Kalintz raised his voice. He was genuinely furious.

“What are you so angry about? I did it because I thought you were going to die!”

In the heat of the moment, Blair had called him you instead of Your Highness, and she clapped her hand over her mouth the instant she realized it. He looked mildly taken aback, as though no one had ever addressed him that way before.

“…… That was a mistake.”

“You were calling me by my name just a moment ago.”

“Did I? I apologize, Your Highness.”

“……Ha.”

Kalintz finally let out a short laugh at Blair’s shameless and swift apology.

Every time she did something he didn’t expect, he found himself more curious about what this impossible, unpredictable woman could possibly be after in a palace that stifled her so completely.

But what mattered right now was getting out of this forest as quickly as possible.

Kalintz pushed the curiosity down and turned his back to her.

“Get on.”

“…… Pardon?”

Blair looked at him like he had said something completely out of nowhere.

“You can barely walk on that ankle. We don’t know when another pack of wolves might show up. Right now they’ve all scattered because of that one, but still.”

Kalintz tilted his head toward the black leopard as he spoke.

The beast, terrifying even at a second glance, was tending to its cub’s wound. The cub seemed to have recovered a little, moving with more energy than before.

“If you hadn’t rescued that little one, it would have been our necks being snapped. We should move.”

“Th, that’s true, but getting on your back is a little—”

“Would you prefer I carry you like before?”

“I’ll get on your back.”

Blair answered without a moment’s hesitation.

When the wolves had been chasing them, she’d had no say in the matter and he had simply picked her up and run. This time was different. She had no intention of being cradled in his arms again in that mortifying position.

Her face felt oddly warm, and she touched her cheek with her hand for no real reason.

“Once we reach the horses, I’ll take a proper look at the injury.”

“…… Thank you.”

She answered in a small, shrinking voice, then limped toward him.

Kalintz took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The unexpected gesture made Blair flinch slightly and look at him.

“You’ll need a jacket, and getting yours back from that beast seems inadvisable.”

Kalintz nodded toward her jacket, now lying crumpled like a scrap of paper under the great leopard’s paw, where she had wrapped it around the cub.

Blair looked down at herself. Her shirt had torn in the fall down the slope, and patches of skin showed through the gaps.

Heat flooded up to her neck in an instant. Blair ducked her head and pulled the collar closed.

The jacket carried an unfamiliar scent, something like open meadow and green grass.

Does the prince not even sweat.

Blair grumbled inwardly, feeling inexplicably flustered and restless.

“Stop dawdling and get on.”

“Y, yes? Oh…… yes.”

Blair had never been carried on anyone’s back before. She climbed onto Kalintz’s back in an awkward, uncertain way.

“Your position is too unstable.”

“Then, how am I supposed to—”

Blair asked, spine rigid and straight.

“Relax your upper body and lean against my back. Keep some tension in the injured ankle so it doesn’t get jostled.”

“Like this?”

Following his instructions, she released the unnecessary stiffness from her muscles and pressed her upper body against his back. Her arms around his neck naturally pulled in closer.

“…… Yes. Much more stable.”

He murmured it almost to himself. The tips of his ears had gone faintly red, but Blair was too focused on her position to notice.

She shifted a few more times and eventually found the most comfortable angle.

“This is a bit like riding a horse.”

“What?”

Kalintz had been about to start walking and stopped, genuinely baffled by the remark.

Is she comparing me to a horse right now. She was a truly astonishing woman, one surprise after another.

Whether she had said it to tease him or simply found his reaction amusing, she let out a small giggle. Strangely, he didn’t find himself particularly annoyed.

Whimper—

From behind them, the black leopard cub let out a small cry. It limped forward on its injured leg, as though trying to say goodbye.

“I’m glad. You found your mother. Don’t go wandering off alone next time! And you, take better care of your cub!”

Still on Kalintz’s back, Blair waved at the cub and its mother.

Grrrr……

“It seems your scolding is unwelcome.”

Kalintz said it with a hint of warning, and a low rumble came from deep in the great beast’s throat.

“Eek. Terrifying. Let’s go.”

“…… You’re really riding me like a horse.”

“How could I ever entertain such a disrespectful thought, Your Highness.”

He kept letting out short, helpless laughs at her mock-formal tone, clearly aimed at teasing him, and started walking.

The distance they had covered fleeing from the wolves turned out to be considerable. It was quite a walk back to where Fitz was tied.

Kalintz showed no sign of effort, but the longer Blair stayed on his back, the more strangely uncomfortable she felt.

With every step he took, the solid muscles of his back shifted beneath her.

She tried to distract herself with a few silly remarks, but once she had become aware of it, it was hard to stop noticing.

What does a prince even do that requires this kind of build? The way he took down those wolves earlier was something else.

Selina would have been shrieking about how impressive he was, Blair thought, and cleared her throat a couple of times for no reason.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

Kalintz asked without preamble.

Blair had been thinking about something entirely unrelated and startled inwardly.

“No, not at all.”

“You keep shifting.”

“Oh, sorry. I should stay still so you’re not carrying dead weight.”

“…… That’s not what I meant.”

“Pardon?”

Kalintz swallowed his frustration, fairly certain she was about to look up at him with those wide, guileless eyes again.

He had been acutely aware of every small movement she made against his back, and it was deeply inconvenient.

Getting her to the horses with an injured ankle, this was the most practical solution. He simply hadn’t anticipated that the soft warmth pressed against his back would be quite this difficult to ignore.

“Haah……”

A long, involuntary sigh escaped him, and he said nothing more, just quickened his pace.

In that strange, mutual awareness neither of them named, they reached the tree where Nox and Fitz were tied.

“Thank goodness. I was worried something might have attacked them.”

“That roar probably sent every creature in the area into hiding.”

Kalintz found a broad, flat rock and set Blair down carefully. Then he knelt and reached for her boot.

“W, wait! I can do it—”

“We need to do first aid and get out of here as fast as possible. And I think I’m better at this than you are.”

He laid out his reasoning without leaving room for argument, then went to Nox’s saddle and retrieved something. A roll of bandage.

Why a prince’s saddle would contain something like that was beyond her, but Blair stayed quiet and let him do what he was doing.

He picked up a reasonably thick branch from the ground nearby, cut it cleanly to length with his dagger, and used it as a splint against her ankle, wrapping the bandage around it.

“Ow, ow, ow……”

“Bear with it. It has to be this tight to keep it from moving. You’ll be able to rest your foot in the stirrup like this.”

He wrapped the bandage with enough force to raise the veins in his forearms. His hands moved with practiced ease, and he finished quickly, then stood and brushed off his knees.

“Th, thank you.”

Blair looked away in embarrassment as she thanked him. Kalintz watched her for a moment, then spoke.

“Of course. Without me, you would have been wolf food.”

“I…… I nearly got you killed because of me. I’m sorry. Whatever punishment is decided when we return, I’ll accept it.”

Blair said it in a genuinely serious voice.

“Whatever punishment? Do you mean that?”

Kalintz narrowed his eyes as he asked, and Blair felt a jolt of fear, but slowly nodded.

Nearly getting the kingdom’s sole heir killed was something that would be dealt with severely.

It hadn’t been intentional, but she had made the mistake of entering a restricted area, and because of that, the prince had nearly died trying to save her. She couldn’t claim she bore no fault.

“Hmm…… is that so.”

Kalintz stroked his chin with the look of someone weighing something. Then he met Blair’s eyes directly and added.

“Then you might be expelled from the palace. Would that be all right with you?”

His amber eyes locked onto hers with a piercing intensity. Those eyes, holding that strange light, looked like they already knew the answer.