Barix was genuinely fast. Even when Meliciel picked up speed a little to find her footing after so long away from riding, he closed in on her quickly.

“Just a little more.”

Meliciel whispered to the beloved horse and urged it faster.

“My lady! It’s dangerous!”

She ignored Barix’s booming voice and rode in the direction she remembered.

Clop, clop, clop. The sound of hoofbeats was lively.

Wherever she went, the wide, well-packed paths were perfect for riding.

As she rode, she caught the eyes of a few servants and maids, but they bowed their heads and quickly stepped aside.

Meliciel laughed for no particular reason. She always used to ride trailing behind Kahar, and now she could ride like this, leading the way.

“My laaady!”

Barix was already right beside her.

“Slow down!”

While Meliciel rode along the path, Barix leaped over obstacles and pursued her swiftly.

Meliciel was running out of breath, so she slowed down a little. Only then did Barix look like he could breathe again.

“Please wait here for a moment, Sir Barix.”

“What? Where are you going now?”

Barix followed behind Meliciel with a suspicious look.

“I thought I’d take a walk near that forest over there.”

At the same time, Meliciel brought her horse to a stop. In the old days she would have leaped right off, but her body wasn’t up to that yet.

Meliciel blinked and looked at Barix, and he seemed to realize his oversight and climbed down from his horse.

“I apologize. Attending to someone like you is new to me……”

Barix stood beside Meliciel’s horse and stretched both arms upward.

“You want me to fall into your arms?”

Meliciel tilted her head slightly and asked, genuinely unsure.

“Isn’t this right? How does one do it.”

Meliciel just looked at him without climbing down, and Barix’s face went a little red as he scratched his head.

“Honestly, I don’t know either. How knights are supposed to treat a lady…… I have no idea.”

The two of them looked at each other again and burst out laughing at the same time.

Then Meliciel reached out first, and Barix lifted her the way one might lift a granddaughter and set her lightly on the ground.

The difference in their sizes was enormous, so lowering Meliciel cost Barix no effort whatsoever.

“Thank you.”

“Ahem. Would it not be all right if I came along?”

“There’s nothing dangerous inside the Grand Ducal Castle, is there?”

“Well, that’s true. Who would dare cause a scene in the Grand Duke’s residence. Not me, even if I had a hundred lives.”

Then that settles it. Meliciel said it with her expression, and Barix nodded and stepped back.

There was no servant in the Grand Ducal Castle who didn’t know that Lady Meliciel, Duke Dexter’s youngest daughter, arrived the previous night.

No one would make a careless mistake with her, and there were no threats to speak of.

This was a place where everything ran systematically and stably.

The Grand Duchy was a place where governance was more moderate than even the imperial palace. Kahar did not tolerate troublemakers. That was why he allowed Meliciel’s walk.

Barix watched with his eyes as the young duchess walked carefully, fluttering like a butterfly. He handed the horse off to an approaching servant and dropped onto a bench.

It was a warm summer day.

***

Meanwhile, Meliciel found a path cutting through the forest. She decided on the walk from the start precisely to come here.

“I should have just ridden the horse.”

She chose to walk because she thought Barix would follow her all the way if she rode, but the ride already wore her out after so long.

Cross this forest and Od Palace would appear. The small castle where she lived as Lani was still vivid in her memory.

Meliciel exhaled once and looked around.

Behind her, the malignant energy trailed after her in a trickle, then scattered and dispersed. But she still had no power to eliminate it.

The growing resentment wrapped coldly around her body.

Could it be the resentment of the baby who was taken away?

“I’m sorry.”

She stroked her empty lower abdomen and apologized out of habit.

Even though the baby was no longer there.

Meliciel walked as fast as she could. If she was gone too long, Barix would come looking.

Before that, she wanted to see it just once.

Od Palace, where she lived as Lani. The place where the baby once dwelled.

So even though her breath reached the top of her throat, she couldn’t stop walking.

Od Palace stood in an isolated spot, like something planted alone in the middle of the forest.

Before long the forest ended and an open clearing came into view. She was almost there.

A stretch of green grass spread out, and then another dense stand of trees. Beyond them, a pointed castle came into sight.

That was Od Palace. The place where Lani lived as Kahar’s ward-maid shadow, and as the divine painter to perform the bonding ritual.

It was also the place where Viviana came and threatened her life.

The closer she got to Od Palace, the hotter her breath grew. Something in her chest burned and stung like a scald, and Meliciel felt tears coming.

This place was the first sanctuary Lani ever had. Only for a very short time, but it was.

She left feeling chased out by Viviana, thinking she would never return…….

Meliciel stood facing Od Palace and caught her breath.

“……Someone’s here.”

Meliciel muttered in puzzlement and hid herself first.

This was a place servants rarely came and went. Yet two maids were sweeping the front yard.

Their movements were clean and natural, like a perfectly ordinary part of their routine.

Meliciel hid behind a tree first, then slipped toward the back door while the maids were looking elsewhere.

Past the back door, a familiar scent reached her. The smell of wood and cool stone. Air that was slightly chilly.

Od Palace was clean, just as she remembered.

“It doesn’t seem like anyone is staying here……”

Meliciel looked around the interior, which felt somewhat bare, and climbed the stone steps.

She was looking for the bedroom. She found the third-floor bedroom and carefully tried the door.

Creak. The door made a grinding sound and didn’t move at all.

“……Huh?”

It’s locked?

She pushed the door again, but the result was the same. It wouldn’t open.

Was it locked because no one was using it? Meliciel wondered and moved to the room next door.

It was usually the room where she drank tea, but this one was locked tight as well.

She felt a quiet pang of disappointment, having wanted to take one more look at these rooms.

But she couldn’t force a locked door open.

Meliciel set aside her reluctance and quietly slipped out of the corridor.

Then, on a passing thought, she made her way to the greenhouse in the back garden.

She figured that since it needed tending, the door there wouldn’t be locked.

The maids were in the yard, so the risk of being walked in on was low.

“Good.”

She was right. The greenhouse door was held shut with a single iron bar, just as before.

She pulled out the iron bar and opened the greenhouse door.

A greenhouse full of flowers that only grew in warm climates captured her gaze at once.

She felt surrounded by colors even more vivid than before. There was no one staying at Od Palace, yet the plants were more varied and abundant than she remembered, tended with what seemed like greater care and devotion.

Meliciel walked carefully inside and crouched down in front of a small pot.

“Hello.”

She looked down at the little cactus she used to cherish. What was once about the size of a finger now grew to about a hand’s span.

In Meliciel’s sense of time, only about a month passed since her death. So she sometimes felt a disconnect with a world that moved on by a whole year.

Everything still feels so vivid.

“I almost don’t recognize you.”

Meliciel ran her fingertips over the fine spines of the cactus, then picked it up. The pot was dressed in a knitted wool cover.

This cactus came into the greenhouse the day she found out about the baby.

She wanted to make clothes for the child, but she didn’t know the size or how to do it, so she knitted some yarn and put it on this pot instead.

Thinking of it as practice…….

Her throat tightened again. Meliciel held back the stinging tears and whispered.

“I’m sorry. We have to meet the baby another time.”

She wanted to give this cactus to the baby as a gift someday, once it was born.

“But we’ll definitely be able to meet.”

Want to come with me?

There was no answer, but Meliciel nodded to herself and took the pot.

There were many similar ones and the variety was wide, so no one would notice one missing.

Meliciel was just stepping out of the greenhouse. She heard the sound of the two maids from earlier approaching.

Meliciel tried to quickly turn back the way she came. But perhaps she pushed herself too hard.

Her legs, tension now released, refused to cooperate. She stumbled and ended up knocking into a stack of wooden boards left to one side.

“Ow.”

The sound of the stacked boards tumbling across the floor rang out loud and long.

“Is someone there?”

It was a maid’s voice. Meliciel quickly straightened herself up.

The moment she clutched the pot firmly to her chest, the maids spotted her.

The three of them stared at each other with wide eyes. Meliciel’s ears burned with embarrassment.

She rolled her eyes once and tried to compose herself.

“You must have been startled. I came in without saying anything.”

Meliciel would soon become the mistress of this place.

So she couldn’t bow her head to anyone. She had to lift her chin and act as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Chayden’s warning had a point.

“I’m Meliciel Chloe.”