The Imperial Palace of Declair.
Karla walked the corridor alone. In the silence, only the soft whisper of her dress hem trailing across the floor reached her ears at intervals.
“Your Majesty the Empress, if you wish to take a stroll, I can fetch what you need right away.”
“That won’t be necessary. I must see the Crown Prince immediately.”
Karla had been devoting herself entirely to stabilizing Adrian’s heart and mind of late. Crown Prince or not, he was still a child of only eight years.
No child that age could hear such a conversation and come away unscathed inside.
Karla acknowledged that truth, and so in recent days she had been doing her best to accommodate him — to keep him from straying too far down a path she could not pull him back from.
She arrived at the Crown Prince’s palace and stepped inside.
A handmaiden approached with a respectful bow.
“Welcome, Your Majesty. His Highness the Crown Prince is currently resting — taking his afternoon nap.”
“His nap?”
Karla’s brow furrowed with mild displeasure, but she gave a small nod of acceptance. There was nothing to be gained from pressing a child.
“Then I shall simply look in on him and leave.”
She entered Adrian’s room with careful steps. He lay on a sofa before the window, still and quiet. Karla stood for a moment, studying him in silence.
Between the fine strands of golden hair, his eyes were closed. Beneath the clean, even lines of his features, his chest rose and fell in slow rhythm.
The urgent matter should be resolved soon enough. For now, I need only focus on Adrian.
She thought of the day she had gone to Duke Kineart and begged for his help, and let out a quiet, barely audible sigh.
It was far from an ideal situation — but at least the Duke had agreed to her request. That much was a relief.
She reached out and gently stroked Adrian’s cheek. She was straightening up to leave when he opened his eyes.
“Mother.”
“…Adrian? Were you already awake?”
Eyes of pale blue — utterly free of sleep — fixed upon her.
“I’ve been having the same dream again. Over and over lately.”
“…What dream?”
Karla asked, catching herself mid-step.
Adrian gazed toward the window with an expression of remarkable calm.
“A nightmare where my hair turns white.”
“…!”
“I’m not frightened by it anymore, though. When I wake, nothing in the real world has changed.”
The dream itself was unbearable while he was inside it — but now he could surface from it with something close to composure.
Even when figures in the dream pointed at him and hurled filth, he could endure it.
Because he had come to know that every dream, eventually, ends.
The color drained from Karla’s face as she listened. Her expression had gone rigid and pale.
Adrian turned to look at her slowly and spoke.
“I heard your conversation with Duke Kineart that day. That I am not His Majesty’s true blood.”
“…”
“Then who is my father?”
For the first time, Adrian brought up what had been heard that day. The subject that had been silently, mutually avoided had finally been named aloud — and Karla’s mouth went bone dry.
“…Is my father still alive?”
“…”
“Is my father—”
As Karla’s silence stretched on, Adrian asked again — and for the first time, genuine fear surfaced in his voice.
“Is he still alive somewhere?”
“…No.”
“Truly? He is completely gone from this world? The only people who know I am not of the Emperor’s blood are Duke Kineart and you — is that right?”
Adrian’s words came tumbling out without pause for breath, and Karla slowly closed her eyes.
“Yes. Your father is already dead.”
At that, Adrian’s face brightened like light breaking through cloud. He would never have to be found out — never have to live as a half-legitimate Crown Prince. If that was truly the case…
“Then that child who disappeared just needs to disappear from the world as well. You’ll make sure of it, won’t you, Mother?”
“…Of course. I will ensure that child never so much as sets foot within this palace. Do not worry.”
Yet even as those words left her lips, Karla could not fully convince herself of them. If that child ever sought to return to the Imperial family…
The Emperor’s will would carry more weight than anything else.
But Karla did not have the courage to go before the Emperor and ask directly.
Instead, her mind drifted back to the day she had gone to Duke Kineart — the day she had argued and pleaded with him.
“Father, please. Help me.”
“You made this mess yourself, and now you expect someone else to clean it up?”
“The appearance magic cast on Adrian — I don’t know when it might break! If these rumors keep spreading and Adrian somehow hears—!”
“…What did you just say?”
“The more people learn the truth about Adrian, the closer the magic comes to unraveling — that’s what that man told me…!”
A nightmare.
Adrian had called it a nightmare — but was it truly nothing more than that?
Karla could not suppress the unease rising within her, and she worried her lower lip in silence.
I have to find that man, somehow. I have to ask him.
She had to know — whether the spell was already beginning to crack.
⁂
The weather had grown sharply colder.
The thin clothes of summer had all been folded away, and the season for thick, warm layers had arrived. And then—
“Oh my!”
In the middle of changing into her nightgown, Riersha blinked in puzzlement at the exclamation that came from in front of her.
“Wait again?”
Her arms, raised toward the ceiling, stilled. She tilted her head to one side.
“Good heavens.”
Sona was wearing an expression of profound emotion.
The reason became clear almost immediately.
“Miss Riersha — you’ve grown taller!”
“Taller?”
“Yes! Look at this!”
Sona pointed to Riersha’s wrist. The sleeve that had once draped all the way over the back of her hand was now clearly — unmistakably — shorter.
“Oh— oh!”
Riersha’s crimson eyes went wide, growing wider still.
She had grown taller.
That single fact filled her small chest with something enormous and swelling.
Her round eyes shimmered with delight.
“I gwew! I gwew bigger!”
“Yes, you did!”
“I gwew bigger!”
“Yes, that’s right! Miss Riersha has grown! We’ll need to buy new clothes!”
Sona rejoiced as though she herself were the one who had grown. Riersha cheered and spun toward the mirror.
The saying that young children grow quickly — it was perfectly true. She had shot up by nearly a hand’s span already.
She stood before the mirror on her tiptoes, trying to measure just how much taller she had become, and broke into a wide, radiant smile.
Before long, news of Riersha’s growth spread throughout Arachrene Duchy’s estate.
And that news, in due time, reached Pernoa as well.
⁂
The Young Duke’s Residence.
Pernoa was sorting through a collection of party invitations that had arrived in his name, opening them one by one, when he paused. His crimson eyes shifted to Rosinante. He confirmed what he had just been told one more time.
“Riersha grew taller?”
“Yes. Sona announced it with great pride, apparently — said they’d be getting new clothes made.”
“…Then why do you know my daughter’s news faster than I do?”
Pernoa pointed this out with an expression of distinct displeasure.
Rosinante gave a mild shrug.
“I’ve only just found out myself, sir. You may not have noticed, but the Young Duke’s residence is one of the last places on the estate where news from the main house arrives.”
“…Why?”
Which meant Pernoa had, in fact, been the last to hear.
“Because you cut them all, sir. You said you had no use for people who let the main house gossip distract them — so naturally, this residence is the slowest when it comes to news from the main estate.”
Rosinante replied as though stating the obvious.
More precisely, it was that no one here exchanged whispers along the lines of did you hear about this? — because if it somehow reached Pernoa’s ears and he took note of the one who had started it, the consequences would be unpleasant.
Pernoa smiled — a slow, languid curve of the lips.
“Then I’ll have to take her out to buy new clothes. Have things ready.”
“Ah — that won’t be necessary, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Apparently she has already gone out — hand in hand with the Duke, to shop for clothes.”
“What?”
Pernoa’s sharp crimson eyes flickered, fixing on Rosinante. His mouth curved into a beautiful arc. But the aura of magic drifting around him made it unmistakably clear that his mood was anything but pleasant.
“She went out with whom to do what?”
“…With the Duke, sir. She went out with him—”
“Again.”
“With the Duke…”
Rosinante could not bring himself to finish the sentence, and he swallowed dryly.
Something in him understood instinctively — this was not the answer Pernoa was looking for.
“I will find out immediately where the two of them have gone, sir.”
