On top of that, she always had to return inside the castle before sunset. She had no real way of knowing how the sun set outside, or how many colors the sky turned as it did.

Pamona, who had nothing particularly pressing to keep her busy, had never once properly watched the sky at sunset. A sudden sense of injustice washed over her. Something this beautiful. Even when all manner of lyric poems offered long, sweeping descriptions of the sunset, she had never known this scene.

After the sun had fully gone down, the last dregs of its light painted over the sky. Reddish yet bluish, hazy yet vivid, the colors competed and layered over one another. Pamona could not tear her eyes away for even a moment.

She suddenly noticed that her hand felt damp. Without knowing when it had happened, she was holding Heil’s hand. Their eyes met, and both of them let go in embarrassment. Pamona wiped her palm against her dress and looked at Heil. Heil was wiping her hand on her dress too, and her face had turned red in the light of the sunset. When their eyes met, laughter spilled out from both of them, all awkwardness gone in an instant.

“Heil.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“This is the most dazzling thing I have ever seen.”

Pamona turned back to look at the sky again, and Heil was still watching Pamona.

“Heil.”

“Yes?”

“Shall we see each other often?”

“Oh……”

The sudden words made Heil dart her eyes around uncertainly. Even so, it was plain on her face that she was not opposed to the idea.

“Just as I call you Heil, will you call me by my name too?”

“Oh…… Me?”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

“Then…… Pa, Pamona……”

She said the name, and then her round cheeks scrunched up in the strangest way, and Pamona burst out laughing.

“This feels…… a little strange…… Would it be all right if I called you…… sister, instead…… if that isn’t too rude.”

“Of course.”

“……Sister?”

“……Yes, Heil.”

“Sister……?”

“Yes, Heil.”

The sunset reflected in Heil’s eyes outshone anything Pamona had ever seen in the world. She felt a pang of reluctance as the sky gradually deepened into darker colors. They leaned against the thick columns holding up the ceiling, and a warm breeze blew toward them.

Pamona’s long, dark, curling hair lifted lightly on the wind.

* * *

Payen Castle was in a flurry. Pamona had lain blankly in bed and stayed awake through the night, and the moment the sun rose she called for her servants. It was so unlike her to stir early that the servants, unaccustomed to such a summons, came rushing in wondering if something had happened.

When she gave the order to pack everything and send it all to the Twin Castle, the response from those around her was not smooth. They seemed unable to immediately grasp what she meant. But her command was truly simple. She intended to leave Payen Castle and move her residence to the Twin Castle.

They all seemed to think something must have gone wrong, but no one could ask the princess about it. The castle staff simply moved quickly.

Those who attended her closely packed up their own belongings as well. Perhaps they had anticipated it, at least a little, when they saw her return from the Twin Castle the night before.

Her thinking was to move first and obtain permission from whoever needed to give it afterward.

Is this too drastic a change?

She hesitated for a moment, but then thought, well, what does it matter? In truth, it was something no one would pay much attention to.

Unpacking was quick. The castle was already clean, well-maintained as it was. The servants of the Twin Castle received Pamona without a hint of flustered surprise, offering her the finest bedroom.

“Sister, here.”

She had sent word to Heil through a messenger that she would be staying at the Twin Castle for the time being. Heil came to visit not long after the bedroom had been put in order. In her hands she carried several small rolls of parchment.

“Hm?”

“A gift. To mark your arrival at the Twin Castle.”

Heil had no other siblings. Of course, if one counted half-siblings, Heil had fifteen more, but she had no full siblings. When a firstborn was a daughter, it was natural to try for a second child in hopes of a son, but it seemed Heil’s mother had not been given that opportunity.

Heil’s bright, lively eyes and rosy cheeks carried, paradoxically, the feeling of her loneliness.

In truth, daughters had been born into the royal family a few more times beyond just Pamona and Heil. But all of them had died either immediately after birth or shortly after. Pamona did not believe they had all died of natural causes.

No one had ever said as much to her. But from what Pamona had observed, no prince born in this castle had ever died. The atmosphere within the Royal Palace and the degree of protection afforded differed somewhat between the birth of a prince and the birth of a princess, and that may well have been the cause.

Some said it was simply unavoidable, that girl children were born with weaker constitutions, but, well. Could a newborn child really be especially weak for being a girl, and especially strong for being a boy.

She also thought that perhaps daughters had been nothing short of despair for the concubines who had wanted to bear sons and secure their positions for years to come, living comfortably into old age. Whether that meant the concubines had gone so far as to k*ll them outright, she couldn’t say.

The full details were impossible to know, and there was no need to know them. In any case, the only girl who had survived besides herself was Heil. Lady Rine, Heil’s mother, was well known for her exceptionally gentle nature, and seeing Heil, Pamona had no doubt that was true.

“The sea?”

What Heil had brought were several paintings of the sea.

“Yes, aren’t they beautiful? But Lady Rine said the real sea is far more beautiful than this, that no painting could compare. She said even seeing thousands of them would do no good.”

Heil showed the paintings one by one, speaking in a soft, steady voice. She said that Lady Rine had visited the sea when she was young and met a painter who had spent his whole life painting it. These were a few of the paintings she had bought from him.

In Masion, the sea was only accessible at the far southwestern edge of the kingdom, and since most of its borders connected to the continent, the majority of its people who were not from the southwest yearned for the sea. This was also why Masion waged war so frequently. It was willing to go to war for the sake of gaining territory bordering the sea.

For paintings made by someone who had spent a lifetime painting nothing but the sea, they did not look all that different from the sea paintings she had seen and grown used to in the royal palace.

Does the sea always look more or less the same?

Heil had brought them wanting to bring her joy, and Pamona found that heart sweet, so she pretended to look at them with care.

“This one. It’s my favorite.”

In the painting Heil held out, an island floated on the sea.

“Ilion……”

The nation of Ilion was an island country slightly smaller in size than all of Masion. Pamona and Heil, who had never left the Royal Palace grounds, had of course only ever encountered the concept of an island through paintings and had never seen one in person. A land surrounded by sea. She couldn’t even begin to picture it. Even looking at it in a painting, she couldn’t quite believe it.

The sea, and an island. Would there ever be a chance in her lifetime to take it in with her own eyes.

She couldn’t even imagine the sea, let alone a world floating on top of it. There was no way she could. The sea in Pamona’s mind was like a painting, completely still. She understood in her head that the real sea was not like that, but she felt certain she could never truly know without seeing it.

Even if she dipped her feet in a lake and kicked at the water, it would be nothing like the shape of the waves in a painting. Pamona could not even spread a clear picture in her mind of how vast the land of the country she lived in was. When she lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, she sometimes tried to build up an image in her imagination, but with a mind that had only ever encountered a few hundred similar paintings, even that had its limits.

In her childhood, Ilion had been a dream to Pamona. That someday she would go to that island nation without fail. Go to the far southwest of the land and there is the sea. Cross that sea and there is Ilion. She was curious. What color the sea was. What the sound of the waves was like.

Would it be clear and blue like the many paintings she had seen? Would the horizon truly have no end? Would the endless spread of blue feel beautiful, or would the boundlessness feel frightening? Would the foam breaking apart float serenely on the sea, or vanish so quickly it left no trace?

Did waves run fierce like horses or settle softly like butterflies. Would it carry a fishy smell like a lake? If not, what smell would it have? Would it be cold, lukewarm, or perhaps hot in the day and ice-cold at night. What would it feel like to step inside it? How deep would it be? How far under could she sink?

“Lady Rine said she saw the sea just once in her life. When will we ever get to see it?”