Nobody cared about what Isierd felt. Nobody wondered what he was thinking.
His head was spinning from the sheer number of questions he’d heard for the first time today. He hesitated, then slowly lowered his hand.
His gaze still drifted toward the plate, but he no longer lunged at it the way he had before.
“I’m your friend, you know.”
“…Friend.”
“Mm-hm. I can be on your side.”
Your side. At those words, something complicated stirred in Isierd’s pale blue eyes for the very first time.
Those eyes — wide with astonishment — held Riersha in their gaze.
He searched her face, fiercely trying to catch any trace of a lie, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find one.
“How old are you?”
When Riersha asked, Isierd hesitated before answering.
“Listen carefully,” she said. “From now on, you’re seven years old.”
“…”
“That makes you one year younger than Adrian.”
“I’m eight.”
“Eek — then you’re way older than me?”
Riersha startled at hearing his age.
He didn’t look eight years old at all.
Part of it was that Riscal tended to develop quickly, but Isierd was also simply small for his age — slight in a way that made the number hard to believe.
Can I even be friends with Isierd?
And if I am, what does that mean for Riscal?
Riscal would have to call Isierd his older brother.
All sorts of tangled thoughts began tumbling through her head. She was still trying to work out what to do when Johannes, who had been waiting outside, knocked and stepped into the room.
“…Miss Riersha. Now that the meal is finished, may I take the child with me?”
“Oh — right.”
Riersha nodded in agreement. Then she suddenly blurted, “Wait just a moment!” and held up her hand.
“Here.”
She rummaged through her cloth bundle and pulled out a necklace, which she looped around Isierd’s neck.
It was a wonderfully flashy piece — a colorful little rabbit face dangling from a chain.
Isierd looked down at it, and something unreadable shifted across his expression.
“If anyone gives you trouble, come find me. You remember how to get here, right?”
“…”
Isierd only stared down at the necklace and said nothing.
Riersha broke into an internal cold sweat.
Making friends is really, really hard.
Johannes looked at the boy for a moment, then bowed his head politely.
“Thank you. …Let’s go.”
Isierd had been following Johannes quietly when he suddenly stopped walking. He turned and stared at Riersha — a long, unblinking look.
Taken aback by the boy who had halted out of nowhere and fixed his gaze on her, Riersha gave him an awkward little wave.
“See you again sometime, Isierd.”
At those words, something in Isierd finally released. His feet moved, and he disappeared through the door alongside Johannes.
⁂
The young duke’s study.
Pernoa regarded the boy in front of him with cold, measuring eyes.
The unkempt golden hair and those vivid pale blue eyes announced his royal blood with absolute certainty.
He exhaled a short, disbelieving laugh.
The boy was a walking declaration of imperial lineage — and yet the Empress had apparently kept his very existence hidden all this time. How she had managed it, Pernoa genuinely could not fathom.
“I hear Riersha discovered this child. That she even announced she wanted to be friends with him?”
“…I have no excuse, my lord.”
Aska and Johannes bowed their heads, their faces stricken. The mistake in this mission was unambiguously theirs.
“Everyone out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aska and Johannes filed out of the study.
The moment they were alone, Isierd tensed and took a step back. And yet the way he kept his eyes fixed on Pernoa — alert, unblinking — was exactly that of a young predator.
“I like the look in those eyes.”
“…Who are you? Why did you bring me here? What do you have to do with Duke Kineart?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
Pernoa’s expression curdled with mild irritation.
He looked Isierd over from head to toe, then clicked his tongue.
So it was true that this boy had been cut off from the world entirely.
Despite carrying the bloodline of the imperial family — however one chose to regard its worth — there was not a trace of refinement to be found anywhere in him.
When Pernoa tried to picture how long it would take to make something resembling a civilized human being out of this raw, feral creature, the end felt impossibly far away.
And there was no guarantee the boy would cooperate willingly, which gave Pernoa pause. He tapped his desk slowly.
To take on the Empress, this piece is absolutely necessary.
It might sound cruel to put it that way, but it was simply the truth.
“Let me answer your questions first.”
Pernoa leaned back slightly in his chair and began addressing Isierd’s questions one by one.
“I am Pernoa Arachrene. This is a ducal house in the western reaches of the Declair Empire.”
“…Arachrene?”
Isierd murmured the name as if tasting something familiar.
He had heard Duke Kineart curse it endlessly. And during the time he had spent at the imperial palace, the name Arachrene had drifted to his ears almost every single day — there was no way he didn’t know it.
“So you’ve heard of it.”
That, at least, was a relief.
It meant he wouldn’t have to waste time explaining what Arachrene was.
The more Pernoa looked at the boy, the more an incredulous laugh kept threatening to escape him.
So this is why the Empress was afraid — why she went out of her way to suppress a prince who existed in name only.
The Empress feared this child.
That was the only explanation. Nothing else would account for raising him like an animal, with no education whatsoever.
Then again, even if Isierd had received the finest imperial schooling, he had no maternal family to stand behind him. Simply declaring him a prince would not have been enough to keep him alive.
Still — something about this doesn’t quite add up.
Even if Isierd were announced as an imperial prince, overtaking Adrian’s position would be an enormous task. Adrian’s backing was formidable. And even with House Arachrene lending its full support, there was no guarantee that the nobility — who prized bloodline above all else — would rally behind Isierd.
Even so, Pernoa needed this boy. A prince with imperfect blood was still a prince, and that title was what mattered.
“Bloodline.”
He muttered the word quietly, then looked back at Isierd.
“Yes. I brought you here because I need your bloodline.”
“…”
“Isierd Declair.”
The moment his full name was spoken aloud, Isierd flinched and drew further inward, his guard rising sharply.
Pernoa paid it no mind.
“My relationship with Duke Kineart is not exactly warm. It’s only going to get less so from here.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Isierd frowned at words he couldn’t make sense of. But the instant he heard that Pernoa’s ties with Duke Kineart were poor, something flickered in the depths of his pale eyes.
“You said you were seven, didn’t you.”
Pernoa called up the information from the documents. A seven-year-old child who had learned nothing was, at his core, very simple. If you told him you were enemies with someone he despised, that alone was enough to make him relax.
“Accept my proposal, and I will ensure that no one can lay a hand on you — not until the day you grow up and take the throne as crown prince.”
“…”
“In exchange, you must become crown prince within one year. Will you try?”
Isierd drew a slow, deep breath.
There was no time to weigh his options.
He knew it instinctively — with a certainty lodged somewhere beneath thought — that grabbing this lifeline was the only way to survive.
“Fine.”
Isierd gave a single nod.
Then he quietly corrected a small error Pernoa had made a moment ago.
“Oh, and — I’m not seven. I’m eight.”
“…Pardon?”
Pernoa asked quietly, not sure he’d heard right.
Eight years old?
That was one year older than what the documents said.
Isierd might simply be mistaken — but when it came to one’s own age, the word from his own mouth carried considerably more weight than a written record.
And Pernoa judged that what he had just heard was the truth. Because if it was—
“What is your birthday?”
If Isierd was telling the truth, then the current crown prince, Adrian Declair, and this boy were the exact same age.
