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Chapter 35
The moment I was left alone, a voice suddenly called out, making me flinch without realizing it.
But the voice was far too youthful to be threatening.
When I turned my head toward the sound, I saw a little girl, about ten years old, standing nearby.
Her face, calling out to me with hesitation, was smudged with dirt and stains here and there.
Her clothes were rough fabric, patched in multiple places as if they had been worn too long.
At a glance, her thin frame showed a kind of poverty I hadn’t yet seen since entering this territory.
“Um… s-so… m-my lady…”
She didn’t know who I was, but judging by my attire, she must have guessed I was of high status.
Not knowing etiquette or manners, she stumbled over her words in a flustered way that seemed pitiable.
I smiled gently and spoke softly.
“Hello, what is it?”
At my words, the child’s face flushed pink.
Her mild brown eyes stared blankly up at me for a long moment.
When I continued to smile calmly, waiting, she snapped back to her senses and held something out to me.
“A letter…?”
It was a letter, sealed in a rather ornate, luxurious envelope.
Oh—and along with it, a bouquet of wildflowers, carefully picked.
I accepted the letter without resistance, and the child broke into a wide smile.
“Who gave this to you?”
“Over there, that prince.”
The girl pointed toward Blake, who was standing in the distance speaking with Meyer.
Many questions flashed through my mind, but faced with the bright, expectant look in her eyes, I felt troubled.
“Did you pick the flowers yourself?”
“Yes… but I got a gold coin for it.”
She fidgeted shyly with her fingers—it was adorable.
Still, Blake paying a little girl to deliver flowers and a letter with a gold coin… well, that was odd.
As I sank into those thoughts, the girl bowed quickly.
She looked ready to dash off at any moment, but suddenly stopped, turned back, and hesitantly spoke again.
“Um, excuse me… sis—ah, I mean… my lady? Or… milady?”
“You can just call me sis if you like.”
“Are you… maybe a princess?”
“A princess… Well, something like that.”
Children often called Cinderella a princess, even though she technically married a prince.
I guess I was in a similar situation, so it wasn’t entirely wrong.
The girl’s eyes widened in awe, as if she had just heard the answer she’d been hoping for.
“Wow… You’re like cherry blossoms, princess. And you really suit the prince. Congratulations on your marriage!”
“…Huh?”
But I was already married to the prince.
I blinked at her blankly, but she didn’t seem to expect a reply. She just waved energetically, then scampered off into the distance.
I quietly watched her go, then lowered my gaze to the letter in my hand.
The problem was, I already had a hunch who the sender was.
The girl had appeared the moment the knights left, and when I asked who gave her the letter, she had pointed straight at Blake—who all this time had been talking with Meyer.
And then there was the bizarre congratulatory remark about marrying the prince, even though I was already married.
Clicking my tongue, I tore the letter open.
“To my beloved Ariel.”
Mm. Clearly not Blake right from the opening line.
But strangely, the handwriting was exactly the same as Blake’s.
My eyes chilled as I skimmed through it—it was very short.
“I’ll keep my promise when the next season comes.”
What on earth did that mean?
Promise? What promise?
I knew nothing about it—wasn’t it some promise he’d made entirely on his own?
I blinked blankly at this cryptic message.
“…That’s it?”
Yes. That was the entire letter.
At the very end, there was just a brief signature.
“- From B?”
B? What did the initial stand for?
At first I wondered if it was simply “B” for Blake. But that didn’t make sense.
Because the sender was clearly that lunatic who looked identical to Blake.
So maybe his real name also started with B…
That thought made me realize what “promise” he was talking about.
He had said he would tell me his true name.
I wanted to say I wasn’t interested, but…
What an outrageous man, doing everything on his own terms.
Well, since he left only an initial, I’d just call him “B” from now on.
Sighing deeply, I folded the letter.
And right on cue, Blake slowly turned back toward me from the distance, his expression clouded with displeasure.
“Where are the knights?”
“Ah? Um, they said they’d be right back…”
“They left my lady unattended?”
“I was right here the whole time. I promised I wouldn’t wander far.”
When I gave him a bright smile, Blake seemed even less pleased with the situation.
Even if he scolded the knights when they returned, or reassigned another knight to guard me, it wouldn’t matter.
Because without Blake’s direct, hand-trained knights, it would be meaningless.
The others—those pampered nobles who had barely held a sword in their lives and treated training like a game—were useless.
One bizarre move from “B” could easily cost them their lives.
My earlier words to the knights had been half in jest, but the underlying truth was accurate.
Still, asking Blake directly to assign me proper knights felt awkward.
From what I’d read, his personal guard was made up of nothing but battle maniacs—so-called “combat junkies.”
“…Maybe I should just have them guard you instead.”
“Pardon?”
“No, never mind… those crazy colts are just too much…”
If I had been the real Ariel, I wouldn’t have understood his muttered words at all.
But I could see Blake’s hesitation.
Yes, his knights were unrivaled in combat ability. But that was all they had.
Most weren’t of noble birth and didn’t know much about etiquette.
To put it nicely, they treated even high-ranking people with casual familiarity. To put it bluntly, they treated even Crown Prince Blake like a neighborhood friend.
Given that I was already scorned for being of common birth, it was no wonder Blake was reluctant to attach them to me.
“Your Highness, then are we going straight to the abandoned mine now?”
It was best to change the subject and pretend not to notice.
Blake would sort out the matter of my guard on his own.
Besides, if I really thought about it… wasn’t the world’s greatest swordsman guarding me personally?
That was even better!
At my cheerful question, Blake looked down at me with a complicated expression.
“Yes, we’ll go now.”
“Will you actually go inside the mine as well?”
“Looking at your face, I think I’d better.”
“…Was it that obvious?”
By now, it was natural to take his hand as he escorted me into the carriage.
The knights returned just in time, and after making sure of it, Blake entered and sat down beside me.
The carriage began to move slowly. Blake’s gaze dropped to the letter still in my hand, and he asked:
“What’s that?”
“Oh, this? …Want to see it yourself?”
I figured showing him would be easier than explaining, so I handed him the letter.
He read the brief lines with a blank expression, then calmly tore the letter to pieces.
Even that gesture was elegant and measured, befitting the Crown Prince. But the words that followed were anything but princely.
“What’s the point of carrying around such trash.”
So, he recognized who sent it right away.
Though his face betrayed no emotion, I could sense his disgust, and I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
Blake only fixed his eyes on my laughing face, silent.
“By the way, Your Highness. Doesn’t that handwriting look exactly like yours?”
“You even know my handwriting?”
“Oh, well… I caught a glimpse once, when you were working in your study. But how could it look so perfectly identical?”
It was unsettling how even something like handwriting could be the same.
Yet Blake didn’t seem the least bit surprised or fearful of this “B,” who was his uncanny double.
If anything, his attitude seemed to say: ‘What could a mere copy possibly do?’
“And you, my lady—what would you think if there were really two of me? Well, in a way, there already are.”
“Mm… then would that mean I have two husbands?”
I suddenly remembered the little girl’s words when she handed me the flowers and letter.
I didn’t know what “B” had told her, but her “Congratulations on your marriage” made it clear enough.
I was already married, yet he must have presented us as some kind of star-crossed lovers.
But at my playful retort, Blake’s face twisted.
“Is that something to joke about? Of course, you only have one husband—and that’s me.”
“….”
“Don’t ever make such a hypothetical again. The thought alone is revolting.”
But he was the one who brought it up first…
Then what exactly was the point of that question…?
