Like a thunderclap in clear blue, the lake’s starlight rippled and scattered.

After a long hush, Lance spoke, his sigh thin as mist. “It isn’t decided yet, right?”

Alice nodded, light as a leaf settling. She tightened around Lance’s hand. “Mm. Because of you, my father and I both gave negative replies.”

Relief warmed Lance like a small fire, but confusion drifted like fog. “Negative replies?”

“Mm. We dodged it with reasons, like umbrellas in rain.”

Lance understood, a stone dropping in a still pond. “So you can’t refuse outright?”

“Yeah… we can’t refuse outright.” Alice swung his hand like a bell rope, unwilling as a tide against rocks. “If the Crown Prince presses my dad like a mountain, he might have to betroth me.”

Two winds crossed in Lance’s chest, vexed and puzzled. “I remember the royal house shouldn’t have that kind of authority.”

He went on, words clipped like iron links. “They’re bound by the Kingdom Charter. If a duke refuses a marriage alliance, the royals can’t force a claim.”

Alice sighed, a soft lantern in night. “Lance, you’re getting more learned.”

She tilted her head, helpless as a cloud in crosswind. “I’m guessing you haven’t followed the Royal Selection?”

“Election?” He blinked, snow-deer startled. “No.”

She lowered her head, lashes casting winged shadows. “The Crown Prince wants the Empire to meddle deeper in Doran. Many Celestial Spirits support him. If I marry the Crown Prince—”

She breathed out, a reed bending to wind. “My dad and our people won’t be targeted by the Celestial Spirits.”

“So he’s using that as leverage?” Lance’s voice cooled, a blade at the throat.

Alice hesitated and looked skyward, stars like cold witnesses. “The other princes are the same… I’ll end up marrying one of them.”

“Is that so…” Lance’s words fell like dull pebbles.

Maybe that was a princess’s fate, silk-soft chains all the same.

But Alice would not bow; her heart kicked like a young colt.

She lifted her other hand toward the sky, fingers tracing constellations. “For the duke, for the people, for the kingdom… I thought it was heaven-and-earth proper.”

She turned, her gaze steady as a mountain spring. “But after meeting you, I think that less and less.”

“Why?” he blurted, his timing clumsy as stones on a path.

She laughed, sunrise through willow leaves. “Because you’re carefree. Dazzlingly carefree, unmatched in its shine.”

She drew a line across the star-sown dark, a brushstroke of light. “You always carry the wind of freedom. Your eyes spark hope when the hour needs flame.”

“I envy you,” she said, honest as clear water.

Lance looked up too, his mind drifting the Milky Way like a small boat. “Do you?”

“Of course. Layne never judged wrong, and neither did my dad. Why else give you the name Flame of Chaos?”

Lance kept his eyes on the bright flood of stars.

In that light, Alice felt pure as a little girl, springwater-clear.

“Because I envied you, I started to think.”

“How should I live to be happy? How should I act so others can smile?” Her words ran like twin rivers.

“I realized just being the duke’s daughter won’t do. If I keep at this, we’ll all wilt like shade-grown flowers. I must rise beyond the title.”

“Is that so…” His answer drifted like a leaf, not quite landing.

Alice puffed her cheeks, a small storm in a teacup. She pinched his shoulder, playful as sunlit waves. “Why keep brushing me off with ‘is that so’?”

“I don’t dare say that to others. Only you, Lance. Only with you can I say it, like a secret under the pillow.”

Lance smiled, a lantern steady in wind. “I’m not brushing you off.”

“I just think you’re truly remarkable, clear as a bell.”

She was still not satisfied, and she rocked his hands like swings. “Then tell me what’s remarkable.”

“And don’t butter me up like a bard,” she added, eyes bright as stars.

Lance smiled again, quiet as moonlight. He looked at the vault of glittering night.

Under the blazing scatter of stars, the lake broke into mottled silk and colored glass.

After a long breath, Lance found his courage, flint catching. “Because you’re brave.”

“Brave?” Alice laughed, a finch on a branch. “You don’t know how to praise a girl.”

“Then… courage?” He tried again, a reed piping in wind.

“You can’t use more words if you want to praise me?” she teased, rain on ripe grain.

“You didn’t ask for praise,” he said, steady as a path. “You asked what makes you remarkable.”

“So I really have courage?” Her lashes fluttered like wings.

“What else?” His smile came warm as hearthfire.

“Lance, you—!” Her laughter rang, bells across a clear sky.

Under that laughter, even time seemed to loosen, like ice breaking in spring.

The heavy sky turned bright, a curtain drawn back to blue.

Lance rose from the bench, his shadow long as a spear. “Your Highness, your ideal isn’t simple.”

“Don’t tease me,” Alice muttered, cheeks pink as dawn.

“I’m serious,” Lance said, voice straight as a blade. “First—”

Alice lifted her chin and listened, ears open as shells.

“First, it needs a lot of money,” he said, coin-bright and blunt.

“Second, it needs heroes who stand with you, like oaks in a gale.”

“These two are necessary. Doran has had duchesses. They shared both before they rose.”

Alice nodded lightly, dew on a petal. “Money isn’t a problem. But what counts as a hero?”

Lance raised the Sirius Sword, its edge drinking starlight like frost. “A strong knight.”

“As long as a Sky Knight calls himself a hero, no one will refute it,” he said, thunder-quiet.

It was true, yet Alice’s lips pressed, a line like rain. “Then you’d have to go to the front. I’d rather you didn’t.”

Lance lowered the Sirius Sword and smiled, moon behind cloud. “First, the front line doesn’t always mean fighting. I could travel and sightsee.”

“Second, even as a Sky Knight, I have a way not to go to the front.”

Alice frowned, puzzled as a cat at water. “Travel I get, slack-off like a lazy river. But what’s the way to skip the front?”

“It’s still money,” Lance said, palm flat as a page.

Alice blinked, the knot tightening like wet rope. “And what’s that got to do with skipping the front?”

“I’ll say it once,” Lance said, voice like a seal pressed in wax. “Asset collateral.”

Alice’s willow brows arched like a bow, then smoothed like calm water. Understanding bloomed, pale as dawn.

She looked down, shy as a fawn. “Lance, thank you for doing so much for me.”

She lifted his hand, her gaze tender as rain. “What do you want me to do for you? I, Alice, will do anything for you.”

Lance gently slipped free, soft as wind through reeds. “Nothing’s settled yet. Don’t rush into words like vows.”

Color rose to her cheeks, peach-blossom bright. “Then if you’ll do all this for me, what do you really want?”

Lance looked to the far horizon, a line as clean as a sword. “I long for a peaceful homeland.”