“I will make you the husband of my half-sister, Chloe. That is the only way you will survive in this Empire.”
At that mind-shattering declaration, one impossible to accept with a sound mind, I held the reins and stared at her blankly.
Reading the trembling in my eyes, Victoria added an explanation in a bitter voice.
“Imperial Father loathes me terribly, but conversely, he cherishes and loves Chloe, his youngest daughter, more than life itself. Did you not see it at the ball? How that cold-hearted Emperor becomes, before Chloe, merely an ordinary father who loves his youngest daughter.”
“……Yes. I saw.”
“If it is someone Chloe truly cherishes and loves, Imperial Father would never lay a hand on them, even if it means breaking the Empire’s laws. No, he would not even wish to. Especially…… after that incident, he has grown even weaker to Chloe’s tears. So if only you become Chloe’s husband, you will be perfectly safe from the Emperor’s whims.”
‘That incident?’
I furrowed my brow slightly.
“What happened?”
“……”
“To speak frankly, quite a number of people have alluded to something having happened. Sir Amber White, Your Highness Arthur, and even His Highness the Crown Prince mentioned it. What exactly is it?”
“……”
“That…… Princess Adrian. Is it related to her?”
At my question, the blood drained from Victoria’s face, leaving her deathly pale.
She hung her head deeply, gripping the reins with both hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
“……You will learn of it someday.”
Her voice was steeped in a deeper agony than when she had been sobbing moments before.
“But…… I simply cannot speak of it now with my own mouth. Though it was not my will, with my own hands, to my own sister…… I committed an act that simply cannot be done.”
“Your Highness.”
“If you learn the truth of that matter, you will surely call me a hideous monster and despise me. Because I fear that, I cannot open my mouth now……”
“I told you clearly that would not happen.”
“No, no. This won’t do. This…… I absolutely cannot say with my own mouth.”
“I do not judge a person by a single past mistake.”
“If it were a small mistake, perhaps. But this has surpassed what can be called a mistake. I will fall into hell.”
At her devastated expression, one that seemed to loathe herself, I stopped pressing further.
I shook my head and answered calmly.
“Very well. I will ask no more. I shall find out on my own later.”
“……Thank you.”
Victoria let out a deep breath and forcibly reined in her emotions.
“Ian, listen well. The most important thing in this plan is the order.”
“The order?”
“If you marry Chloe first and are later exposed as a fake prince, things will likely pass over unexpectedly. No matter how grave the crime of high treason, the Emperor could not make his beloved youngest daughter a widow. He would seek to preserve the Imperial family’s honor and cover it up somehow.”
“…….”
“But the opposite. If the truth that you are a fake is revealed before you are joined with Chloe…… then regardless of Chloe or anyone else, Imperial Father will fly into a rage and tear your four limbs apart.”
“If the order is wrong, I die……”
Victoria looked at me with sad yet tender eyes, uttering words that drove a dagger into her own heart.
“So you must not delay. You are already close with Chloe, are you not? You must go further. Win Chloe’s heart and become lovers as quickly as possible. I had wanted to teach you the sword and how to ride as well, but……”
She raised the corners of her lips in a bitter smile.
“I do not think I should be so intimately entangled with you any longer. Take all the time you would have spent meeting me, and spend it with Chloe instead.”
What must be the feelings of a woman who, after devoting her whole life, had fallen in love with a man for the first time—only to push him toward another woman, and that too her own younger sister, in order to save him?
I could not even imagine it.
“……Very well.”
I had no choice but to nod heavily.
Returning to the Imperial Palace and entrusting Marengo to the stable, I flopped onto my bed without even washing my sweat-drenched body.
“Haa……”
A complicated, nagging feeling weighed down on my chest.
I had safely overcome the crisis of having my identity exposed that I had feared the most, and even gained a reliable and powerful ally in the First Princess.
Even though my chances of survival had skyrocketed, I simply could not be happy.
‘In order to survive, I must use Chloe, who knows nothing.’
The guilt of having to use that child, as pure and bright as sunlight, as a shield for my own survival.
And Victoria’s sad eyes as she had, to save me, willingly cut herself away, and the salty taste of the tears that had lingered on the edge of her lips churned my mind into chaos.
Thoughts followed one after another, and sleep simply would not come.
These heavy thoughts followed me like thick fog the next day, and the day after.
“Your squat is terribly unstable today. Your core has gone slack! When you have too many distracting thoughts, nothing beats sweating buckets. Three extra sets!”
That next evening, during the hellish lower-body workout with Arthur, I let my mind wander and got scolded.
Normally I would have protested, begging for mercy, but I silently repeated the squats like a machine, dripping with sweat.
“…Is something the matter?”
“No. I simply could not sleep, so my condition is slightly poor.”
“…Then that is a relief.”
Even the simple-minded Arthur seemed to notice my heavy atmosphere, different from usual, and after training ended, he merely patted my shoulder without offering much in the way of jokes.
The next day, it was the same when I arrived for work at the Crown Prince’s office.
“Ian. I wished to discuss the feedback procedure with you…… Hmm? Are you ill somewhere?”
Crown Prince Maximilian, entering with a report in hand, furrowed his brow at my haggard complexion.
He held a sandwich in one hand.
“No, Your Highness. I overexerted myself yesterday, it seems. I apologize.”
“……Is that so? Your complexion is truly poor. Do not overdo it. Today, simply glance over the documents and leave early.”
“Y-Your Highness the Crown Prince, then might I also leave early today……”
“You must say something sensible, Alex. Until you finish correcting all of that today, there is no going home, period.”
Even the cold-hearted Crown Prince had noticed my troubled state and ordered me to leave early.
Anyone could see I was lost in deep thought; although everyone found it strange, I was grateful that they all let it pass without a word.
After all, it was quite common in the Empire for a single hostage to suddenly fall into melancholy.
#
The next day.
The social season had caused a brief interruption, but this was originally a day to meet the Second Princess Chloe at the library and read together.
I rehearsed the words Victoria had entrusted to me dozens of times in my head, steeling my emotions over how I should treat Chloe.
I had to win her heart.
I had not been without fondness for her from the start, but now that it had come to this, I absolutely had to seduce her.
I had to make Chloe love me somehow, or I could not survive……
“……”
It would be a lie to say I felt no guilt.
The one who said she loved me had said she would leave me to protect me, and hearing that, I had been unable to do anything.
But, in order to survive…… I would think about that later.
#
Around the time of the appointment, Chloe’s personal maid came to my quarters and delivered an unexpected message.
“Your Highness. Her Highness the Princess bids you come not to the library today, but…… to Her Highness’s personal detached palace.”
“……Not the library, but the detached palace?”
“Yes, Your Highness. She has prepared refreshments in the reception room of the detached palace.”
My heart beat slightly faster at the unexpected change of location.
I had often gone to Chloe’s detached palace for dance lessons, but this was the first time I was going there for our book appointment.
‘Might this actually be an opportunity?’
I neatly tidied my attire and, guided by the maid, headed toward the detached palace where Chloe resided.
Creak—.
Stepping over the threshold of the detached palace’s reception room that the maid had politely opened, I hid my complicated feelings and arranged a gentle smile on my lips.
Toward the Empire’s most beloved youngest princess, whose heart I had to steal in order to survive.
“Welcome, Ian.”
Buried among piles of books, Chloe lay on the floor atop a large cushion, waving her hand at me.