?

No, something was different today.

And Mirane’s anxiety soon manifested as reality.

Standing before the door, Mirane took a deep breath. Facing the creaking visit our sitedoor as stolen contentit opened, the young [visit our site]man held his breath and then spoke.

“Father.”

There was a large window in the room, with red curtains half-drawn. Pure white sunlight streamed through the gap, illuminating the face of the man sitting in the chair.

Mirane’s neck stiffened. Straightening his back, the young man clearly displayed his tension before his father, gazing at him calmly with light green eyes.

A blonde middle-aged man with an intellectual impression.

His impeccable red uniform proved that he, too, had not long since left the palace. Piercing blue eyes took in Mirane, and the man twisted the corner of his firm mouth into an expression that was impossible to tell if it was a smile or something else.

The Count’s cold eyes were of a completely different nature than Mirane’s warm green ones.

To a stranger, their impressions were so disparate that it would be hard to see them as father and son.

And just as their impressions differed, so did their temperaments.

“Father…?”

Count Raster did not answer. He remained silent, leaving the bewildered Mirane standing before him. Tapping a cigarette held between his index and middle fingers into an ashtray, Count Raster glared at Mirane as if he were conducting an inspection.

The silence stretched, and Mirane finally could not endure it.

“I was told you called for me.”

Only then did Count Raster speak.

“Yes.”

And then he uttered words that Mirane had never even imagined.

“You should quit your post as Captain of the Royal Guard.”

Mirane could not respond immediately.

“Pardon?”

Sinking deep into the plush chair, Count Raster continued.

“There is a task where you can achieve a far greater feat for His Majesty the Emperor and the state than that trivial position. It is enough to be joyful about. Taking on such a heavy responsibility is an honor for both you and me.”

“Father.”

“I have just come from requesting His Majesty the Emperor to arrange a marriage between you and Grand Duke Wallenstein. You cannot avoid this.”

Cigarette smoke clouded Mirane’s vision.

“Mirane Raster. You will marry Grand Duke Wallenstein.”

Marriage?

Placing a crackling cigarette in his mouth, Count Raster looked at his shock-stricken son with an expressionless face. Mirane was trapped in a state of shock, unable to recover.

Mirane could not regain his senses for a long time after the shocking words his father spat out the moment he returned from work. It felt as if the composed knight, Mirane, had been dropped into a deep pit and left to flounder.

As time passed and he regained his composure, Mirane’s face twisted. While an arranged marriage was shocking enough, the name ‘Grand Duke Wallenstein’ carried far more implications. First of all, he was a man; he belonged to a family of political rivals; and… his thoughts were cut short.

No, what kind of nonsense is this?

“If you have something to say, say it.”

“Am I even in a position to refuse?”

“Try it if you can. I am curious to see how useful your desperate struggles will be.”

The face of the father, as he spoke of sending his son to the cold lands of Wickers or the remote villages of Obert, was chilling. He looked at him with an arrogant gaze, as if asking what he could possibly do. At this, Mirane’s face contorted.

‘I knew a day like this would come, but…’

His brazen attitude actually served to cool Mirane’s head. A part of his heart sank coldly. His father had always been this kind of person.

‘I really am nothing to my father.’

Staring at the thick cigarette smoke drifting from his father’s lips, he spoke.

“I am not my mother’s shadow.”

At that moment, Count Raster’s face crumbled like breaking thin ice.

“You…!”

A faint flicker of rage shimmered in the words he spat out impulsively. As if the mention of his mother had pierced a weakness, the Count glared at Mirane with a menacing aura.

In truth, if he had simply exploded in anger, Mirane might have felt somewhat relieved. It would have been proof that he possessed a human heart.

However, Count Raster quickly suppressed his exploding emotions, crushing Mirane’s spirit in the process.

Watching the crumbled expression quickly revert to its original coolness, Mirane gave up in that instant. The “mother’s lover,” who had shown a glimpse of human emotion, vanished, and only the frigid Count Raster, colder than the north wind, remained before his eyes.

After the initial shock subsided, his mind became utterly peaceful.

Or rather, instead of peaceful, he had simply surrendered.

“I will take that as your agreement to obey, Mirane Raster.”

Opening his eyes again, Mirane looked at him with an expressionless face.

“I will give you one month to settle your affairs.”

“…Yes.”

Though bewildered by the sudden decision of marriage, Mirane had to leave for Wickers. His father was the loyal Count Raster, and Mirane had never once defied him.

It was the result of being groomed by his father for a long time. Against a father who was persistent and cold-blooded—almost demonic in some aspects—Mirane did not dare harbor thoughts of rebellion.

However, that did not mean he did not resent it.

That night, Mirane could not fall asleep and paced by the window for a long time. In the dawn when the white moon rose, he welcomed the cold wind into his chest. He simply could not sleep. No, if he could sleep peacefully after hearing those words, he would be the one lacking something.

‘Castell von Wallenstein.’

Outside the window, bare branches swayed aimlessly in the wind with a whistling sound. Projecting himself onto that image, the young man thought of the Grand Duke, his future spouse, with a complex expression.

Grand Duke Wallenstein—the name rolling off his tongue was not unfamiliar.

In fact, the Grand Duke was the most famous man in the Holy City, in this country, and across the entire continent.

The hero who slew the chimera, the head of the nobility who possessed a territory larger than most kingdoms, and the sole Grand Duke of Obert.

In other words, given his status, he was a man whom Mirane, a mere illegitimate [visit our site]child, could never Read on Read BL Novelshave dared to aspire to; a marriage that would [unauthorized copy]normally never be permitted. In fact, Mirane still wondered why he had accepted this marriage.

‘The difference in status is too great.’

The House of Wallenstein was originally a collateral branch of the Imperial Family, and he was one of the most powerful figures on the continent. The Grand Duke of Wickers had traditionally been tasked with the North Wall descending from the Kyrgyzstan Mountains, possessing a military force that rivaled the strongest on the continent. He was not merely a high-ranking noble with a prestigious title; he was a great noble whom the Emperor kept in check.

A man who could marry a princess from another country was marrying an illegitimate child?

And a same-sex marriage at that?

Of course, Imperial law recognized same-sex marriages for political purposes. Provisions were made to take secondary wives to ensure the family bloodline continued. However, that was merely a legal matter; same-sex marriages were by no means common.

To put it simply, the marriage between Mirane and the Grand Duke was the first same-sex marriage to occur since eighteen years ago. No, thinking rationally, wouldn’t a man find marriage to another man distasteful?

Generally, men prefer the opposite sex over the same sex. Furthermore, there had been no rumors that the Grand Duke enjoyed the company of men.

While the marriage was certainly a bolt from the blue for Mirane, when analyzed point by point, it was even more disadvantageous for Grand Duke Wallenstein.

Moreover, wasn’t Wickers still clashing with the central government regarding the sudden death of the previous Grand Duke?

Whether the death of the arrogant former Grand Duke of Wickers, Joachim von Wallenstein, was an assassination or not had been one of the most reverberating topics of the last twenty years.

Joachim von Wallenstein.

He was a figure who had deepened the strained relationship with [stolen content]the Read on Read BL Novelscentral government starting a hundred years ago. He stolen contenthad been devoted to making Wickers an independent kingdom separate from the Obert Empire, and in the midst of that, he died suddenly.

That had remained an issue and continued to be the subject of gossip.

‘It was certainly a death that anyone would find suspicious.’

The people of Wickers believed his death was the work of Sicilia, the Grand Duchess’s maid and a fifth cousin of the Empress Dowager. They judged her independently, executed her, and turned their blades toward the central government.

Mirane still remembered. When he was about ten years old, Count Raster had fought fiercely, raising his voice against an envoy from Wickers. It was the first time he had seen Count Raster in such a desperate, cornered state. That day, Count Raster wandered about like a walking corpse, and after the matter ended, he collapsed and remained bedridden for a long time.

The bitterness from that time had yet to be resolved.

‘Because there was no evidence or witnesses, Wickers could not formally protest the Grand Duke’s death. The Emperor hated the Grand Duke for killing a maid who was a relative, and the Grand Duke loathed the Emperor, the enemy of his family. Both have reason to hate each other.’

The Emperor and the Grand Duke were sworn enemies, and the sentiment between the two regions had been extremely poor for twenty years.

‘And yet, an arranged marriage in this situation.’

Mirane’s eyes sank darkly.

The House of Wallenstein was a family that could not coexist with the House of Raster, which was at the core of the Emperor’s faction, and Count Raster was hated by Wickers.

‘The pretext of bringing the Emperor’s faction and the Grand Duke’s faction closer might be convincing to others, but looking at my father’s temperament and His Majesty’s personality, no matter how I think about it, reconciliation makes no sense…’

The hot-tempered Emperor and the authoritarian Count Raster. And the compatibility with the Grand Duke, who [Read on Read BL Novels]was said to be just as arrogant as stolen contentthey were, was not just bad—it was the worst.

The claim that this was an arranged marriage for reconciliation was not just hard to believe; it was utter nonsense.

Mirane was certain. There must be another political scheme behind this marriage. He simply couldn’t guess exactly what it was.

He had no idea what, or what kind of event, lay beneath the surface.

And that unknown drove Mirane toward anxiety.

‘If it’s my father, he is more than capable of using me as a pawn in the treacherous game of politics. He could even use me as a sacrificial piece. A normal father-son relationship wouldn’t think of such a thing, but… I must prepare.’

Mirane let out a bitter smile.

‘If he is willing to hand over his only son to the monster of Wickers, what else would he not do?’

At that moment, a deep sigh escaped him.