Max''s words made me nervous. "But Lily will use force to suppress them. Won''t they be in great danger?"


    "Yes, but no nation achieves stability without going through fire and war. Richard and Ronald will take control of all of Bravend together."


    “Richard''s awake?” That was the best news I had heard in a long time. I grabbed Max''s hand and, in my excitement, bit it. "Does it hurt?"


    "It does, so this isn''t a dream. Everything is going to be alright." Max''s words brought a lump to my throat. I buried my face in his shoulder, and my body trembled as I began to cry.


    "He woke up the day you left. He knows what he has to do, what he has to protect. He knows his identity and has ns in ce in Bravend. He was in Silveke City to protect you, which is why he deliberately went along with Hannah Price to keep you from harm. He loves you more than I do. Sometimes I feel like I can''tpare to him, being able to endure for so long," Max said self-deprecatingly.


    Richard had been ying a long game.


    He had shouldered all the grief alone.


    "Then why am I the one getting engaged tomorrow? I should be going to find Richard. His country is my country too."


    "You don''t have to. Richard said he will win glory for you." Max yed a message Richard had left for me.


    “ire, Richard will win glory for you. Go forward boldly, and don''t look back."


    My tears fell even more uncontrobly. Richard. A man to whom I would be indebted for two lifetimes.


    “So, I''m still marrying you tomorrow in the name of Bravend? You two are quite the nners."


    I could already picture the look on Babur''s face tomorrow, dark with anger.


    I was actually starting to look forward to it.


    But then a thought crossed my mind. My body... what if...


    "Max, do you like children?"


    "After all we''ve been through, you''re asking me this?" Max sounded a little helpless. "Don''t be trapped by convention. We''ve both died once already."


    My perspective was so different from Max''s. All I could do was nod. He drove with one hand, the other holding mine, as if to keep me from overthinking.


    He brought me to his childhood home, a pce formed from a collection of castles.


    Max''s mother must have been the supreme tuler of this country, yet she died at n Hilton''s hand, her heart gouged out. What kind of fratred could lead to such arutal act?


    Max had been so young then, forced to care for his younger brother and the nation,


    all while developing Asperger''s syndrome himself.


    I couldn''t really understand what he''d been through, so I couldn''t judge if his past choices were right or wrong.


    But I could sense that he had been happy during his childhood when his mother was alive.


    The one who destroyed that happiness was n. Max had been forced to be the gloomy, calcting person he was today.


    "Let me show you the view." Max got


    out of the car and led me through a garden filled with poppies. "My mother and your mother were best friends Sometimes, even a believe


    materialist like me has to believe in


    fate. I ever held you when you were


    born."


    I listened quietly as he spoke.


    "Your mother nted these poppies back then. I was only seven or eight at the time. This patch of poppies is the best-tended because after your mother passed away, my mother missed her terribly. She never imagined they would never see other again. The only news that followed was of their deaths."


    I could hear the regret in his voice.