After dinner, Joachim and I sat Friedrich down and pressed him for details.
The short of it was this: sometime recently, the hour at which he returned to his adult form had begun to move earlier.
“My insomnia’s been waking me up earlier than usual. That’s how I found out.”
But even with this remarkable news, Friedrich’s reaction was strangely flat.
Even Joachim noticed enough to say something.
“You don’t seem especially happy about it.”
“Did you actually prefer being a child?”
Joachim had meant it as a jest, but Friedrich gave a short, joyless laugh.
“Hardly. It’s just — it might only be God’s whimsy. That’s all.”
“What are you talking about? There are no exceptions in magic. If the hour you revert has started getting earlier, that’s a positive sign, regardless of when it started.”
It was a rare thing to watch Joachim comfort Friedrich, but Friedrich shook his head with the same cool composure as ever.
“Something similar happened once before. It corrected itself and went back to the way it was.”
“……”
“Please don’t concern yourselves. It’s nothing.”
And then he smiled — that quietly desolate smile that made it impossible to stop worrying about him.
Joachim shot me a distinctly uncomfortable look from the side. Step in, it said.
So that’s why he suddenly wanted to come to the library.
He’d been bracing himself in case history repeated — steadying his expectations, telling himself it didn’t matter. And underneath all of it, quietly hoping anyway.
I was still searching for the right thing to say when —
“Though it is strange, now that I think about it. Magic usually breaks all at once. It doesn’t weaken in stages — everyone says so.”
“Then I suppose this is also God’s whimsy.”
Friedrich answered placidly, and I thought to myself that he was working very hard to sound like he believed it.
I didn’t stop to think — I simply reached over and quietly took his hand.
He flinched and looked at me.
I made sure my smile was easy, uncomplicated. The last thing I wanted was for it to read as pity.
“If it’s God’s whimsy, then there’s nothing to be done about it. If it’s a sign the spell is breaking, then that’s good. Either way — you’ve been fine up until now, haven’t you?”
“……”
“You’ll be fine going forward, too.”
It felt hollow even as I said it — the kind of comfort that doesn’t quite reach. But I had to say something.
“…Would you two mind terribly not conducting your courtship right in front of me?”
And just like that, Joachim punctured it.
Holding hands is courtship now?
I turned on him with exasperation.
“Excuse me, Duke Rommel — am I not allowed to hold my own husband’s hand?”
“Then hold your consort’s hand as well, while you’re at it.”
“For the love of — “
Reluctantly, I let go of Friedrich’s hand. It was too warm for this, honestly.
But even after the connection broke, Friedrich’s gaze didn’t leave me.
If anything, his eyes clung to me more steadily now than they had when our hands were linked — a quieter weight, a slower pull.
For a moment I felt something press against my throat. Not suffocating. Just present.
I swallowed, and I was the first one to look away.
Friedrich kept watching regardless.
I knew because I could feel exactly where his gaze had settled — the faint, unmistakable warmth of it against my skin.
So, up until that point, we were doing rather well, the three of us.
“……”
That night. I woke from a deep sleep with the sensation that something was wrong. The room around me was dark and empty.
On the surface, it looked exactly like it always did.
But the killing intent pressing in on my breathing was so utterly alien to this place that not noticing it would have been impossible.
Right. It’s been quiet for a while.
A false rumor had been spreading recently — that I’d donated ten chests of gold — and my reputation, already burnished by the war hero image, had climbed higher still.
From the Empress’s perspective, that must feel like a threat closing in.
“El — “
Let’s handle this peacefully. I was opening my mouth to call for Elsa, intending to play ignorant, when something cold and sharp pressed against my throat.
My lips stilled on instinct. I turned my head.
A masked figure had appeared from nowhere, sword leveled at my neck.
And in the moment our eyes met, he swung.
Is this how I die?
The thought had barely formed when several sounds followed in rapid succession.
A door slamming open. Something cutting through the air.
And then —
“Gk—!”
The sound of a masked man collapsing with a death rattle — a sword driven clean through his chest.
I stared at the body, dead in an instant, my mind still lagging behind.
Then someone seized me and pulled me into their arms.
In the midst of the smell of blood, an incongruous softness wrapped around me — the clean, familiar scent of soap, utterly out of place.
It reached something in me. My heart, which had been slamming against my ribs, began, slowly, to find its way back.
“Your Highness.”
A voice — badly, visibly trembling — held me close.
The arms around me felt like they were trying to hold every breath I took, and something in that finally unlocked the air I’d been keeping locked in my chest.
I’d just been the one nearly killed, but Friedrich’s body was shaking far worse than mine.
“Your Highness…”
He called my name again, his voice breaking on it.
He sounded like a man with too many words and no idea which one to say first.
I made myself move — slowly, as if nothing had happened, as if this were entirely ordinary. I reached up and stroked the back of his head.
“It’s okay.”
My voice came out rough and low.
“I’m okay.”
No. I’m not.
My teeth came together hard. I had just very nearly died.
If Friedrich hadn’t opened that door in time. If he hadn’t thrown that sword the instant he did.
I stared at the masked figure — the sword still lodged in his chest — and slowly closed my eyes.
In the original version, that would have been me.
I swallowed once. Then urgent footsteps sounded down the hall.
“Your Highness.”
Elsa’s voice. The room flooded with light.
“Are you hurt?”
For once, genuine worry had broken through the usual composure of her face.
But I was Rene Stade. A woman strong enough not to show fear even in the face of death.
“Clear it away, Elsa.”
So I performed the calm that the real Rene would never have had to perform. Elsa hesitated — then nodded.
A moment later, several maids entered, paused briefly at the sight of the body, and then, with a kind of practiced efficiency that was quietly terrifying, loaded it onto a stretcher and carried it out.
They looked at a corpse with a sword in it and didn’t even blink. The constitution on these women…
“I think it would be best if you slept elsewhere tonight, Your Highness.”
“Elsa, I’m fine — “
“In my room.”
A trembling voice cut through mine.
That was unusual enough to make me look. Friedrich had raised his head, slowly, and his eyes found mine.
“Please come to my room.”
Eyes wide as a calf’s, and raw with something close to terror, they pleaded with me directly.
I looked at them and hesitated — then answered the way Rene Stade would.
“Over something this minor.”
“……”
At that, he tightened his arms around me.
I smiled, and tried to reassure him.
“Do you know who I am?”
“…I do.”
Friedrich found the words one syllable at a time.
“The brilliant…morning star of Stade…favored by God’s own grace…Lady Rene…”
He was forcing each piece out with effort, like something inside him was barely holding on.
Something he was trying desperately to contain finally broke through, and he exhaled in a long, suppressed breath.
“Please come to my room. I am asking — humbly.”
“……”
It unsettled me. I had never seen him this close to the edge before.
I’m Rene Stade, the strongest person in this world. I’ve survived assassination attempts more times than I can count.
“Do as the prince asks, Your Highness. We need time to clean the room as well.”
Elsa added her voice, quietly, to his. I gave in and nodded. I was just starting to push myself up from the floor when —
“Oh!”
Friedrich swept an arm around my waist and lifted me off the ground entirely. Startled, I looked up at him — and felt the bottom drop out of me.
He was looking at me like he might cry.
“Let me carry you.”
I was going to say I could walk perfectly well on my own two feet — but one look at his face told me that would be the thing to finally break him. So I nodded, wordlessly, instead.
Even that didn’t help. Friedrich still looked on the verge of tears as he looked at me, then pressed his lips together hard, and started walking.
The whole way to his room, his expression was so grave and tightly held that I couldn’t find an opening to say a word. One careless poke, and he’d fall apart.
When we reached his door, I tried to reach for the handle — but he shifted my entire weight to one arm without effort, opened it with his free hand, and carried me through.
Then he stood there in the middle of the room, scanning every corner with vigilant eyes.
I let out a tired laugh and tried to put him at ease.
“It’s fine. Nothing here.”
“I thought the same thing the last time I saw you safely to your room.”
His voice had dropped to something deep and dark. He looked at me.
There it was again — that face.
“And it wasn’t fine.”
One more word and he would actually cry. I reached up and cupped his face in both hands.
He startled and met my eyes.
“Look, Friedrich. I’m fine.”
“……”
“I’ve been fine this whole time. And going forward — “
I’ll be fine. I told the small lie in a whisper and thought to myself:
I need to end this soon. My status as princess. My life in this palace. This marriage.
