Friedrich set me down on the bed with extraordinary care.
It wasn’t as though he were lowering me onto stone — it was a soft, cushioned bed — but the delicacy of his hands made me feel like a porcelain figure about to shatter. I exhaled an unsteady breath.
“Anyone watching would think I’m made of glass, Friedrich. I’m fine — look, I don’t have a scratch on me.”
I gestured at myself, showing him just how intact I was — but midway through, something shifted in Friedrich’s expression, and he looked like he might cry all over again.
What now? I was already reaching to comfort him when a wave of familiar soap scent swept over me. Then something soft against my neck turned sharp.
“Ah—”
I looked at him, confused, and saw a faint trace of blood on his lips.
Oh.
Only then did I remember — the blade at my throat.
My stomach lurched, though I kept my face easy.
“…It’s nothing.”
And said so, easily enough.
“I’m in the middle of my cycle.”
Rene Stade had the ability to heal her own injuries — but not others’. And that particular power had one critical weakness: it was unusable during menstruation.
As luck would have it, she was in the final days of it now.
At my words, Friedrich pressed his lips together, stood up, and returned a moment later with a first aid kit.
He dipped some ointment onto his fingertip and dabbed it with careful strokes along the cut at my throat. It stung, but I was committed to pretending otherwise.
“It’s fine, really — it’s such a small — “
“I don’t want it to scar.”
I paused. A similar situation came back to me.
On the return march to the capital — Friedrich had taken the brunt of an ambush meant for me. He’d taken a cut to the face in the process.
That wound had long since healed without a trace. This one on my neck would do the same.
Which didn’t change the fact that I had come close to dying twice now, and he had been the one to keep me alive. Twice.
“You’ve saved my life twice now, Friedrich.”
I had no choice but to say it like it was nothing.
Because Rene Stade was the kind of person who could have sliced those assassins apart without breaking a sweat.
In my heart, I wanted to fall to my knees and thank him like the twice-over savior of my life that he was.
“I’m glad I brought you along.”
I ruffled his hair with a fond hand, smiling with all the ease I could manage — and then I caught his expression, and felt my own falter.
Too much? Did that come across as patronizing?
I was starting to pull my hand back when Friedrich suddenly leaned in and wrapped his arms around me. The abruptness of it made me stare at him with wide, startled eyes.
“Friedrich?”
“…Just a moment.”
His voice was thick and muffled.
“Just a moment.”
Long, slow breaths, deep and deliberate. His back rose and fell against my chest, unhurried, as though he were trying to find the rhythm of something steady.
It looked like a man trying to come back to himself, and I felt awkward doing nothing, so I gently patted his back.
“You seem more shaken than I am. It’s not even the first time for us.”
“…The first time — “
Friedrich’s voice was still rough, low against me.
“I dealt with them before they could touch you.”
“Same result this time.”
“It’s different. This time — “
He trailed off, the words catching somewhere.
“This time, it was really — “
“You really don’t give me enough credit, do you? Do you know who I — “
“I was terrified.”
He cut me off, voice compressed to barely a sound. I fell quiet without meaning to, and looked at him.
“I was terrified.”
He said it again, pressing himself deeper into my arms.
I wanted very badly to say I was the terrified one, frankly — but I swallowed it back and smiled instead.
“You really are a fearful thing, aren’t you? Not at all what your face suggests.”
I made soft, soothing noises as I lifted his chin — and stopped cold.
Those wide, beautiful eyes were glassy with unshed tears, trembling at the edge. I exhaled and took his face in my hands.
“You big baby.”
Friedrich looked at me with an expression that was half wounded dignity and half outright sulk. I drew him gently sideways and lay down beside him.
“Come on, then. You’re going to keep crying even with your older sister here to sleep beside you?”
Instead of answering, Friedrich took my hand and pressed it against his cheek, holding it there with both of his.
A devastatingly beautiful face wearing an expression of devastating vulnerability — absurdly, incomprehensibly endearing given everything that had just happened.
But somehow, because of it, I felt myself steadying too.
The truth was my heart was still going. But the greatest swordsman in this world was lying right here in front of me, and something about that made everything feel survivable.
Maybe because of that, sleep crept in gradually even after everything — when by all rights I shouldn’t have been able to close my eyes at all.
My body, as reliable as ever, woke at the usual hour despite the chaos of the night before.
I turned my head. Friedrich was still asleep.
No need to wake him. I started easing carefully out of the bed when —
“Oh—!”
Two long arms shot out and caught me around the waist, pulling me back into place.
Naturally, I found myself lying exactly where I’d started.
“Don’t go…”
Friedrich had curled himself around me from behind, his face pressed into my back, whispering against the fabric.
Warm breath seeped through the thin linen of my chemise and brushed against my skin.
I laughed despite myself and lightly scolded him.
“The sun’s fully up out there. How long are you planning to stay in bed?”
“Just a little longer…”
“You sleep. I wasn’t trying to wake you.”
But Friedrich showed no sign of releasing me.
He kept his face pressed to my back and murmured just a little longer again.
I could have pulled free if I’d wanted to. But he’d saved my life last night, and I found I didn’t particularly want to do that to him.
I lay there indulging him for a while, then made another tentative attempt to unwrap his arms from my waist.
He responded by taking my hand instead and lacing his fingers firmly through mine.
Out of the frying pan.
I turned around to look at him, utterly baffled — but he still had his face buried against my back, entirely hidden.
“You’re awake, aren’t you.”
“……”
Friedrich’s answer was to press his cheek slowly, contentedly, against my back.
It was clear that when it came to playing innocent, he had the decided advantage.
By late morning, I finally made it back to my room. The traces of the previous night had been so thoroughly erased that the space looked as though nothing had ever happened.
I stood looking at it with something like strangeness, when —
“Did you sleep well, Your Highness?”
Elsa greeted me with the same composed ease as always, as though last night had been entirely unremarkable.
“The body was disposed of. We were unable to confirm the identity. Emperor Otto has not yet been notified.”
“Don’t notify him. When have I ever?”
“I think this time may be different.”
I’d assumed she would simply agree, as usual, so that stopped me.
“Why? How is this different from any other time?”
“You wish to leave the palace. This could be leverage — an appeal to His Majesty’s concern.”
“He’s not the type to believe me if I pretend to be weak.”
Elsa had a point, but the Emperor would respond to any report by doubling my guards, and nothing else.
“Leave it buried, as always. Don’t mention it to Joachim or Marie either.”
“…Understood.”
“You look like you’d rather not.”
“It’s less that, and more — I find myself newly sympathetic to your desire to retire to the countryside, Your Highness. Since becoming your handmaid, this marks the fifty-seventh assassination attempt.”
…She’s been counting?
“Before that, there would have been many more. I understand why you are tired of it.”
For the original Rene, assassins were roughly equivalent to cockroaches — loathsome to encounter, but not remotely capable of threatening her life. A nuisance, nothing more.
For me, they’re not cockroaches. They’re vipers. I forced myself to nod along with practiced indifference.
“You’re finally starting to understand me. Then put that sharp mind to work and figure out a way for me to abdicate as princess, Elsa.”
“I’d rather suggest keeping Prince Friedrich as a personal guard. Like last night.”
“I’ll admit that last night he genuinely — “
I stopped.
I had just noticed something very strange, and closed my mouth.
Elsa looked at me with a peculiar expression.
“What is it?”
“…Elsa — what time did you come into my room last night? Do you remember?”
Elsa opened the small notebook she always carried and answered without hesitation.
“It was around three in the morning, Your Highness.”
