“At the social gathering, I heard everything that disgusting noble bastard said to you. About you being a fake prince.”
At Victoria’s words, my vision flashed white.
The truth I had feared most and kept hidden so desperately ever since I set foot in this empire had been discovered—by none other than the First Imperial Princess.
“……”
I froze, unable to say a word.
I frantically racked my brain for an excuse, but there was no way a clumsy lie would work on her when she seemed to have heard almost the entire conversation I’d had with Count Hodeki that night.
Victoria quietly stared at my pale face, then continued in a calm, subdued voice I never would have expected to come from her mouth.
“Though I do have prosopagnosia and cannot remember people’s faces well, I clearly remember that there were two princes in the Kingdom of Sterling. At the time, there were certainly two royals standing beside the throne.”
In her eyes, there was less anger than deep confusion, disappointment, and an indescribable bitterness.
“By Father Emperor’s order, I commanded that one of those princes be handed over as a hostage, and so you came. To be frank, your Kingdom of Sterling was a powerless place with neither the will nor the ability nor anything else to resist our empire. That was why Father Emperor had little interest in whether you, the hostage, were truly a prince or not, and honestly, I had no reason to suspect whether you were real or fake either.”
Victoria let out a deep sigh.
“Most of all… because of the tremendous abilities and bold actions you showed after coming to the empire, everyone became convinced that you were a prince.”
“……”
“Everyone in the imperial family saw your spirit and believed you truly were a prince who had inherited the noble blood of a nation. I, too, never doubted that you were real.”
Her voice trembled faintly.
“But that night, that vile count who came from your homeland mocked you in your ear, calling you a fake. And instead of making excuses, you shot back that if you died, he would not get away unscathed either.”
“…You heard.”
“Yes, I heard everything. Even after hearing it, I could not believe it at all, and I did not sleep a wink that night. The Ian Sterling I knew was not such a man. I could not understand what on earth was going on…”
Victoria’s attitude was different from what I had imagined.
I had thought she would try to snap my neck the moment she found out. I never imagined she would be this shaken.
At her sincere questioning, as if she felt deeply betrayed yet was somehow trying to hear the truth and understand, the strength slowly left my tightly clenched fists.
If I lied here, it would only tangle the situation further.
If anything, it seemed better to take this chance to tell her the truth honestly.
And, to be honest, I did not want to lie anymore.
I took a deep breath and moistened my dry lips.
“…Your Highness. The story will be rather long and tedious. Will that be all right?”
“It does not matter. I will listen until the sun sets if I must, so tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
Victoria sat down on the grass with her legs stretched out comfortably and looked into my eyes.
I nodded quietly and began, calmly, to bring out my true name and the past I had buried for so very long.
“My real name is Ian Harper. I am the second son of the Baron Harper family, from the outskirts of the Kingdom of Sterling.”
“Baron Harper…”
“Yes. My mother, the late baroness, was an especially close friend of Her Majesty the Queen. Thanks to that, from a very young age, I often came and went from the royal castle, and I was able to be on intimate terms with the royal family. I was as close as a real brother to the prince and princess.”
I stared blankly at the reeds swaying in the prairie wind and continued.
“But unfortunately, on the very day I was staying at the royal castle… Your Highness appeared leading the cavalry and delivered your proclamation demanding that either the First Prince or the princess be handed over as a hostage.”
Recalling the terrible fear and despair of that day, I gave a small bitter smile.
“There were only two choices. The prince or the princess. But if the young, delicate princess were sent into the jaws of death in this brutal empire, it was obvious what terrible suffering she would endure. But for His Highness the First Prince to go… if I may speak frankly, he was simply too kindhearted and weak. He had nowhere near the perception or ability needed to survive in this ruthless empire. If he had come, he probably would not have lasted even a month.”
At my words, Victoria nodded silently.
She, too, would know better than anyone what miserable treatment royals from weak nations received in the empire.
“The royal family fell into despair, and my homeland was a candle before the wind. So…”
I looked Victoria straight in the eyes.
“So I simply volunteered to go in their place. I said I would disguise myself as His Highness the Prince and come to this empire.”
“…You threw yourself into the jaws of death of your own accord? To protect your homeland?”
“That is what it amounted to.”
Toward Victoria, whose eyes had widened in shock, I bowed my head with sincerity.
“I never intended from the beginning to deceive or mislead Your Highness or His Majesty the Emperor. It was merely the desperate struggle of powerless people to stop those precious to me and my homeland from being trampled. I am truly sorry that I ended up deceiving Your Highness and the empire and continuing to lie.”
After my confession ended, only the sound of the cold wind settled heavily over the prairie.
Victoria could not speak for a long while.
Her purple eyes, always so serene, were shaking violently beyond control.
“……”
Her lips, which had been keeping silent, trembled, and soon her clenched fists tightened until blood seeped out.
And in a voice so wet it sounded as though she might burst into tears at any moment, impossible to believe it belonged to the usually proud and terrifying female warrior, she spoke.
“You… what on earth did you think you were doing?”
“…Pardon?”
“I’m asking what possessed you to do something so insane! Do you even know what you’ve done?!"
Victoria suddenly shouted and strode toward me.
“This is not merely deceiving some noble. This is high treason—making a mockery of and deceiving the imperial family and emperor of a great empire! If it is discovered that you committed fraud on such an enormous scale, your Kingdom of Sterling will be trampled to ashes beneath the hooves of the imperial army as soon as tomorrow. And you… you will die in the most horrific way in the world!”
At her chilling warning, I replied calmly with a bitter smile.
“I hope it ends cleanly with a beheading at the guillotine.”
“Beheading? You think it would end with something as mild as beheading?!"
At my light answer, Victoria shook her head in horror.
“Absolutely not. You know better than anyone what kind of people Father Emperor and my elder brother are! There will be no mercy like cutting off your head in one stroke. They will throw you into a gigantic iron cauldron and boil you alive, inflicting pain slowly over a very long time! Or they might tie you up in the square and unleash packs of starving dogs and pigs to tear the flesh from your living body!”
“…That would hurt quite a bit.”
“And… and perhaps they will make me watch with my own two eyes as you die miserably in that terrible agony. After that, an imperial order will come down telling me to take your severed head, lead the cavalry myself, and slaughter every last subject of your kingdom. That is the way of our imperial family!”
Victoria rushed forward and gripped my collar tightly with both hands.
My body shook mercilessly under her grip.
“What were you thinking! Who do you think you are, crawling into the jaws of death with that one paltry life of yours, claiming you would protect a kingdom?! You stupid, foolish bastard—what on earth were you thinking!!”
“…Your Highness.”
“Why, why are you burdening me with something this horrible…!”
Victoria’s head drooped as she held my collar and shook me wildly.
Drop. Drip.
Hot droplets fell endlessly onto my chest and began to spread.
The Sword Demon of the Empire, who had roamed blood-soaked battlefields and cut people down like dogs, was leaning against me as if collapsing into my arms and weeping bitterly.
Unable to answer, I simply froze as though turned to ice.
When someone who seemed like she would never cry began to cry, my mind went completely blank.
“…Your Highness.”
I cautiously raised my hand and wrapped it around her trembling shoulder.
“Why on earth… are you worried about me? I am a traitor who deceived Your Highness and the empire…”
At my trembling question, Victoria lifted her tear-streaked, reddened face and looked up at me resentfully.
And from between her wet lips burst a shocking truth I had never once even imagined.
“Because I like you!!”