Serena could hear the pounding of her own heart. In Lucas’s embrace, she could feel a masculine presence distinctly different from her memory.

Above all, the fact that his embrace was now large enough to hold Serena and still have room left was clear.

“I’ve come to reclaim our vow of engagement.”

His deep voice resonated right next to Serena’s ear. So greatly shaken by her first close contact with a man, she had no leisure to interpret the intentions behind Lucas’s voice.

“Serena Astel.”

Lucas was also trembling like Serena, realizing that he had intensely trained himself for six years just to say these words today.

“I will take my fiancée now.”

Serena suddenly came to her senses at his assertive and abrupt declaration. First and foremost, she forcefully pushed him away with both hands.

Perhaps because it was a sincere act, Lucas staggered.

“It is not possible.”

As if she had never blushed, Serena looked at Lucas with a cool expression.

“What?”

Lucas frowned his beautiful eyebrows and growled softly.

“I said it is not possible.”

Serena still looked at Lucas with a calm demeanor.

Without even needing to recall her previous life, the humiliation she tasted at the engagement ceremony six years ago was vivid.

At the time, she had shared ridicule with a much smaller fiancé because she was taller than other women, even hearing the mocking laughter of the nobles who had gathered as guests.

“You are my fiancée. We have already shared the vow of engagement…”

“That was six years ago.”

Her cold blue eyes looked at Lucas, and she sat down on the sofa first. It was an act that greatly violated etiquette, but Lucas looked at her for a moment and then silently took his seat.

“It turned out well. I did not expect Your Highness to come here in person.”

“What do you mean? It doesn’t seem like you’re glad I came.”

The feeling was strange that the little boy who used to have fierce eyes had already grown so mature.

“If Your Highness had not come, I would have had to go to the capital.”

“I understand less and less. Taking my fiancée is my business as the fiancé.”

Serena stared at the sternfaced Crown Prince. Other than her mindset, she was no different from when she was 18, but Lucas seemed like an entirely different person.

“Your Highness, the Crown Prince, is indeed wellversed in etiquette and custom.”

Serena’s blue eyes looked at Lucas with a meaningful glow. He naturally knew that this was not a compliment.

“Then you must surely know that our engagement has become null and void.”

Lucas unwittingly frowned even more. His reunion with his fiancée, which he had imagined and longed for over the past six years, was not supposed to be like this, and the atmosphere had already irretrievably broken.

“I’ll return your words. The nullification of our engagement is impossible.”

Huh, watching Lucas scoff, it seemed that people could not completely change. He was as arrogant as he had been at the engagement ceremony.

“Six years have passed.”

A faint smile lingered at the corner of Serena’s mouth, as if she had a hidden trump card.

“So what? Whether it’s six years or sixty, our engagement vow doesn’t change.”

“Yes, that’s a historical fact.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes to look at Serena. Though his logic was surely right, Serena seemed oddly confident.

“And the fact that our engagement was traditionally annulled two years ago will also go down in history.”

Serena looked at the victory before her eyes and smiled. As in any place, the customs that had developed over distant ages sometimes had as much effect as law.

“Nonsense.”

“I have legitimate grounds.”

Despite her status as the Crown Prince’s fiancée, the reason she had been able to leave the capital and manage the Astel territory with ease was thanks to that custom.

In the first few years, Lucas’s existence was bothersome and anxietyinducing, but after four years, the worry had completely faded.

“According to the customs of the continent, an engagement naturally annuls after four years.”

Since the dreadful engagement ceremony ended, and her father, the Duke of Astel, irresponsibly went on a wanderlust, Serena had to find her way to live on her own.
[Dash] I had just begun to live a new life, and I didn’t want to waste it caring about others’ opinions again.

It would have been nice to simply become a moderately affluent heiress, but being the Crown Prince’s fiancée was a position overflowing with scrutiny.

Moreover, wasn’t the engagement ceremony alone filled with all sorts of ridicule about Serena’s size? She couldn’t stand the sight of people who had never contributed anything to her growth talking about her height for the rest of her life.

[Dash] Breaking off an engagement is better than a divorce. I may not even be able to divorce him since he’s the Crown Prince. And since the environment here is mostly similar to the Middle Ages… if my guess is right, there should be an answer.

Serena’s hunch was not wrong. She found the answer after a full month in the capital’s library, turning the pages covered in dust.