Lord Shuian, who had faltered for just a moment, steadied himself and spoke again in a voice that left no room for doubt.
“I am not speaking nonsense, Your Highness.”
“Not nonsense, you say… Are you telling me right now that you mean this sincerely, Shuian?”
“…Ha. Of all people, I never expected to hear such words from you. Were you not the one who knew better than anyone that I could never have any interest in Lady Melberine?”
“Yes, Your Highness. That is how it was. And until just a moment ago, that is what I believed as well. But—”
Shuian’s piercing gaze turned toward Axel.
“Can Your Highness truly say with certainty that you feel absolutely nothing for Lady Melberine?”
He needed Axel to first acknowledge the fact that he had come to care for her. Only then could he move on to the more pressing matter — the warning about her scheme.
Axel’s expression twisted into one of weary exasperation.
“Again with this? Fine. Nothing. I feel nothing, no matter how many times you ask.”
“Then I ask that Your Highness answer the questions I am about to pose.”
Whether out of stubbornness or sheer confidence, Axel crossed his arms and gave a slight nod, as if to say: go on, then, give it your best.
“During the preparations for the last festival, are you aware that Your Highness’s mood was noticeably darker than usual during the period when Lady Melberine stopped appearing at the office?”
“…I was like that?”
“Yes. Because of it, every person who visited Your Highness’s office during that time was left trembling for quite some time afterward.”
One of Axel’s eyebrows arched sharply.
“And what of it? It was the first festival held in four years. A flawless execution would barely suffice, yet every single person brought work that fell utterly short. Of course I wasn’t in a pleasant state of mind.”
“At first, I thought the same. However — during that period when Lady Melberine was absent, Your Highness kept glancing toward the door once every thirty minutes, as though waiting for someone. Surely you remember this as well?”
The smirk on Axel’s face began to stiffen, as though he had been caught completely off guard. Shuian pressed on without pause.
“And that is not all. On a previous occasion, Your Highness instructed Xenon to find out when Lady Melberine would be attending the festival and with whom. Why exactly was that, Your Highness?”
“Was it not because you were concerned she might go to the festival with someone other than yourself? Was that not why you sought to find out?”
For a rare moment, Axel’s eyes wavered with something unmistakably close to flustered surprise. Shuian drove in the final nail.
“And on the last day of the festival, Your Highness was with Lady Melberine as well.”
“That was… yes. For her escort…”
“If it had truly been solely for her escort, you could have assigned another knight. There were more than enough men to substitute — and yet Your Highness chose not to do so. Moreover, Your Highness has not once abandoned your post in all the time I have known you, and yet you would leave your duties entirely in our hands simply to escort Lady Melberine? Does that not seem unusual, even to you, Your Highness?”
Having no more words to offer, Axel fell completely silent. A look of genuine bewilderment crept over his face — as though these were things he had never once stopped to examine deeply.
Shuian felt a strange, almost guilty satisfaction at the sight of his superior’s flustered expression, then shook himself back to the matter at hand and continued.
“And finally — just moments ago, rather than being angry at Lady Melberine for her impertinent behavior, was Your Highness not laughing, as though thoroughly entertained? Can you truly say, Your Highness, that you hold not even a trace of interest in Lady Melberine?”
Laughing? Me?
Axel could not bring himself to believe a word of it. A storm raged through his mind, filling him with confusion at every turn.
…That I — that I could possibly have feelings for Lady Melberine. It was absurd. Unthinkable.
Axel was certain of that.
And yet why is it that I cannot refute a single thing Shuian has said…?
As the thought formed, the questions he had quietly asked himself earlier began to rise to the surface, one by one, overlapping with everything Shuian had just said.
The reason every small thing Lady Melberine did had grated at him. The reason he had so often let things slide where she was concerned…
Axel’s expression hardened with each passing second.
A possibility so implausible that he had never once thought to question it.
“I…”
Do I actually have feelings for her? For that woman? For me, of all people?
The tranquility that had always marked his face shattered. His features contorted all at once.
Barely pulling himself back from the dizzying spiral of thoughts, Axel forced himself to speak, his voice low.
“…So then. What is the reason you are telling me all this, Shuian?”
“Does Your Highness truly believe Lady Melberine’s claim that she has given up on the Crown Prince?”
“What do you mean by that?”
Axel’s gaze sharpened in an instant. Shuian flinched slightly at the force of it, then steadied himself and continued to speak his mind.
“…From the beginning, I did not believe those words — and I do not believe them now. Your Highness, when someone suddenly abandons the person they love and turns away — there is something people say about that kind of situation.”
Axel’s attention fixed entirely on Shuian’s lips as he spoke, his expression grave.
“It is a performance. A kind of act, designed to provoke the person one loves — to make that person become aware of their own feelings by making them watch you walk away. It is called the jealousy stratagem. And if my suspicion is correct, Your Highness is being used as the instrument of precisely that plan right now. Which is why Your Highness must distance yourself from Lady Melberine, even now!”
“…You are saying that I am presently being used as a pawn to manipulate the Crown Prince?”
“Yes. Lady Melberine is most certainly using Your Highness in this manner in order to captivate the Crown Prince. And her ultimate aim would be to win the Crown Prince’s heart while casting Your Highness aside in the most humiliating way possible. If her reason for approaching Your Highness through all this effort was to do precisely that — does it not align perfectly with everything we know, from beginning to end?”
Why was it that in this of all moments, the image of Judith smiling at him — bright and unguarded — chose to surface in his mind?
Axel’s eyes fell shut. He did not want to see it. He did not want to hear any of this…
But the voice had already seeped into him, and it would not leave.
…She plans to cast me aside in ruin and return to the Crown Prince. All of it — every touch, every smile — was a lie?
Shuian was, above all, a deeply suspicious man — but precisely because of that, he had an uncommon ability to assess a situation with cold, clear-eyed objectivity. His judgments and analyses were, more often than not, correct. Axel had always valued that quality in him.
Yet now, for the first time, Axel found himself desperately hoping that Shuian’s judgment was wrong.
Axel had been staring ahead in a kind of stunned vacancy, as though he had absorbed a blow of enormous force. Slowly, his expression darkened into something rough and stricken.
When he finally spoke, the words came out with a ragged breath, as though he had been submerged in water for too long.
“…There is no way that all of it was false. I was standing beside her. I saw it for myself. It cannot be. It was not an act. …It seems you have misjudged this time, Shuian.”
Axel seemed utterly unaware of what expression was on his face as he said it. Shuian watched him with a look that could only be described as heartache.
He was that sincere about Lady Melberine. His Highness…!
He lamented, inwardly, that he had not understood sooner.
If I had realized it sooner, I might have found a way to protect him before he showed this kind of weakness…. Damn it…
But it was not yet too late.
This was the last chance heaven had granted him. The last chance to save His Highness from the clutches of that wicked, scheming woman.
