Chapter 32

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 32

Chapter Title: Star Festival and the Ashen Wolf (4)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Nothing at all, Princess. You don’t need to do anything.”

Floyd grasped Roxiana’s waist with both hands and hoisted her out of the cold water in one swift motion.

He tied her skirt around her thigh, then gazed down at the pale, slender legs exposed beneath. Seeing her feet turned red from the chill, he twisted his face in displeasure.

Floyd crouched down himself, untied the skirt, picked up her discarded shoes, and scooped her up into his arms.

“Ah……”

Catching her off guard with his actions, Roxiana’s eyes widened as she stared up at him. His face, once distant, was now achingly close. Realizing their breaths could mingle, she froze her quickened breathing in surprise and pressed her lips together.

Floyd walked on, cradling Roxiana. Once she’d barely calmed her racing heart, she spoke up.

“I can walk on my own.”

“Not with those feet, you can’t.”

“Your Highness, what will people think if you carry a slave like this yourself?”

“What if they do think something? No one dares speak a word in front of me anyway.”

His absurd confidence left Roxiana speechless, and she shut her mouth. Though he moved at a brisk pace, the time passing in his arms felt endlessly long to her, like eternity itself.

The servants bowed their heads silently upon seeing him, but Roxiana couldn’t settle her mind, bothered by their gazes and thoughts. The unfamiliar sensation gripping her heart—now squeezing, now pounding—threw her into confusion, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Petria, who had just returned after barely scraping together some money from the head maid, had been searching for the missing Roxiana. Spotting her being carried back in Floyd’s arms, she breathed a sigh of relief and quietly stepped out of the parlor.

Floyd set Roxiana down on the sofa, then knelt on one knee before her. He took her ankle and placed it on his thigh, wrapping both hands around her bare foot and beginning to massage it warmly.

This was beyond embarrassing—utterly mortifying—so Roxiana asked in a voice higher than usual.

“What in the world are you doing?”

“Can’t you tell? Warming your feet.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Roxiana briefly wondered if she was overreacting. But she quickly came to her senses.

A ruler of a nation personally thawing a slave’s frozen feet?

This situation was anything but normal.

“They’re not that cold. You don’t have to do this, Your Highness.”

“Even in warm Torkan, winters get cold, Princess. Feet that have never done hard labor, soaked in icy water for so long—they’ll get frostbite. If you don’t warm them in time, they’ll have to be amputated.”

He lifted only his eyes to fix her with a piercing stare.

“Do you want to see these pretty feet cut off? Is that why you’re pulling this stunt?”

Roxiana realized he still thought she was trying to die.

“No.”

“Then stay still, Princess.”

“That’s not it……”

“Stay still. I’m in a very bad mood right now.”

His fiery temper never flared at her, but his hands were warm nonetheless. He gripped her ankle firmly with his left hand while his right kneaded her foot meticulously, coaxing the warmth back in.

Roxiana had never had anyone touch her feet so intently before, so she didn’t know how to react. She hadn’t noticed amid her protests earlier, but now, sitting still, the subtle stimulation from his touch prickled at her.

It tickled and tingled—a sensation she’d never felt before, starting at her toes, climbing her calves, and teasing around her tailbone.

Knowing he wouldn’t stop no matter what she said, Roxiana clutched her skirt tightly and tried to breathe slowly to fend off the strange feeling creeping up her belly.

Glancing at his face while suppressing it, she saw deep furrows creasing his brow. He still looked in a foul mood, but she couldn’t fathom why.

Even if my feet ache or end up amputated, it’s the consequence of my own choices. Why is this man so angry? It wouldn’t harm him at all if my ankle were cut off.

Her frozen feet regained their warmth. Once the redness faded back to normal, he slipped her shoes on and stood.

As Roxiana thought he seemed especially towering, she lowered her gaze. His black boots caught her eye—caked in mud, a mess. He must have come straight to find her the moment he returned to the Grand Duke’s Palace.

He stood silently for a long time, just looking down at her. His gaze and silence grew oppressive, until Roxiana couldn’t bear it and spoke first.

“Shall I clean the mud off your boots?”

“No one.”

He spoke in a voice suppressing his anger.

“No one in this Grand Duke’s Palace calls you a slave, yet why do you insist on it yourself? What’s the problem? Are you dissatisfied that I didn’t kill you, so you’re rebelling like this?”

Not expecting him to think that way, Roxiana looked up in alarm.

“Of course not. I don’t think that at all, Your Highness.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

I want to be useful. I want to be needed. I want entering the Kanta palace—which became Gania’s colony for my sake—to feel like a rightful task: retrieving my family’s bodies and sending them to God’s embrace.

Roxiana didn’t voice the words swirling in her mind.

She didn’t know what the future held. She could be chased out of Torkan. This man wouldn’t stay on her side forever.

So she needed to become more useful first, a better person, someone indispensable—then she could speak.

She couldn’t just confess to anyone the disgraceful truth: that her family had been dumped in a well without Adelia coffins. Nor her dangerous plan to sneak into Gania’s colony and reclaim the crown prince’s discarded bodies.

I still don’t know this man.

Whether Floyd was trustworthy, if this kindness was mere whim, or how far that whim might extend—Roxiana knew none of it.

Revealing everything in ignorance was the height of folly. For now, she had to hide it.

“Ever since Your Highness saved me, I’ve only caused you worry and eaten your food. Now that I’ve regained my health thanks to your care, I just want to help in any way I can.”

“Food? You eat less than an ant’s eyeball, and worry? This is worry, Princess. You forcing yourself to do things you don’t need to—that’s what worries me. Understand?”

“Then what do you want from me? You told me to live for a year. During that year, should I just lie in bed breathing? Wander Lily Palace like a ghost, eat at mealtimes, sleep at bedtime?”

“Yes, do that. Eat the fine meals fit for a noble lady, wear pretty clothes, stroll about, do whatever you like.”

“What if what I like is laundry?”

Floyd chuckled.

“As if. Who in the world wants to do laundry?”

“Me. It was fun once I tried it. Keeps stray thoughts away.”

“You’re really stubborn, Princess.”

“No, I……”

“Fine, whatever. Suit yourself.”

Floyd plopped down beside her on the sofa, making it bounce. He raked his hair back irritably and asked.

“You want to do laundry. What else?”

“Cooking.”

“And?”

“Gardening, cleaning stables, sweeping and mopping the Grand Duke’s Palace floors, carrying luggage for noble ladies—anything a slave should do, I want to do it all. I can.”

“Princess!”

“Roxiana!”

Roxiana raised her voice.

“Your Highness. I’m not a princess right now—I’m a slave. Please, please, stop calling me princess.”

Turning at her desperate tone, Floyd looked down at the slave brand etched on her collarbone. The mark stood out starkly against her white skin.

He narrowed his brow slightly and brushed it with his thumb.

The jagged burn scar from a red-hot iron.

“Did it hurt?”

Startled by his sudden touch, Roxiana didn’t catch his question.

“Pardon?”

“When they branded you—did it hurt a lot?”

“I suppose it must have, but I don’t remember. My guard knight died right before my eyes, my dedicated maid was dragged away somewhere. My family all died, my country fell. What pain could this little burn inflict on me then?”

Roxiana gently clasped the thumb resting on her collarbone. His hand tensed.

“My father always said: It’ll never happen, I’ll make sure it doesn’t, but if the Franche royal family ever falls, start by accepting your new reality. Nothing lasts forever; what rises must fall. Even if you become a commoner, don’t wallow in grief forever—accept it, then find what you can do.”

Floyd recalled Kanta’s king, who had taken him in when all others rejected him as he wandered. He remembered the kind king’s upright, gentle gaze.

“Alright, I get the gist of your thinking, Princess. But there’s something I’ve been wondering……”

Floyd confirmed that Roxiana’s eyes no longer drowned solely in despair as before, then continued.