“Something strange?”

Tilda glanced around even though no one else was nearby, then leaned in.

“It’s about Lady Vivian……”

Vivian. The name sent a sudden chill of foreboding through Blair.

“There’s a rumor going around that she killed Anais Brienne.”

Vivian had poisoned Anais.

The source of the rumor was, shockingly, the detached palace where Vivian was staying.

“She said it herself?”

Blair called for Lucia to hear the details and asked again, unable to believe it.

“Yes. At first I thought someone was trying to slander her, but…… it wasn’t just one or two people who heard it.”

It had apparently started with the words, ‘I should have killed that thing back then.‘

“That thing?”

“I’m not sure exactly what she meant. But……”

Lucia paused briefly, then continued.

“After that, she kept saying things that sounded like self-reproach, and then she apparently said, ‘I killed that Brienne man’s daughter too.'”

When the maid attending Vivian asked in shock what she meant, Vivian said she had killed Anais Brienne.

“Haah…… what on earth.”

Blair knew Vivian’s mental state was not well. But this was clearly something else.

“Lucia. Did something happen while I was in Valia?”

Lucia pressed her lips together and seemed to think for a moment, then began to speak with some hesitation.

“It’s…… something that might be a little improper to say aloud, Your Highness.”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell me everything.”

Lucia slowly began to recount what had happened.

The gist of it was that after they left for Valia, talk about Princess Lina had begun to surface here and there among the nobility.

“Talk about the Princess?”

“Yes. More precisely…… the kind of talk asking whether Princess Lina might also have a claim to the throne.”

The subject was delicate enough that Lucia’s voice dropped to nearly nothing.

“……I can see it now.”

Blair was beginning to piece the picture together.

The fact that Kalintz was the sole heir to the throne was the promise from King Rubens that Vivian clung to blindly, the single thread holding her together.

And now that thread had been shaken. It was obvious that someone already teetering would fall.

“Lady Vivian went to see His Majesty, didn’t she. And she started saying those strange things afterward?”

“H, how did you know? That’s exactly right!”

Lucia’s eyes went wide as she nodded.

“Word has it His Majesty was furious.”

“She must have said something she should never have said.”

“Pardon?”

I should have killed that thing back then.

Blair thought she understood what Vivian had meant by those words.

She was talking about Princess Lina. And she said it in front of His Majesty……

Blair squeezed her eyes shut.

The incident where Vivian had strangled the young Princess Lina in front of an even younger Kalintz was a horrifying event that very few people still knew about.

If she had said something like that in reference to it, even King Rubens would have had no choice but to shout at her.

And Vivian’s erratic behavior had been wearing on King Rubens for a long time.

His Majesty’s fury must have made her symptoms worse.

There was no other explanation for why she would go around saying something as outrageous as claiming she had killed Anais……

“No. Is it really outrageous?”

“Pardon? What do you mean, Your Highness?”

Lucia looked puzzled at Blair, who had been murmuring to herself with a serious expression.

“Lucia, when did all of this happen?”

“Hmm, I think it was about a week before Your Highness returned.”

That was more than enough time for a rumor to spread. There was a good chance it had reached not only Duke Brienne, but Kalintz’s ears as well.

“……I should go to the study.”

Blair had been deliberately avoiding it, not wanting to disturb Kalintz while he was busy catching up on work.

She hurried toward his study. There was no telling what Vivian, in her unstable state, might have done to Kalintz.

Her worry quickened her steps, and she reached the study in no time.

Blair took a short breath and knocked.

But the one who opened the door was Ernst.

“Ah, Your Highness.”

“Where’s Kalintz?”

Ernst scratched his head with a troubled expression, and Blair knew at once she had arrived too late.

❀❀❀

Creak—click.

Hearing the quiet sound of the study door opening and closing, Blair, who had been slumped over the corner of the meeting table, lifted her head.

Ernst also rose quickly from the sofa to greet Kalintz.

“Your Highness, you’re—”

“I want to be alone.”

His voice was sharp enough to cut.

“Ah…… but, Your Highness.”

Ernst rarely pushed back, but he did now, and Kalintz’s brow narrowed. He turned to follow Ernst’s gaze, and found the reason soon enough.

“Blair.”

The razor edge in his voice softened.

“I waited.”

Blair walked slowly toward him and looked at his face. His left cheek had a scratch from something sharp, and there was blood on his lip.

“……You’re coming from Lady Vivian’s, aren’t you.”

What part of that face was there to hit. Blair held back the surge of anger and asked.

“Yes.”

His voice, too, was holding something tightly in check. So much feeling was buried in it that Blair couldn’t find any words.

A heavy silence settled. It lingered long after the quiet sound of Ernst slipping out of the study faded away.

“Kalintz.”

Blair was the first to speak. She slowly raised her hand and cupped his bruised cheek. His large hand came to rest over hers.

“Can I ask you to hold me.”

It was a tired, heavy voice, one that sounded as though it might give out at any moment. Blair had never heard him sound like this before, and her eyes stung.

“Since when did you need to ask.”

Blair gently drew him closer by the waist. Two firm arms wrapped around her shoulders almost immediately. The difference in their sizes made it look very much like Blair was the one being held, but she steadily patted Kalintz’s back regardless.

Such a solid person. And yet, somehow, his shoulders felt endlessly fragile right now.

They held each other in silence for a long while.

“I spoke with my mother.”

Kalintz’s quiet voice broke the stillness.

“Whether it could be called a conversation, I’m not sure.”

Behind the self-deprecating laugh, a tangle of emotions made itself felt.

“She said she killed Anais.”

“……!”

Blair’s breath caught.

“But Lady Vivian is—”

“Not in her right mind.”

Kalintz said the words Blair couldn’t bring herself to.

“I don’t know how much of what she says I can believe. She’s in a state where nothing rational gets through. She kept repeating that she should have killed Lina. Toward the end, she even tried to come at me.”

“What on earth—!”

The shock of it left Blair speechless.

“She’s completely lost herself. I…… don’t know what to do.”

Kalintz’s eyes wavered. Blair had never seen him this lost before, and her heart ached.

“It’s all right. We’ll work through it one thing at a time.”

“I don’t think Brienne will give us that kind of time.”

“For now, we just have to hold on and endure. Until everything becomes clear.”

Kalintz quietly stroked her cheek and looked at her.

“You really are strong.”

“It’s because of you.”

“What did I do.”

“Well……”

Blair pulled him slightly closer by the neck and pressed a light kiss to his lower lip.

“Ah, right.”

That seemed to be answer enough. A low sound left Kalintz’s lips.

Before long, a heated breath covered her lips.

“Ka, lintz……!”

A soft, breathless sound slipped out. Perhaps because his emotions were still raw from Vivian, Kalintz’s touch was rougher and more urgent than usual.

Swept back by the force of it, Blair felt herself edging backward until her hip met the corner of the desk.

“Haah. Wait a moment—”

Blair glanced sideways at the desk. His obsessively orderly workspace was on the verge of becoming a mess.

“Look at me, Blair.”

Kalintz couldn’t stand even that brief distraction and drew her gaze back. Then he lifted her slightly and set her on top of the desk.

“The things on it will—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

His low, submerged voice came like a whisper against her ear. He pressed closer, slowly. Blair came undone beneath the solid weight of him.

Red hair spread in disarray across Kalintz’s always-immaculate desk. Objects that had been arranged at precise angles tumbled and scattered.

Thud—

A tipped inkwell sent dark blue liquid spilling out in slow, viscous waves. Over that sluggish, sticky sound, the sound of unsteady breathing layered again and again.

❀❀❀

Duke Brienne wasted no time, exactly as expected.

He called an emergency meeting and summoned every noble official he could find.

The matter at hand was, of course, the death of the Duke’s daughter, Anais Brienne, and Lady Vivian.

“This is a truly grievous affair.”

Duke Brienne let his fury show openly as he continued.

“The birth mother of the heir to the throne has poisoned a frons! What manner of treachery is this!”

He thundered on, veins rising at his temple, railing against the current state of affairs.

Blair was among the gathered nobles, watching him. A few people recognized her and glanced over with cautious looks, but the Duke pressed on without pause, continuing his tirade against Vivian.