The Crown Prince’s Fiancée, Chapter 27
“I-I’m sorry.”
Just as Arti was about to pull back and get away from him—
“Aaah!”
She seemed to have twisted her ankle as she fell.
‘It hurts…’
It hurt so much that tears came to her eyes.
As she sniffled and grimaced, Adrian, who had been watching, clicked his tongue. It was utterly pathetic.
It wasn’t even a tall staircase, and she couldn’t manage to get down it?
And if it hurt, she could at least have sat still, yet there she was, groaning as she tried to get up.
“You really do try hard.”
It was painful to watch. Adrian simply scooped Arti up into his arms.
“W-Wait a moment!”
“Be quiet.”
‘This is so embarrassing!’
While Arti was too mortified to say anything, Adrian carried her down the stairs with brisk strides.
Ever since the kiss incident the other day, he had felt as though he was being needlessly conscious of Arti, so he had deliberately kept his distance from her throughout tonight’s party.
Now, though, that seemed to have been completely pointless.
“I’m fine.”
Arti spouted nonsense. Adrian frowned and looked down at her.
Her face looked anything but fine.
Just then, the garden fountain came into Adrian’s view. He set Arti down on the edge of the fountain.
“Thank you.”
Having received her thanks, Adrian asked,
“Can you not walk?”
“I think I’ve twisted my ankle.”
To check, Arti lifted the hem of her skirt slightly. Her foot was already swollen. On top of that, the heel of her shoe had snapped off.
‘So that’s what made her fall.’
Adrian clicked his tongue at the dangling heel.
“You won’t be able to wear these again.”
Those were expensive shoes, too.
Arti bowed her head slightly, close to tears. Her hair slipped down because of it, and when she had no choice but to sweep it back, Adrian happened to glance at her, and froze.
The cool air. The scattering droplets of water.
The moment he saw Artienne sitting on the fountain, brushing her hair back, Adrian forgot to breathe.
Her pale silver hair, shattering in the moonlight; her slightly lowered eyes and calm gaze.
Her white skin, speckled with clear droplets, was almost blinding.
The legs revealed beneath the slightly raised hem of her skirt, and her slender ankles.
It was like a mirage, an illusion so dazzling it was almost excessive.
Adrian felt that he shouldn’t even exhale.
For fear that this illusion might shatter.
“Your Highness?”
At the sound of Arti’s voice, Adrian’s mind slowly returned to him.
Even after he had regained his senses, the woman before him still didn’t feel real.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
Meanwhile, Arti thought that Adrian was acting a little strange. Strangely quiet, one might say.
It was odd that he said nothing when he would normally have had a remark or two to make.
“Your Highness?”
After hesitating for a moment, Arti summoned her courage and looked up at Crown Prince Adrian.
The Crown Prince was staring straight at her without a word.
With an absolutely murderous expression.
Startled, she looked down again, but the Crown Prince, who at any other time would already have said something sarcastic, was terribly quiet.
‘This is strange.’
Arti instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
She waited without a sound, wondering whether it would pass with time, but as time went on, the atmosphere only grew more serious.
“Um, Your Highness?”
She kept calling out to him carefully, but Adrian didn’t seem to have any intention of answering.
The droplets splashing from the fountain began to quickly soak her back.
‘It’s cold.’
The cold was one thing, but more than that, she wanted to get out of this situation as soon as possible.
Her mind began to race in a panic.
Was there something he disliked today? Did I do something wrong? No, I worked so hard. So what on earth does he dislike?
In the end, having endured it as long as she could, Arti spoke first.
“Your Highness. I think I should head back now!”
Adrian flinched at Arti’s cry. Frowning, he suddenly covered his mouth with his hand and muttered something.
“Have I been possessed by a ghost?”
He had very nearly kissed her without realizing it. The sweetness of the last kiss had yet to fade from him.
Arti hadn’t heard, but Adrian was too flustered to take even that into account.
Only now did he notice Arti’s condition. Her aching foot and her soaked back.
“Let’s go back.”
Adrian lifted Arti into his arms once more.
“Eek!”
Unused to being lifted off the ground, Arti cried out, then instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth.
She glanced quickly at Adrian’s face, but, fortunately (?), the Crown Prince seemed unbothered.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He said so, but the terrifyingly stiff expression on his face did not soften.
It was purely for a different reason, but Arti, who knew nothing of the circumstances, felt her blood run cold.
‘I think I’m going to die.’
Chapter 6. I Feel Like I’ve Caught a Fatal Illness
The party was over.
But Adrian couldn’t break free of its lingering aftertaste.
Adrian sat with his chin propped on his hand, wearing a grave expression.
Seated at his desk, he didn’t so much as glance at the documents piled beside him, lost entirely in deep, solemn thought.
He had already been like that for four hours.
Terni placed the last document he had finished checking onto the stack of papers and glanced sidelong at Adrian.
“Diano, what’s wrong with His Highness? Do you know?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Why’s he like that? Is he about to crush someone again?”
Diano shook his head with a grave expression.
Terni and Diano agreed that someone, whoever it was, had really done it this time, and offered a prayer in advance for the soul of whoever had landed in Adrian’s sights.
Stroking his chin, Terni began to deduce in his own way.
“Is it because of the last party?”
“The last party? Didn’t it end well? Neither Her Majesty the Empress nor anyone else said a word. Nobody noticed that she wasn’t Essen.”
“As far as I know, the nobles didn’t notice that the fiancée had been swapped, either.”
“Of course not. Look at who prepared it.”
Terni nodded, overly proud of himself.
“By the way, Terni, how’s the search for Essen going?”
“Ah, that. I’m looking, but it’s all dead ends. It turned out to be a trick.”
“Wow, what a meticulous bastard… Does he plan on running for the rest of his life?”
“He’ll come back someday~!”
Though Adrian heard every word of their whispering, he left them be.
In the end, Terni and Diano spent a full hour idling about, studying who Adrian might be about to crush (?), and then left.
While his two closest aides were away attending to other tasks, no one was brave enough to disturb Adrian, who looked furious to anyone’s eyes.
Finally, long after, Adrian rose from his seat.
“…It’s strange.”
Adrian’s gaze dropped downward.
The brooding Crown Prince Adrian was as sacred and majestic as an ancient god in a masterpiece painting.
He closed his eyes once, then opened them and frowned.
Everyone else assumed that someone was about to suffer terribly again, but Adrian’s real circumstances were different.
For several days now, Adrian had been tormented by an afterimage that refused to fade.
“What on earth is this?”
It was strange. Truly strange.
Faced with a phenomenon he had never experienced, Adrian’s patience was running thin. And that was the little patience he had to begin with.
Even when he tried to think about something else, it was as though something in his brain were getting in the way, and it wouldn’t go away.
He was stuck in place.
Then if he simply let it surface as it wished, would it vanish?
That wasn’t the case either.
It surfaced when he did nothing, it surfaced when he stared diligently at documents to work, it surfaced when he gripped a sword and tried to focus on sparring, and it even followed him into his dreams whenever he slept, bringing him to the very brink of madness.
“I’m going insane.”
Clutching his head in agony did nothing; the afterimage left in his mind would not be erased.
“What is this phenomenon?”
No matter what he did, he couldn’t forget that moment, engraved from his retinas to the depths of his mind.
Am I truly going mad?
Adrian drew a deep breath.
All of this had begun that day.
The Empress’s birthday party!
He could understand his nerves being on edge, since a string of incidents had erupted one after another and he had been bracing himself, unable to loosen the strings of his tension amid so much uncertainty, but the party itself hadn’t been bad.
Nothing serious had happened, and although he had seen Gabriel… it had been fine.
As expected, the fiancée was the best shield he had.
To the point that he could not give her up.
Yes, up to there it had been uneventful. Nothing had happened.
“Then it must have been from that moment.”
Adrian’s eyes grew hazy.
The moment he closed his eyes, that scene came back to life in vivid memory. He felt as though he were still standing right there.
The cool air. The scattering droplets of water.
And Artienne.
A moment like an illusion that would vanish if he exhaled. No, since it had been real, perhaps it wasn’t an illusion after all.
Adrian lost himself once more in a scene that now existed only inside his head.
A scene that wouldn’t let go, and had ruled his mind all these past days.
“What’s wrong with me?”
He felt as though he’d been caught in some unpleasant prank.
