“His Majesty has never once looked at me. You know he has never come to find me first — not even once!”
This can’t be real.
Adrian Declair panicked and bolted out of the Empress’s palace in a single breath.
What did I just hear?
No matter how many times he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t make himself believe it.
“I must have heard wrong.”
The Emperor never once seeking out the Empress — was that even possible? Was that something that could happen?
Then how was he born at all?
“Your Imperial Highness, shall I send for the royal physician?”
“No. Leave it.”
“But your complexion looks so—”
“I said leave it. Get out, right now!”
Adrian burrowed beneath his covers, trembling all over even as he issued the order to drive the handmaiden from the room.
The handmaidens, whose duty it was to attend to the Crown Prince’s wellbeing, hesitated for a moment — but ultimately obeyed and withdrew.
Adrian felt tears pressing behind his eyes.
Is that why Mother has always acted the way she has?
Everyone knew he was the sole heir, and yet Karla alone had never let her guard down — warning him again and again to be careful. Scolding him whenever he gave the nobility any reason to pick at him.
That was all because of…
A problem with my bloodline?
Adrian squeezed his eyes shut, as if the thought itself were physically revolting.
He wanted to carve that conversation out of his memory entirely. He would have been better off never knowing, not for the rest of his life.
What does it mean that “it” disappeared?
Duke Kineart had said it clearly. That it had vanished, and needed to be found at once.
He had used the word “it,” as though referring to an object — but Adrian knew the “it” they meant was a person.
“How dare you bring such a lowborn thing into this world!”
That was exactly what Duke Kineart had said.
Adrian climbed out from under the covers and stood before the mirror.
Staring back at him was a boy with perfectly golden hair and blue eyes, his face drained of all color.
“…Is there another sibling? Someone other than me?”
The words came out in a trembling whisper through lips that had barely parted.
If that were true… then what?
“What would happen to me…?”
Would that child be a true blood heir of the Emperor, unlike himself?
Adrian’s body would not stop shaking.
Pernoa had said it to him plainly. He’d told him not to assume this position would be his forever.
Does the young duke know everything?
So that was why — they had taken his half-sibling, who had been living with the Kineart ducal house, and brought him away.
“Ha… ha.”
A dry, hollow laugh scraped out of Adrian’s throat.
“I’m not Father’s true son?”
He bit down on his lip hard enough for blood to pool against it. That couldn’t be. He had been born with golden hair and blue eyes. He bore the unmistakable appearance of imperial blood.
Surely. Surely that was the truth.
And yet…
Adrian clenched his fist. He remembered the very first lesson he had ever received in imperial history.
“All members of the imperial family receive the blessing of the gods.”
“A blessing?”
“Yes. Your Imperial Highness, you also bear a divine mark somewhere on your body, do you not? That is the proof of imperial lineage.”
The blessing of the gods.
Adrian had no such blessing. That divine mark said to manifest somewhere on the body of every member of the imperial family — it had never appeared on him. Night after night he had searched every inch of himself, wondering if perhaps tonight was finally the night it would emerge. But nothing ever had.
Was that because I was never imperial at all?
Did that mean everything he had ever known, everything he had ever had, could all be taken from him?
All those nobles who had smiled at him and flattered him and curried his favor — could they turn their backs on him someday? Could they look at him with cold eyes?
At me?
Could the life he had lived from birth — a life as a highborn imperial prince — come crashing down into the mud?
Adrian felt as though the entire world were collapsing beneath his feet.
⁂
Remarkably, the final victor of the treasure hunt turned out to be Riersha.
The reason for this was simple.
“Thank you, Riscal oppa!”
Riscal glanced away, visibly embarrassed, and scratched his cheek for no real reason.
He had worked up quite a sweat convincing Riersha to take his treasure from him — she had refused over and over, insisting she hadn’t earned it fairly.
“I’m giving it to you because I’m grateful, so take it.”
“Grateful to me?”
“Yeah. You’re the one who brought my brother back. And… I’m sorry for what I said before. I was too harsh.”
Riersha hadn’t expected a formal apology from Riscal. She stared at him with wide eyes.
Then she broke into a bright smile and finally accepted everything Riscal was holding out to her.
Thanks to Riscal’s generosity, Riersha now had three treasures in total — enough to claim the wish prize.
At the very end, Ricador had returned and made a last-ditch effort to reclaim the treasure, but Riersha’s ability had stopped him cold.
Even Riscal had been quietly stunned watching it happen.
When Ricador’s annihilation ability had come hurtling toward her like something hungry and ferocious, Riersha had thrown up an enormous barrier in an instant — deflecting the blast clean away, right before his eyes.
The result was a forest that was, roughly speaking, half destroyed.
…What a situation. The people sent to clean this up are going to have a rough time.
Haydin, who had been following Riersha around throughout the whole ordeal, thought sourly.
As luck would have it, the direction in which Ricador’s deflected ability had gone careening was exactly where Haydin had been standing — and if he’d been even a second slower to move, he would have been swallowed up in a blazing inferno.
Haydin was pressing a hand to his chest in relief at being alive when he heard a tongue click beside him.
“You’re disappointed right now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Very.”
Sona answered flatly.
Haydin, emotionally wounded, opened and closed his mouth trying to find a suitable response.
And then, as if a switch had been flipped, Sona’s expression changed entirely. She turned toward Riersha with a radiant smile.
“Wow, Lady Riersha! Congratulations! You won!”
“Mm! I winned!”
“Waaaaah!”
Riersha grabbed Sona’s hands and bounced up and down with joy.
What on earth am I looking at?
Having never witnessed Sona be warm to anyone in his entire life, Haydin broke into a cold sweat and quietly backed away.
He bumped into someone and turned around — Johannes was standing right there, staring in the same direction with a stiff expression.
“Does she enjoy it that much?”
“Yes!”
Pernoa watched Riersha radiating pure happiness and let out a quiet laugh. He could just barely be heard murmuring, “Children are children, after all.”
Riersha, who had been reveling in the victory together with Sona, suddenly turned to look at Ricador.
“And… dis one, for oppa.”
Riersha held out one of her treasures to Ricador.
Now that the winner had been decided, it was hers to give to whomever she pleased.
Ricador, who had been standing off to the side with a look of utter defeat, startled when something was suddenly thrust toward him.
“Why are you giving this to me? It’s yours.”
“Actuawwy, I made these eggs so everyone could have one.”
Made them so everyone could have one?
What on earth was inside these eggs?
“Ba ba.”
Riersha lifted an egg up high, signaling everyone to pay attention.
The family gathered their eyes on her as if on cue.
She cracked open the zigzag seam running down the center — and out popped a stuffed doll that looked remarkably like Pernoa.
“…Wait, that’s Father, isn’t it?”
“Mm, so dis one is Dada’s.”
Riersha handed the doll to Pernoa.
“This is supposed to be me?”
“Yes!”
Pernoa turned the doll over in his hands, examining it from every angle. He let out a soft, bemused laugh.
“Does it look like me?”
“…Somewhat, I’ll admit.”
Thinking of Riersha and all the time she must have put into making this, he found it genuinely endearing — and so he conceded without any resistance.
Risideon, Ricador, and Riscal, all having seen the doll, hurried to crack open their own eggs.
Strangely, the dolls that tumbled out of Risideon’s and Riscal’s eggs turned out to be each of them respectively. But then…
“Oh! Dat’s me!”
Riersha lit up and pointed at the doll in Ricador’s hands.
“…Yeah. You.”
“Oppa keep! I’m keeping the one I have.”
Which meant the doll Riersha was holding was, of course, Ricador.
“Riersha — are we your treasure?”
Risideon, who had been quietly looking down at his doll, asked softly.
At that moment, the rustling, scattered noise of the ruined forest went completely still.
