Sly Diegon furrowed his brow, tilted his head, and spoke. His manner said everything: who asked you. Pamona clenched her fist, stung with humiliation.

“I can’t go alone. The guest came with me, so we’ll leave together.”

Pamona stepped forward without thinking as she said it. Looking down at her, Terion Iligen had to work to keep his brow from creasing. Her hand, firm and resolute as she spoke, trembled faintly. She was not unafraid. She was afraid, and she stepped forward anyway.

From a moment ago, Terion Iligen had felt a strong urge to pull her behind him. He held it back. He wanted to let her do as she wished. Pamona glanced up at him for a brief moment, and their eyes met.

The stars caught in his eyes, she thought, look like they’re burning.

Sly Diegon looked Pamona up and down, then let out a scornful laugh.

“What a joke. What do you think you’re doing right now? Who raised you to be this insolent?”

He took a step toward her. In an instant, her gaze shot upward to meet his towering height, and the sheer physical weight of his presence made her heart pound. The back of her neck went rigid with tension. Even so, she did not want to back down, and she bit down on her lip.

Then a warmth touched her right wrist, and a large hand closed gently around it. She looked down and saw Terion Iligen’s hand. For a moment she forgot entirely what was happening around her, and felt something clench deep inside her.

She thought, the way she had done to him, that he was pulling her back to stop her. But he simply held her wrist in his large hand, leaving the extra space as it was, without applying any force at all. If she wanted to pull free, she would not even need to try; she could simply slip her fist through the open space.

Terion Iligen simply stayed there, the way someone might whose only purpose had always been to pass on warmth. Pamona looked up in puzzlement and met a pair of blue eyes.

Eyes that held no fear, no trace of worry. Eyes that looked like stars.

“Would you please step back? You are too close, Your Highness.”

Terion Iligen extended his other arm in front of Diegon, as though to keep him from coming any closer. Diegon looked at that arm, then back at his face, glaring between the two as though it only made him angrier. Contrary to her worry, Terion Iligen’s considerably greater height made it seem like he was not being pushed back at all.

If anything, the pony-faced prince and the toad prince seemed to shrink back a little under that presence. Or was that just her imagination…….

“Did you just stop me?”

Ha…….

Diegon, that brute, had probably forgotten, or perhaps never registered, that the person in front of him was a prince of another nation. His eyes flashed with something murderous. He was not quite as wild as her younger brother Reynard, but he was no pushover either.

“This man is a guest from Ilion.”

Terion Iligen paid no mind to Diegon’s bloodshot glare. His unshaken composure gave Pamona the courage to open her mouth a little more.

“Princess.”

“Shut your mouth, Princess.”

Every time Pamona said a word, four voices came down on her with overbearing words and looks. One of them said nothing and only watched, but his eyes alone seemed capable of freezing or scorching her where she stood.

“He is a prince of Ilion. Do you honestly think this is acceptable treatment?”

“What exactly did we do that you’re making such a fuss about? Can’t even have a sparring match? Anyone watching would think I dragged him here and beat him half to death.”

“That is also rude.”

Pamona felt anger, fear, and humiliation all at once, but she had no desire to flee. She was only ashamed that these worthless, worthless people were being laid bare before her as her half-siblings.

How embarrassing. Terion Iligen seems like a genuinely good person. When she had introduced her family, she had said they were decent people. She had told him not to worry, that Heil would be fine.

And now here she was, surrounded by these contemptible people she had never once thought of as family, with everything on full display: that she lived among them as someone to be scorned and ignored.

On top of that, Terion Iligen was being put through this humiliation because of her. Something unimaginable in his own country. All because he happened to be with her.

“Just being in an unfamiliar place must be hard enough. You don’t know anyone here, and it isn’t even the country you were born and raised in, so how many difficulties must you already be facing. Do the princes really need to add to them? I don’t understand why you’re so eager to make things harder for someone. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to be completely alone in a strange place. But perhaps it’s time you learned. You can’t go on forever swarming around together like children.”

It was the first time she had ever spoken at such length to the princes, let alone with words this sharp. She had thought she was fine before she started speaking, but her fingertips were trembling and her breath had grown short, which told her she had frightened herself without realizing it.

Pamona ground her teeth and tightened her fists, not wanting the princes to see. The heated words she had thrown out could not be taken back now regardless. Her face burned.

Her palms grew damp inside her clenched fists. What now. For the first time in her life, she had spoken her true feelings to her half-siblings. A cold sweat crept up from the back of her neck, and then, all at once, she felt a soft movement at the wrist where warmth still rested.

Terion Iligen’s thumb moved slowly, carefully, stroking her wrist.

She was still looking at the four princes standing before her. But she could feel Terion Iligen’s gaze, which had not left her face. Every nerve she had was already fixed on her wrist, and where that soothing touch landed, she felt her pulse beat unusually loud.

The hand moved gently back and forth, and it was warm. Only then did she feel the sting where her nails had dug into her palm. Pamona quietly loosened her fist. The warmth traveling up from her wrist eased the urge she had felt to run. She wrung out a little more strength.

“You should be ashamed.”

Diegon glared at Pamona with the look of someone who wanted to swing a practice sword at her right then and there.

“Sparring, showing off your strength, stirring up something this childish. Don’t fool yourselves into thinking that makes you manly. I’m watching, and I’m embarrassed enough that I can barely stand it.”

The hand Terion Iligen had around hers seemed to tighten just slightly more than before, though it was so faint she wondered if she had imagined it. But the arm still held between her and the princes did not ease its tension, alert to any move they might make against her.

“This is what makes Masion look foolish.”

“Don’t cross the line, Princess.”

“I hope there will be no further damage to the honor of House Masiode.”

“That mouth.”

Pamona kept up the pretense of composure, but she could read the contempt in their eyes by now. Their fury at her words was plain: their faces, already slick with sweat, had gone through every shade of red and purple until they were almost painful to look at. She had no doubt that if there were no witnesses, they would have made sure to return every bit of that contempt to her directly.

She dreaded what might come later, but she could not back down now. She could not afford to look that small in front of the prince of Ilion. She believed that standing there in silence while they insulted her, in front of him, would be an insult not only to herself but to Masion and House Masiode.

She had no power, no particular skill to speak of, but even so, Pamona was a princess of Masion.

Was a thick face also something that ran in the family?

“I’ll be going to Sionel to ask how this should be handled.”

Pamona played her shameless card. They were not the only ones born of royal Masiode blood. And Pamona had Crown Prince Sionel, her most powerful hand. She was certain that Sionel, at least, would take her side no matter what.

Diegon’s eyes went red as he let out a scornful laugh. Then, just as he moved to lunge roughly toward Pamona.

“That is enough, now.”

Terion Iligen stepped into his path without giving him an opening.

“You wouldn’t want to have a problem with me.”

“Diegon.”

Bull Kalos, who had stepped back and watched the situation quietly, shoved Diegon aside.

“If we have caused offense, I apologize, Your Highness.”

Diegon looked back at Kalos’s expression, and like a dog tucking its tail, he immediately stepped aside. He acted exactly the way he looked. Even then, he was seething over something, his breath coming in sharp bursts.

“My brothers are skilled only with the sword, so their words tend to be a bit rough. Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

“I understand, Kalos.”

“We’ll get out of your way now. It seems we’ve been an intrusion.”

Kalos gave a short bow and turned away without hesitation. The rest of the princes followed after him, but Terion Iligen suddenly moved to call them back, apparently unsatisfied with something. Pamona, startled, reached out with both hands and pulled his hand back firmly.

When he turned to look at her, she shook her head. Some of the princes stomped off but glanced back at them every so often, glaring.

“Why were you going after them?”

“They didn’t apologize to Pamona.”

Ha. Pamona let out a helpless puff of air.

“Don’t even dream of it.”