2
0. Who was I trying to show it to?
“Ah, Ashelad!”
The moment she confirmed who the voice belonged to, Calista's face lit up. His mere arrival was enough to make the maids stop their hands, which had been trying to strip off Daphne's clothes.
Daphne looked at Ashelad with a flushed face. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.
It was the same gaze as back then, when he had watched her nearly be violated by the Prince of Findus. If he had worn the expression of someone looking at a worm crawling on the floor, she might have recovered faster. Instead, it was the look of someone surveying the furniture of a room.
He had said, clearly, that he cherished her.
He had told her to stay by his side.
He had said he thought of her like a little sister.
Then why did this man always look at her with that expression in moments like this? Not hostile, not contemptuous, but the indifferent, frigid face of someone beholding something worthless.
“What brings you here, Ashelad?”
“I heard the commotion and came to see.”
At that, Fabian's eyes narrowed, but no one noticed.
“This concerns discipline within the palace. I am merely punishing a foolish maid. If maids go about wearing plainclothes as they please, what will become of the palace's discipline?”
At Calista's words, Ashelad let out a low sigh and spoke.
“Surely I have no right to interfere with Mother's authority.”
He said it with a troubled expression.
“Only, you know as well as I do. There is no time to waste on a mere maid.”
“...”
“You must spend today with me.”
His voice was smooth. Softer than the one he had ever given Daphne, brimming with affection...
At Ashelad's words, Calista's eyes went wide. She looked back and forth between Daphne, who was a thorn in her side, and Ashelad. And then the answer came far too easily.
A husband grown old and decrepit, or time spent with a handsome stepson? What Calista would choose was obvious. In this rotten palace, Ashelad was the only place her heart could rest.
“I'll discipline her myself. She is to be in my chambers.”
When Ashelad spoke in a cold voice, Daphne lowered her head. Calista frowned at the sight.
“Ashelad, this matter—”
“Have I not already told you?”
The reason the Emperor had gone out of his way to keep that woman alive.
The Emperor was clearly showing interest in Daphne. Even so, in front of Calista, the Emperor had sided with the maid only to the extent of not humiliating Calista herself.
If she pushed any further, there was no telling how the Emperor would react.
To Calista, who was somewhat impulsive and emotional, Ashelad was a good counselor. Above all, he knew well how to soothe her without provoking her temper.
“Fine, then.”
“Shall we be going?”
When Ashelad extended his hand, Calista shyly took it.
Calista's maids released Daphne and followed behind Calista. Daphne watched them go.
To her, the sight of Calista and Ashelad—their intimacy far too great for a stepmother and stepson—did not even register.
She simply had no strength left to do anything but reckon with her own wretched position and the humiliation that washed over her body.
Daphne knelt where she was, staring at the floor.
The Emperor's mockery, Calista's cruelty, Ashelad's indifference.
None of it was pleasant. Once more, the focus drained from Daphne's eyes. Then, Fabian looked at her.
She couldn't tell what his expression was. Pity for someone pitifully persecuted? Weariness at the sordidness of Daphne's life that he had witnessed with his own eyes? Or fear?
Unable to offer a single word of comfort, only staring at her wide-eyed—something in her seemed to collapse at the sight.
Fabian had always been the one to offer her comfort. Like her father had, she had hoped he might comfort her again. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had thought this man might be different from Ashelad, whom she loved.
When she was with Fabian, she felt as though she returned to being an ordinary person. But she had learned all too well, before the powerful, how powerless the world Fabian built for her truly was.
Daphne closed her slightly parted lips. Otherwise, she felt she would say something weak to Fabian. She simply looked at him with the same unfocused eyes and blank expression she'd had before meeting him.
And Fabian, seeing that, turned away without hesitation and walked far into the distance. Daphne could not bring herself to hold him back. Tears simply spilled down her cheeks.
The sunlight was quite warm, and the breath of spring had settled over the garden. Amid the bright flowers and the tender sunlight, Daphne trembled.
She was cold.
It felt as though she had been cast back into the depths of winter. * * * Daphne stood in the Crown Prince's chambers, looking a complete mess. The Crown Prince's chambers were as warm as ever. His room was refined and immaculate. But everything in his room was something she scarcely dared touch.
She loved this room. And yet, Daphne had always felt uneasy in it.
The master of this room made her feel the same way.
And so Daphne had tried to content herself with an affection like that of a 'little sister.' But in moments like this, Ashelad felt unbearable to her.
Even that discomfort was a luxury, however. In hours that felt like death, she had waited for Ashelad, flailing in the familiar swamp of despair.
All that remained to Daphne was despair. The only thing she could do was pity herself.
What else could she possibly do?
Nothing was within her grasp. The affection Ashelad held for her was nothing special, merely an occasional whim he deigned to grant, and Fabian's affection had vanished far too easily in the face of her reality.
Perhaps she had hoped, just a little...
Daphne, leaning on nothing, stood alone and watched the sun set over the Crown Prince's chambers. As the dim evening drew near at last, Ashelad entered.
He let out a quiet sigh, passed Daphne where she stood, and sat down at the table.
With a scrape, he turned his chair toward Daphne. He looked at her face as she stood there and spoke.
“You're a sorry sight.”
“...”
For the first time, mockery seeped through Ashelad's voice. Daphne looked at him with an expressionless face. He reached out with his pale, thick hand.
Riiip. Daphne's doll-like expression changed in an instant. Ashelad had torn her dress apart with tremendous force.
“Y-Your Highness!”
“...”
Daphne cried out as she looked at him, but without so much as a twitch of his brow, he kept pulling. Rip—buttons tore free. Daphne stared down at the buttons rolling across the floor.
Clad in nothing but her chemise and drawers, she shifted her gaze to him with a dazed expression. Ashelad was looking at her body. The darkness in his eyes seemed to deepen. At last, he raised his green eyes and met hers.
“Who told you to go about in filthy clothes?”
“...”
“Who were you trying to show them to?”
Ashelad stood behind Daphne. He undid the tightly bound knot of her golden hair.
As the binding came loose, a strange languor spread through her. Daphne swept her hair back.
“Tell me, Daphne.”
“That is...”
Daphne squeezed her eyes shut. You were told to show it to Fabian. It was for your mother's sake. That, too, was true.
“I wanted to show it to Your Highness.”
Ashelad said nothing.
“I thought you had bought it for me.”
The sudden gift had been unsettling, yet the thought that Ashelad had bought it for her had secretly delighted her. She had wanted to show him. Daphne bowed her head in shame. Ashelad stared at her with his usual expressionlessness.
Was it because he had judged her feelings to be genuine? But for all that, his eyes were frozen, not so much as blinking—though Daphne did not notice.
Having already been humiliated once, saying this no longer felt shameful. Nor did standing there in her underthings with her dress torn away.
Ashelad smoothed down the hair that spilled down Daphne's back. In doing so, his breath brushed hot against the nape of her neck, half exposed. Just as her body flushed at the suddenness of it, Ashelad spoke.
“You were the most beautiful one there today.”
“...”
“I mean it.”
At those words, Daphne squeezed her eyes shut and turned to look at him. His tone was almost as if he were soothing her. Why was it, she wondered, that hearing those words brought relief, and the hurt she had forgotten lifted its head again?
Perhaps it showed on her face, for a spark of interest rose in Ashelad's eyes.
“Are you angry?”
“...”
“Angry that I kept my distance from you, that I took her side?”
“There was nothing you could do.”
Daphne answered mechanically. Seeing this, Ashelad chuckled. When she lifted her gaze to the sound of his laughter, his expression was still one of amusement.
What Ashelad felt for the Daphne of the present was, unmistakably, affection. And yet something felt stifling. So stifling she could hardly bear it.
But as always, she pressed the feeling down. She was a criminal's daughter, and she had to endure it.
Because that was right.
Ashelad spoke as he looked into Daphne's face. The touch of his finger tracing her cheek was unbearably sweet.
“But Daphne, you did the same.”
“...”
“You played about with that knight. Fabian Pond.”
Daphne found it strange, the way Ashelad spoke that name. Had he been paying that much attention to her? At her puzzled expression, Ashelad said:
“Daphne. What did that knight do for you today?”
“...”
“What could he have done for you today?”
Ashelad stroked her hair tenderly. That was right. At the name Fabian, just as her heart lurched, Ashelad quietly bent down and met her eyes.
“He can give you nothing. Just look at what happened today. How utterly powerless he was.”
“...”
“Daphne, that man is a knight of poor quality.”
“...”
“So...”
“I was never fit for his company anyway.”
“...”
“There is no need to tell me. He left on his own, knowing that.”
At Daphne's bitter words, Ashelad gripped her shoulders.
“I'm sorry. Were you hurt?”
Daphne did not answer. It was a tender thing to say. And yet it was cold. Perhaps because of that coldness, Ashelad fell silent for a moment, then said, as though he had no other choice:
“The reason I cannot come close to you is, you see...”
“...”
“Because His Majesty the Emperor so commanded.”
It was a remark far too cold for one speaking of his own father.
“Yes, he ordered me not to see you.”
A chill sneer was wrapped around the words.
Daphne, by contrast, opened her eyes wide. The Emperor had told him not to see her?
Why, in the world?
Why would he act this way?
Excluding her from difficult matters, summoning her to scrutinize her, gifting her clothes, ordering Ashelad not to see her. After neglecting her all this time, he was now making some kind of 'move' on Daphne.
Daphne had a terrible premonition that her entire life was about to change. That it would change for something very bad indeed...
“Daphne, keep your distance from that powerless man. Before something greater happens.”
“...”
“I am the only one who cherishes you.”
Was it because distance had grown between her and Ashelad? Was it because of his condemnation of Fabian?
Daphne shook her head inwardly. Was the Crown Prince not just as powerless? By the Emperor's command, Ashelad could not even approach her.
Ashelad must have realized it by now as well. That the Emperor—his father—had conceived a lustful desire for her.