In his study, Ottol looked up from his work and stared at his wife, because she had just asked him something he had not been expecting.
Flora asked, nervously, whether he would practise dancing with her for the coming ball. She admitted, in a very small voice, that she was a terrible dancer.
Ottol found this hard to believe and immediately suspected it was another one of her strange ploys to get his attention. He crossed his arms and considered the odd proposal from several angles.
Then he relented.
He would practise with her, he said. Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, in her garden.
Flora's whole face lit up. She could hardly believe he had actually said yes.
Their first lesson began in the sunlit palace garden. Ottol took her in his arms and calmly instructed her not to panic and simply to follow his steps.
Despite the guidance, Flora was a bundle of nerves from the first bar, and a moment later she came down squarely on his foot.
Mortified, she apologised profusely and insisted it had been an accident.
Instead of getting angry, Ottol was surprisingly patient. He told her to pay it no mind and that they would try again — though her two left feet continued to be a considerable obstacle.
After a few more collisions, Flora gave up entirely.
Seeing her frustration, Ottol finally understood that she genuinely could not dance.
Feeling defeated, Flora told him that he should simply ask Lady Evelyn to dance at the ball instead.
That finally got a reaction out of him. He demanded to know why she constantly brought Evelyn up, his patience wearing visibly thin.
Then he softened, and told her not to put herself down like that.
He admitted that even he had struggled when he first started — and the admission came with a painful memory attached, of a small boy being harshly compared to a far more talented brother.
He remembered that brother. He remembered a kind older boy who had promised, patiently, to help him learn to dance.
Inspired by the memory, Ottol's tone gentled. There was no need for her to apologise so much, he said. He had promised to teach her, and he was not going to give up on it.
Then he identified the real problem, which was fear.
He pulled her in and explained that it was her guilt about stepping on him that was holding her back. And to fix that, he told her to step on his feet on purpose, from the very beginning.
Flora was stunned by the suggestion.
Following his strange advice, she placed her feet directly on top of his.
He told her not to overthink any of it — to stop counting, and simply learn his movements by feeling them.
And as he guided her, something finally clicked. They began to move together in a way she had never thought possible, gliding across the terrace in the afternoon light.
Two hours later they finished a simple song without a single mistake.
Overjoyed, Flora celebrated her small victory with both hands in the air, and Ottol watched her with a warm, satisfied smile spreading across his face.
Overwhelmed with joy, she spontaneously threw her arms around him and thanked him over and over.
Caught completely off guard, he awkwardly boasted that this was simply the natural result of superior teaching. Then he softened again and told her the truth: the success was the product of her own hard work.
Still standing close, Flora shyly asked whether there might be a reward this time.
Ottol's entire expression shifted. He took her hand and declared that she could decide the reward herself.
When she questioned whether he truly meant her, he confirmed it, and a smirk appeared as he added that there was something he wanted her to do.
Flora's face flushed as she considered his strange proposal.
Then she made her choice, and confirmed with him first that he would not get angry no matter what she did.
Ottol scoffed and asked whether he seemed so short-tempered as all that.
With that settled, Flora took a confident stance and, to the emperor's utter shock, commanded him to sit down.
Ottol stood frozen, completely baffled.
Flora insisted, reminding him of his promise. His height, she explained, was simply too inconvenient for what she had planned.
And before he could process that, she warned him that it might hurt a little.
He sat down reluctantly, bracing himself, honestly wondering whether his wife was about to strike him.
Instead she set her hands on his shoulders and began a skilful massage.
Leaning close, she thanked him for his patience through all their practice sessions, and said she only wished she could offer him a better reward than this.
Stunned by the entirely pleasant turn of events, Ottol told her quietly that if anything, he should be the one thanking her.
Flora paused, confused — and he turned to face her. His expression was intense as he took hold of her sleeve and murmured something about the power of her scent.
Elsewhere, in the emperor's study, Cecil laid a sealed letter on the desk.
It might, he explained, contain instructions for the empress from her home kingdom of Pedania.
Ottol's expression turned grim as he picked it up. He asked Cecil, cryptically, whether he knew the story of Pandora's box, and declared that this letter was the same thing. If he opened it, he said, everything that had happened between himself and the empress would become meaningless.
Cecil reminded him that the marriage had always been a political tactic — a way to control her country and nothing more.
Ottol smirked and decided against prying into the affairs of a woman who knew nothing about any of it. It was far more entertaining, he told his physician, to watch Flora make her own choices and to observe her genuine reactions to things.
Besides, he added coldly, he still needed her scent.
That last remark made Cecil question everything he thought he had understood.
He found himself wondering whether the emperor's kindness had never been about love at all, but about cold calculation — and the image that arrived in his mind was of a small bird in a gilded cage.
Understanding the order he had been given, Cecil bowed and agreed to have the sealed letter delivered directly to the empress.
In a dark cell beneath the palace, a captured maid begged the physician for forgiveness.
She had only been paid to hand a letter to Her Majesty, she insisted. That was all. She swore she had committed no treason of any kind.
But Cecil had not come to punish her.
He held out the letter and gave her an order she had not remotely expected: she was to deliver it to the empress exactly as planned. And he sternly warned her not to arouse the slightest suspicion.
The stunned maid took the envelope back into her own hands — a pawn now in the emperor's cold and calculating game — and wondered what on earth had just happened to her.
Up in the daylight, Flora was practising her steps on the terrace when Vishi suggested she take a well-deserved break.
Flora brightened and asked whether there might be something sweet.
As the maid went off to fetch it, Flora thought about how busy Ottol had been these past days, and resolved to surprise him with her new skills at the ball.
Her peaceful moment was cut short by an unfamiliar maid, who approached and bowed nervously and presented a letter with a strange seal on it.
Flora was instantly wary. The timing was wrong. The girl was a stranger. The innocent afternoon drained out of the terrace as she stood staring at the ominous envelope in her hands.