TESL 04

Chapter 04

“Just breathe in the forest air. Get a grip on yourself.”

Unable to hold back any longer, Lenny burst out laughing and said that, then flung the window open again.

The moment the window opened, the cool, clear air unique to the forest filled the carriage. I blinked my eyes, which had been feeling heavy, and took a deep breath.

Even without Lenny saying anything, the air was clear enough to let me know exactly where the carriage was passing.

“The Great Pine Forest… it’s been a while.”

The Great Pine Forest was a dense coniferous forest at least a hundred years old, surrounding the imperial palace. It was always green, and oddly comforting—whenever I felt wounded in the palace, I often wandered here to soothe myself.

And… it was also where I first met Rubellus.

I still remember it. The moment I first saw His Highness twelve years ago.

I think it was a similar season back then, around the transition from summer to autumn.

My father, who always doted on me, must have been especially proud that day—maybe because I had just started speaking—and he personally took me to the palace.

I instantly became the center of attention for the royal family. Especially the Empress. She really seemed to like me.

Having only one son, the Empress seemed quite fond of a little girl, declaring she would spend time with me personally.

I wandered through places inside the palace that even nobles couldn’t enter, cradled in the Empress’s arms. And then… somehow, I got lost.

And in the middle of the Great Pine Forest, it was His Highness who saved me.

“Lost your way?”

Rubellus, holding a sword, said this while gently comforting me. I, four years old, and he, eight, walked hand in hand through the forest.

“It’s okay. It’s the kind of forest where you’re bound to get lost. It has a will of its own, and it doesn’t easily open paths to strangers.”

And… it was there that I accidentally saw the Crown Prince’s secret.

Maybe because I was so young, the Crown Prince didn’t seem to have any reservations around me. I still remember him approaching me with a gentle blink of his eyes and saying:

“You mustn’t tell anyone what you saw today. Normally, anyone who knows this would have to swear silence with their life, but I’ll make an exception for you.”

…

I just stayed quiet. Honestly, I didn’t really understand what he meant. Rubellus, staring quietly into my eyes, said:

“Since it’s come to this…”

He continued,

“This will be a secret only you know, so you shall become my bride.”

He smiled warmly and lightly pinched my nose.

Ah… from that moment on, I was already, in a sense, Rubellus’s fiancée. I spent twelve years in the palace hoping that those warm eyes would look at me again.

“…Wait a minute.”

Recalling that warm first meeting, I suddenly sat up.

Come to think of it, he was the one who proposed marriage first, wasn’t he? And yet, he treats me this way?

“…What? Why?”

“Hmm… it’s nothing.”

Lenny, surprised by my sudden movement, asked, but I just shook my head and flopped back down.

No, that’s not it.

I knew the truth. Who would really remember a promise made at eight years old?

The promise itself probably wasn’t even serious. He was just joking because I was so young.

It was a bit creepy that I had spent twelve years chasing after a promise that was never meant to be. Even I thought that was a little excessive.

After settling my feelings at sixteen, I spent a year meticulously reviewing my past objectively.

I needed to see for myself how much I had ruined my present, being carried away by dreams and hope.

Through that process, I painfully realized:

He had never liked me, not even once.

The observation journal—or rather, what was supposed to be a journal—about Rubellus was utterly miserable.

To the girls he occasionally saw at banquets, he would smile brightly like flowers, but with me, whom he saw every day, he was cold and distant.

When I made something for him, he might accept it in front of me but would carelessly toss it aside when I wasn’t looking.

Take, for example, the hunting cap. I had spent days and nights with all ten fingers bleeding to embroider a hunting cap for him.

It was to commemorate the Crown Prince’s first fox hunt.

Even though I had poured my heart into it, he didn’t wear it that day.

The diary page where I recorded seeing the Crown Prince at the hunt was soaked with my tears.

Even so, the fourteen-year-old me wrote at the end:

[ I couldn’t bear to look at him. Why didn’t His Highness wear the hat? No… come to think of it, today he wore a green vest, and my hat was purple.
Yes, if he had worn my hat too, people would have said His Highness has poor fashion sense.
Perhaps he has kept my hat carefully. Maybe, when purple becomes fashionable, he’ll wear it once… ]

Truly a masterclass in self-delusion.

Of course, he never wore my hunting cap even once after that. Not a single time.

Yes… back then, I had truly tried. I wanted to be a competent and admirable woman suitable for the Crown Prince.

But putting that aside… the truth was, there was never any chance between us.

If I kept wasting my time like that again… I needed to get up. I couldn’t stay lying here forever.

“By the way…”

Lenny spoke again. I looked up at her. Her gray eyes blinked at me.

“What will happen to your father once the Crown Prince becomes Emperor?”

I drew a small breath.

The timing was uncanny. Scary, even. Lenny Bonne… if you looked closely at her back, I swear she’d have eyes there too.

Her question reminded me why I could never truly be with the Crown Prince.

It was because of my father.

“He’ll probably retire. My father and Rubellus have never gotten along.”

I answered carefully, slowly sitting up and leaning against the carriage seat.

My father and Crown Prince Rubellus—soon to be Emperor—were politically opposed, almost like sworn rivals.

Because my father had been planning to support someone other than Rubellus as the next Emperor. Looking back, it was a terribly wrong decision.

Rubellus, once he became involved in politics, started moving to remove officials from my father’s generation, those under Johann Zahard.

The Crown Prince, though he inherited the title, wanted reform, aligning himself with young nobles and wealthy financial families.

Feeling threatened, my father, Duke Wildenbiston, and other nobles made a grave mistake.

As mentioned earlier, instead of supporting the legitimate heir, Rubellus, they chose another royal family member.

The person my father and other nobles backed was the Emperor’s half-brother, Rubellus’s uncle, Tale Zahard.

And of course, it was a terrible match. Not because I had a crush on Rubellus, but objectively, it wouldn’t work.

Rubellus was meticulous. One by one, he eliminated the nobles who openly supported Tale Zahard.

Though they avoided charges of treason since Rubellus wasn’t Emperor yet, their families were destroyed. Tale Zahard was exiled to the north.

My father survived, thanks to his extraordinary political skill. People even whispered that it was due to the protection of the late Emperor.

However, over the past three years since I had ended my crush, as the balance tipped toward Rubellus, the policies my father pursued began to stagnate.

And today, Rubellus becomes Emperor.

No noble in the capital would fail to understand what this implied. Politics is a battlefield with no sound of clashing arms; only cold logic and firmly held pens are the weapons.

Rubellus’s ascension meant, in effect, my father’s political defeat. His era ended alongside Johann Zahard XIII.

…If I had known this earlier, I might have given up easily, realizing he was unattainable.

But I didn’t know. I went around telling everyone that I would become the Crown Princess and bring harmony.

…Even thinking back, it was foolish.

Sighing as I recalled the past, Lenny tilted her head and asked:

“So, you’re moving?”

The “move” Lenny mentioned was literal.

The first house on the main avenue in front of the palace was reserved for the most powerful family in the Zahard Empire, generation after generation.

It had a name: the House of the Black Serpent. After William, the empire’s first Chancellor, died there, the house had been home to the most influential family in the empire, an unspoken rule among the capital’s nobility.

Everyone assumed the first house would naturally go to the current top family, and if a new Chancellor came, the previous occupant would vacate.

It had been my family’s home long before I was born, but we could make no exception.

“Probably. It’s a symbolic house, after all. Knowing my father, he’ll clear it out neatly. We still have other lands, and there are other houses on the main avenue. Above all… the new Chancellor might be eager for us to leave quickly.”

I hesitated but spoke slowly.

The person expected to succeed my father as Chancellor was Count Walden.

My father disliked him, saying he was greedy beyond his capacity, but Count Walden was currently Rubellus’s closest political ally.

Coveting the symbolic first house on the avenue, he would undoubtedly push us to leave quickly.

Lenny clicked her tongue against the ceiling in disapproval.

“Power struggles, huh.”

“Tricky, isn’t it.”

I nodded, returning to thoughts of the past.