The Crown Prince of the Empire was always expected to conduct himself with dignity and carry himself like an adult.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll be more careful.”
“You know I only say these things because I’m thinking of you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Truthfully, Adrian found it difficult to accept the Empress’s words.
The Crown Prince who would inherit the throne more smoothly than any other in the history of the Declair Empire.
That was Adrian Declair.
Everyone around him sang his praises, treating it as an obvious certainty that he would one day become Emperor.
Adrian himself had never once doubted it.
And yet Karla scolded him every time, insisting that he had no room to grow complacent.
“Is that the kind of careless thinking befitting someone who will one day rule this empire?”
After being firmly reprimanded, Adrian learned never to let his true thoughts show again.
When his son gave the answer she wanted to hear, Karla smiled with satisfaction.
Then, as if handling something precious, she smoothed her hand over Adrian’s shoulders.
“The throne will become yours, as it should. But do not grow idle.”
“Yes.”
The Empress smiled warmly at him.
Adrian, with his golden hair and blue eyes, was unmistakably a child of the imperial bloodline.
“Shall we go in, then, Crown Prince?”
“Yes, Mother.”
The Empress glanced toward Risideon.
“Let us depart.”
⁂
“…Everyone is looking at us.”
With every step she took, Riersha felt eyes sticking to her like burrs.
Nothing in her life had ever drawn this much attention before.
“This will be the norm from now on, so you’d do well to get used to it.”
“From now on?”
Riersha repeated the question as if she couldn’t quite grasp it.
She had never personally experienced just how much influence the Arachrene ducal house commanded in the world at large.
“In their eyes, Arachrene is something extraordinary.”
And coveting extraordinary things, being drawn to them — that was simply human nature.
“So show no weakness, Riersha.”
“…Why can’t I show weakness?”
“Because they are all waiting for the moment you let your guard down.”
Greedy nobles were always watching for their opening.
They spent their days scheming over how to get their hands on whatever was rare and powerful.
They would approach wearing masks of warmth, eyes gleaming, searching for any soft place to sink their teeth into.
And the moment an opportunity presented itself, they would swallow it whole without a second thought.
That was the world of high society.
“That’s frightening.”
Riersha meant it with every fiber of her being.
The Arachrene family was extraordinary.
And it was precisely because of that extraordinariness that they had walked the road to ruin.
…I need to stay sharp.
Cold sweat gathered in Riersha’s palms from the tension alone.
This gathering was not simply a celebration of the Crown Prince’s birthday.
Its true nature was nothing more than a marketplace where the interests of nobles were bought and traded.
Riersha was deep in her troubled thoughts when something suddenly tugged her left cheek outward with a gentle stretch.
“Ow.”
“I don’t know what you’re worrying about, but stop wasting your energy on it.”
A waste of energy — honestly!
He didn’t know anything about what was going to happen.
Riersha felt utterly stifled by the fact that she couldn’t tell him the truth.
“The Arachrene house is not so easily shaken.”
“…”
“There is nothing for you to worry about.”
And yet the color refused to return to Riersha’s face.
Pernoa had surely meant it to comfort her, but those words pressed down on her chest all the heavier for it.
Because that remarkable house had, in the end, fallen to ruin.
No. Things are different now.
Riersha quickly shook her head, chasing the shadow from her thoughts.
This was not the same as before, when Pernoa had been absent.
She would not be helplessly undone by the imperial forces the way it had happened then.
“I wonder when our dear Crown Prince will make his appearance.”
Duke Marcella, who had been watching the exchange between father and daughter with quiet amusement, raised his champagne flute and let his anticipation show.
“When he finds out he’s been upstaged, he’ll be furious beyond measure.”
The young lord of Arachrene, making his official public appearance after a long absence.
And the new heir he had brought with him.
There won’t be a dull moment.
The corners of Duke Marcella’s lips curved upward.
Hearing herself called the main attraction, Riersha felt her face heat with embarrassment.
She had always thought of the spotlight as something that had nothing to do with her.
“Papa, what kind of person is the Crown Prince?”
“A middling sort of fortunate boy who doesn’t know his own place.”
“…Pardon?”
Riersha blinked in confusion.
It wasn’t the description she had imagined when she pictured the Crown Prince.
“Yes, fortunate is exactly the right word.”
Duke Marcella agreed.
A Crown Prince who was unremarkable in swordsmanship, mediocre in magic, and average in his studies.
A lucky child, born into a world that happened to have no rivals to challenge him.
That was the quiet, whispered assessment of Adrian Declair.
If there had been other princes, he would never have been seated on that throne.
“That’s precisely why the Empress keeps her eyes burning at all times, shielding him.”
Pernoa gave a short, dry smile.
The Empress had clearly recognized that her own son was not made of the stuff of emperors.
Because of it, she worked tirelessly to draw capable talents to her side and to suppress any house that posed a threat to the imperial family.
And the house she kept her sharpest eye on above all others — was none other than Arachrene.
“Here they come.”
Duke Marcella gestured toward the entrance of the banquet hall with a tilt of his chin.
At the same moment, a resounding voice rang out across the room.
“Her Imperial Majesty Empress Karla Declair and His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Adrian Declair have arrived!”
⁂
Riersha gazed at the boy with golden hair and blue eyes.
So that’s the Crown Prince.
Just behind him walked Risideon.
Since Risideon was in attendance as the Crown Prince’s escort, it seemed he had not been separately announced.
And beside the Crown Prince stood —
That must be the Empress.
Karla Declair, breathtakingly beautiful, moved through the room with effortless grace.
As she made her way toward the dais, she seemed to glance in their direction for just a moment — and then passed them by entirely.
She did that on purpose.
Riersha understood the Empress’s intention immediately.
It was a statement: the Arachrene family’s attendance at this party was nothing of consequence.
Because reading the room had been a constant of her daily life, the realization came to her without any difficulty at all.
The Crown Prince, meanwhile, looked visibly flustered when the Empress walked past without pausing.
“I wish to express my gratitude to all the nobles gathered here today to celebrate the eighth birthday of the Crown Prince.”
The Empress spoke from the dais, her voice composed and measured.
She cast a single sweeping, graceful look across the hall before continuing.
“I hope that everyone will enjoy the evening at their leisure. Please, carry on.”
The moment her address ended, the music that had briefly stilled resumed once more.
The nobles began jostling with one another as they tried to approach the Crown Prince first.
And yet —
Nearly as many were turning their gazes in this direction as were crowding around the Crown Prince.
“It’s begun.”
Pernoa murmured it as though he had expected nothing less.
Though the Arachrene house had been barred from the central political sphere, it still wielded considerable influence throughout the empire.
That was why, at this gathering, a number of nobles had decided to use the opportunity to seek a connection to the Arachrene name.
“What a delightful little lady. When did you come to have such a charming daughter, young lord of Arachrene?”
“Please, do give her some space, Count Yosen. You’re startling the child.”
Riersha, flustered, ducked behind Pernoa.
One of the nearby nobles immediately rebuked Count Yosen, who cleared his throat with a sheepish air and took a step back.
“And what might your name be, little miss?”
“I’m Riersha Arachrene. Four years old.”
Peeking out from behind Pernoa with just the tip of her head showing, Riersha held up her fingers.
Pernoa glanced down at her and smiled softly.
“My daughter is at the age where she’s quite shy around strangers. Forgive her.”
“…Ha, well, all children are at that age, aren’t they?”
“Indeed. I’m glad you understand.”
There was something faintly peculiar about the way he had phrased “shy around strangers,” but the nobles chalked it up to their imagination and let it pass.
As the odd undercurrent broke the flow of conversation, another noble seized his chance and stepped in.
“My, what a clever little girl. She knows her own age so precisely.”
“Quite right. Four years old would mean…”
The timing aligned perfectly with when the young lord of Arachrene had departed for the border.
The nobles’ eyes lit up with sharp, silent calculation.
“I won’t deny it. My daughter is quite bright.”
Pernoa smiled pleasantly as he spoke.
At that, the nobles began offering Riersha compliments from all sides.
More precisely — they were words dressed in compliments, each one a carefully veiled attempt to extract information.
“You must have found it terribly difficult to be away from home, with such an adorable daughter waiting for you.”
“That I did. It was genuinely hard to leave. But the Duke looked after my daughter in my absence, so I could go with a measure of peace in my heart.”
The moment the Duke of Arachrene was mentioned, the nobles began exchanging glances with one another.
So the rumor that the Duke and the young lord were estranged — had that all been untrue?
