A contract marriage lasting two years. A comfortable life guaranteed afterward.

The prince’s proposal was outrageous, but the price he was offering was too tempting to dismiss.

Either way, that place is still the western annex of the palace. Half a freedom, with the royal family attached to you for life.

Everything he had said about the Withered Garden was, when she thought about it, entirely accurate.

Under royal law, if neither the princess consort nor the queen produced an heir, the remaining frons in the western annex could be called upon to do so.

In short, if luck turned against her, she could be dragged into the role of a concubine at any point.

Even so, leaving the palace and marrying some stranger I barely know would be far worse than the Withered Garden……

But if Kalintz could truly guarantee her the life she wanted, that changed everything.

He hadn’t shared the specifics yet, of course.

“Lucia, do you happen to know a place called Lis?”

Blair turned the unfamiliar name over in her mind as she asked.

“Lis? Of course I do! I’m from there!”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yes! But why Lis all of a sudden?”

Lucia asked with a puzzled look.

“Ah, well…… do members of the royal family ever live there?”

“Pardon? The royal family?”

“I mean, deposed royalty, perhaps……”

Blair lowered her voice and asked carefully.

“Oh, you must mean the grand estate near the Lanoer coast!”

“There’s a grand estate…… there?”

“Yes! An enormous royal estate. My father used to say that a deposed princess consort once lived there, long ago.”

“A deposed princess consort?”

Blair’s eyes went wide.

“Yes. She spent the rest of her life there, I believe.”

“But how is that possible? Being deposed usually means…… things don’t end well.”

Plotting rebellion, committing some grave crime. Whatever the cause, those people generally ended up on the gallows. Not in a seaside estate.

“Ah, well. Apparently the prince passed away very suddenly, not long after the marriage.”

“Suddenly? He died?”

“Yes. And it was before they had produced an heir, so…… the princess consort couldn’t remain at the palace and had no choice but to be deposed. The royal family treated her with courtesy in recognition of that.”

Blair nodded slowly. Ah. That made sense.

But the understanding barely had time to settle before another question surfaced.

Kalintz had told her that if she stayed as princess consort for just two years, he would arrange for her to live comfortably in Lis afterward.

Which meant she would be deposed after two years, but treated with courtesy by the royal family.

Like the princess consort Lucia had just described, whose husband died before the ink on the marriage certificate had dried.

“So he’s saying he’s going to die too, is that it.”

“Pardon? Who’s dying?”

“No, that can’t be right. If that were it, saying two years wouldn’t make sense. You can’t know your own lifespan in advance.”

Lucia stared at her mistress, who was rambling in ways that made no sense, but Blair was still chewing her thumbnail and muttering.

“Could he possibly be…… terminally ill?!”

“What?! Miss, what on earth are you—!”

How else could he say with such certainty that it would be exactly two years.

Being deposed in one piece, and then living out her days in comfort with royal support on top of it.

No matter how she turned it over, she couldn’t think of any explanation other than the prince’s death.

“Lucia, does the prince have some kind of chronic illness?”

At Blair’s next question, Lucia’s face went white on the spot.

“Goodness! You were talking about His Highness? Please don’t say things like that anywhere else! Terminally ill, chronic illness. You’ll be arrested for insulting the royal family!”

“Right, I know. He didn’t look like it either.”

Blair pressed her fingers to her temple and thought back over everything Kalintz had said the night before.

What was it, then. What was he scheming behind that captivating smile and those words.

She had thought knowing his reason for taking an interest in her would make things clearer, but her head was only more tangled than before.

And on top of that, having to pretend to be a married couple in front of others……

The memory of him sweeping her up without warning and pushing his face close to hers surfaced, and Blair felt inexplicably embarrassed.

“Miss, are you warm? Your face has gone a bit red.”

“Hm? No? I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Pardon? Thinking about what?”

Lucia tilted her head at the strange reply.

“Shall I take a morning walk?”

“Have you ever…… taken a morning walk before?”

But Blair had already stretched her arms with a vague gesture and disappeared into the bathroom.

Lucia shook her head at her mistress’s peculiar behavior and gathered the soap and towels.

❀❀❀

A few days later, Blair made her way to the royal library, still wrestling with the tangle in her head.

These days, eyes followed her everywhere she went. The library was the perfect place to think without being noticed.

Blair went to the most secluded corner she could find and perched on a windowsill.

“Haah……”

A deep sigh came out on its own. She needed to give the prince an answer soon, but it was proving harder than expected.

Staying invisible in the palace for six months had been difficult enough. Two years as princess consort was another matter entirely.

And the position of princess consort was nothing like being a frons. There would be official functions, politics, diplomacy, and all manner of headaches she didn’t even want to think about.

If only Allen were here. We could have worried about it together.

Then again, Allen would probably just scold her for getting into trouble again.

The sound of Allen’s voice scolding her felt almost real, and Blair let out a bitter smile.

Just then, voices drifted over from somewhere nearby.

“……so that Anais…… poisoned…… the culprit…… they say?”

The voices were hushed and hard to make out, but the scattered words were alarming enough to catch her attention.

Blair moved carefully to the bookshelf one row ahead. Through the tightly packed books, two librarians stood close together, sharing something in low, secretive tones.

“Duke Brienne had been suspicious of the royal family. But now they’re saying it was a frons who did it?”

At the word frons, Blair dropped silently to the floor and held her breath.

“Well, the royal family could still be behind it. They say the lady in question doesn’t come from a family with the kind of backing needed for something like that.”

“Right. Wasn’t it a viscountcy that just has a lot of money?”

“Apparently even getting in as a frons was all bought and paid for.”

“Honestly. And then she goes and poisons a rival on top of it? Frightening. I never would have guessed.”

“Well, a witness has come forward, so it’ll all come out soon enough. I don’t know what His Highness sees in a woman like that.”

The librarians finished shelving their books and moved to the other side of the corridor.

Blair listened to their footsteps fade and slowly lowered the hand she had pressed over her mouth.

‘That was…… about me, wasn’t it.’

❀❀❀

The next day, and the day after that, Blair felt sharp hostility in the eyes that followed her.

A vicious frons who had poisoned Anais Brienne to claim the prince’s affection and the princess consort’s crown.

That was what people were saying about her.

“What is this absolute nonsense people are saying?”

Lucia stood with her hands on her hips and fumed.

“Miss Blair, poisoning someone, ugh, it’s so horrible I can barely get the words out!”

Blair was just as baffled.

Me, feeding Anais robetaine? And this rumor spreading everywhere so fast?

And on top of that.

“……Apparently there’s a witness.”

“Pardon?!”

Lucia’s eyes nearly flew out of her head.

“What do you mean! That day, you were clearly—”

Lucia was working herself up to say something, but her voice trailed off and she tilted her head.

“Um…… what were you doing that day?”

What was she doing? She had snuck out through the gap in the wall and gone to the lake.

“Haah…… this is a nightmare.”

The color drained from Blair’s face.

Just then, someone knocked at her door. A middle-aged man’s voice came from the other side.

“Miss Blair Mervish, Her Highness the Queen is asking for you urgently.”

This was serious.