Her own safety was not in her own hands. She had to lean on the goodwill of others, lean on someone’s protection, lean on chance and luck. From her personal knights to the guards, she had no choice but to drag them all around with her whether she liked it or not, but even that did nothing to ease her anxiety. It would never come to that, but if they all conspired and turned on her, what good would a handful of knights and guards be anyway.

Whenever Pamona confided these inner thoughts to her older brother Sionel, he would simply let out a short laugh. Stop talking nonsense and eat something sweet, he would say.

Pamona felt as though she was being forced to trust her half-siblings without any basis for it whatsoever. That they would willingly show her goodwill. That they would not harm her. That they had no reason to.

Yet whenever she happened to cross paths with one of them, she felt afraid. The other person said nothing and did nothing, but Pamona felt their persistent gaze on her. She herself had never once stared at them the way they stared at her, so openly, so relentlessly.

Pamona told herself coldly that it was strange how she kept shrinking like this. No one had threatened her, and she had never been attacked. Her life was as peaceful and quiet as a life could be. She had no dramatic history to speak of, born a princess of the kingdom and raised in comfort, and she could not understand where these feelings and emotions of hers came from.

Despite that cynical reasoning, Pamona could not feel safe. The kingdom was at war beyond its borders, but it was not a local conflict fought on home soil. She had always wanted to know where the weight that seemed to press down on her came from.

People said she had much, but she could not tell what any of it was. Whatever it was, she had no proper means to protect it, and she was powerless, unable to do anything for even her own body.

What had she been lacking? What had gone wrong, that I ended up growing up this weak?

At times, helplessness swallowed her whole.

Pamona took a much wider loop around the inner castle grounds than usual. A line of servants, guards, and personal knights followed behind her. Half of it was to settle her restless mind, and the other half was to shake off anyone who might follow her. She found herself so pathetic that she knocked her own head a couple of times.

Her mind did not settle easily. She always walked only along the eastern side of the Royal Palace and had rarely strayed far from Payen Castle, but today she walked on long past every path she had ever taken.

“Your Highness, you must turn back now if you wish to return to Payen Castle before sunset.”

One of the servants following behind her grew worried that they had come too far. Pamona had already crossed over to the western side of the Royal Palace. She gave no answer and kept walking forward. Because of her age, the time she could spend outside her castle was still limited. But today, she wanted to ignore that rule.

She was acting out, wanting to shake off her weakness in some way. She hadn’t been able to tell Reynard to stop bothering her. She hadn’t been able to keep her dignity in front of the princes. It was pathetic.

Reynard was young and yet he ignored every rule and ran around wherever he pleased. He made everyone around him miserable, but at least he knew how to put his own mind at ease.

Just for one day, I too……

She had been walking with her eyes on the ground when she suddenly lifted her head. Not far ahead, she spotted a group of servants and guards. And at the very front of them……

“Heil?”

It was her one and only half-sister, Heil.

Among the king’s many children, the only two daughters.

Heil was the one and only sister Pamona had. It felt awkward to call her a younger sister given how little they had seen of each other, but somehow Pamona felt a little closer to her than to the other princes.

She was the same age as Reynard, if she remembered right. The last time she had seen her, Heil had been noticeably taller than Reynard.

They had both been very young then. It was only natural that they had grown since, but to Pamona’s eyes, Heil still looked like a small child. She was clearly a little shorter than Reynard now. While Reynard had shot up, Heil seemed to have grown very slowly.

“Oh…… Are you Princess Pamona, Your Highness……?”

Heil stopped in surprise, her large eyes blinking. A breeze blew across the green field, and the grass rippled. For a brief moment, nothing moved except the swaying grass. Neither Heil nor Pamona had expected to meet like this. The servants who had been following behind all bowed deeply in greeting.

The eastern side of the Royal Palace, where Payen Castle stood, was arguably the noisiest place in the entire grounds. Along with Reynard’s castle, Leyen Castle, many other castles clustered together in the surrounding area. The princes born of the king’s concubines rather than the queen occupied castle after castle in a long line.

Heil was not the daughter of a concubine the king had held in any particular favor, and on top of that, being born a girl meant her place in the line of succession was so low it was hardly worth counting. Naturally, she had been given a castle far removed from the center. Heil’s Heryen Castle sat in the distant west. It was far enough from Payen Castle in the east that the two of them had no occasion to meet unless there was a major event.

Only then did Pamona realize just how far she had walked.

“I present my greetings, Your Highness. My name is Heil. I am your younger sister.”

Heil had composed herself and come to stand before Pamona, with perfectly proper etiquette at that. The greeting itself was unfamiliar, but its content was even more so.

Whether she thought herself too insignificant a person for anyone to recognize her, or whether she was simply being considerate, the introduction was quite specific for a princess.

Not one of the eastern princes she had crossed paths with countless times had ever introduced himself to Pamona that way. If they had, perhaps today’s incident would never have happened.

“Heil. I remember you.”

Or perhaps the news of her spotty memory had spread all the way to the west.

“You’re the same age as Reynard, right?”

Pamona confirmed Heil’s age. She knew well enough that not every child this age was a wild thing like Reynard, but this one was, well. Too perfectly a princess. Almost unbelievably so for a girl of only fourteen.

“Yes, I am two months younger than Prince Reynard.”

And two months younger than Reynard at that…… While Reynard had been forming that personality of his, Heil had……

The thought came to her suddenly that Heil might even be better than herself. Pamona had never been able to match the faces, names, or even ages of the many princes. Somehow, Heil looked ready to rattle off everyone’s birthdays in order if only someone asked.

“Right. It’s been a long time. You’ve grown a lot.”

“Yes. I always heard news that you were well. I never expected to see you here in the west…… I’m truly glad to see you.”

There was a faint flush to Heil’s cheeks. Only then did Pamona notice that Heil’s eyes were shining.

How sweet.

The words of gladness did not seem like empty ones. Pamona glanced around briefly and noticed that this place was remarkably quiet compared to the east. Standing still, she could hear the sound of the wind moving through the grass.

“Is it always this quiet here?”

“Is it quiet? It’s always like this. The princes from the nearby castles are busy, and it seems they often go to the east.”

Perhaps the east being so noisy was not entirely Reynard’s fault. If the western princes were crossing over to the east every day as well……

If Pamona had known sooner that such a still and peaceful place existed within the Royal Palace grounds, she would have been too indignant to stay quietly in Payen Castle. Now that she knew, how was she supposed to endure that marketplace any longer.

“It’s my first time. In the west.”

She must have passed through the west a handful of times for various events, but walking here on her own like this, without any destination, was a first. The east also had wide open fields like this. But they were nothing like this, so neat and tidy. Soil turned up every which way, weeds growing in wild tangles, pulled out every day only to spring up fresh again.

“Would it be all right if I…… walked beside you for a little while, Your Highness? Only if I wouldn’t be causing you any inconvenience.”

It is a little inconvenient……

But for some reason she couldn’t name, it felt like an inconvenience she was willing to accept.

* * *

Heil looked as though she wanted to take Pamona by the hand and drag her all around the west, if only she could. Without even realizing it, she was bubbling with excitement, her steps light and quick.

She chewed at her round cheeks and pointed out each castle they passed, telling Pamona whose castle this one was, whose castle that one was. In those moments, she looked less like the perfectly composed and ideal princess she had seemed at first and more like a child her own age.

When they passed her own castle, Heryen Castle, she seemed to feel embarrassed, calling it small and unremarkable and wanting to hurry past it. Watching her, Pamona let a faint smile cross her face every now and then.

“This is the Twin Castle, Your Highness.”

They passed all those castles and finally reached the far edge of the west, where the Twin Castle stood, nearly the last among the castles of considerable size. The pale walls had been slightly darkened by sunlight and the passage of time, but their old-world elegance was in a class of its own compared to the other castles. Heil seemed somehow proud of it, even though it wasn’t hers.