‘Yikes.’
One look at Papa’s furious face and it seemed like a wise idea to change the subject as quickly as possible.
I suddenly remembered something Grace had said earlier.
“By the way, Papa. What about me has changed?”
The dark magic had apparently been concealing my true appearance. What exactly had changed?
“Ah.”
Thankfully, that redirected him back to his normal self.
“Check the mirror.”
A hand mirror was held out in front of me.
I took it and looked at my face for the first time in a while. And.
“…Huh?”
Blink, blink. A pair of ruby-red eyes looked back at me.
In the face I was looking at, someone else seemed to be there. I turned to look at Calypse.
“Pa—Papa. Come here.”
“…All right.”
When I called to him in fumbling surprise, he came closer with an expression that seemed almost as caught-off-guard as mine.
He sat down beside me and brought his face alongside mine in the small mirror.
Deep red eyes, precise and calm beneath neat black hair. And beside them—round, wide red eyes under gold hair.
Looking at us like this, my face was the perfect blended middle of Calypse and Ariana.
Through Ariana’s confession I had dimly known that I was his biological daughter. But seeing it with my own eyes, face to face—
“Aisha.”
Heart fluttering, I had been staring at the mirror for quite some time when Calypse called me in a low voice.
“Yes?”
“Shall we go for a walk together?”
I was so startled all I could do was let my eyes wander in every direction.
A walk? Where? Out of nowhere?
All manner of questions rose up—but the answer came out first.
“Yes. Let’s.”
Because I had always loved walking with him—ever since the days when Calypse was just a gardener.
Ten minutes after that walk began, I bitterly regretted agreeing to it.
* * *
There in the palace corridor.
Calypse—carrying me bundled in his arms like a swaddled infant—threw open the treatment room door with all the confidence in the world and walked out.
“Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere.”
We turned a corner in the corridor—
“…My lord, how did Lady Aisha’s treatment go—”
Knox, who had apparently been waiting there, stood with his mouth hanging open. His gaze had landed on my face and stayed there.
“…Lady Aisha? Is this Lady Aisha?”
“It is.”
Calypse declared it as though issuing a proclamation.
“This is Aisha’s true eye color. It had been concealed by dark magic until now.”
“I beg your—?”
“Aisha is the true young lady who went missing five years ago.”
“…What?!”
My goodness. Knox’s jaw was going to unhinge entirely.
Not that I could blame him—I had nearly done the same thing myself.
True young lady. For some reason, those words made my heart do something odd and fluttery.
“My lord, please—without any context, to say something like that so suddenly—a little more explanation would be—”
“Later. We’re taking a walk right now.”
Knox followed us in disbelief, but Calypse shed him without a second glance and stepped into the corridor.
Thump, thump—
His footsteps sounded unusually loud today. As if daring everyone in the hallway to look at us.
‘But why a walk all of a sudden?’
I tilted my head where I was pressed against his chest.
It seemed like he had something he wanted to say to me alone. What could it be?
‘…About Ariana?’
Come to think of it—since the moment he had fallen, we hadn’t once spoken about Ariana.
I looked up and studied him from below.
The way he was walking in silence toward some unspecified destination—he was probably looking for a place quiet enough for a heavy conversation.
He was being considerate of me, most likely.
“Papa.”
“Yes?”
“About Ariana. Was she arrested too?”
At my question, his stride slowed and stopped.
His eyes went wide as though he hadn’t expected me to bring it up. He clearly hadn’t anticipated I would broach the subject.
“…She had fled by the time the royal knights arrived, according to the report. She’ll be alive somewhere.”
“Oh. So she escaped.”
I hadn’t known. Well, it made sense. Spies weren’t knights sworn to stand by their masters until death. When they judged that there was no hope left for their employer, it was only natural to run.
“Why. Do you want to see your mother?”
“That’s actually the question I wanted to ask you.”
“What?”
“Do you want to see her, Papa?”
I looked up at him with wide, honest eyes—
“No.”
Unexpectedly, he answered without any hesitation at all and kept walking.
“Raising the two of you is already more than enough. On top of that, I’m even raising Kyle—and that’s not even my own child, and somehow it ended up my responsibility because of someone.”
“Oh. I’m Kyle’s guardian…!”
I started to say ‘I am’—and my mouth closed into a sheepish curve.
Because Kyle’s food, shelter, and care were all being provided by my father.
“Hehe. Thank you…”
I grinned in embarrassment, and he laughed a small laugh with me and ruffled my head roughly.
“I like things the way they are now. And whatever your mother was—I am only grateful that someone with my eyes was born into the world.”
How touching.
I was flustered and warm and I looked away entirely. I wasn’t used to feelings like this.
But that aside, a question I had been carrying for a while still hadn’t been answered.
“Then why did we come out for a walk? Is this genuinely just a walk?”
“…Duke Krost! Good day, sir!”
It was then.
Someone appeared from around the corner ahead, face rigid with nerves.
“You worked so hard during the banquet incident. Are you feeling any better?”
“And how is Lady Aisha? We were so terribly worried about you both.”
All the people asking in concern were nobles I recognized.
Now that I thought of it—Grace had mentioned it earlier. There were quite a few nobles who had remained in the capital to witness Duke Foss’s execution, which was scheduled for a few days hence.
The nobles who had come closer were staring at us with eyes about to pop out of their heads, before rapidly bowing their heads low. More precisely—staring at me before bowing.
Probably because of the color of my eyes.
Well, regardless—Papa would say “Yes” and keep walking. He had never been particularly fond of socializing.
Except.
“The way you’re all looking at me—you’d think you’d seen something you shouldn’t.”
Whoosh—
The moment Calypse’s mouth opened, my body swiveled—whoosh—to face them.
“Could it be because of my daughter’s eye color?”
What?
In a blink I found myself facing the nobles head-on. Caught off-guard, my mouth gathered into a small, tense triangle.
Calypse, having positioned me quite nicely, looked down at the nobles with an air of absolute authority.
The nobles startled and trembled and, with bowed heads, mumbled their reply.
“…We didn’t want to be rude, so we said nothing, but—the young lady’s eye color is exceptionally beautiful today. We apologize for staring without meaning to.”
“…Is that so.”
Calypse looked down at them with an expression of indeterminate meaning.
From the outside it looked like an expression full of quiet threat—but.
Twitch.
‘Twitch?’
Father. Your daughter saw it.
The flat line of your mouth—twitching like a worm trying to wriggle upward.
“What color are my daughter’s eyes?”
“Pardon? Well—they were originally blue like the sea, but today they’re… red, like a ruby—”
“Red, you say?”
“Yikes!”
The nobles nearly leaped out of their skin as Calypse leaned his face forward, cutting them off.
“The same as mine?”
At the question that followed, one of the nobles—clearly afraid of having said the wrong thing—gave a hesitant nod.
“Y—yes. But we may have seen incorrectly. Hahaha…”
“Correct.”
“I beg your pardon?”
And then Calypse announced it with pride.
“Go and tell everyone you meet. What was thought to be an adopted daughter turns out to be my true blood.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
The nobles’ mouths fell open—not just wide, but as though they might split entirely.
This was an absolute scoop.
And our father—who had always hated being the subject of gossip—continued with his shoulders at shoulder height and climbing.
“Duke Foss had the audacity to use sorcery. He hid our Aisha’s eye color by making it blue from infancy…”
“Good Heavens—!”
“But we discovered the truth while bringing him to justice, and her true color has been restored. The truth has finally come to light.”
The explanatory delivery was a touch unnatural—to my eyes—but the nobles listened with complete sincerity.
“In the name of— that he committed such an act on top of everything else!”
When the room had reached its peak at that exclamation, Calypse nodded once with great gravity and drove the point home like a nail.
“That is correct. Above all else—the important thing is this: Aisha’s eyes are red by nature.”
“!”
“Unmistakably the blood of House Krost. My own child.”
“!!!”
* * *
