“Anything except lavender is fine.”

Ines did not have strong preferences by nature. So the things she disliked all came wrapped in memories she wanted to erase.

Lavender was no exception.

It was the scent that the Emperor, whom she despised with every fiber of her being, was particularly fond of.

As Marisa had said, Cecile was remarkably capable.

From nothing more than being helped with a bath, it was easy to understand why Marisa had assigned a girl who had only just come of age as the princess’s personal maid.

“I’ll apply some oil to your hair.”

“Go ahead.”

Ines nodded, and gentle hands began working through her hair.

Her body thoroughly relaxed by the warm, fragrant water, and with that careful touch added on top of it, fatigue she had not even known she was carrying came flooding in. She had closed her eyes for a moment when a small sound came from behind her.

“Wow……”

A tiny, almost involuntary exclamation. Cecile.

“Oh.”

Ines opened her eyes slowly to find Cecile’s flustered face reflected in the mirror.

It did not seem to have been a syllable she had meant to let out.

With her drowsy mind, Ines blinked blankly, and Cecile, apparently taking that as a reprimand, wilted.

“……I’m sorry, Your Highness. It’s just, your hair color is so beautiful……”

Ines, who had felt a little sorry for the girl who had shrunk just from being looked at, let out a small laugh before she could stop herself.

She met Cecile’s eyes through the mirror as a way of telling her not to worry.

“Thank you. It’s been…… a very long time since anyone said something like that.”

A memory drifted past like a gentle breeze, of a large, steady hand carefully smoothing through her hair once.

Something in that brief exchange seemed to put Cecile at ease.

Though of course she did not overstep. Cecile was sharp and capable enough that even when she noticed the large scar on Ines’s shoulder while helping with the bath, she had not reacted at all.

“I’ll come to attend you again at dinner. If you need anything in the meantime, please call for me anytime!”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Then please rest well, Your Highness.”

Cecile gave a shy smile and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her.

Ines watched the closed door for a moment, then lay down on the bed.

Without a canopy above her, the ceiling was directly in view, a calm and warm shade of beige.

Each time she shifted, the thick duvet stuffed full of soft feathers rustled pleasantly.

“……This is nice.”

Ines pulled the duvet up just under her chin and murmured softly.

Perhaps because it was the one place she had thought of as home in twenty-seven years of living. Only now did the bed beneath her feel truly comfortable.

From the moment she had returned until she left, in the princess’s palace, and in every lodging along the way to Rupert, Ines had not once been able to lie down at ease, not once been able to fall asleep without worry.

The reasons were many, but they all came down to one.

Ines was afraid. Afraid that if she closed her eyes and opened them again, the miraculous chance she had been given would vanish like foam.

That was why, only now, having seen again the people she wanted to protect, could she feel even the smallest measure of relief.

‘I’ll rest just a little, then go to dinner……’

That faint relief loosened the reins of the exhaustion she had been holding back.

Ines blinked a few more times, then drifted off to sleep.

Somewhere in the dream, she thought she glimpsed Killian from a time that no longer existed.

* * *

“……Then I shall see you at the wedding ceremony, Your Grace.”

“Rest well.”

The high priest, who had laid bare the corruption of the temple in every word he spoke, left the study with a disgruntled expression, having failed to get what he wanted.

Click. Killian watched the closed door and let out a sigh.

“I really am not compatible with that lot at all.”

He muttered under his breath, and Theodore, who had been listening from behind, snickered.

“Isn’t that blasphemy?”

“If anything, I’d say the corrupt temple is the one committing blasphemy. At least I don’t demand bribes in the name of the gods.”

“Well…… that’s true.”

The high priest who had just left was someone the Emperor had specially sent to officiate the wedding.

There were temples in Rupert’s territory as well, but the priests qualified to officiate a royal wedding were few, and so that high priest had made the long journey to the North as part of the princess’s party.

“He won’t deliberately botch the ceremony just because he didn’t get his bribe, will he?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, things like switching the order on purpose, or subtly altering the congratulatory speech to sneak in a curse…… Capital types are petty enough to do something like that.”

Killian gave a short laugh at Theodore’s rather vivid imagination.

“Isn’t that regional discrimination?”

“Ahem…… oh, speaking of which, what was she like?”

“She?”

Killian looked back at him blankly, and Theodore narrowed his eyes.

“You know perfectly well…… the soon-to-be lady of the house. Her Highness the Princess.”

“Ah.”

Killian leaned back in his chair with an air of belated comprehension.

“Hmm……”

He tapped his thigh slowly with one raised finger, thinking over his answer.

Theodore looked like he was dying of curiosity.

And with good reason. After Killian’s marriage had become a certainty, the biggest topic in Rupert Castle was undeniably the identity of his future wife.

The fact that their lord was getting married at all was surprising enough, but the other party was a princess of the very imperial house that Rupert was at odds with.

Of course, if asked whether the direction of that interest was rooted in goodwill, Theodore could not honestly say yes.

Everyone knew this marriage had been pushed through by the Emperor, with the return of the mana stone exclusive distribution rights they had once seized and full autonomy over the North as the stakes.

Theodore was not one to support guilt by association. The price of wrongdoing should fall on the one responsible. That was only right.

But he was not magnanimous enough to welcome with open arms the fact that this person would be right here, close by, as the wife of the lord he had pledged his loyalty to.

“Does she take after her father’s side?”

“No. Strangely enough, she doesn’t resemble that side at all.”

Killian, who had been deliberating, answered this question immediately.

Theodore exhaled in relief.

“……That’s a relief.”

“A relief?”

“Of course it’s a relief. What could be more horrifying than the future mistress of the house being the spitting image of His Majesty the Emperor?”

“Anyone watching would think it was your marriage.”

“……It may not be my marriage, but it is my lord’s. And she is someone I’ll be serving going forward…… it’s only natural to be concerned.”

Killian did not bother to stop Theodore’s grumbling.

Whatever kind of person the princess was, the marriage itself was something the people of the North had every right to find unwelcome.

He himself had not placed great significance on marriage to begin with, so he had focused more on what had been gained through it, but not everyone felt the same way.

Killian offered his own impression instead.

“She’s unusual.”

“……Is that a roundabout way of saying strange?”

Killian gave a short laugh.

“No. Unusual in the literal sense. If I had to say…… in a good way?”

Theodore made a baffled face, as though he had heard something peculiar.

“Unusual in a good sense? ……That’s very different from what I’ve heard.”

Ines Delcarion, Second Princess of the Empire, was not particularly well-known for a member of the imperial family, despite the hundreds and thousands of eyes that watched the imperial house.

Of course, the Second Princess herself was something of a misfit, notorious enough to be called a half-princess for never having received a middle name, but even accounting for that, her presence was remarkably faint.

‘Come to think of it, the Second Princess really does live like she’s dead. Has she ever even set foot outside the imperial palace?’

It was no wonder Theodore had once said something like that while checking on the capital’s affairs.

In any case, for that Second Princess to be described as unusual. That was more surprising than the word “good.”

“It was also the princess who told me to be especially wary of the imperial soldiers.”

“……Pardon?”

Killian’s offhand remark made Theodore’s eyes go wide.

“Wait…… Her Highness told you to be wary of the imperial soldiers?”

“Yes. When I asked if I could inspect the party and luggage she brought, she said that. Apparently there’s a sorcerer among the imperial soldiers.”

Theodore seemed to have forgotten to manage his expression entirely.

“Good lord…… I don’t know what to make of any of this……”

After muttering to himself for a while, Theodore’s face suddenly hardened.

“Could that itself be a scheme? If they’re in on it together…… it could be a ploy to make us trust Her Highness.”

It was a reasonable suspicion.

The number of underhanded schemes the Emperor had run beneath the surface to put the North in a difficult position was hardly small.

The reason Rupert’s people were not fond of the princess was not so much that they disliked her personally as that they were wary of the Emperor standing behind her.