“What is it you said to your majesty?”

“I am a bit tired master, should we head back now?”

Just the thought of calling her master still makes him red, but since this is a snowy place, he could always say it is cold. Three days as Azura’s pupil after swallowing his pride one night and begging him for their late-night snack. He can see why she is considered a young guardian knight after her mother.

“Since you addressed me correctly and you were able to kill five monsters on your own. We can keep it short.”

“Thank you’

“I will not be lenient next time, and we will be hunting high-grade next week, work harder.”

“I know master, I will work harder.” He rushes to her side, “Are you going to Lady O’Dea’s birthday ball?”

“Birthday ball?”

“You did not get an invite? It is tonight and most knights were invited. I heard Jalen speaking about it.”

“She did not invite me; Olivia and her mother are not fond of me and my mother. We are mostly left out of her parties.”

“But your family holds authority in the north. Is it not inviting you an offense?” Kaldor asked. “Is this another one of the north’s peculiar rules?”

“It is elderly people’s problems I do not want to involve myself.”

“What do you mean by that?” he snorts, “Aren’t you always inserting yourself into other people’s business?”

“My father and the baroness have a history, and it always exempts them from punishment.” She slaps the back of his head after a sigh, “and I do not insert myself into people’s problems.”

“Ah, is that so?”

Has there ever been a man who disrespected his wife so much he let his former lover get away with everything? It was unheard of, and at that time, the duchess was the best woman a man could attain. Why would the duke be so unwise? Kaldor could not understand why he would choose the Baroness over the duchess.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have come to fetch you; we have a ball to go to.”

“But I do not have an invite.” She snorts, “and I have told you many times I am not coming.”

“Ugh is master so dumb. You are my date like the invitation said, I am allowed to have a date, aren’t I?” He pouts, maybe this will finally make her accept his invitation.

“I am not going with you as my date. Go on, send my congratulations to the lady.”

“But there is something you might want to investigate; it is about your father.” He baits her, one thing he has learned about Azura is her love for gossip and her overprotectiveness of her family. This bait sure would make her budge.

“What type of news?” she jumped out of her bed immediately. He had thanked the nosy maids for talking too much.

A majestic birthday for the Northern princess, which is what the baroness had ensured she pulled all the stops to make her daughter’s birthday be the talk of the town.

“Oh, Lady Olivia, congratulations on your birthday.”

“Ah, thank you, Lady Kama, Lady Emi.”

“Is your father escorting you?”

“No, his majesty the crown prince will do the honor.” She said happily. She had worn a red dress to match his red hair and decorated her brown hair with all the jewels she could find.

Even with his majesty asking her to take care of the crown prince, she still needed to solidify her position in the public. “He humbly asked to be my escort, and I allowed him. He is so pitiful. having to put up with that thorn-like princess of the duchess. She keeps giving him a tough time, and her vulgar mother.”

With that, she started another in a bad light to the duchess, a strategy her mother had told her to use. With her plan to regain her glory as a duchess, she must ensure that she damages the little good reputation she and her daughter have, making both the current duchess and Azura are an abomination.

“His royal highness Prince Kaldor Zen Uyilleozia and Lady Azura Maeve Neferpitou have arrived.”

Gasps, both of adoration and confusion, fill the room. They have hired the best event planner only for Olivia to be disgraced like this. It made the Baroness’s blood boil watching the two climbs down the stairs hand in hand.

“Ah, little duchess, so nice of you to join us. I apologize we forgot to send an invitation.” As loud as she could, the baroness receives Azura and Kaldor. “His highness the crown prince I greet you, thank you for accepting our invitation. Olivia is that way. Would you like to escort her now?”

“Baroness need not to thank me, I wouldn’t dare reject a loyal vassal of the duke’s precious daughter's birthday celebration.” He had smiled falsely, he had felt great hostility towards Azura when the door opened, and he was not going to stand them. He had gone a great deal to get her out of that mansion.

 “Unfortunately, I am already escorting Lady Azura, I had begged on my knees for her to be my date this evening and it would be a waste of all my words and tears.” He was not lying about the begging on his knee part, except it did not work. In fact, she only came after she heard her father was still seeing the baroness behind her mother’s back.

“But I had hoped his majesty would escort my daughter. We all know you and the little duchess do not get along.”

“Whoever told the Baroness such blatant lies? Why would I be on bad terms with someone who saved my life?”

“The maids...”

“I will surely tell the duke about the maids who speak ill of their masters. Thank you for the invitation.”

One would call nothing less than magnificent if they had seen her. She had never been the one to wear dresses, and it was never because she did not desire to wear them. She once wore a dress going to a birthday party when she was just eight and everyone voiced their dislike her in a dress. But tonight, many will take it as she never wore a dress because she would look so beautiful.

“Why are you wearing trousers to a ball?”

“I do not have that many dresses, plus they do not flatter me that well.”

“Just try one, Lady Olivia will be wearing a dress too.”

“I am not going to upstage her, like I said, it is my father and the Baroness at fault here. If she is my sister, we should get along.”

“Maybe wearing something unflattering with is a good thing, don’t you think?”

A black dress sewed in a few moments by her private maid who was so happy she was wearing a dress, made to lay loose of her body, which was already perfectly sculptured, and added the furs of the snow monster the prince had hunted. Decorated with all the crimson jewels and she wore silver accessories. She had braided her black hair in a ponytail, and her gray eyes have never shone so beautifully.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” she grumbled when she went down the stairs to accompany Kaldor.

“You just look, beauti…... ahem, presentable.” Kaldor responded, “but you said you look bad in a dress.”

“I do look bad; I have these muscular arms.”

“But they do not look terrible, they look beauti…... ahem, presentable.”

“Whatever, let us go before the party ends or we are late.”

Kaldor remembers walking behind her, thinking of all his beliefs that his mother was the only beautiful woman in the world, oh how one-dimensional that belief was. He should have traveled more before concluding that.

“Lady Azura, how rare of you to come to my birthdays.”

“Lady Olivia should invite me for me to come. It seems her invitation has not seemed to reach me in the past three years.” Even though she did not mean to sound malicious, many had already concluded that Azura was scolding Olivia.

“I apologize; the invitations should have been lost while you hunt monsters. You do not have an exact location you are tied to.”

“But Lady Olivia can send invitations to the duchy,” Azura replied.

“I agree with the Lady” in Kaldor´s words, Olivia’s eyes lit up. “I myself started hunting monsters, but my invitation didn’t get lost.”

“Well, I…, I apologize for the misunderstanding.”

“What a misunderstanding, I really did not misunderstand anything, did I?” Azura raised her eyebrows. “Maybe I should pay more attention to Ms. Samantha’s etiquette class” she thought.

“I just, I sent an invitation to the duchy, but the lady did not reply.”

“Is that so, the person who sorts If the mail did not tell me of this, I should investigate and punish the person.”

“The Lady should not do that; I am sure they have learned their lesson.”

“But they were not scolded. How can they learn before they are scolded.” Kaldor spoke before the tantrum of an 11-year-old, he himself knows that being scolded makes you learn more about the mistake you have made.

“Fine, I didn’t invite you because you are clearly very vulgar and do know proper etiquette, and you are very unlikable, his highness told me that he hates you.” She shouts loudly. enough for the room to be filled with gasps and mummers, is how the Baroness is teaching her child to act towards the little duchess?’ many asked. among themselves.

“I said no such thing.” Kaldor defends himself, there is no way he is losing his swordsmanship tutor.

“Stop defending her, both her and her mother took the rank that me and my mother deserved. She took my biological father to only father her.”

“Oliva calm down” the Baroness tried to contain her exploding child, but it was too late.

“Mom, you know I am right, you even paid that maid to tell the duchy the truth about the duke being my father. You know his majesty, the emperor had already chosen me as the next empress. And the duke will choose my amazing mother over your vulgar, scarred mother, who only Knows how to fight, he chose her first, didn’t he?”

“What baloney is that child spewing, Baroness.” An angry voice echoed at the door.

And at the door to seal the fate was him, the duke and with him was the duchess. And they had never looked so unhappy.