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3. The Fake PrincessCalista was a princess only in name, a daughter adopted purely at the king's discretion. Because of this, the nobles scorned her, claiming she was not a true princess.
The Queen of Talasa pitied and protected her daughter, while the King of Talasa cherished his 'youngest' daughter, whom he had adopted for the sake of his beloved wife.
The King was quite fond of Calista. Unlike his daughters who strutted about with their chins perpetually raised and airs of superiority, Calista was gentle and ingratiating, so it was only natural.
The more strongly the King shielded her, the more insufferably haughty Calista became.
It was only to be expected. The King was her backer, and the others, faced with her selfish and willful temperament, adopted the attitude of "Does one avoid dung out of fear, or out of disgust?"
Around Calista were only dogs who had rolled over belly-up to curry favor with the King and Queen. And so Calista believed herself to be absolutely in the right.
Moreover, Calista was one of those people who believed the world owed her compensation.
Because she had suffered, you see. She had lost her father as a child, and though she received the King's love, she was a pitiful creature who had been scorned.
And had she not come all this way alone to be married off to an old emperor? 'Father' had found her the most distinguished of matches, and she had trusted in nothing else.
Seeing the difference in age between her mother and her father, she too had accepted that her spouse would be considerably older.
Her son, Asherad, possessed such stunning beauty that Calista had harbored hopes. But that father of his was utterly decrepit, and every time he stood beside his son, his appearance looked all the more shabby.
Besides, he did not seem to like her much. Ah, how pitiable am I, belonging nowhere at all. So being adopted as the King's daughter was only so I could be sold off, in the end.
Calista lamented her own plight.
For such a Calista, Asherad was the only place her heart could rest. Unlike the Emperor, Asherad was fresh-faced, handsome, and well-mannered.
Father is wrong. He has misjudged. Surely the finest match is not the Emperor but Asherad. He is young, and he will be the next Emperor.
No, setting conditions aside, it was only natural that the young Calista should covet Asherad.
But that lowborn maid. How dare she—a sinner's daughter—insert herself between Asherad and the Emperor? The fact that her sister had suffered humiliation because of that concubine, and that the Emperor's heart had gone to the daughter born of her, shaking her standing—none of that mattered to Calista.
Daphne resembled her too closely, which made it all the more infuriating.
The daughter of the woman the Emperor favored.
Calista could not stand Daphne. The Emperor should have simply killed the woman who had deceived his seed—why on earth had he brought her close and kept her near?
She asked Olga, the maid who attended the Crown Prince, about the matter in detail.'Why on earth does His Highness keep that woman near?''That is…… His Highness does not know the girl is her daughter.''What?'Something had gone terribly wrong.
At twenty-three, Calista had aged enough, yet still could not tell where to step forward and where to hold back.
She did not know that when people committed certain acts, they had their own reasons for doing so, nor that sometimes—however morally wrong or utterly trivial those reasons might be—there were things one should not interfere with and simply let pass.
In her eyes, whatever was wrong deserved to be corrected.
Daphne was wrong, and she needed to be corrected.
Asherad appeared to be extending his kindness to that foolish woman without knowing her true identity. No matter how kind she seemed, she deserved to know the truth!
"What do you think you're doing! That woman is filthy! Punish her with the lash at once, and cut out her tongue and slit her throat!"
"……My aunt."
Despite the shocking truth, Asherad blinked slowly. Was he in shock? The poor thing. Frustrated, Calista shouted.
"So you were being deceived all this time! Your Highness, you must not do this. Such a vulgar thing—!"
At that moment, Daphne bolted. No one moved to stop her. As Asherad took a step to follow, Calista blocked his path.
"I shall handle it, as her aunt. I'll catch her and—"
"How pointless."
Asherad said softly. But there was a chill in his voice, like the creak of ice, and Calista flinched for a moment.
Nothing more was said. Asherad looked coldly at Calista, then walked past her. Without the slightest hesitation, he abandoned her and went after Daphne.
Calista's maids and knights, who had been watching, were all dumbfounded. The Crown Prince of the Empire had chosen a lowborn maid over the Princess of the Kingdom of Talasa.
Calista, insulted and cast aside, flushed scarlet.* * *A cold winter rain was falling. Daphne, at a loss for what to do, clutched her swollen cheek and wept.
It was an afternoon of cold winter rain. Despite the weather, the sunlight was warm, and the garden planted with evergreens gleamed like summer, defying the season.
She was cold.
Colder than when the Prince of Pindos had struck her.
Daphne wrapped her arms around herself and shivered violently. Better, she thought, to stand in this rain and freeze to death. A sinner. Yes, that was right. A sinner.
She had known all along.
Asherad did not know the full extent of Daphne's sins. In truth, it would have been strange for him to go out of his way to find out. He did not concern himself much with those beneath him.
And yet Daphne, for her part, had never confessed her sins and begged forgiveness.
The reason was simple. If he had known everything, he would not have kept her close.
Daphne's mother, Beatrice, had seduced the Emperor and had surely put the Empress in a dire position. Thinking about it now, her mother had been far from free of ambition.
She had wanted to enter the imperial palace; she had wanted to make Daphne the Emperor's blood. How terrifying a thing that was, how great a threat to Asherad—Daphne understood it now.
But Asherad's summons, Asherad's warmth, had been too precious. In the cold of winter, she preferred kneeling before Asherad and quietly gazing at his face to sleeping wrapped in a hole-riddled blanket in a storeroom for cleaning supplies, using it as her bedroom.
She loved reading the books he told her to read. The world she had shared with her mother had been warm, but it was like an illusion that vanished with her mother's death. Yet for Daphne, cast down into a harsh reality, Asherad was light.
From her childhood, when Asherad had held out his hand to her, up to the present, now grown—the quiet evenings, the days spent reading before a warm hearth, were precious.
When he raised his hand and gently stroked her head, her frozen world seemed at last to find warmth again.
"Ah—hic, aah—aaah!"
Daphne had always lived in resignation to her mother's wrongs. If she spoke up and claimed her mother was no criminal, they would point fingers and call her shameless—the daughter of a sinner.
She had always walked with her head bowed, unable to look up at the sky, unable to speak a single word in her own defense.
"It wasn't my fault."
So please don't hate me. Uttering the words she had never been able to say, Daphne trembled. And then, as she shook her head, sorrow came crashing over her.
"Why, why did you lie! Why!"
She poured out her resentment toward her dead mother. Her mother, so fragile she seemed about to break. Her weak, spineless mother. Her mother, who had loved her so dearly.
And the mother she herself had loved most of all.
"I never wanted to be born to a liar like you!"
She had never wanted to be born beneath such a sinful mother.
Being called the Emperor's blood was not her sin. But she had loved her mother, and her mother had loved her, and so she had endured. With only Asherad, she could endure. She had thought she could.
But now, everything had been ruined.
The cold rain turned Daphne's lips blue. She wished she would freeze to death in this winter rain, just like this. She wished her heart would simply stop, without a single trace of warmth.
In a life already ruined beyond repair, she had never asked for some greater happiness. She had never harbored the wicked greed her mother once had.
She had only wanted this—to share even a little of the same time with Asherad, and be happy. But life had cast her down further, into the abyss, into hell.
Just then, a dark figure burst out from the branches, brushing them aside.
Startled, Daphne scrambled backward on her haunches. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the figure. Still gripping the branch, the man wore a soft smile.
"Found you."
"……"
The corner of his mouth curved up in a lopsided smile. The standing figure was, of course, Asherad.
This was his garden, the one only the Crown Prince could enter, and he would know such hiding places better than anyone.
"Running away from me again?"
Tears dripped steadily from Daphne's eyes. The branch in Asherad's hand snapped with a crack.
"Daphne."
He spoke her name in a honeyed voice.
"Come here."
She had tried to run.
And yet Asherad called to Daphne with utter confidence. She could not refuse that command. Like a thoroughly trained hound, Daphne stood frozen, looking at Asherad.
"Why—why aren't you—"
He was a mess, truly unbecoming of a Crown Prince.
Had he not bothered with an overcoat? She couldn't tell. He wore only a white shirt over his upper body, the fabric thin enough to show the skin beneath. Seeing it, Daphne cried out.
"Your Highness."
"……"
"You'll catch—catch a cold!"
Daphne screamed, as if shrieking. Then Asherad let out a laugh. Somehow that laughter felt bright, and she was bewildered by it.
"You're cold, Daphne."
At those words, Daphne ran to Asherad. At last, he drew her into his broad embrace. No longer did this winter rain feel cold to her.
"I told you, didn't I. Sin is not inherited."
"……"
"That it is unjust."
"……"
His arms tightened around her. With her head buried against his chest, Daphne spoke. Then a gentle voice reached her ears.
"If only you truly were my father's child, what good fortune that would be, Daphne."
"……"
"Perhaps then we would have made fine siblings, wouldn't you say?"
At the word 'siblings,' she flinched and shuddered. And yet, she discovered in herself a strange joy at those words.
"……But Your Highness. My mother. She—your mother, she—"
"That matters little, to me."
"……"
"How could I fail to treasure one who might have been my own little sister?"
Asherad is a righteous man. He speaks only what is just. People called him the son of God.
So brilliant was he, they said, that surely God himself had combed his soul when it was being made.
But Daphne did not think that was it.
Daphne looked up at Asherad. At this very moment, she dared say, Asherad was her god.
Her god, standing with the sun at his back, smiled gently upon Daphne.