It was just as empty as Irene had remembered it to be when she was an apprentice herself.

With knights gone, including a few apprentices who had been paired with them or were a part of their families, the Duke's Tower seemed awfully bare. The only thing she was able to do since her duties had mostly ceased was read the books in her room over and over again. Otherwise, she was sleeping quite a lot.

She tried to keep her own sword moving during the morning practices so she wouldn't start to get rusty because this life of winter stagnancy was starting to make her a bit stir-crazy. Reading the same books over and over again didn't help either.

However, her hero came to the rescue when he invited her to his library at breakfast. She had declined, saying that she didn't want to ruin one of his books, but he assured her that she wouldn't.

That was how she wound up falling asleep in a comfortable armchair in the library. The temperature of the fire was perfect, and the romance novel she had decided to read was making her thoughts drift as it was.

It was a rather simple tale of a low-class knight daring to fall in love with a princess. While simple, it was interesting enough to keep her turning the pages as she ate up each new bit of drama or the smallest of touches between the knight who dared to dream big and the princess who wasn't allowed to explore the forbidden feelings of her heart.

When had Irene turned into this mushy sort of person? She had always been so sure that she was impervious to a stupid crush—much less, daydreaming about someone she logically knew she could never have.

Well, daydreams turned to real dreams, and she wasn't sure how many hours she had lost merely sleeping when she felt a faint tickle on her cheek as a strand of her wavy hair was pushed from her face. She froze, her heart racing as she decided whether or not she should show the person who had dared touch her that she was awake.

"Of all the books…" Irene recognized Commander Henry's voice instantly.

Oh, he was judging her choice of story, and Irene felt ashamed. The only woman in the knighthood, and she was caught red-handed reading romance tales to fill up the hole in her heart—how typical.

It wasn't until the book in her lap was pulled from her fingers that she decided to open her eyes. She couldn't fix her expression as she met dark eyes, and her lips slightly parted in shock.

Had he really touched her face? Was that part of her dream? She couldn't even remember specifically what she had been dreaming about.

"I'm sorry to have woken you up," the Commander instantly apologized as he stood up straight. "The book was about to fall to the floor."

He looked so guilty, Irene, for a moment, doubted about who caught who doing what. She had practically caught him touching her face, and he had caught her reading romance.

Irene straightened out and brushed more of her hair from her cheek as she tried to right herself and fix her posture.

"No, I'm sorry to have fallen asleep," she insisted. "I didn't mean to have taken over the library like this."

It was embarrassing enough as it was. She wondered if anyone else had seen her.

Unable to help herself, her gaze fell to the book in his hands. Seeming to catch on, he asked, "A fan of romance?"

She wanted to curl up and die, but managed, "That one caught my eye. It's quite good. I don't know if you would ever read something like that." Her words started coming out faster. "Probably not, because—"

"I have read it," the Commander responded a bit firmly.

Irene's reddish eyebrows raised, and she searched his expression for more. She wanted to learn so much more.

"Actually," the Commander relented more quietly. "The book was written about me. I told you my mother is a writer. She's the one who wrote it. It became popular amongst the nobility in Hydrogia."

His gaze fell to the book despite Irene's eyes still searching him for something.

"It is a good book, so I can't blame you for enjoying it. But if you ever want to know the truth about the story, I want you to get it from me and not this."

There was something there in his gaze and tone, just under the surface, but Irene couldn't pull assumptions out of thin air. She wanted to ask so many questions, considering he was the one who told her he was in love with the Princess at one point, but she was trying so hard to guard herself that she knew she needed to hold back.

"I'll keep that in mind," she responded, deciding that was enough.

Commander Henry placed the book on a shelf and then offered his hand to Irene.

"Are you hungry?" he wondered. "Would you like to go with me to the dining hall?"

While under other circumstances she wouldn't allow someone to help her up, she let him help her to her feet. His helping her was starting to come more naturally. She was still a bit thrown off at so many realizations that day, and the lingering urge to ask if he had touched her face.

They went to the dining hall together and had a light discussion over their meals despite the thoughts that weighed her down so much.

However, despite the fact that he told her to go to him if he had questions about the story, Irene couldn't help herself when she went back to the library a day later and desperately went to the end of the book just to see for herself what the Commander's mother deemed to be a perfect ending to his story.

She felt a bit miserable, realizing that the end of that book was a happy ending where the princess and the peasant knight's love story worked out perfectly. Jealousy seethed within her, knowing that any normal man would prefer the softness and subservient nature of a woman raised in a palace.

Ever was the reminder that she would never fit this description.

Right, she reminded herself that she was no longer focusing on anything to do with the heart. It was best if she focused on knight school for the apprentices remaining there for the winter.

Spending time with the Commander wasn't a good idea.

Yet, at the end of most of the apprentices' lessons, Irene would linger in the library, searching for something to read, and those moments were often punctuated by a visit from the Commander. She felt so very trapped because she was looking forward to each time she saw him.