“Can’t you hear me! Huh?”

Why does he have to be like that?

The murky voice of a boy just entering adolescence rang out so loudly that most of the servants in Payen Castle must have heard the shouting. Reynard stood outside the castle walls and screamed at the top of his lungs. Anyone who didn’t know him would have recognized from his voice alone that he was a foul-tempered little beast.

“Princess! Pamona!”

Pamona lay on her bed, far from the window, staring up at the ceiling. Her bedroom sat on a fairly high floor, but on noisy mornings, sounds like this often climbed over the castle walls and reached her.

“Ha……”

She had tried to lie there and ignore it, but that child didn’t know the meaning of giving up. She had already counted the jewels on the chandelier beneath the ceiling more times than she could remember, and there was nowhere else left to rest her eyes.

I’m so tired of this.

“If you don’t come out, I’m coming in! Huh? I’ll come in and not leave until the day after tomorrow!”

That’s insane…….

She had learned a few months ago that the threat was genuine.

That day, too, he had been hollering outside the window. It happened often enough that she had left him to it, and that was her mistake. Unable to contain his own temper, he had stomped and kicked against the solid castle wall.

She had thought he would tire himself out and stop, but no. Reynard had fumed and stormed his way all the way into Pamona’s bedroom.

He grabbed his lying sister by the arm, yanked her out of bed, and then flung himself onto it.

And he didn’t get up until the following morning.

He had watched his own servants come running after him in embarrassment, then gone right back to snoring without a care in the world.

The memory of that humiliation came back to Pamona now, of being driven out of her own bedroom and tossing and turning in some random guest room. She didn’t want to go through that again, so she had no choice but to drag herself up. By this point, it was clear that the little brat had figured out just how well the threat worked and was enjoying it.

It was past noon, but as always, she was still in her thin sleeping clothes.

“Ha……”

I really…… hate this.

“Hey! Come out! I said come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out!”

Two servants worked to change her clothes while Reynard’s patience ran dry outside. Pamona buried her face in both hands. She squeezed her cheeks together, scrunching them up, and let out a long, slow breath.

I’m going. I’m going out. Just please shut your mouth…….

It was time to drag herself out toward the noise beyond the castle walls.

“Why are you so slow, why! I’m going to die of frustration, seriously! Hurry up and get over here!”

Pamona’s younger brother, Reynard, started in on her the moment he saw her, throwing every bit of his temper at her and urging her to move faster. When she reached the spot where he had been shrieking, she found that several other princes had gathered there as well. The sight stopped her in her tracks.

Could they tell……

A cluster of boys greeted her with eye contact and nods of the head. It was not a particularly kind or warm greeting. Though of course, the princes greeting her warmly would have been even more unsettling.

Whether her foolish brother didn’t know that Pamona was uncomfortable around the other princes, or whether he simply didn’t care, she couldn’t say. A flash of irritation rose up at him for dragging her all the way out here, but she swallowed it back down, same as always.

Pamona had two siblings from the same mother: Sionel above her, and Reynard below. She had no fewer than thirteen half-siblings from other mothers.

Was it thirteen?

That was what she knew. There could be more, but she had no way of knowing. Some might even be coming into the world right now.

Of the sixteen children in total, by her count, only two were girls. The rest were all boys, princes each born of a different mother.

So with as many as fourteen princes, it was possible to mix up a name or two.

Yes. Pamona had never once in her life successfully matched their faces to their names.

Did she even need to?

“Pamona, come over here and judge who’s stronger between me and Seyers. This guy keeps getting cocky!”

She had caught one name, but what good would that do……

She had a feeling that opening her mouth would only lead to a mistake, and she wanted nothing more than to slip away quickly.

“Me, huh? If His Majesty had only given his permission, I’d rightfully be rolling around on the battlefield right now with Sir Dnie, you little brat!”

The one squaring off against Reynard was probably an older brother, but Reynard paid no mind to that, calling his half-brothers whatever he felt like, throwing around “you brat” and “this guy” as he pleased. Because he was born of the queen, the legitimate wife, Reynard’s place in the line of succession was overwhelmingly high.

When they were younger, some princes had let their pride get the better of them and come to blows over being talked down to, but that no longer happened. They had all come to accept that Reynard’s temperament was simply no different from that of a street ruffian.

No matter what anyone said back to him, the response was always just, well, that’s Reynard for you. There was no other way to deal with him. Because no one expected anything from him in the first place, there was nothing to fight about. He was nothing more than a foolish young colt, barely into adolescence, dying of frustration over not being allowed to go to war.

Pamona had been trying to think of an excuse to go back inside the castle, but Reynard was the kind of child who wouldn’t be satisfied until he had his sparring match right then and there. 

Whether she watched or not, she would have no choice but to tell him he had won. Because if she didn’t, it was obvious he would keep at it until he got the answer he wanted, driving everyone around him mad.

Giving him what he wanted was the fastest way through it, so she watched the sparring match that had begun with a blank expression. Neither of the two had a clear advantage over the other; they were evenly matched. Pamona had to work to hide how bored she was.

She stood there half-present, watching the blue leaves swaying in the distance, then told Reynard he had won. No one there had been expecting a fair judgment, so no one complained. Her foolish brother was so thrilled to have won that he doubled over laughing and slapped his half-brother on the shoulder again and again.

She wanted to leave right away, but there was no avoiding a brief exchange of words, so she reluctantly opened her mouth.

“Prince Rafaello……”

“Pfft!”

Reynard suddenly let out a scoff, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She shifted her gaze and found that the face of the prince she had called Rafaello had gone dark.

Ah. Right. Of course…… She had thought the name came to her too easily. She had gotten it wrong again.

It would have been nice if she could think of a way to recover, but Pamona was flustered, and all she could do was hold her breath and read the room. Everyone except Reynard did the same. She worried her face might flush red, and she wanted to fan herself, but even that felt difficult to do freely.

“Are you an idiot? Huh? Pfuhahaha, Rafaello? Rafaello? Then who’s this person? Huh? Is this one also Rafaello? Who’s the real Rafaello?”

The expressions on the princes’ faces grew even more rigid. If only there were some way to do something about that flapping mouth of his.

Now that they knew she still didn’t have all their names straight, their pride must have taken a full blow. Or rather…… had they realized she had no intention of ever learning them?

They had every right to be angry at Pamona, but they seemed to be calculating whether it was worth getting worked up at the child of the queen.

“I…… have a poor memory. I apologize for the rudeness.”

Pamona turned away and left in a hurry. Staying any longer would only invite more unpleasantness, and she would be lucky to get away without making things worse. She moved quickly, almost as though she were being chased, and her servants followed behind her. The sound of Reynard’s greedy laughter grew more distant.

She kept glancing back over her shoulder, on edge, half-expecting one of them to come after her and grab her.

Most of the princes were now much taller than her. She had to tilt her head back to meet their eyes. Her spirits shrank in proportion to how far up she had to look.

The princes had never openly shown hostility toward Pamona. But she also knew they held no particular warmth for her. Reynard, wild and headstrong, had been poking around everywhere since childhood and had built up a fair amount of familiarity with the princes, but Pamona had not.

At Royal Palace events, whenever her two brothers weren’t by her side, Pamona didn’t so much as turn her head in the direction of the other princes. They were too unfamiliar, too difficult to approach, to feel like siblings. There had been no exchange or connection throughout her entire childhood that might have made them feel like family. And they, for their part, had no reason to seek out Pamona when they had so many other brothers to turn to.

There was nothing to share with Pamona, not fighting, not training, not even those supposedly dull and tedious classes in military strategy or political theory. They didn’t know how she spent her time, and they didn’t care. They were busy enough living their own loud and fierce years among themselves.

Older or younger, the ones she happened to cross paths with kept growing bigger every time she saw them, surpassing her in both height and build. They grew strong and broad in the way that men of Masion did. They were being raised without any lack in the mastery of swordsmanship and all manner of tactics.

To Pamona, they were unfamiliar and rough-edged boys. They had never meant to be threatening, but that was simply what they were. They could, if they chose, attack in any way at any time, and she had neither the capacity nor the means to defend herself. If someone decided to strike, she would be struck.