🔊 TTS Settings
~Chapter 7~
“I wonder where Lemon is, and what does he eat? Maybe bugs?”
Chirp chirp chirp.
Lemon shook his head, then quickly flew over to sit on some fruit in the room.
When Dahlia looked at the fruit, Annie looked too.
“Looks like he eats fruit.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried I’d have to catch bugs for him.”
Annie spoke with a relieved face, and Dahlia nodded hard. She really hated bugs and slimy frogs.
But just then, while Lemon was pecking at a banana, he suddenly lifted his head and flew over to bite Dahlia’s hair.
Annie stared in wonder at Dahlia’s pink hair, which seemed to float halfway in the air.
“What is it?”
As Lemon kept tugging her hair, Dahlia stood up.
Lemon flapped his wings toward the open window, pulling Dahlia along.
“Do you want to go outside? Okay, stop pulling.”
Dahlia let Lemon go out the window first, then turned to Annie.
“I’ll be back after going out.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Annie tried to follow, but Dahlia shook her head.
“No, Annie, you must be tired too. Rest.”
“But…”
Annie trailed off, hesitating.
“Hm?”
“Lady Ria, you have a terrible sense of direction.”
Dahlia had hardly ever left the palace, and every time she did, she got lost, making her mother’s maids search for her for a long time.
“Ah… That’s true.”
Chirp. Chirp.
Lemon chirped noisily from outside.
“This time, I’ll just follow Lemon and come right back.”
“Lemon, you must bring Lady Ria back here, okay?”
Annie spoke to nowhere, but Lemon nodded as if he understood.
Their eyes didn’t even meet, but somehow Dahlia and Lemon understood each other perfectly.
Lemon flapped his red wings hard—as hard as he could, though it looked weak to Dahlia—and flew high.
The bird kept checking to see if she was following.
Each time, Dahlia waved her hand to show she was keeping up.
Following Lemon, she passed a fountain, walked past fresh garden trees, and soon reached a thick hedge. She could smell the sweet lilacs.
Looking up, she saw Lemon flying just over the tall hedge.
Lemon, you’re a bird, but I’m just a person.
Dahlia sighed at the high bushes.
She thought about giving up, but she wouldn’t be able to find her way back without Lemon, so she pushed on.
She stuck her head through a gap in the bushes—right then:
Clang.
Surprised, Dahlia’s eyes opened wide. She looked down to see a sword at her neck.
“Ah!”
“Who are you?”
A cold man’s voice spoke.
Was Lemon pretending to be her friend but actually leading her to her doom? She imagined Lemon laughing like a villain with his wings over his beak.
“I’ll ask one last time. Who are you?”
At that moment, her eyes closed and her head dropped forward.
Between the green bushes, only a woman’s pink hair was sticking out, shining in the sunlight. A single green leaf clung to her hair, making her look like a moving flower bed.
When the captain of the guards, Ethan, pointed his sword at her, he never expected what happened next—she drooped her head toward the sword as if she wanted to die.
Of course, as the best knight in the empire, Ethan moved the sword away at the last second.
The woman fell face-down onto the ground and didn’t move.
“Is she dead?”
Emperor Grey looked at the woman with a baffled face, then turned to Ethan.
Even Ethan’s usually calm face looked a bit shocked.
Ethan leaned down to check if she was breathing, but then heard a noise like someone smacking their lips.
“Mmm.”
“She’s sleeping…”
Grey trailed off, surprised by the scene.
“It seems so,” Ethan replied, looking at her like she was a strange creature.
Grey decided to forgive her for sneaking into his garden, at least once. After all, she was the first person to make Ethan show such an expression.
Grey put down the papers he was reading and stood up.
As he got closer, the woman’s pink hair blended with the green grass, looking even more like a pink flower field. She looked like a noblewoman, judging by her dress, but she was sleeping right on the ground.
“Shouldn’t we wake her up?”
Ethan returned to his usual blunt voice.
“We can’t let her sleep here forever.”
“Annie… It’s cold… Blanket…”
In the middle of their talk, the woman started mumbling in her sleep.
Grey and Ethan looked at each other.
What kind of woman was this?
Both of them must have thought the same thing.
A woman had barged into the emperor’s garden, fell asleep on the ground, and now was asking for a blanket in her sleep.
Grey dropped his black jacket over her.
“Let’s see how long she sleeps.”
He went back to his seat, picking up his unfinished papers with an indifferent face.
Why is my nose so numb?
Dahlia rubbed her nose and slowly opened her eyes.
She saw fresh green grass right in front of her. Why was it so close? She had been pushing through the bushes…
Suddenly, she remembered—the sword. The cold man’s voice.
Dahlia quickly felt her neck. Luckily, there was no wound.
She regretted not listening to Annie and taking her medicine. She never thought she’d fall asleep so suddenly.
Just then—
“Did you sleep well?”
The voice was no longer cold, but sweet and lazy. The deep, low sound tickled her ears.
That meant at least two men were watching her.
“…Yes…”
Dahlia couldn’t even lift her head and just mumbled.
“You did? Do you always sleep on the ground?”
He sounded like he was teasing her, but she answered honestly.
“Sometimes…”
Sometimes, when her illness acted up, she just collapsed and slept on the ground.
The man was silent, surprised by her answer.
Then the cold voice from before spoke again.
“Who are you?”
“Ah, I’m from the Kingdom of Forevern…”
Then the sweet voice returned.
“Who from the Kingdom of Forevern?”
Dahlia, her shoulders shaking, lifted her head just a little.
“Um, can I get out of here first?”
She was stuck in the bushes, only her shoulders showing, and wanted to stand up properly.
“Go ahead.”
After being given permission, Dahlia crawled out of the bushes.
Right then, a man’s jacket slid off her back.
She quickly picked up the black jacket and dusted it off.
Whose is this?
She hung her head and dusted off her dress, too. Seeing how dirty her dress was, her eyes drooped.
Annie’s going to scold me.
“So, your answer?”
The sweet voice teased her again. Dahlia flinched and covered one ear, then looked up at the man who kept questioning her.
He had neat black hair slicked back, pale white skin, black diamond-like eyes, a beauty mark under his eye, lips redder than most women’s, and a beautiful jawline like a statue.
“Wow…”
How can someone look that handsome?
Luckily, her reason kept her from saying the rest out loud.
Dahlia’s eyes sparkled.
She had found him. The reason she came to this empire: Emperor Grey Jin Ruu Sephon.
