Pamona had known the Twin Castle existed, but this was her first time actually seeing it. Because it sat at the far edge of the west, she had never had occasion to pass by it even during events. She found herself understanding Heil’s barely contained excitement. If someone had passed by and seen Pamona just then, they would have thought she looked excited too.

A quiet flutter stirred in one corner of her heart. The castle held a clarity that no painting she had ever seen could have captured. She felt certain it was a castle built with love.

Two tall, identical spires stood upright side by side with a gap between them. A narrow, low castle wall in the shape of a U connected the two. More than two hundred years ago, a king had twin children with his queen. It was a first for the Masiode royal family, and the castle had been built to commemorate it.

“That castle wall connecting the two towers, every floor is built as a corridor with galleries running along it. They say all the passageways are connected so you can cross from one castle to the other. Everyone calls it the Western Bridge. Because it opens toward the direction the sun sets.”

Nothing else within the Royal Palace had a structure like it. The castle had only just passed two hundred years old, making its history shorter than the others, but that was precisely why it looked clean and neat. That was likely also why, after the twins had passed from the world, the Twin Castle came to be used for hosting distinguished foreign guests who visited the Royal Palace.

The area that could be called the front courtyard of the Western Bridge was enclosed on three sides by castle walls, and even the open entrance was thick with small trees growing in dense clusters. Whether it had been the original intent to conceal the interior from outside eyes or not, it was difficult to peer in from beyond.

“Your Highness, this way……”

Heil walked ahead of Pamona with a bright, eager expression. Pamona followed behind her along with the servants. One of the personal knights who had been keeping a set distance hurried over and fell in close beside her. Pamona didn’t think there was anything remotely dangerous about the place, but the knight’s alertness in an unfamiliar location made even her a little nervous.

Heil had been walking faster than before when she turned around. She glanced at Pamona’s expression for just a moment, then stepped slightly to the side and opened the way. It was a look that said, go ahead and step in first. Pamona passed by Heil and entered, and a small garden hidden among the trees came to greet her.

It was closer to a forest than a garden, and too modest to be called a forest. Short, young trees filled the space in thick clusters, and unnamed vines covered the castle walls. It was a completely different world, one impossible to imagine from the outside. Even the temperature felt a touch cooler, and the air was crisp.

Small red berries clung between the tall bushes, and modest flowers peeked out from among them. From somewhere came a flutter of birdsong, and when she looked up, a branch swayed.

Light rippled through the gaps. A leaf fell onto the surface of a lake so small it looked almost dainty, and concentric rings spread outward.

Green, and green again.

“Originally, my mother…… Lady Rine tended this garden. Though the castle has no owner now.”

The moment the word “mother” slipped out, Heil shook her head as though she had made a mistake. Pamona thought she was a child who knew etiquette very well. It was fine to say mother freely.

“Lady Rine tended this place?”

“Yes, just…… as a hobby!”

It was as though someone had told her not to say too much, because Heil rushed to continue in a sudden fluster.

“She tends her own castle too, and mine as well, but as you know, our castle is small so there isn’t much to tend. So she would just come out here as a hobby and tend this place too…… She has a lot of time on her hands. And someday, if a distinguished guest visits the Twin Castle, it would be nice if it became a place they couldn’t forget……

“I see. Lady Rine……”

“How do you…… like it?”

“……Mm.”

Heil fidgeted with her clasped hands and watched Pamona’s reaction. Her face carried a slight look of regret, as though she had gotten carried away without realizing it and said more than she needed to. She should have just shown her without saying anything.

“It’s too much, isn’t it? My mother, no, Lady Rine put in perhaps a little too much care to pass the time. Lately her health has been declining, so she can’t make it out here anymore. So actually…… I’ve been tending it a little…… little by little. It’s probably messier now than when Lady Rine was caring for it. It would have been so much better if you had seen it when my mother was tending it…… I’m afraid I don’t have her touch.”

In her flustered state, by the end she seemed to have lost track of whether she was saying “my mother” or “Lady Rine.”

“It’s a garden no one could forget. Whoever comes.”

Heil gripped her own clasped hands tight and looked up with startled eyes.

“Myself included.”

In an instant, the corners of Heil’s eyes flushed red. Her cheeks warmed along with them. A single word of praise for the garden she had been tending filled Heil’s heart with something wet and tender. She dropped her head and a small sound of steadied breath followed. She might have been holding back tears.

Pamona’s eyes widened for a moment, then returned to their usual expression. She thought that perhaps she understood, at least a little, what was in Heil’s heart, what it meant to melt at even the smallest word of praise. She must have gone hungry for something for a very long time.

“……Really?”

“Yes. I love it.”

Pamona too had a heart that had gone hungry for a long time. Her heart had gone unrecognized by anyone, and now even she herself paid it no attention, tucked away in a small box and pushed off to some corner.

She wanted to hide it away even more, and yet the hope that someone might find it coexisted alongside that. One small tap and it might come undone entirely.

Who would know that Pamona sometimes envied Reynard. She even envied the knights who guarded her, the guards, the servants. She envied whatever merchant might be outside the castle walls, the owner of some nameless inn.

She envied those who had not been born a princess. She envied everyone. Anyone but herself would do.

Anyone but me, who doesn’t know how to do a single thing on her own. Anyone but me, who cannot do anything without someone’s permission.

All the princesses in the countless fairy tale books she had read as a child were happy. They embroidered, sang of flowers, combed their hair beautifully, and found joy in the praise and confessions of many.

Is it only my problem, that all of those things feel like nothing but a nuisance and a waste?

Pamona wanted to do something more worthwhile. She wanted to become a more useful person. Not sit before a mirror picking apart every feature of her face, but fill what lay within.

I should not have been born as myself. Who would know. This feeling. This feeling I cannot even explain to myself. These things I cannot explain to anyone, cannot make anyone understand.

Heil looked at her and smiled brightly. Pamona watched the moisture in her eyes catch the light and reflect it, then smiled back. Heil was the one person in the world who lived a life like hers, the one person Pamona could not envy.

Why did it take me so long to think of finding you?

“Heil. Will you show me around inside the castle too?”

“I…… haven’t been inside the castle, Your Highness.”

“Why not?”

“Even without an owner, there are people who manage the castle…… I didn’t think I should go in without permission. Lady Rine also told me not to enter the interior.”

“Let’s go in. I’ll show you around.”

Pamona stepped out of the garden and passed without hesitation through the castle gate, which a servant opened with quiet attentiveness. Unlike the exterior, the inside looked no different from an ordinary castle. The anticipation she had been quietly carrying settled down a little.

She passed through what looked like an unremarkable hall and climbed the stairs. Around the second floor, she felt a breeze coming from somewhere.

They followed the direction of the breeze, drawn to it. Her thin dress kept catching at her feet, so she gathered it up in her hands. The castle wall connecting the two towers, the place called the Western Bridge, came into view. She walked a little way along the corridor and turned a corner, and she understood why it was called the Western Bridge.

Though it was not on the ground floor, the long corridor was truly like a bridge, open on both sides with no walls, only columns spaced at intervals. Turning her head one way, she could look down at the garden from before. Turning the other way, a wide open field stretched out before her.

And above it…… the sky. A red sky spread out before her. The bridge felt exactly like a cloud floating above the sky. She felt buried inside the sky itself. Pamona hadn’t even realized she was moving toward that view. A blazing sun hung before her eyes. She saw the colors of the sunset.

So this is how dazzling the sight of the sun going down could be. It was a scene she had never dreamed of, never dared to imagine.

The sun doesn’t scatter between the clouds. It slips away into the edge of the earth.

Payen Castle had tall castles surrounding it on all sides, and since it was not the tallest among them, there were many things blocking the view of the sun setting in the west. The windows and balconies that opened wide to the east let in sunlight without limit, but there were too many things in the way to watch the sun go down.