Chapter 15

Because Dante snapped his head away, he accidentally ended up facing Rowan head-on. Rowan grinned like a cat that had just spotted a fish.

Distorting his face in a completely different way than before, Dante asked: “…Why are you making that face?”

“Oh, it’s just that I’ve never seen Your Grace talk this much.”

“Hmph.”

Dante closed his eyes altogether. Poking Dante’s forearm with her index finger, she spoke: “My goodness, look at him. Something feels strange here. Am I sensing what I think I’m sensing?”

“Quiet.”

Dante brushed off the back of Rowan’s hand as if shooing away a fly. Watching the two of them banter, I gripped the hem of my skirt tightly and said in a loud voice: “At any rate, I’ve decided to leave Cline behind and live as a new person! So please give me any work. I’ll do my best!”

My life was finally beginning now. I puffed out my breath with an overflow of enthusiasm.

Rowan looked at me fondly as if I were adorable, then covered her lips with her palm and chuckled.

“I love seeing you so full of enthusiasm. However, you don’t have to do anything at all.”

“Pardon?”

What on earth did she mean by that after going through the trouble of hiring me?

As I put on a puzzled expression, Rowan added with a soft smile:

“You don’t have to do anything, so please just go to the capital with us. That is your job.”

“That is…”

Why did they need someone to travel with them?

And why did that person specifically need to have silver hair and green eyes?

Tilting my head at the series of questions springing to mind, I asked stealthily: “……Did you hire me because the journey was lonely, by any chance?”

That was also the reason Roseanne had grown close to Countess Cline. A noble lady needed someone to carry her bag during external engagements, and the person who carried Countess Cline’s bag was Roseanne.

‘So they’re trying to give me that kind of work.’

Even so, singling out specific physical features was a bit suspicious.

‘Does he break out in hives if it isn’t silver hair? Though to call him overly picky about people, he hired me the moment he saw me.’

Before I could ponder any further, Rowan pointed at Dante with her thumb and said: “Something like that. Having to spend a fortnight trapped in a narrow carriage with a stiff, stubborn mule—can you imagine how suffocating that would be?”

“Ah…”

Apart from Dante being a good person, he was just as difficult for me to deal with, so I understood that suffocating feeling tenfold.

As I nodded without thinking, Dante—who had opened his eyes at some point—arched his thick eyebrows high and retorted: “Ah?”

Only then realizing my slip of the tongue, I frantically waved my hands and answered: “Th-That ‘ah’ meant I understood how the situation could be awkward with just the two of you! I didn’t mean that you’re a stiff, stubborn mule!”

However, my damage control came too late. Staring at me with sharp eyes, Dante pressed the corners of his eyes with his finger and lamented: “Even if everyone else in the world calls me a stiff, stubborn mule, you shouldn’t, My Lady. Locking me in a private room on our very first meeting, crying for over an hour…”

“Eeeek!”

To think he brought that up!

Screaming, I stood up half-way and clamped both of my palms firmly over Dante’s lips.

“……?”

Dante’s ruby-red eyes spoke to me.

‘What is the meaning of this?’

The body heat felt through my palms was incredibly warm. And far from cooling down, that heat only grew hotter and hotter.

Was it because of my embarrassment, or was his body temperature actually rising?

With a face turned bright red, I yelled out loud:

“S-Stop talking! I’m embarrassed, too! Just how long do you plan on bringing that up?!”

Staring blankly at my face, which had turned as red as a poinsettia, Dante took hold of my wrists, pulled my hands away, and said: “It hasn’t even been a single day yet.”

“Th-That…!”

It was just as he said. It was only because so many major events had happened in a row; in truth, it hadn’t even been a full day since I met him.

‘Ugh, to think I’ve done things I’ve never done in my entire life, all in a single day.’

Still, acting drunk in front of someone you just met was wrong. If I could turn back time, I would stop myself even if it meant slapping my own cheeks.

‘Beer is a demonic drink! You shouldn’t drink it! All because I harbored useless curiosity.’

As I hung my head low in sheer embarrassment, Dante dropped a line in a gruff tone: “And you have too much physical contact, My Lady.”

“P-Physical contact?!”

What was he talking about now?!

Shocked, I looked at Dante with trembling eyes. Dante tapped his own lips with a finger—the very lips I had just covered with my palms.

“Even when we first met, didn’t you suddenly insist on going somewhere where we could be alone…?”

“No, I didn’t! That’s not it! It’s a misunderstanding!”

Back then, I had drunk too much alcohol, and I was out of my mind worrying that someone might recognize my face.

My heart pounded frantically at Dante’s words. Seeing me shudder in horror, Dante let out a low chuckle: “Haha.”

It was a smile I was seeing for the very first time since meeting him—even if it was just a faint, ambiguous expression curving his lips.

I stared with wide eyes at Dante chuckling softly. Yet not only me, but Rowan as well was staring at Dante with eyes as if looking at something immensely alien.

Meeting Rowan’s gaze, Dante scowled and put on a stiff expression once again.

“Why are you making that face?”

“……Are you really His Grace Duke Christopher? You’re someone else, aren’t you? Could you be a demon? But how is it that the demon seems kinder?”

“……”

A little longer and Rowan looked ready to scatter salt on him. Dante let out a sigh and snapped his head away.

“Forget it.”

The unspoken words echoed in my ears.

***

The place where the carriage carrying Yvon was currently heading—

The heart of the Empire, the capital.

In the very center of that capital, the Imperial Palace—which could be considered the core—was deathly quiet.

It was because barely four months had passed since Emperor Iliad had collapsed.

Ignoring the physician’s dissuasion, the Emperor had gone on a hunt, only to lose consciousness and fall from his horse like a doll whose strings had suddenly been cut.

He barely survived, but the bones broken during the fall punctured his internal organs, leaving no one able to guarantee how long he would continue to breathe.

And when facing death, anyone is bound to look back on their life. The same held true for Emperor Iliad.

In the bedroom filled with the thick scent of medicine like a pale fog, the Emperor barely parted his lips: “…We must find the Princess… First Princess Yvonne… The only one left by the former reign…”

“Father.”

At the Emperor’s voice, Crown Prince Bentley and Empress Guinevere, who were guarding his bedside, raised their heads.

In the current Imperial Family, no First Princess existed. Yet the Emperor twitched his fingers as if wishing to wave his hand, searching for the vanished ‘First Princess.’

“I am being punished… After all, the throne should be passed to the First Princess…”

It was the confession of an ancient sin committed by Emperor Iliad.

Originally, Iliad was a distant branch relative of the Imperial Family, not material to become an Emperor. Had the young and capable former Emperor remained healthy, the throne would have never fallen to him.

However, while saving a persecuted fairy, the former Emperor was cursed by a witch, and as a result, was granted a life far shorter than his natural lifespan.

Leaving behind only one daughter, First Princess Yvonne, born between him and the Fairy Empress he had saved, Lillian.

The First Princess was five years old, and the Empress was a fairy who knew nothing of the human world.

At that moment, greed spread like ink through Iliad’s heart.

<This is an opportunity. Even if that young princess ascends the throne, the country will collapse anyway. It’s better if I take charge.>

Thus, he raised an army, killed the Empress, and forged the former Emperor’s last will. In the process, he ended up missing the First Princess, but Iliad spent his entire life searching for her.

At first, he searched in order to kill her, but along the way, his goal gradually shifted. As he grew older and frail, the weight of his sins began to weigh heavily upon his shoulders.

“The First Princess… The throne must be passed to the rightful bloodline…”

From Emperor Iliad’s perspective, it was a belated repentance, but to the Crown Prince who had been preparing to succeed the throne, it was a sudden bolt from the blue.

All those involved had already breathed their last, and ‘there was no one left who remembered the forgotten First Princess.’

Yet now, the Emperor himself was speaking of the First Princess.

Feeling as though she had to pull the wool over his eyes, the Empress reasoned with the Emperor in a soft voice:

“Get a hold of yourself, Your Majesty. How could you say such things to make our Crown Prince feel disheartened?”

“Silence, you viper-like woman!”

His voice—which had been as faint as a flickering candle when searching for First Princess Yvonne—was fiercely sharp when scolding the Empress.