He parted his lips for a moment, as though about to say something, then closed them firmly without a word.

“The lake must want to flow too. Toward wherever it wishes, into a world as wide as the sea……”

Pamona wore a serene smile at the corners of her mouth, the smile of someone who had already let all of this go, someone to whom none of it mattered anymore. She trusted the red light pouring over her face to cover whatever sorrow lay beneath.

“I am sorry. It was not the answer you were hoping for.”

Pamona looked at him with a lift of her brow, the look of someone about to play a trick, but he said nothing and stayed still. She had wanted Terion Iligen to laugh along with her.

She had wanted him to say, you are right, how funny, and give her that clear laugh of his again. He was someone who laughed so freely.

Then she could truly laugh it off as though it were nothing. But Terion Iligen was not what she had expected. He only looked quietly into her eyes, the way someone does when trying to take the measure of something. She thought that if he kept at it, he really would see straight through to her inside.

And then, just like everyone else in this royal castle, once he knew what Pamona was truly like, once he found out she was someone whose entire day amounted to lying down and staring at the ceiling, would it not become difficult to see that playful smile of his again? Would he not look past her and laugh and talk among themselves, the way her half-siblings did?

Those were the things Pamona feared.

“You said there was much you could not understand, Terion. Even I, who was born and raised in this country, felt the same way, so it is only natural that you would. The more I tried to understand, the more I wanted to understand, the more things there were that I could not.”

Pamona imitated the tone of someone who found all of this interesting, for fear that he might pity her, or feel sorry for her.

“What did you do with the things you could not understand?”

“What could I do?”

Pamona laughed again. She wanted to give the impression that she found his words quite amusing.

“I just think, ah, so that is how it is. You cannot chase after something that does not exist.”

She laughed, hoping to appear unbothered. The eyes watching her quietly took in the sunset, the blue in them flushed red without a trace of their earlier color. It was as though the red had seeped into the blue and drawn out a deeper shade.

Pamona had given up on finding answers. The answer, she had decided long ago, was that a flawed question has no answer to begin with. By keeping up that detached air, as though none of it were her own concern, she hoped he would not notice her dreary pessimism. Her weariness. Her helplessness.

She hoped he would not think less of her the way everyone who knew her did. If only, for the short time he stayed here, he could go on misreading her as someone as clear and bright as himself. If she could pretend to be that kind of person, just for a little while.

Terion Iligen looked at Pamona in silence for a moment, then turned his head back to the sky. On one side, thoughts gathered; on the other, he wanted to shake them loose, and he closed his eyes. Beneath the closed lashes, a deep and quiet current stirred.

The blue hair swayed in the passing wind and fell softly across his face. Pamona hoped the damp air settling between them would fill in whatever she had failed to conceal. She hoped that when he opened his eyes again, he would look at her the same way as before.

Without contempt. Without scorn.

Looking at his profile, that mysterious quality she could never have imagined before meeting Terion Iligen, she realized that the fragrance she thought she had caught from a distance earlier had been a mistake.

Standing close, the scent coming from him was different from the cool fragrance she had imagined. It was a rather warm and softly tickling scent, one that seemed at odds with the color blue.

“What was that about the woman you mentioned at luncheon?”

He finally opened his eyes and cut through the heavy air with a light voice.

“Ah.”

“Did you see a woman? Is that why you went into the lake? To look for her?”

Why is he so perceptive?

“No. No. I was mistaken about that.”

It felt awkward now to say she had seen a woman who apparently did not exist. With no evidence and no witnesses, claiming to have seen something alone was sure to invite misunderstanding or bring nothing but trouble. There was a reason Pamona was particularly guarded about things like this. It was because her mother suffered from a mental illness.

“You were mistaken?”

“Yes.”

“That is not true.”

He really did have the instincts of a ghost.

“Pardon?”

“You went out that night to look for her too.”

At those words, Pamona’s shoulders stiffened for a moment. He was talking about their first encounter on the footbridge again. Though could that even be called a first encounter.

He must have seen the nightgown……

He stretched out his arm and extended a single finger, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. She let out a breath the way someone does when given a firm pat on the back. She had not even known she was holding it.

“Where could she have gone? A dead person would not have walked out on their own.”

He murmured. She could not tell whether the murmur slipping past his lips was to himself or to her. Pamona had not yet decided whether to answer or not when Terion Iligen opened his mouth again.

“You must have cared for it a great deal.”

He stretched out his solid arm and pointed toward the garden. Pamona followed Terion Iligen’s blue gaze down to the garden below.

“The forest grew on love.”

The trees were so dense they formed something like a canopy, and from here the inner part of the garden was not visible, but Pamona did not need to see it. She already knew it by heart. She had followed Heil in and out of it for a full three years.

The garden looked less like a tended garden and more like a small forest. It was relatively compact, and no matter how faithfully Heil tended to it every day, it could never be as neat as something maintained by several gardeners. Someone who did not know might not even realize it was a cared-for garden at all.

“Do you like it there, Pamona?”

When Pamona gave no answer, Terion Iligen turned his head toward her and glanced over, then suddenly pulled the corners of his mouth into a smile.

Good grief. Why does he keep smiling like that?

“Too many questions? I have had a lot of curiosity and no one suitable to ask here.”

Pamona, unaccustomed to that expression, turned her head sharply back toward the garden, where all there was to see were the tops of the trees.

She had the feeling that every time she moved, there would be a flutter of wings. That was the thought that came to her.

She did not know why she felt that way, but surrounded by that beautifully shaped face and the warm scent that gently tickled her nose, even moving a single finger felt shameful. That blue hair and those blue eyes, things that seemed not of this world, kept making her feel small.

“Heil did it. Not me.”

“Heil?”

“Yes, my younger sister who went to Ilion.”

“Ah, yes. I heard about her. That a young princess would be coming.”

A young princess. It struck her freshly that Heil was not only young by Pamona’s measure, but young by anyone’s.

Had she made it through the long journey without any trouble? Was she eating properly? The worry surfaced without warning, even in the moments she had managed to forget. Heil had a good nature and was well-mannered, so she would not do anything to earn anyone’s dislike, but.

Pamona knew nothing of Ilion, or how they treated a princess from another country.

“You are worried.”

I knew it…… I should not have let her go.

“You say you cannot even leave the castle, Pamona. Your sister is probably out seeing the world right now and having the time of her life.”

Terion Iligen seemed bothered by her downcast face and kept tilting his head, trying to peer up at her from below. She could not bring herself to smile the way he did, so she left her hair where it was, falling forward to cover her face.

“There is much I would like to tell you about it…… But to say just a little, it is not a harsh place. My family are decent people too.”

Regardless of what he said, there was something about him that put her a little at ease. If someone as stiff and imposing as Sir Ian Dnie had come from Ilion, she would have been sick with worry over Heil. But Terion Iligen was nothing like that. There was nothing blunt or sharp-edged about him. If anything, he was soft and easygoing, if one could put it that way…… 

He might take offense at being described in those terms, thinking it no way to speak of a man, and feel quite wounded.

“No one there will give the princess a hard time either. There are four of us siblings. I have an older sister, and she is not particularly kind, but that is probably only toward me. I also have two younger brothers. Ah, how old is Princess Heil?”

“…… Eighteen.”

Terion Iligen touched his hair as the wind tossed it, and smiled a little.

“That works out well. My younger brother is eighteen too. The same age, just like us. That one is thoroughly devoted to playing the gentleman. I have never in my life seen such a gentleman. He will treat her wonderfully, so there is truly nothing to worry about.”

She did not know him well, but even a brief look was enough to tell that he was a person of an entirely different character from the men of Masion she had known until now. He could not have grown up in a harsh environment, just as he said.

She even had the thought that if she said to him, “Terion, you really are so soft and easygoing,” he might just smile brightly and say, “Really? Thank you.”

Should I say it?

“Terion.”

“Yes?”

“…… Never mind.”