Would it have been worse, had she greeted the guy with "Nice eyelashes"? Yes, it would have. But did that make her approach any better? No, it did not.

"You certainly have a... unique speech pattern." He gave her a quick glance, trying to find the right word for whatever had transpired in the briefing room.

"I get that a lot." She doubled down. "But, you see, I understand that you likely were told to follow me since the others are still inside planning the trip to the mountains, but I won't tell anyone if you happen to slack off on your duty for once."

"I understand," he answered, making Rowena's face light up a little, "but I can't do that."

The smile that was about to creep up on her face fell instantly. "Well, I guess it can't be helped."

With a sigh, she turned away and walked further down the decorated hallway, meaning to leave the White Palace and return to her room in the late Empress' Ivory Palace. His silent footsteps followed her without fail, of course.

"How do you like the Empire so far?"

Struggling not to roll her eyes and maintain a dignified posture to make up for her recent misadventures, she gave him only a quick sideways glance over her right shoulder. "I have barely seen anything yet, so I can hardly make a judgment on that."

"That makes sense," he replied calmly, even though she had picked up the pace and felt like she would break into a sprint if she walked any faster, "as you should have heard, there will be a small banquet in the Ivory Palace in three days to celebrate the good relations between the Lodden Empire and the Arlen Empire."

"Is that so?" His long legs allowed him to take two of her steps with a single one. 'Unfair.'

"Yes. The doors to the palace garden will be open to noble guests from all over the Empire, and the castle walls will be filled with commoners. It will be a great occasion."

"I've seen such celebrations before." Not really, but Eisenwacht had a nice celebration before, right? All the same to her.

"Oh, I'm sure you have," he backed up, "but I was wondering if you would be willing to attend the festivities with me at your side."

Now she stopped suddenly. Her rapid action threw him off balance, almost causing him to collide with her from behind.

"I don't need a partner. I will be there with my dear brother, of course. Now, I would like to complete this walk to my quarters quietly, if possible." It felt like she had said something like that before.

She was talking out of her butt again, but if Alan didn't want to, she would find an excuse later. Rowena hadn't even sorted out her initial problems, had to figure out how to clear up the things she'd picked up along the way, and now she was supposed to connect with other people?

She wasn't ready to make friends of any kind, especially not the kind who would most likely want to connect with her because of her status, not because he was genuinely impressed by her rhethorical skills.

When he didn't say anything and just stood there, she finally turned around, trying to understand what he might have been waiting for. But his very green eyes were simply fixed on her, and now, as she studied him, they bore deep into her own.

He was truly good-looking. His hair was as black as her brother's and father's, his skin clean and milky white.

'He reminds me of a wannabe Calvin Klein model.' Still, she had read that it was the handsome ones one should steer clear of. 'They only mean trouble.' And she had more than enough of that already.

After staying silent for another heartbeat, he blinked. "I'm a noble."

"Uh-" She stared at him, blinking. "Huh?"

"I'm a noble, I said."

'Who cares, bitch?' She couldn't say anything, because anything that came to mind would be insults, so she chucked it.

"I thought it might be important to know."

"No, I... already expected that." With that, she turned and continued on her merry way, no longer trying to understand if the young man might have a problem similar to hers. 'Verbal diarrhea seems to be just as contagious as the real deal.'

It didn't take them long to reach the other palace and get to the second floor to find the room they were supposed to stay in, and just at that moment, a blonde mane of frizz came bobbing down the hallway from the opposite direction.

Norina looked at the young men beside her mistress, moving closer and closer, slowly stepping into the space between them.

"Thank you for guiding our mistress all the way to her room," she said, looking over her own shoulder at Ava, who came up to them as well, "we will gladly take her off your hands now."

The slightly odd young men shifted his attention from one maid to the other and then back to their mistress. Norina had a hand on her shoulder by now, not trusting anyone in this foreign Empire, knowing the reason why her mistress was there in the first place.

She already had enough to worry whenever she had to think of her poor Charlotte, but now even her lady might end up in a bind.

"Who is this young man?"

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"Well, Norina," her mind rattled, "he's a noble." That simple conclusion came with a slight shrug of her petite shoulders.

"A noble?" Ava repeated, while Norina was still waiting for some missing information.

"Yes, a noble. That's what he said."

Suddenly there was a chuckle, loud enough to produce a faint echo in the corridor. "Dear me, I haven't introduced myself, have I?" he said, as if he hadn't had the slightest idea that she didn't know his name until now, "Lucan Van-" he paused, "Lucan van Belheim."

'No middle name?' Norina wondered, 'If he's a noble, why was he not baptized?'

Rowena, on the other hand, nodded her head. "Of course, Sir Lucan van Belheim. I am Rowena Dynari van Varnhagen."

"I know," he replied simply, "but I must be on my way. Think about my request, if you will. We will meet again tomorrow for the expedition."

It was true. She was expected to be there, so he would be there as well. Only the Emperor was not allowed to show up, as he could not be invited into dangerous situations. Upon entering the room, the noble lady among the girls inside sighed heavily.

"That was a bit strange, wasn't it?" the blonde servant voiced her thoughts and winced right after, "without meaning to be disrespectful, I mean."

"It's okay, Norina. But you shouldn't gossip about people of higher rank when we're not the only ones around."

"I'll remember that, my lady," she said, her head hanging low and her shoulders slumped, "but there's something I don't understand..."

"His name?" Rowena mused, having seen the girl's face when he introduced himself without a middle name. "It's not surprising here. Only the Imperial family of Lodden would probably have a second name from the Church. There might be a few others, but only a few, that is."

"Is their relationship with the Church that bad?"

"Quite so."

"Then why does the Church assist them at all?"

Blinking once more that day, she turned around. "Because of the treaty they had to sign about two hundred years ago." The Emperor of Arlen at that time was a man with an extremely powerful Numbered at his side, whose power lay in the art of vows and contracts. "The wording was a bit off, which is why the Church managed to find loopholes after so many years, but they still cannot refuse someone who asks for help who is not from a land marked as a pagan nation."

It seemed they hadn't heard of that, but Rowena wasn't really surprised. She hadn't known much about it, even after reading the whole book, which centered around a character who cooperated heavily with the Church - as its second Saintess. Ballinger, her private teacher, had been the one to go over these things in a condensed manner, and she had soaked up the information like a dry sponge.

There were already many things she would have to ask him when she returned to the capital in a few weeks. But apart from that, the young nobleman was probably just that.

"I'd like to lie down for a bit, I didn't sleep very well. Could you wake me up when the meeting is officially over?" They would need some more time. 'They are basically plotting a dungeon raid in there, so I would hope they at least put in some effort.'

Her maids surely understood their mistress's wish, so they prepared the room for her to rest in and helped her change, giving Rowena time to take her bow from her treasure chest and put it into the drawer of her nightstand, where she would hopefully be able to reach it easily in the morning.

She must have slept for at least four hours, as she was gently awoken by the hand of her servant, just as she had requested. What had they been talking about for so long? She had expected them to take some time, but hadn't really believed that it would take until dinner was served.

A knock on the door as she was about to leave her room made her hesitate. 'It's not him again, is it?'

There was a sense of foreboding, maybe even a little suspicion, as she ordered her maid to answer the door for her. But when she saw who it was, she looked at him in surprise.

"Is something the matter?" she asked as her brother's red eyes fixed on her.

"Nothing serious, I thought I would invite you to a private dinner," he explained, "the head butler has agreed to prepare a table for two in the garden. I hear you like to eat surrounded by flowers."

They were deep in the south now, so of course they could go to the garden again, not just the conservatory. "I would love to."

Rowena was aware that her first brother would only do that if he had some sort of agenda for doing so. But it wasn't as if she hated him, so there was nothing wrong with sitting with him. Even Colin wasn't an object of hate for her, and neither was the Grand Duke.

Sure, there were things she needed to understand in order to get behind some decisions that had been made in the past, because she needed those answers to feel like she had done something for the real Rowena. In the end, it was an appeasement more for herself than for anyone else, but that didn't make much of a difference.

She didn't like Colin at first because he had acted like a complete imbecile in her opinion, but even he meant well in his own way. For Rowena, these people were important to her present life, but she could easily confront them from a mostly neutral angle.

As she sat down in a garden made up of planters and man-made flower beds, she admired a pair of dark blue, slumpy-looking flower heads.

"Do you like the Cecilias?"

Her shoulders twitched for a moment until she realized he hadn't actually said "Celia." Her second instinct was to tilt her head slightly. 'These are Cecilias?' She could have sworn there was a variety of flowers with the same name in her old world, but they looked different.

Then again, she wasn't much of a gardener anyway. "I like the color. It's such a deep blue, you'd be hard pressed to find that color among flowers."

"That is true."

Servants rolled in a cart of food that was placed in front of them. Their eyes were greeted by the sight of a perfect looking filet mignon. "It looks delicious."

The imperial servant who had set the plate down seemed pleased as he smiled and waved them goodbye. Even Ava and Norina, who weren't allowed in the imperial kitchen, stood a few feet away to give the siblings some space to talk freely.

With a sigh, he watched as his younger sister began to munch on the tender meat while he tried to figure out when it was that the girl before him had changed so much.

"Rowena, I don't know where you got that idea about the salt, but I need to know right now if you were lying." It was a thought he had had the whole time they had had their conference. He hadn't said anything, and had even come up with most of the plan, since he was a Holy Knight and had a better chance of defeating a Visitor than Lodden's highest-ranking imperial knight.

She was a bit taken aback, but frozen stiff at the same time, so it didn't show. "Why would I lie?" She wasn't mad at his accusation, but she still felt a sharp sting.

"You have been behaving very clumsily since we arrived here. I'm aware that you don't want this political marriage, but His Grace sent me here to protect you from it as best I can." His explanation was calm and collected, though he suddenly looked down. "That, and there were no Visitors in Eisenwacht, I saw the report."

'Shit,' she thought, and laid down her cutlery as if to demonstrate how serious she would answer this question. "I know. There are things I cannot tell you. But I did not lie about the salt, and I did not lie about the sword with silver either."

"I hope you are telling the truth, Rowena."

Those words marked the end of their conversation, and Rowena busied herself with watching all the colorful flowers growing in their beds while she ate her fill. After all, all they had to talk about was the expedition they were leaving for the next morning.

Understandably, she wanted to be well prepared. That was why she told her maids to fetch some medicine for headaches from the imperial staff to give herself a moment of privacy in the morning, so that she could take the folded compound bow she had hidden in the bedside table and attach it to the bloomers she wore under her simplest dress.

"Well, let's go write some history, I guess."