With people traveling back and forth between the two countries, it was clear enough that for the one coming from Ilion to return home safely, Heil would have to return safely as well.

“Why Heil. Heil is young and has nothing to do with any of this…… There are plenty of other princes.”

“It is the king’s command.”

Those words seemed to drain the fight right out of Pamona. That was exactly her question. Why had the king chosen Heil specifically? There were princes everywhere you turned inside the castle, more than enough to trip over, and yet he was leaving those grown men to idle about uselessly and sending Heil instead. Why did it have to be Heil.

“He said he could not send a prince.”

“……”

It was an answer too obvious to be surprising, and yet Pamona felt herself plummeting into somewhere bottomlessly deep. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them to find Ian Dnie’s gaze meeting hers from across the table. Those dark eyes carried a faint tinge of red.

A frustration he had likely never felt once in his life pressed against her chest. She did not need to hear Ian Dnie’s thoughts to know exactly what they were.

Orders from above are to be followed without question. If she kept asking why, those reddish eyes would probably find her the strange one.

“I see.”

Pamona forced herself to draw in a long breath and let it out slowly.

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t send Heil either.”

Even at words that must have sounded stubborn, Sionel remained unruffled, showing no particular reaction. Ian Dnie gave her not even a glance, as though he had not heard.

Are my words even reaching those two? What are they thinking? How do I calm this one down? How do I soothe her and send her quietly back to her castle? Is that what they’re thinking?

“If you can’t send her.”

“Then I’ll go.”

Only then did the look in Sionel’s eyes change as he turned to her. A subtle shift in expression crossed his face, the kind only family would catch. Pamona wanted to push further. If they knew how far her composure had fallen, they could not be sitting there leisurely savoring their tea.

“It was my dream, going to Ilion. Please tell Father. That I will go in her place.”

“Your dream.”

“Yes. My dream.”

Sionel seemed to think for a moment, then pressed his fingers against his temple. He let out a quiet breath. That gesture of his irritated her.

This child is giving me a headache. No one had ever said it aloud, but Pamona felt it. In the silent looks they exchanged. In the way they breathed. In the air where nothing was asked and nothing was answered.

Sionel had turned her into a foolish little child.

Now it was time to soothe and pacify this girl.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what.”

“That look. Like you’re tired of this. Like I’m a nuisance.”

“You are, aren’t you, Your Highness. My nuisance.”

Pamona held Sionel’s gaze without looking away. Sionel had eased somewhat from before. Those eyes held affection now, unlike the hardness of a moment ago, and for just an instant she felt her own heart soften, then felt appalled at herself for it. It was clearly an expression he was putting on deliberately to calm her down.

“Please withdraw that.”

Ian Dnie, who had been sitting there as though he were not in the room, opened his mouth without warning, and Pamona felt even more exasperated. For someone cutting in, his manner was entirely too composed, as though he were simply appreciating the fragrance of his tea. He was speaking to Pamona, but he did not look directly at her.

“Why? If it’s dangerous for me to go, then no one should be going in the first place.”

“It will not be dangerous.”

She had expected him to sit quietly like a mouse and then excuse himself. Not to interject in that flat, even tone.

“Then there’s no problem with me going.”

This might be the longest conversation she had ever had with Ian Dnie in her life.

“Did you know as well? About the friendly relations.”

“Sir accompanied the talks in his capacity as military commander.”

The fact that Heil, the person most directly affected, had been informed in that manner, while even the firstborn son of the ducal family, not yet even the duke himself, had already known, stoked her anger.

What do they think Heil is?

“There is no other way. It was decided that members of the royal family would travel between the two countries. His Majesty commanded that no prince be sent. There are only two princesses.”

“Which is why I said I would go.”

But she did not know where to take her grievance. And even if she did, would anyone give her a proper answer?

“I believe Your Highness has a commitment that can only be honored by remaining within Masion.”

He set down the teacup he had been holding and looked at her with an expressionless gaze. Pamona lost her words for a moment and could only stare back at those eyes. They were asking whether she remembered now, asking what she thought she could do about it.

Her marriage to this cold, dry man was one year away. His meaning was that if that arrangement was to proceed as planned, she would need to stay in Masion.

“Childish talk.”

Sionel finally reached her where she had been curled up, not knowing which way to turn.

“Ha.”

A scoff escaped her before she could stop it.

It was perhaps natural that to Sionel’s eyes, nine years her senior, she looked like an immature younger sibling. But the reason she was behaving this way was not immaturity.

Heil was different from her. She wanted to protect the heart of a child who seemed capable of finding something good even in the deepest mud. The heart she herself did not have. The heart she must have lost somewhere along the way.

“Pamona.”

In a place where she knew no one. In a place she knew nothing about. She was afraid that Heil might come to know the same fear she knew. That was what frightened her.

“You can’t go.”

“Why, why can’t I.”

“Because you’re my sister.”

Sionel said it while holding her gaze. Looking at those unwavering eyes, she felt her breath catch and her lips begin to tremble. She could feel the muscles in her face moving in ways she had not wanted.

Because I’m your sister?

“I have an obligation to protect you.”

Protect.

“Heil is your sister too.”

“It’s different. You stay here.”

What is different?

I happened to be born of the same mother, and you think of me as your sister, so I have your protection.

Then who protects Heil? What becomes of that child who wasn’t so lucky?

She felt her throat lurch but swallowed it down with everything she had. Something was clawing its way up, and she did not want to know what it was. Pamona pressed her lower lip tightly between her teeth.

Pamona dropped her head. For a moment she wanted to cry out loud, the way she had as a child. It was not because of her own situation. No. Or was it because of her situation? She felt pity. For Heil. And for herself.

Powerless, weak. The two of us who cannot protect ourselves.

Heil is only a half-sister, but she is still your sister.

Her chest caved in at the thought of Heil’s life, where even this thin excuse for protection did not exist. She could barely stand the sorrow of it, thinking of that child who had survived this great prison with no one on her side but her poor mother tucked away in some corner of the Royal Palace.

The fact that this was the situation she and Heil were in. The absurdity and the pain of not even being able to put up a proper fight when the time came to be sent away to a distant foreign country she knew only by name, without anyone’s protection. The wretchedness of knowing that she, who wanted to stand on Heil’s side, had nothing and no ability of her own and could only cling to her brother.

She wondered whether she had ever truly looked at Heil’s life, a life without even a brother like this. She had thought Heil was a child who had adapted to the darkness and did not lose her way within it. But perhaps Heil had become that way for exactly this reason.

Because even if she hated it, even if it was humiliating, there was no way to survive without adapting.

What had been given to that child from the very beginning?

If her belief that she and Heil were wandering the same cave had been her own delusion. If the place where Heil stood was in fact so unfathomably deep that even the struggle to find light was not permitted. If it was a place deeper and darker than her own.

No, Pamona could not help but return now to the most original question.

Had the assumption that the child could see at all been wrong from the start?

She felt ashamed.

“It’ll be fine. She’ll come back safe and sound, without anything happening. I promise. Sir, you promise too.”

“Yes. I promise on the honor of House Dnie.”

There were many words boiling up inside her, but she had no strength to release them. She wanted to hurl something vile.

Ian Dnie sat quietly in his place and drank his tea as though nothing were the matter. As though whatever was said in front of him, her feelings were simply her own. As though none of it concerned him. Indifferent to the point of coldness.

She was sick to death of that composure.

Pamona could not hold out to the end and insist on going herself. She did not have the strength.

Yes, of course. That’s how it goes.

Self-contempt settled over her. She was disgusted by her own helplessness and cowardice, yielding as though she had no choice.