章 183: The Road Ahead; Stagnancy or Chaos

"I heard something about that. This "yearly candidate" stuff that each kingdom does."

Ren commented, watching as Macheo rolled his stiff shoulder. 

The prince was shirtless, wearing a bandage that ran from the cut-off point of his discarded limb and around the left side of his torso. He wasn't particularly muscular, but he wasn't out of shape; this fact calmed Ren's irrational thoughts of having him stroll around in front of Iris. 

"…About that, Ren…"

"Yeah?"

The entire time, Iris was awfully quiet, only speaking in the middle of already sparked words. 

"Aiko…You met her here, right? How'd that come to be?"

"Huh? When I talked to her earlier, it sounded like you two were getting along—I thought you would've talked about this already."

"Well…I did talk to her about it, but I just wanted to hear it from you…"

Muttering her response, Iris twiddled with her hair as she hid her likely cherry-red cheeks from Ren's gaze.