But after speaking with Ines, Killian had discarded that hypothesis.

“No. She didn’t look like someone who would move according to the Emperor’s will.”

“……You confirmed that yourself?”

At Theodore’s careful question, Killian smiled lightly.

“Yes. The princess won’t be a threat to Rupert.”

The moment Killian said that, Theodore cleanly swept away the instinctive resentment he had felt toward the princess.

Because Killian’s “confirmation” was more certain proof than anything else.

* * *

After Theodore left, Killian sat quietly with his thoughts.

“Ines Delcarion……”

A woman who seemed to be made entirely of delicate, fine lines, like a painting drawn with the finest brush, each stroke laid down with care.

He had spoken lightly to Theodore, but his impressions of the princess were somewhat more complicated.

The strange feeling had begun when he first came face to face with her…… that is, from the moment their eyes met as she stepped out of the carriage.

A procession that was relatively splendid by the standards of a Second Princess who was poorly treated at the imperial palace, yet modest by the general measure of imperial royalty.

His first impression of the princess stepping carefully out of the carriage was that whoever had painted her portrait had rather poor skill, and that the woman whose slender frame even thick clothing could not conceal was so pale in coloring that she might be swallowed up by the white snowfield around her.

The peculiar feeling came after that, the instant their gazes crossed.

Green eyes that went wide the moment they met his, then slowly spread into a dazed blankness.

Killian knew from long experience that his appearance drew people’s eyes, and he had always dealt with it through a well-placed smile or simple indifference. But the emotion in the eyes of the princess, who was clearly meeting him for the first time, was not simple admiration or surprise.

Something deeper and more complicated……

‘I am Killian Rupert.’

When Killian finished his brief greeting, having skillfully concealed his puzzlement, the dazed eyes flashed with light for just an instant. His keen sight caught both the moisture and the emotion that vanished in a few blinks.

Relief, longing, guilt……

Those were the names of the emotions he had drawn from those mist-filled forest eyes in that brief moment.

Naturally, he was puzzled.

Why? What reason could she have to look at him with those emotions in her eyes?

‘Thank you for receiving me, Grand Duke. I am Ines Delcarion.’

The princess had concealed her feelings with considerable skill. Had the person across from her been anyone other than Killian, with his more-than-human senses, she would have gotten away with it entirely.

Killian had known that the princess’s trembling hands were not from the cold. He simply did not know the reason, so he had guided her inside with a suitably gentle manner.

The peculiar feeling continued after that.

The look in her eyes when she saw Ivan and Marisa. The deep regret that lingered in her gaze as she took in the interior while climbing the stairs.

What reason could a princess who had likely never left the imperial palace have for looking at him and Rupert with those eyes?

He did not pride himself on being able to find the answer to every problem, but this was the most unfathomable puzzle he had ever encountered.

His questions did not stop there.

‘I also have something to tell you, Grand Duke. Are there any listening ears nearby?’

‘You need to watch the imperial soldiers very carefully. There is someone among them who can use sorcery.’

‘……I understand if you can’t trust me, Grand Duke. I know you may dislike me.’

Her words kept exceeding his expectations, as though rebuking him for having formed a one-sided impression of a person from nothing but a dry written report.

Her voice trembled, unable to hide the tension and anxiety, but there was strength in her words.

‘I want Rupert to suffer no harm of any kind.’

And when the princess said those words with a resolute expression, Killian glanced at her and ended up laughing before he could stop himself. She was still puzzling, still impossible to read, but those words alone were too clearly, unmistakably true.

And so Killian made his judgment, based on the “truth” he had confirmed: the princess would not be a threat to Rupert.

But she still occupied his thoughts.

The incomprehensible emotions that had lingered in those mysterious green eyes. The hatred toward the imperial house that, while she had certainly been mistreated, seemed to run deeper than he would have expected.

And,

‘Heh……’

The sound of sobbing that had drifted out not long after he left the room.

Whose crying it was needed no guessing. The princess had wept with a grief so raw that Killian, who had been about to politely move away, found himself unable to take a single step.

She seemed to be trying to suppress the sound, but the intermittent catch of her breathing came through clearly.

In that moment, Killian had to urgently look back over the conversation, wondering if he had somehow been threatening toward her. He only realized that he had in fact been gentler than he had planned before receiving her, and felt relieved and strangely unsettled at the same time.

He waited until the crying had quieted somewhat before finally leaving. The inexplicable relief that came as her weeping subsided was probably just because she had cried so pitifully.

“……I can’t make sense of her.”

The fact that he would not need to be on guard every moment of every day against someone he would be living face to face with for the rest of his life, barring any mishap, was quite fortunate. But in its place, it seemed she would occupy his thoughts in an entirely different way.

Killian sat quietly turning over the problem, which had yet to yield even a thread of a clue, then pushed it aside with a sigh.

Before dinner, he had documents that had come with the unfathomable princess to work through, and he would need to move his pen quickly. The Emperor was the type who enjoyed tampering with paperwork.

Killian reviewed the documents with care. Even so, the grey-green eyes that kept surfacing unbidden, those he could do nothing about.

* * *

‘……Well, this is something.’

The swallowed sigh was rather deep.

He had only just managed to peel those eyes from his mind when it seemed they were about to be replaced by a pale, stricken face.

Killian had come downstairs after being told that the princess, who had said she would rest briefly before dinner, was burning with fever, and now he studied the bed with a complicated expression.

The face that had been as pale as the snow outside just a few hours ago was now flushed with fever, and she was drawing ragged, labored breaths that were difficult to watch.

“What happened?”

He asked quietly, his gaze still fixed on Ines, and the physician standing beside him answered.

“It appears to be a fever brought on by fatigue and stress.”

“A fever?”

“Yes. The journey to the North seems to have been quite taxing for Her Highness. And it seems she is not particularly robust by constitution to begin with……”

“……I see.”

Killian murmured softly and let out a shallow sigh.

That Ines was not hardy was something anyone could see at a glance. The delicate face, the wrist that would leave room to spare in one hand, the thin line of her body visible through several layers of clothing. The thick fur coat she wore over it all looked like it was swallowing her whole.

“The medicine.”

“She managed to take it just a moment ago.”

Killian was about to ask why the fever still looked so severe, then remembered that medicine needed time to take effect and held his tongue.

Was Ines looking unusually frail because she was lying ill, or was it because most people in the North, men and women alike, tended to be built robustly? The fact that the two maids who had accompanied Ines were both smaller than her did not even register in Killian’s mind.

“……See to her thoroughly and without lacking.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The physician bowed, and Cecile and Marisa standing behind him bowed as well.

Killian was just turning to leave when,

“Ki……”

At the very edge of his withdrawing gaze, he caught moving lips.

Killian looked at them without meaning to. Lips pale against the flushed red of her cheeks, trembling faintly, then at last forming a single word.

“Killian……”

He was standing in front of her, and the sound was barely there, so the others would not have heard. But Killian heard it clearly, and saw it clearly. The word that the woman, delirious with fever and barely conscious, had breathed out with such aching fragility was none other than Killian, his own name.

“……Ha.”

Killian let out a short, involuntary laugh. They had known each other’s names for some time, and had even exchanged introductions a few hours ago, but that did not mean they had started calling each other by name.

‘Good grief……’

Bewilderment? Absurdity? Displeasure? No, none of those.

Killian found himself seized by a feeling he could not identify. The sensation of something tingling faintly in one corner of his mind the moment he registered that soundless call was a kind he had never experienced before.

If he heard it one more time, would he be able to name this feeling?

But his name was not called again.