“Is the culture different here? Or would just calling my name be fine?”

“But how could I possibly address Your Highness…”

“Haa…”

Aidan’s heavy sigh swallowed the end of her words.

“We should make some distinctions.”

Wondering what he meant by distinctions, Karina tilted her head.

“In front of everyone, I’m Prince Aidan, and you’re Princess Consort Karina.”

She just stared at him blankly without any reaction to such an obvious statement.

“But when we’re alone, throw away all that prince and princess consort stuff, and I’m just Aidan Griffith, and you’re just Karina Hewitt.”

While prince and princess consort positions were definitely not something that could be described as ‘stuff,’ she understood what Aidan was trying to say.

“So at least when we’re alone, drop that ‘Your Highness’ business.”

Aidan. Though in her mind she had called him not just by his name but also cursed him countless times as an idiot and worse, saying it out loud was a different matter entirely. From a very young age, from the moment she became aware of Aidan’s existence, to Karina, he had been His Highness the Prince.

“Okay?”

When Karina remained silent without saying anything, Aidan pressed his thought again.

“Don’t think about it too hard. At least to you, to you who knows who I really am, I want to be just ‘me,’ not a prince.”

Looking at his face as he smiled faintly while facing her, she felt conflicted. Though he wasn’t showing it at all, it was natural that he too had his own struggles living as a completely different person. Because of that, she couldn’t bring herself to answer that it was impossible, that he must be a prince anywhere and everywhere, when he said he wanted to be acknowledged as himself, at least by Karina who knew the truth.

“Alright.”

After much contemplation, she nodded, and finally Aidan’s face brightened.

“Say it.”

“Right now?”

She was flustered when he demanded she call his name immediately after finishing her sentence. Worried that someone passing by might hear, she looked around, but still not even a mouse was passing by. The imperial palace must be quite vast indeed. How could there be a place where not a single person was visible in a place where so many people come and go? She even began to suspect that Aidan had deliberately brought her to a place where people don’t pass by.

“Hurry.”

He seemed determined not to back down until she called his name. Instead, he was leaning forward, gradually closing the distance between himself and Karina.

“Karina.”

The distance had shortened so much that she could barely see his face as he called her name. At this rate, their lips would touch.

“Y-Your Highness…!”

“Name.”

His low voice and breath brushed against her cheek simultaneously. She tried to turn her head away, but Aidan held her face with one hand, preventing her from escaping him. Now Aidan’s face was really just a paper’s width away.

“Aidan!”

The moment his lips slightly brushed against hers, she reflexively called out, and Aidan stopped. He straightened up compliantly and grinned.

“Nice.”

“I don’t know what’s so nice about it.”

Her face felt hot and flushed from his mischievousness. While she fanned herself with one hand and scolded him, Aidan’s eyes curved in pleasure.

“When you call me that, I feel like I’m starting to grow fond of this name Aidan too.”

At Aidan’s casually thrown words, Karina looked up at him, startled. Perhaps… the name he wanted to be called wasn’t Aidan but his original name.

“Shall we go now?”

Aidan walked back the way they came while holding Karina’s hand. Matching his pace, Karina stared blankly at his back.

I’m sorry.

She swallowed the words that had rolled to the tip of her tongue.

Though she could guess how Aidan felt, she couldn’t ask about or call him by his original name. If by any chance, like how birds hear day talk and mice hear night talk, someone unexpected were to hear that name, she was terrified just imagining what might happen. Neither Aidan nor herself, who knew and kept his secret, would survive. Knowing that Aidan’s soul had been replaced by another’s and keeping it secret — that itself was treason against the imperial family.

‘Of course, I plan to settle in this world if possible.’

‘This is an opportunity given to me. I have no intention of letting it slip away. This time, I intend to survive properly.’

‘Until I adapt to this world, you’ll have to be my helper.’

The words he had said when she first met him after her regression flashed through her mind like a kaleidoscope. Back then, her desire to divorce him had been so intense that she had let those words slip by, but thinking about them now, there were many strange aspects.

Aidan had never once shown confusion about waking up in this world that must have been completely foreign to him. He didn’t even try to return to his original world. Perhaps there was a reason why he couldn’t return to the world he had lived in.

“Aidan.”

At Karina’s call, Aidan turned around with a “Hmm?” Karina stopped walking completely and looked at him.

“You said someone tried to kill you, right?”

“Lloyd?”

His response was as if she was asking something obvious.

“No. Not here… in your original world…”

Aidan, who had been quietly looking at Karina, smiled faintly. But that smile held a line that couldn’t be crossed. It seemed he wouldn’t answer any more questions. So when she hesitated to continue and just stared at him, Aidan squeezed her hand tighter and quietly started walking again.

*

Princess Elena, who had watched the knights’ tournament, praised and departed after expressing admiration for the skills of the Griffith Empire’s knights, especially Prince Aidan. Although the royal marriage had fallen through due to Lloyd and Kate Spencer’s scandal, she showed goodwill toward Aidan and Karina, and thanks to that, the alliance with Icinia remained stable without any wavering.

Though everything seemed to wrap up quietly on the surface, the reality was different. When his daughter’s intimacy with Lloyd became public knowledge, Count Spencer was furious. His attitude too seemed ridiculous to others. Count Spencer had noticed and tacitly approved of his daughter’s secret relationship with Aidan.

There were rumors that House Spencer had been suffering from financial difficulties recently. In such a situation, though Kate couldn’t become the princess consort, he might have thought House Spencer would benefit if Kate became particularly close to Aidan. Perhaps he had even hoped that if Kate bore Aidan’s child, they could receive financial support from the imperial family using that as an excuse.

Though rumors of Kate and Aidan’s relationship had spread, they remained hushed whispers behind closed doors. However, her intimacy with Lloyd was different. The princess of an allied nation had witnessed it, and numerous palace people had seen evidence of their n*ked encounter with their own eyes. It wasn’t something that could be ignored and overlooked.

Count Spencer, who had entered the imperial palace, demanded that Kate be accepted as Lloyd’s princess consort. Since the scandal had already spread so blatantly that she couldn’t be married off elsewhere, he asked them to take responsibility. The Empress was enraged. She stormed out, saying it was beneath her to even listen to House Spencer daring to covet the position of princess consort. The Emperor reserved his answer. Though keeping someone as a prince’s lover and accepting them as princess consort could never be considered equivalent issues, as Count Spencer said, the matter had grown too big, and ignoring it might cause the imperial family’s dignity to hit rock bottom.

Kate Spencer wasn’t the only problem for the Empress. After the knights’ tournament, the ministers’ view of the two princes had changed 180 degrees. The ministers who had previously acknowledged legitimacy while turning away from his pathetic nature were now praising Aidan until they ran out of saliva. Moreover, there were rumors that after the attack, Aidan had become so knowledgeable that he could participate in policy meetings, reading an enormous amount of books from the library.

“Aidan in policy meetings? Impossible!”

Though her fury rose the more she thought about it, she couldn’t understand why Aidan had changed so suddenly. The only condition that had changed before and after the attack was Karina Hewitt — her entering as princess consort.

Was Karina really changing Aidan?

Just the thought caused deep wrinkles to form between the Empress’s brows. Should she have accepted her as Lloyd’s princess consort instead? Though she knew well that regretting past events was useless, she couldn’t shake off the lingering attachment.

No, rather than dwelling on attachments, she needed to prepare for what to do going forward. Until now, the Empress had lived without looking back. She had been able to rise to the position of Empress because she had desperately looked only forward to survive and obtain what she lacked.

The Empress paced her bedroom, frowning in contemplation. If Lloyd’s falling behind Aidan was solely because of Karina Hewitt, wouldn’t removing her solve the problem?

But how?

Until before the marriage, Karina of House Hewitt had been a more troublesome existence that couldn’t be dealt with carelessly compared to Aidan who had no backing. One wrong move could cause herself to face backlash.

There must be a way, a way…

Though she frowned in contemplation, no suitable method came to mind. The night deepened as her irritation only grew.