“Your Imperial Highness, it is Ian Sterling. I apologize for leaving yesterday without even properly saying farewell. I have come because there is something I must tell you.”
Beyond the firmly shut oak door of the inner chamber in the detached palace, your low, careful voice drifted in.
Sitting collapsed on the cold floor with my knees drawn to my chest, I was staring blankly at the faint ray of light seeping through the crack in the door.
After the chaos of yesterday, I had fled into my room as if running away, tossed and turned all night, and met the morning like this.
My hair was a tangled mess, my clothes were dust-stained—in short, I was in a dreadful state.
So much so that I could not bear to let you see me.
“I am truly sorry for yesterday, Your Imperial Highness. I failed to respond properly to His Highness the Second Prince’s sudden intrusion. You must have been greatly startled, so I beg you to please set aside your anger.”
After your courteous and sincere apology came to an end, a long silence settled for a while.
I pressed my back a little more firmly against the door and held my breath.
I was afraid your footsteps might recede, and yet I could not quite muster the courage to open the door.
Before long, your voice continued, sounding a touch more awkward and shy than before.
“……If you are still angry, well. On my way here, I borrowed a poetry collection from the library. I thought it might improve Your Imperial Highness’s mood, even a little, so I will read one aloud from outside.”
For a moment, I heard the soft rustle of pages turning, and soon, in your calm voice, came the poem I loved most.
“When the stars of the night sky lost their courses and wandered, I beheld a silver bud blooming in the deepest darkness. It was the quiet solace left where the storm had passed, meant for you alone……”
It was a lyric poem written by an ancient minstrel for his beloved, the one I had once mentioned in passing as my favorite in the library.
I was so surprised that you remembered.
It was a poem I had only briefly mentioned in passing, and because it spoke of love, I had been too embarrassed to discuss it in front of you.
“……”
You, calmly reading poetry before the door—had you said you were twenty years old?
You were only a year older than I, yet you seemed as mature as someone who had lived twenty years more.
You did not knock on the door and fret, begging me to open it.
Nor did you stand outside making excuses and pleading your innocence.
You simply stood there in silence and approached me carefully in the way that would bring me the most comfort.
In truth, I was not angry.
There was no reason for me to be angry.
I had merely been flustered, and unbearably ashamed.
For the precious, secret moment when, for the first time in my life, I had dressed in my most cherished, beautiful gown and felt the warmth of my first dance partner as my heart pounded fit to burst—my foolish elder brother had shattered it into something ridiculous with his usual brutish stupidity.
Just as I was, you had only been a victim.
A victim who had not a single reason to apologize to me like this, and who perhaps had even more reason to feel wronged.
And yet there was only one reason I did not immediately open the tightly shut door, but instead stayed still and held my breath.
‘……I want to hear more.’
Just a little longer.
Only a very little longer.
I wanted to monopolize, all to myself, that intelligent and tender voice coming from beyond the door.
From the moment you first walked in between the musty, dust-scented shelves of the library, you had been someone who made people feel strangely unlike themselves.
In this vast imperial palace, there was no one who truly understood this peculiar imperial princess who preferred old literature and the scent of parchment so brittle it might crumble, more than the splendor of balls or the sweet champagne of banquets.
Everyone nodded outwardly, but their eyes were full of boredom.
But you were different.
When I spoke passionately of the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms, and when I grew sorrowful while telling you of historical tragedies forgotten hundreds of years ago, you never interrupted me once.
You simply listened seriously until the very end.
I liked that deep, tranquil gaze of yours, which met my eyes steadily and uprightly whenever we spoke.
I loved, madly, that attentiveness of yours, how you forgot not a single trivial thing—the temperature of the tea I liked to drink, or the title of a book I had mentioned as if in passing.
If I told you that I had been so happy from the very first moment we met, how would you react?
You would probably be flustered and smile that neat, distinctive smile of yours.
It feels as though emotions that had long existed only as letters in books have come alive and are stirring through my heart.
I had thought that things like love and yearning were merely exaggerated rhetoric in old literature.
But I, who read several books every day and take pleasure in feeling the emotions of other people in their stead, could hardly fail to know that the name of this unfamiliar, overwhelming feeling tightening around my heart is love.
It is the first time in my life I have felt such tenderness for someone.
But at the end of that sweet realization, the terribly bitter wall of reality is always waiting.
Just as the countless tragic histories I have read prove.
I am the daughter of the emperor who dyed the continent in blood and conquered it, an imperial princess of the empire.
And you are a hostage from a defeated nation that collapsed beneath the feet of the empire’s army.
A person cast to the brink of death as a pawn of power, caught up in the shameful ambition of one who has no right to call himself either king or father, and utterly abandoned even by his own family.
A pitiful, lonely person who must one day end this cold life as a hostage in the empire and return forever to your homeland in the south.
The dizzying difference in our stations, and the cruel, irreconcilable fate of victor and vanquished pressed heavily upon my chest.
The more I let this feeling grow, the more it may one day become a sharp blade tightening around your throat.
Drip.
A tear I could not hold back in the end fell and dampened my knee.
How wonderful it would be if I could turn this swelling emotion called love into a bookmark for some thick ancient tome, and hide it forever where no one in the world would ever know.
What if I tucked it away inside a dull, uninteresting book written in the empire’s ancient tongue, one no one would ever seek out in the library?
If hundreds of years passed, and the empire still endured until then, and the Arzenheim family still remained the imperial house until then, and the library remained safe—how wonderful it would be if it could remain as the childish unrequited love of an old imperial princess, slipped between the pages of an ancient book that someone would only then take out and read.
No, I am afraid that someday, you would be the one to take out that book and read it.
Because you, who greeted Father Emperor in the empire’s ancient tongue on the day you first came to the empire, seem like someone who would.
I know all too well that, as an imperial princess, I must not harbor such private feelings, and that those clumsy emotions will ultimately become a fatal poison to both you and me.
“…Hk.”
Really, how wonderful it would be if every part of me, from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes, were dignified.
How wonderful it would be if I did not possess something as vulgar as tear ducts that burst open at any time.
I roughly wiped away the silently flowing tears with the backs of both hands.
‘Don’t cry. Don’t let it show. Return to being the gentle, well-behaved imperial princess you always are.’
I took a deep breath, patted my cheeks with my cold hands, and composed my expression as if nothing were wrong.
Hoping my reddened eyes would not be noticeable, I slowly rose from my seat.
Then I turned the cold handle of the oak door that had been firmly shut for so long.
Creak—
As the door opened with a heavy sound of friction, you, who had been standing quietly with a thick hardcover poetry collection in one hand, lifted your head in surprise.
Perhaps because you had been standing there for a long time, the hem of your clothes was slightly rumpled.
Seeing a small look of relief spread through those dark eyes of yours, I suppressed my pounding heart, lifted my chin slightly in an effort to appear brave, and opened my mouth.
“I heard your poetry recitation very well, Your Highness. I was inside for so long because I needed a little time to sort out my thoughts. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“Ah…… Your Highness. Has your anger subsided somewhat?”
At your cautious question, offered with anxious uncertainty, I let out a very small sigh and gave you a sidelong look.
“I was never angry. My foolish elder brother merely did something foolish, as he always does. I know well enough that it wasn’t your fault, Your Highness. It’s just…….”
I added, pretending to be a little resentful, yet with my true feelings spilling into my words despite my attempts to hide them.
“From now on, please do not spin around in someone else’s arms like that after leaving me behind. Even if that person is my own elder brother, bound to me by blood. Watching my first dance partner dance with someone else right before my eyes was, truly, not a very pleasant experience.”
At my complaint, edged with petulance, you finally smiled faintly, as if your heart had been put at ease.
“I will keep that in mind, Your Highness. It will never happen again.”
You answered with a slight smile, then bowed your head gently to me.
The moment I took in that kind, neat figure of yours, one corner of my heart ached sharply once again……
But I forced myself to smile back as if nothing in the world were wrong.