A moment later, a knock sounded at the study door.
Knock, knock.
“Lady Riersha has arrived, Your Grace.”
“Send her in.”
With Arcmund’s permission granted, the study door swung open.
He turned his gaze forward, expecting to see his granddaughter.
But there was no child anywhere in sight.
…What?
“Where exactly is the child supposed to be—”
“Hewwo!”
A surprisingly loud voice rang out and filled the study.
The Duke’s crimson eyes slowly traveled downward toward the source of the sound.
…Nothing.
He lowered his gaze further, and there she was — Riersha, standing rod-straight.
Absurdly small.
What kind of tiny creature was this, exactly?
Her hair was gathered into two round buns on either side of her head, giving her an almost comically adorable look.
The child had clearly dressed up for the occasion, but her face was tight with nerves.
Arcmund found he could not look away.
Heirs who carried Arachrene blood grew at a pace unlike ordinary children. Even at four years old, they typically looked closer to seven — their development accelerating well beyond the norm.
It was precisely because of this that Arcmund was, if he were being honest with himself, taken aback. He had to tilt his head down considerably just to find her.
“I am Riersha Arachrene!”
Delicately pinching the hem of her dress, the child bent her knees in a curtsy and bowed her pink head — but then she wobbled, teetering sideways as if she might tip over entirely.
It was, to put it plainly, an etiquette disaster. There was no telling where one would even begin to correct it.
Silence settled over the study.
“Hic — I pwacticed so hawd with Tona…”
“…”
She clearly knew she had botched the greeting. Riersha’s face crumpled into something dangerously close to tears.
Everyone in the study watched as her lower lip began to tremble and push forward.
Does every single emotion she has just spill out onto her face like that?
Seymour, one of the other aides who had been in the middle of presenting a report to Arcmund, very nearly dropped the documents in his hands.
For reference, Seymour was the one who had tended to Riersha’s wounds while she lay unconscious.
Oberon doesn’t look surprised at all… he must have already adjusted to her on the way here.
Sharp-eyed Seymour had already pieced the situation together. The only two people caught off guard in this room were himself and Arcmund.
Unlike the children who had grown up within the main estate — calculating, guarded, unreadable — this child wore every feeling plainly on her face. Arcmund was at a loss for words.
“…G-Gwandpa.”
That lisping little voice, so completely out of place in the severity of the study, broke the quiet.
Arcmund blinked slowly.
Grandfather…?
The child was gazing up at him with an earnestness so naked and desperate it resembled a puppy about to burst — and Arcmund’s eyebrow climbed toward the heavens.
“Can I pwease say hewwo again? Just once more?”
She extended one tiny index finger, pleading for a single chance. There was something almost heartbreaking about it.
In seventy years of living, it was a form of address Arcmund had never once properly heard from any of his grandchildren — and in this moment, he felt something he had no name for stir quietly inside him.
⁂
Riersha was devastated.
She had completely ruined the etiquette that Sona had spent days patiently drilling into her.
And on top of that, she had stumbled over her own words.
He’s probably going to think I’m a hopeless granddaughter who can’t even manage a simple greeting.
Riersha’s anxiety tightened in her chest. She stood there fidgeting, hands clasped above her belly button the way a guilty child might, staring at the floor.
Then it came.
“Very well. Try again.”
“R-Really?”
“Would a Duke speak out of both sides of his mouth?”
“No!”
Riersha’s voice rang out loud and clear through the study.
The gloom that had settled over her vanished the instant Arcmund gave his permission. Her red eyes began to shine.
She set her expression with quiet resolve, lips pressing together as she gathered her full concentration.
“I am Riersha Arachrene. Gwandpa!”
This time, not a single mistake. The greeting landed perfectly — legs positioned just so, the hem of her dress lifted at precisely the right angle.
She lifted her head with a proud, relieved little smile.
That was when Arcmund raised his hand and gestured.
“Step back a little.”
“Hm?”
“You’re so small I can barely see you properly up close.”
Riersha sucked in a sharp breath and scurried backward.
Apparently, when she stood too close, all he could see was the top of her head.
But Arcmund shook his head — that still wasn’t enough.
“Further.”
“T-This much?”
She shuffled back two more large steps.
Arcmund’s brow furrowed deeper.
“Too far!”
“…Th-then should I come forward just a tiny bit?”
“What have you been doing all this time instead of growing?!”
The sudden scolding came down like a gavel.
…That was genuinely unfair, as far as Riersha was concerned.
It’s not as though I chose not to grow.
When Riersha flinched and shrank back, her expression turning frightened, the rigid tension in Arcmund’s face softened — just a fraction. But his stern bearing remained.
“I’m told Rosinante found you in the forest after you awakened. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Riersha answered, swallowing hard against the dryness in her throat.
Even so, she couldn’t quite push down the quiet sting of disappointment that he had moved straight to business without so much as a word of greeting.
Maybe Grandfather isn’t glad I awakened at all.
She had dressed up carefully, wanting to look her best — but not even a small compliment had come her way.
I knew it. He must dislike me….
Riersha thought back to Sona’s careful instructions from before the visit.
“You must answer whatever the Duke asks you honestly. No matter how frightened you are, you must never lie.”
The problem was that even if she wanted to answer honestly, she had nothing to remember.
…He’ll know I’m not lying. Oberon’s ability will tell him that much.
Riersha glanced sideways at Oberon.
His eyes had not left her since they walked in.
Perceiving the true nature of a person — that was his power.
“Riersha. What is your ability?”
“I…”
She hesitated, then shook her head slowly.
“…I don’t really know.”
Crack — Arcmund’s fist came down hard against the desk.
Riersha startled violently, hunching her shoulders up to her ears.
Her tightly squeezed eyes trembled in a way that was almost painful to look at.
Arcmund’s anger unfurled into the room.
“How dare you.”
“…!”
“Who do you think you are, speaking falsehoods before me — Riersha Arachrene!”
She had been scolded by her grandfather plenty of times before. But she had never once seen him this angry.
I’m scared.
Her mind went completely blank.
Arachrene heirs, when they awakened, understood their own ability instinctively. That was simply how it worked. Arcmund’s fury was not without reason.
Because it was so completely ordinary and expected, it was natural that he would take her answer as deception.
“Tell me your ability. Now.”
“I — I really don’t…”
Riersha’s small body shook.
The thought that her grandfather might come to hate her — again — crashed over her like cold water, and fear seized her by the throat.
Tears welled in her red eyes, hot and aching with grief.
Why is it always only me…
Why couldn’t she awaken normally, the way every other direct heir did?
The Duke’s crimson gaze bore into her, sharp as a blade, and her body locked in place.
Sona’s carefully taught solution was completely useless now.
The force of Arcmund’s fury began to press into every corner of the study, expanding and filling the room like a storm that had nowhere else to go.
I’m so scared…!
Riersha’s breaths came in short, ragged gasps.
Her small, slight frame could not withstand the weight of his presence bearing down on her.
From all outward signs, it seemed he merely wanted to press her for an answer — but terror had shut down Riersha’s mind entirely.
She was more frightened now than she had been when she faced the demon beast in the forest.
His shout just moments ago had struck something buried inside her — an old wound, a place that had never properly healed.
What if I truly cannot use my ability?
If understanding one’s own power was the normal course of awakening, then Riersha was clearly something else — something that didn’t fit.
What if she lived her entire life never knowing?
Ruin. She might lose the family she loved again — that terror coiled around her lungs, and she could not breathe.
“Hic…. Gwandpa.”
And then it happened.
Magic began to seep out from around Riersha — soft and slow at first, like breath — and then, one by one, round, billowing soap bubbles began to rise gently into the air. Pop. Pop.
The moment Arcmund saw Riersha’s ability, he pushed back from his chair and rose to his feet, his face stricken with something that looked very much like shock.
“This ability…”
