TSF 09

Chapter 9

In Karion’s blurred vision, he saw shimmering green eyes wavering before him.

He clearly knew who those green eyes belonged to, but he could not remember.

Right now, he could not think about anything.

The only thing that filled his mind was the desperate need to keep the person in his arms from slipping away.

“Karion?”

He wrapped an arm around her neck, pulling her closer, and swallowed the lips that had called his name.

He wanted to touch her more, to go deeper.

Only one thought dominated Karion’s mind.

He instinctively realized that this contact was his lifeline.

He tilted his head so their lips could press together more deeply.

He slipped his tongue inside and entwined it with her soft tongue.

‘What is this?’

The moment their tongues intertwined, Rea felt a turbulent energy surging through his body.

If this was the energy of the spirit he possessed, it went against everything she knew.

Spirits were beings of nature with strong wills. She had been told that they would rather disappear completely than waver.

She tried to push him away, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her even tighter.

Driven by his instinct to survive, he continued the desperate kiss.

It was the first time Rea had ever experienced such a deep kiss.

Their bodily fluids mixed, and the warmth of their touching membranes gradually became the same.

The unfamiliar, shivering sensation, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, left her confused.

‘Help me.’

She asked the spirit to help her, to pull this man away from her.

But for some reason, the wind merely circled around her.

It almost seemed to be giggling.

‘Are you really going to do this?’

The spirit of the wind sometimes acted like a benevolent mother who embraced everything, but at other times, it liked to play mischievous tricks.

“Hnng.”

When he sucked strongly on her tongue, her fingertips twitched.

‘Ah… somehow…’

The energy that had been rising and falling in waves seemed to be gradually calming down.

She decided to wait a little longer.

Karion, who had clung to her for the sake of survival, slowly began to regain the reason he had lost as the terrible pain tearing through his body subsided.

He remembered who the owner of those green eyes was.

‘The princess.’

Even so, he could not let her go.

Was a woman’s body always like this?

He liked the feeling of her slender, soft body fitting perfectly into his arms.

Even as he knew he had made a terrible mistake and needed to let her go, he could not give up this blissful sense of fulfillment.

He thought he could finally understand, at least a little, why people became addicted to alcohol or drugs for pleasure.

When Rea felt that his energy had almost completely calmed down, she pushed him away again.

Karion slowly pulled his lips away.

Unable to let go until the very end, he gave her lower lip one last lingering suck before finally releasing her.

Their faces were so close that the tips of their noses almost touched, and their eyes met.

Neither of them said a word.

Neither moved.

They simply stared at each other.

Crack! Thud!

Part of the roof of the burning hut collapsed with a loud crash.

Startled, Rea pushed him away with both hands.

Karion obediently relaxed his arms.

He stood up, took several deep breaths, then clenched and unclenched his hands.

‘I’m insane.’

Unlike his mental state, his physical condition was perfectly fine.

Whenever an attack struck, it usually felt as though he needed at least a day after the attack subsided before his body returned to normal.

But now, he felt better than ever.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Rea.

What had just happened could not possibly have been a coincidence.

What on earth was this woman?

Did she know something about this curse?

Was that why she had approached him?

She took a step toward him and spoke.

“Why were you here alone?”

Karion did not like her first question.

He had been prepared for at least a few slaps, but her expression was calm, as if nothing had happened.

Her lips were still that red, as though nothing had happened at all.

“There might have been a child left behind alone, so I came here.”

He spoke curtly, then immediately regretted it.

“Did you find the child?”

There was no anger in her voice as she asked back.

Feeling embarrassed by his own childish spite, Karion avoided her gaze and shook his head.

“We can’t waste any more time. We need to leave before our escape route is cut off.”

The hut where the fire had first started was burning fiercely, and the flames were beginning to spread into the surrounding grass.

“Wait a moment.”

Rea slowly looked around and moved her hand slightly.

She sent out a small gust of wind that swept through the entire village.

“There’s no child nearby. We should leave, too.”

Karion looked at her with a strange expression before asking,

“How did you know the way here? Why did you come?”

Rea did not answer, and Karion did not ask again.

The fire was spreading rapidly.

The two of them left the burning village behind and entered the forest.

As they traveled, Karion spoke to Rea, who kept looking back several times.

“The wind stopped earlier. You don’t need to worry about the forest fire catching up with us.”

Rea said nothing and only gave him a small smile.

She was trying to summon the wind to contain the flames in the village.

But just as she had seen from the watchtower earlier, the wind would not move according to her will.

It was a phenomenon that occurred when the powers of spirits collided with each other.

In her previous life, Rea had met only one other person who could wield a spirit.

That person had been the King of Nortia.

If that was the case, then the owner of the power clashing with the spirit of the wind nearby had to be Karion.

Just because Karion was beside her did not mean Rea’s power was completely restrained.

She simply could not summon strong winds. Small gusts were still easy enough to call.

Only after the two of them had moved a considerable distance away from the village did the wind inside the village begin to move again.

‘Please. Hold the flames back so they can’t spread.’

The main body of the forest fire would be extinguished through the backfire strategy, but the fire that had spread to the village was a separate front.

If this fire was left alone, it would eventually grow into another large-scale forest fire.

So Rea surrounded the village with a wall of wind.

The fire would burn within the wall of wind, consume the entire village, and eventually die out naturally once it ran out of fuel.

“Wait a moment.”

Rea stopped while they were on their way.

She looked around the dark forest, then pulled her lips together with one hand and whistled sharply.

Soon, a horse without a bridle or saddle appeared from within the forest.

It approached Rea, nudging its head against her affectionately.

“You waited so well. Good job.”

Karion watched with interest.

“It’s clever. Have you been training it for a long time?”

“No. It’s your horse, Your Highness.”

“…My horse?”

“It’s one of the horses managed by the garrison, so isn’t it your horse?”

Rea confidently walked ahead.

Watching her from behind, Karion opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, then closed it again.

There were so many things he wanted to ask that he did not even know which question to start with.

Rea finished her bath while listening to Penny’s endless stream of scolding.

“Good night, Princess.”

“Mm. You sleep well, too.”

“Are you really going to sleep well? Should I guard your bedroom?”

Penny stood with both hands on her waist, looking exactly like her own mother—the princess’s nursemaid—when she was angry.

“I’ll stay perfectly still and sleep quietly until morning.”

Rea answered with a slightly nervous expression.

“It’s a relief that the flames have died down and won’t reach this far. Once morning comes, the commotion should settle down somewhat.”

“Exactly. Don’t worry and get some good sleep.”

After Penny left, looking back several times, Rea closed her eyes.

But she could not fall asleep.

Rea touched her lips with her fingers.

Her first kiss had been hot and long.

‘Who did he mistake me for?’

It had been a desperate, clinging kiss. It seemed like the kind of kiss someone could only give if they had experienced it before.

‘He said he had no lover… But he meant he doesn’t have one now. He could have had one before.’

Mistaking her for someone else, on top of forcing her first kiss on her without her consent—it was the worst.

If she had still been twenty-one-year-old Rea from before her return, she would not have been able to contain her anger.

She might even have jumped up and cried.

But now, surprisingly, she felt nothing.

A kiss was nothing compared to the countless hardships she had endured.

Rather, the fact that she was already thinking, ‘Could this be a good card to bring up the marriage again?’ made her feel like she had become thoroughly hardened by life.

‘I asked you to help me. And you’re just standing there watching?’

Rea complained to the spirit in an annoyed voice.

A gentle breeze, as if trying to soothe her, tapped softly against her cheek.

‘I’m disappointed. I’m really angry.’

She huffed and sharply turned her head away.

The wind brushed against her skin as if it were desperately trying to make up for its mistake.

As the gentle breeze continued to caress her skin, Rea found herself smiling before she knew it.

‘He has the power of a spirit, too, doesn’t he?’

The spirit touched her cheek as if answering her.

‘His Majesty never mentioned anything like that…’

Even when she had been running toward the forest, she had thought, ‘No way. That can’t be.’

‘There’s no reason to hide something like that. He probably didn’t know either. His spirit must be fire, just like his mother’s, right? I wonder when it awakened…’

Rea suddenly sat upright.

‘Fire!’

Could it have awakened because of the forest fire today?