“Connected to me? What do you mean?”
“…Better if you see for yourself.”
The answer was uncharacteristically evasive.
Grace was not someone who did things by halves. She researched magic and drew equations—precision was the one thing she most despised doing without. An answer like this one wasn’t like her at all.
‘What could she possibly not say directly?’
As he stepped through the door into the treatment room, dozens of possibilities raced through his mind.
And among them—
‘What if the moment Duke Foss dies, Aisha dies with him?’
He landed on the worst thing he could imagine. With dark magic, a curse of that kind was entirely within the realm of possibility.
And the question that followed immediately.
If that were the case—could I accept the death sentence King Arjen has handed down?
“……”
Various suspicious circumstances had been established, yes—but Arjen had stepped back and pushed every crime onto Duke Foss, and remained the head of the Kingdom of Frozen. To defy his command was to become a traitor.
Even so.
‘I would have to defy it, however it came to that. If refusing is what saves Aisha.’
Calypse’s red eyes settled into something cold and absolute.
Whatever dark magic had been placed on Aisha’s body, he was prepared to face it.
It was then.
“Your Majesty?”
A young voice brought him back.
Aisha.
At some point she had woken—she was sitting up on the bed, swinging her legs idly.
She looked as bright as ever, exactly like herself. The only strange thing was that she had her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
‘Could it be that the dark magic’s side effects have taken her sight?’
Thud.
Among all the possibilities, that one—one he had not thought to consider—struck his heart like a falling weight. And then—
“Aisha. Try opening your eyes.”
Grace leaned forward and brought herself level with the child—and Aisha’s eyelids, which had been squeezed so tightly shut, began slowly to lift.
“Right now?”
She asked cheerfully.
And then Calypse’s eyes met hers.
“……”
His whole body went rigid.
“Oh! Papa, you’re here? Are you all right?!”
Blink, blink.
Her worried question reached him—but Calypse couldn’t answer. He could only stare at the child in motionless silence.
The eyes that had always been as blue as sky and sea—had turned red.
The precise shade of red as his own.
✿ ✿ ✿
“This appears to be Aisha’s true appearance. It seems the dark magic has been concealing it all this time…”
Grace trailed off mid-explanation and gave a sudden, brief laugh.
“You look like a man with a great deal on his mind.”
True enough—Papa was standing there looking at me without a word.
Why on earth was he doing that?
My head swiveled left and right as I tried to get my bearings.
I had collapsed in his arms, and when I came to, Grace was standing before me. She had apparently been treating me to lift Duke Foss’s dark magic.
‘Is Papa all right? He must be in so much more pain than I am.’
I had been worried about myself, but once some of my strength came back, all I could think about was wanting to see him.
Such a strong man, knocked down by my attack of all things. What a foolish person.
Why did he believe me? Why did he let his guard down like that? Right up until the moment he fell I had been biting back words that felt dangerously close to blame.
Thank goodness everything had resolved itself so cleanly—now I was going to give him a proper scolding and make sure he never did anything so reckless again.
But Grace had been staring at my eyes with unsettling intensity.
When I asked why, she told me to wait a moment with my eyes closed—and so I did, and now here we were.
“…Papa?”
Calypse looked more intact than I had feared.
The stab wound to the abdomen must have been bandaged, and he hadn’t seemed to sustain any other injuries.
That was a genuine relief.
But regardless of that, there was still a scolding to be delivered. I steeled myself and opened my mouth—and then I noticed something was off.
Calypse looked as though he had been struck by lightning.
Ah, well. He had been through something just as shocking as I had, I supposed.
He had come so close to death and then found his daughter again. Of course he was overjoyed.
“Mm…”
…Though maybe not overjoyed?
When I thought about it again, I wasn’t sure, and I felt cold sweat begin to gather.
‘Come to think of it—just before he fell, Calypse learned who Ariana truly was. And he learned that I am Ariana’s daughter.’
The wife he had loved was a spy. The daughter he had adopted and loved turned out to be his real daughter—and had been created from the start as the tool by which he would be destroyed.
It had been a shock to me, too. For Calypse, it would be infinitely harder to accept.
He now knew everything. Given all of that—perhaps he had hoped I wouldn’t wake up at all.
“…Aisha.”
At the rigid, stiff sound of his voice, my heart plummeted.
With trembling eyes I forced myself to look up at him—
“Are you all right? Your body.”
The question that came out was the one I had least expected.
“…Yes.”
“Good.”
He nodded slowly, and answered like a breath.
His expression still hadn’t softened and I was still bracing myself in tension—
“…Thank goodness.”
Then a large body folded around me as though it meant to swallow me whole.
I stood perfectly still inside the cavernous warmth of his arms—arms I had thought I would never feel again.
A broad palm came to rest on the back of my head.
“Never again,”
A ragged voice followed.
“Never again say anything like that. That you’re my tool. That foolish kind of talk.”
“……”
My eyes went wide with surprise.
“Say something like that again and you’ll get a real scolding from Papa.”
I hadn’t expected this.
“…Whether you’re my blood or not. Whoever your mother is and whatever purpose you were created for—none of it matters. You are my daughter.”
Calypse had been thinking of me far more than I had imagined. He must have felt a devastating wave of betrayal and rage—and even so, he had loved me enough to stand on the other side of it.
“I’m—I’m sorry.”
He truly was a man who went soft for family. Completely and entirely.
He had nearly died. He had every right to feel a fury deep enough to want to kill—and he had someone in front of him who deserved exactly that.
And still he was here, saying I was his daughter.
I had been the one ready to scold him, and I was being scolded instead—and it felt strange in a way I couldn’t quite name.
Something in my chest was swelling like a soap bubble, round and full and ready to burst. An odd, ticklish, grateful, and unbearably tender feeling.
“I’m sorry.”
Only then did I reach out my short arms as far as they would go and press myself into him.
I bit down on my lower lip to hold back tears. I tightened the arms looped around his neck just a little more, afraid they might fall away.
“You know you’re sorry, so you won’t do it again?”
Papa gave a brief, quiet laugh at that, and lifted me up as he rose from the floor.
Then he looked at my face and asked.
“Why are you crying? Running-nose girl.”
Running-nose girl. Father—what happened to your character.
“I’m not crying—!”
I sniffled loudly and scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand. The heavy mood dissolved almost at once.
Calypse turned his gaze somewhere else and I followed it.
Come to think of it—we weren’t the only two people in the treatment room.
In the corner, Grace stood with an expression that said she had absolutely no idea what to do with herself.
I had heard that she was supposed to be a strong T-type in temperament.
But when our eyes met, she gave an awkward little smile. Calypse studied her for a moment, then looked back at me.
“My daughter. The dark magic has been lifted and you’re safe—that’s all that matters. Did you thank Grace for her help?”
“Yes, of course! I even did a grand bow!”
“…A grand bow?”
Calypse asked in mild confusion, and Grace gave a single confirming nod.
“Was that meant to express gratitude? I couldn’t quite understand why she showed me her underwear.”
“What? Aisha?”
Calypse looked alarmed, and I flapped my hands frantically to explain.
“That’s not what happened—I bowed so deeply I accidentally went into a handstand!”
“Ah, that explains it. Even so, Lady Aisha—please don’t do that in front of others while wearing a dress. You were fortunate it was only me who saw—if anyone else had witnessed—”
“Y—Your Majesty! I—I understand!”
I had assumed I was wearing a patient’s gown. When you wake up in a treatment room, you’re usually in one!
I was indignant enough to pout my lips out a full foot, but that wasn’t the pressing concern right now.
Because a pair of murderous axe-eyes were zeroing in on me.
* * *
