CHAPTER 400: TRAVEL PREP

"Couldn’t he have at least assigned Ingrid to me?" Felix asked, frustrated as he stared into a standing mirror leaning against the wall in the upper guest rooms of the Duke’s Tower.

The knight tugged at the finely tailored clothing he was wearing, entirely unaccustomed to such wares. He found it stifling. If someone were to attack him while he was wearing it, there was a likelihood he wouldn’t be able to defend himself, much less have the flexibility to even swing his sword.

He raised his arms, causing the material to strain.

"It’s as I feared," he continued. "I’ll have to rip through this entire thing if something bad happens."

Irene stood in the doorway, leaning against the threshold with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Quit crying like a baby," she urged. "At least you won’t be forced into a dress like I certainly will be. My mother has already written me a letter saying that she looks forward to seeing me, and I can only assume what that means."

Irene’s struggle took Felix out of his own problems, and he looked over his shoulder with a smug smile on his face.

"Irene in a dress..." he trailed off with a laugh that pierced her eardrums. "I’ll believe it when I see it."

"In childhood, I wore dresses almost all the time," she reminded him. "That’s why I had to escape."

"Poor you. Chose the life of a knight over the life of a noble. Do you regret it yet?"

"No," Irene responded quickly, confidently.

Every problem she had was of her own doing. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own that she had a stupid crush on the worst possible person. She would never tell anyone, so it wouldn’t be an issue.

"Now, back to my problem," Felix continued. "Why can’t Ingrid be the maid who is assigned to me?"

"Because she’s the head maid, meaning she will be following the Commander around for the banquet," Irene reminded him. But then a smirk appeared on her face, and she asked a question she already knew the answer to. "What’s wrong with Eira?"

At that point, Felix had turned around all the way and had already begun unbuttoning the outer coat of the clothing Commander Henry had procured for him—a gift for his first noble event, considering he was the second in command of the knighthood and deserved the special treatment, which Felix vehemently disagreed with.

"What’s wrong with Eira—?" he snapped in disbelief, but his voice quickly stopped.

"Yes, Sir Felix?" The young woman whom they had been discussing squeezed around Irene as she squeezed into the room around the female knight. "Do you need assistance getting out of the clothing?"

Irene stood behind the maid, and a grin pulled at her lips at the other knight’s discomfort. Felix looked alarmed.

"No, thank you. I can get out of it myself," he responded, pointedly ignoring her blushing cheeks and eagerness to see him get undressed as before.

After all, she was the one who had helped him dress in the first place. It wasn’t until he was in undershorts only that he realized the woman helping him couldn’t stop staring or quietly clearing her throat. She was a wolf, and he was a pile of meat.

"Then I will attend to other duties," she responded sweetly. "Please call if you need anything since I have been assigned to you by His Grace."

Irene’s mocking expression quickly softened when the maid turned around and she offered a kind smile until it was only Felix and her left in the room once more.

"So what if she likes you?" Irene wondered once the maid was long gone. "What’s wrong with that?"

"No knight has time to like anyone else," Felix insisted as he continued his undressing, getting far too comfortable with Irene and practically forgetting that she was a woman at all.

Irene was entirely unfazed by a shirtless Felix and especially unfazed when he was only in shorts and pulling on the clothes he was better suited for. There was only one person who could elicit a reaction from her. She was so unnecessarily loyal to a fault that it made her mad at herself.

"Actually, it’s winter. All of us have a lot of time to like other people," she admitted, unfortunately speaking from experience. "Winter is the perfect time to find someone to cozy up to... but I understand if the true reasons for your difficulty are something else."

Irene was teasing him at first, but she decided to extend a hand instead. It felt like just yesterday she was joking with Agnes and revealing all her secrets when it had actually been years. Not having someone there she could talk to about personal things still stung to that day. She was always open to it, but maids didn’t generally get mixed with knights, considering the vast majority were men.

At Irene’s first statement, Felix couldn’t help searching her expression for something more. She was talking as if she had experience ’cozying up to’ someone else. There was a strange sense that an older brother might have, where he wanted to protect her from the reach of men.

Besides him, the only other person she talked to on a seemingly more personal level was the Commander. She couldn’t possibly—

Felix brushed it off easily when Irene shifted her tone and mentioned the true reason for his hesitance to like another person. He wondered if the heavy feelings of losing his love so young would ever lessen. He had resigned himself to never loving another the way he had loved her.

"Something like that," he muttered as he tightened his belt at his waist and adjusted where his sheathed sword sat. "The pain of losing someone hasn’t gotten easier. The stagnancy of winter only makes it worse."

"If you ever need to talk..."

"I understand," he responded to his friend. "And you’ll do the same?"

Irene merely nodded. She didn’t want to talk about any of her problems.

The two of them exited the guest room and closed the door behind them. The issue of Felix having nothing to wear to an event where he was considered on equal footing with the others was solved. The Commander had taken care of it for him.

Felix would simply have to look past Eira’s wandering gaze and understand the choiceless situation he was in. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world to be wanted by someone, after all.

As the two went down to the lower levels of the Duke’s Tower, Irene couldn’t help wondering.

"How long is the journey to Earl Auden’s lands? I can’t recall."

"If we were to travel in a straight path, only a few days," Felix explained. "But we’ve been discussing a different route that will take a week. Since we’re bringing maids unaccustomed to sleeping outdoors, the Commander wanted to ensure that they had a more comfortable route."

The Commander’s consideration irritated her as much as it struck her heart. All she could do was offer a tight-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, but she wasn’t willing to discuss his kindness any further because she was plenty swayed that he was a good man.

"How kind of him," she responded lightly. "Then I suppose I should get the rest of my things together. I have quite a bit to carry with me since I will be returning home for a month after the banquet."

"Rub it in," Felix retorted with a grin.

"Then you’re invited to the Litharions’ home," Irene shot back. "But please, if my mother insists you be her son-in-law again because it’s immoral for a man and woman to be close friends, I am powerless in stopping her at this point."

That was enough to cause Irene to laugh and let go of the internal strife that had to do with the Commander.

Felix elbowed her.

"I’m not that desperate yet," he assured her.

"Yes, you have other suitors patiently waiting,"

He grumbled something insulting, but she waved him off and rushed away before they could get into a sparring match with words rather than swords.

She truly did need to get ready. The path ahead was going to be a long one, but she was looking forward to traveling again.