The next day, Thursday afternoon, with the long-awaited social ball just around the corner.
Inside the reception room of Chloe’s villa, a gentle and lively piano melody endlessly echoed.
One of the personal maids serving her knew how to play the piano, so she was currently seated at the instrument herself, playing a beautiful waltz for our final practice today.
Warm afternoon sunlight poured in through the window, casting long shadows across the carpet, and we glided along the trajectory of that light, stepping as if sliding.
“Yes, very good, Ian! The way you handle your gaze when turning is very natural now!”
“Haha, it’s all thanks to Your Highness teaching me so well. At first, I kept nearly stepping on your feet, so it was difficult.”
“That’s how everyone is when they first start. But now, it’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it?”
Relying on our lightly clasped hands and the arm wrapped around her waist, Chloe and I spun round and round across the wide reception room to the piano melody.
The awkwardness and tension I had felt when I first took my stance with her had completely vanished by now.
From start to finish, we danced joyfully at close quarters, meeting each other’s eyes with bright smiles.
Each time we moved slightly, a wafting lilac fragrance tickled my nose, and each time we turned, the hem of her white dress fluttered elegantly.
“……Phew.”
Before long, the maid’s fingers dancing across the keys stopped, and as the performance elegantly concluded, we exchanged light bows in the lingering resonance of the music and stepped apart.
Chloe exhaled a slightly quickened breath and fanned her face, flushed red from dancing.
Her violet eyes were brimming with a deeply satisfied and proud smile.
“Perfect. Ian’s learning ability really deserves recognition. Now there is truly nothing left to criticize. It was an excellent and dignified step.”
“That’s a relief. I won’t have to worry about making a mistake at the ball and tarnishing the dignity of Your Highness, my one and only dance teacher.”
“……To be honest.”
Chloe, who had been laughing along at my playful answer, soon lowered her gaze to the floor and muttered softly, as if deeply disappointed.
“If possible, I had wanted to formally request you as a partner for this ball… and dance the first song with you in the very center of that splendid ballroom, receiving everyone’s blessings.”
“……Your Highness.”
“I even agonized over whether to use the excuse that, as your teacher, I should guide you through your first dance since I taught you. But… realistically, that is too difficult.”
Chloe tried to smile, but she couldn’t hide her disappointment.
I was disappointed too, but realistically, I hadn’t expected Chloe and me to dance together at the ball from the very beginning.
I was a hostage from a defeated nation, and Chloe was an Imperial Princess.
Noticing my expression darken and harden slightly, Chloe soon smiled brightly and added in a cheerful voice.
“Well, even if it is a debutante ball, I am still an Imperial Princess in name. Unlike other ordinary noble ladies, I don’t have to desperately seek out and choose a partner. Even if I enter proudly alone, no one would dare say a word to me.”
“……That is certainly true. Even standing on your own, Your Highness would shine the brightest.”
“Hoohoo, thank you for saying so. Now then, let’s end today’s practice here. Rest well, and I’ll see you on the day of the ball next week, Ian.”
After exchanging light greetings with Chloe, I picked up my outer coat draped over the sofa and moved toward the villa’s large, heavy oak door.
But just as I grasped the cold door handle and was about to turn it downward.
“U-um, Ian!”
From behind me, Chloe’s urgent and trembling voice flew in.
When I turned my head, Chloe was standing there with a restless expression, her fingertips clasped together.
She had brought both hands together in front of her, fidgeting and clasping them tightly. She bit her reddened lip slightly, averted her gaze to the carpeted floor, then soon took a deep breath and looked straight at me.
“Is something wrong, Your Highness? If you have something to say…….”
“Ah, it’s just… I helped you practice dancing day and night so that you wouldn’t be embarrassed in high society, so that others wouldn’t look down on you… and now to say something like this… even I think this is truly, truly shameless, selfish, and a sorry request to make…….”
A deep hesitation that must have been swallowed hundreds of times within was fully embedded in her faintly trembling voice.
“At this ball, as I said earlier, I will not choose a partner. I intend to remain seated without dancing with anyone. So…… Ian, at least for this social gathering, could you not partner with anyone either?”
“Pardon? A partner?”
“I am absolutely, absolutely not forcing you! If you truly wish to dance with someone else, of course you may… it’s not a demand, just……!”
Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and added like rapid-fire.
“It’s just…… I know all too well that this is my selfish desire, but I still wanted to act spoiled just this once. I really wanted to ask. At the ball, I hope you will not dance with any woman other than me. The steps I taught you—could you not use them for someone else?”
“……”
“I hated even the thought of you dancing with Arthur, but dancing with another young lady… I don’t think I would like that.”
At the sight of her whispering like a child throwing a tantrum, her face burning as red as a beet, I froze blankly for a moment.
“……”
The answer was already decided, and I inwardly swallowed a hollow laugh.
Who could dare coldly refuse such a cute and sincere request?
I slowly released my hand from the door handle and took a step toward Chloe.
And gently extended the pinky finger of my right hand before her eyes.
“……!”
Chloe’s clear, transparent violet eyes widened into circles.
I smiled slightly and spoke gently, as if to soothe her anxiety.
“Understood, Your Highness. Let’s make a promise. At this ball, no matter how beautiful or powerful a young lady extends her hand to me, I will never take that hand. I intend to drink in a corner of the banquet hall.”
“……Really? Do you not wish to dance?”
“Do I not have loyalty to my teacher? If my teacher is not dancing, how dare this student step forward? I promise.”
At my deliberately playful answer, a bright, irrepressible smile finally bloomed at Chloe’s tightly pressed lips.
She cautiously approached and firmly hooked her small, white pinky finger around mine.
“You must keep your promise. I’ll be watching.”
“Of course. I am not bold enough to break a promise made with the Empire’s Imperial Princess.”
The warmth transmitted through our pinky fingers felt especially warm.
#
And at the exact same moment.
In a corner of Chloe’s villa reception room where dazzling sunlight shone, behind lavishly draped thick velvet curtains, within a very dark and narrow shadow.
There, a very small, emaciated rat, no bigger than two knuckles, crouched in silence without making a peep.
If there was anything different from ordinary rats, it was only that the small creature’s two eyes glinted faintly with a strange, artificial silver light.
The rat’s silver gaze was fixed precisely on Ian and Chloe, who were smiling affectionately at each other while hooking their pinkies.
At the same time, far from the villa at the outskirts of the Imperial Palace, in lodgings prepared for noble guests, a woman’s eyes gleamed.
In the center of a dark room with curtains drawn so that not a single ray of sunlight entered, a silver-haired woman draped in a beast-fur cloak sat with her chin resting on her hand, looking intrigued.
“Hmm.”
She was currently dominating the rat’s mind perfectly, sharing in everything the rat hidden in Chloe’s villa saw and heard.
A high-level black magic that dominates the minds of inferior creatures, making them one’s own eyes and ears.
Of course, the creature exposed to it would suffer massive brain damage the moment Ella released her control, or its mind would collapse entirely—but who would care about such a thing? It was just a rat.
Ella, who had been quietly watching Ian smile affectionately and hook his pinky with Chloe’s in her vision, soon drew up her red, seductive lips in a smooth arc.
“Hmm….”
A languid, sticky hum flowed from her lips.
“It’s not even children playing house, yet they’re hooking pinkies. How naive and cute, our little princess.”
Ella’s silver eyes gleamed deeply and dangerously, like a ravenous predator.
Blood cannot be deceived, and a lion cub is a lion by nature.
The Northern Grand Duke, a beast himself, had perhaps sired a child even more dangerous than he.
“You won’t be able to keep that promise, Princess. Because I’ll steal him.”