The Wind Calms the Fire - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 4
A knock sounded at the door, and Sedrick entered.
“Your Highness. An individual of unconfirmed identity has entered the garrison…”
He stopped short upon seeing the unfamiliar woman standing opposite Carion.
His gaze reflexively shifted toward Orbin.
Orbin was making frantic gestures, pressing a finger to his lips and waving him over with urgent motions.
Sedrick moved quietly to stand beside Orbin.
Carion found the woman’s presence striking—the way she met his gaze directly, unflinching.
There was no fear in those green eyes.
It wasn’t bravado, but something ingrained, a quality woven into her very being.
Intriguing, and yet infuriating.
Whether she was truly a princess or not, how had she penetrated the garrison’s closely guarded perimeter to reach the residence at its heart?
‘Discipline has grown lax. Security protocols need overhauling—a full inspection is overdue.’
Carion tilted his head slightly and spoke.
“I believed we were meeting for the first time.”
“If you’re asking whether we’ve encountered each other before, the answer is no.”
“Let’s assume you’re a princess, then. Zephyros is, by definition, an enemy of The Empire.”
Calling it an “enemy” seemed absurd given the overwhelming disparity in power, yet officially, the designation held.
“Are you aware of the magnitude of risk I would assume if this meeting reached His Majesty?”
“I am.”
“And that I could detain you here and send you under guard to the Capital?”
“But you won’t.”
Rhea replied with a slight smile.
Yet Carion’s expression remained unmoved.
“What makes you so confident?”
“Because I’m offering the Imperial Prince a proposition far more advantageous than dispatching me to the Capital under arrest.”
“Is that proposition marriage?”
Rhea cleared her throat and then spoke.
“I’ve omitted a rather crucial preamble.”
“Then I’m listening. Let’s hear it.”
As Rhea glanced sideways at the others, Carion spoke.
“There is nothing here that they should not hear.”
Orbin and Sedrick stood motionless, their breathing deliberately shallow.
Their desperate posture screamed a silent plea: ‘Treat us as though we don’t exist.’
Though the two men frequently clashed by temperament, they were of one mind now.
Since entering service under Prince Carion, neither had witnessed a moment as captivating as this.
Rhea drew in a long breath before continuing.
“The Zephyros Kingdom wishes to bow before The Empire’s radiant majesty and embrace honorable submission. We hope Your Highness will present the Flag of Zephyros to His Majesty the Emperor, thereby claiming the merit of bringing the kingdom under Imperial dominion.”
A suffocating silence fell—so complete that not even a breath could be heard.
The Zephyros Kingdom of the Southern Desert.
To The Empire, Zephyros was a thorn lodged at its fingertip.
For two decades, the Emperor had waged conquest after conquest, claiming victory after victory—until he attempted an invasion of Zephyros and lost countless soldiers in the process.
The Emperor’s sole, bitterly humiliating failure remained a subject forbidden from mention in Imperial circles to this day.
Yet now Zephyros Kingdom was voluntarily kneeling, offering itself as a Subordinate State?
This would shake The Empire to its foundation, and the Fourth Prince Carion’s position—as the architect of this affair—would be transformed irrevocably.
Orbin and Sedrick exchanged a glance, their expressions now carefully neutralized as they observed their lord.
Yet even as an extraordinary opportunity materialized before him, Carion’s austere gaze remained unchanged.
Instead, he replied with cold indifference.
“There are conditions, I presume.”
“Take me to the Imperial Palace. As an Imperial Prince’s Consort.”
Rhea watched the chill deepen in his eyes and felt inwardly unsettled.
His silence betrayed nothing; his thoughts remained impenetrable.
“The world’s center has already shifted to The Empire. Zephyros has maintained isolation for far too long. The kingdom has no foothold within Imperial society. I wish to see and hear what transpires in the heart of The Empire. A mere Hostage—a princess from a Subordinate State—cannot move freely. But an Imperial Prince’s Consort can.”
“I refuse.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
Rhea had always thought that responding with “I beg your pardon?” to someone’s statement made one sound foolish, yet she found herself compelled to ask.
“If a princess requires the title of Imperial Prince’s Consort, there are other princes more than willing to provide it. I can arrange a suitable match for you posthaste.”
“I wish to make a bargain with Your Highness.”
“Strike that bargain with another prince instead. I have no interest in accruing merit, nor do I have any intention of marrying. Sedrick, escort our guest out.”
“At once, Your Highness.”
Rhea watched Carion’s retreating figure without hesitation, her lips pressing together.
She sensed it was time to yield.
She followed him obediently out of the room.
Carion led her to a guest chamber within the residence.
His tone was as measured and precise as his appearance suggested.
“Please refrain from going outside until your status as princess is confirmed. I will have attendants brought to you shortly.”
“I understand. The kingdom’s people should visit within a few days.”
“Of course. I will inform you as soon as word arrives.”
Once inside, Rhea collapsed onto the sofa.
Suddenly all the tension drained from her.
She stared at the closed door.
Beyond it, soldiers were surely standing guard.
She had steeled herself for far harsher treatment, so she harbored no complaints.
Leaning back against the sofa, Rhea turned over their conversation in her mind.
She had only heard of him through rumor.
The wandering commander, the unleashed hunting dog, the outlaw of the Northeast…
Whether he was still called such things now, she didn’t know, but ten years on, those were the names that clung to him—none of them pleasant.
So before meeting him, the image of Prince Carion she had conjured was stubborn, savage, and far more temperamental.
Besides, he was barely in his twenties—an age when emotions ran wild, wasn’t it?
Yet the man she had actually met bore little trace of a rough soldier.
If anything, he seemed remarkably composed for his years, his expressions well-mastered.
‘He resembles her.’
She had been startled the moment she first saw him.
Had he not been wearing the hood, she would surely have stared at his face entranced.
‘I never imagined Prince Carion would be that striking.’
Now and then, the face of his mother, Queen Nella of Nortica, overlaid itself upon his.
Who could say he was not her son?
He had inherited her cool yet captivating eyes and her chiseled nose entirely.
Nella possessed a jawline strong for a woman, and on a man’s face it formed a flawless line.
It was remarkable how entirely a son could resemble his mother.
‘Ugh.’
Rhea covered her face with both hands.
The shame of a proposal rejected outright—something that had never happened to her across two lifetimes—crashed over her belatedly.
‘It’s a transaction where both parties gain. Unless the fool is an idiot, he won’t refuse.’
This marriage was a scheme that Nella and Rhea had hatched together, their best strategy.
‘What do I say now, Your Majesty?’
Your son turned out to be an idiot!
It had never occurred to her that he might refuse this union.
‘Does he dislike me? …Of course he could.’
Rhea covered her burning cheeks with her palms.
What overconfidence that had been.
Why had she assumed so casually that if she proposed marriage, the other party would simply agree?
* * *
Before dawn, Carion thrashed in bed and suddenly sat upright.
His forehead was drenched in cold sweat.
He swallowed a groan and clawed at his chest with a face twisted in agony.
It felt as though he had swallowed fire, and that fire now thrashed wildly through his body of its own accord.
“Haah…”
His belly burned, and a scorching heat rose past his throat—each breath seared his lungs.
The pain was agonizing yet barely bearable; at the same time, an urge to plunge into ice water surged through him.
But he already knew.
Even if he submerged his body in ice water until his jaw shattered with cold, even if he downed draught after draught of cold water, it would be useless.
This cursed spasm that flared at irregular intervals—he knew neither its cause nor its cure.
He could only grit his teeth, endure, and wait for the moment the agony crested.
If he loosened the clenched muscles of his jaw, a scream would escape; but once that moment of gooseflesh prickling at the nape of his neck had passed, the pain began to subside.
Sweat dripped steadily along his clenched jaw.
Soon the tendons that had bulged from his forehead began to fade.
“Hhh…”
He exhaled a long breath and collapsed backward onto the bed.
He stared at the dark ceiling, gasping for air.
At least there were no aftereffects—small mercy though it was.
Since the seizures came mostly at night, there was the further fortune that no one would notice.
After lying vacant for so long, he barely noticed when dawn broke.
He rose slowly from the bed.
Sleep was gone anyway, so he went out to the inner courtyard to breathe the dawn air.
‘A breeze?’
Carion felt the wind crossing his face was warmer than it should have been for dawn.
Something in him stirred at the sight of it, and he turned his head to follow the wind’s direction when he stopped short, startled to find Rhea there.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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