“You’re going to…… die?”

Even saying it herself, she could hardly believe it.

Die. The man right in front of her, the one and only prince of this kingdom, was going to die?

A memory surfaced without warning, something she had let slip almost offhandedly during a conversation with Lucia not long ago.

“Could it be……”

Blair looked at Kalintz and let her voice trail off. He was resting his chin in his hand, his expression unreadable.

“Don’t tell me, Your Highness…… are you actually terminally ill?”

A heavy silence settled over the room. Kalintz said nothing, and the color slowly drained from Blair’s face.

“No, have you actually come down with some incurable illness?”

Still, he only bowed his head without a word.

“Wait. Then when you said two years as princess consort would be enough…… did that mean you only have two years left?”

Blair spoke quickly, her face full of disbelief. But for some reason, Kalintz had his mouth covered and still was not answering.

Instead.

“Kkhp. Ahem, ahem.”

He let out a strange, strangled sound.

Blair looked at him and furrowed her brow slightly. On closer inspection, his shoulders were shaking just a little.

“……Are you laughing right now?”

Blair asked, sounding baffled. Kalintz burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer.

“Oh, Blair.”

His face had gone red from laughing as he finally spoke.

“Terminally ill. What an imagination. Did I really look that frail to you?”

He looked at her steadily, a smile still playing at his lips.

“No. But you didn’t seem like someone who would take his own life, either.”

Blair felt something unknot in her chest at learning her guess was wrong, though she still looked at him without understanding.

Then what on earth was he dying of.

“Not a fatal illness, and not s*icide either.”

Seeing Blair’s brow crease deeply, Kalintz smiled and said,

“I’m going to be ‘known’ to have died.”

“What does that…… you mean you’re going to fake your death?”

Blair looked at him with a skeptical eye. But he still looked perfectly at ease.

“That’s right. Fake my death.”

He then said something even more outrageous than before.

“To be precise, dying and then coming back to life.”

“……”

The words defied all common sense, and Blair stopped trying to hide her expression entirely, letting her openly irreverent look show through.

“You’re making a face that says, what kind of lunatic is this.”

She had no particular urge to deny it this time. Dying and coming back to life, that was exactly the kind of thing only a lunatic would think up.

“Your Highness, I genuinely cannot follow what you’re saying. Dying and, ha.”

Blair let out a short, helpless breath mid-sentence.

“Dying and coming back to life? Are you talking about some myth or legend…… something like that?”

“I’m not really the type to spin that kind of nonsense, am I.”

“I thought not, until about a minute ago.”

At that, Kalintz let out a small laugh and took a sip of his lukewarm tea.

Then, with a face that had turned noticeably serious, he spoke.

“It’s nothing so absurd. I really am going to die. Just for a short while.”

Blair still looked like she did not understand. Kalintz posed a somewhat unexpected question.

“Blair. Do you happen to know anything about the Valia Duchy?”

“Pardon?”

The Valia Duchy shared a border with the Kingdom of Eiron and was Queen Rhea’s homeland. It had once been a minor power in the distant past, but through its exceptional alchemy and metallurgy had grown into a nation rivaling the Kingdom of Eiron in strength.

“I know it at a general level. But why bring up the Valia Duchy all of a sudden?”

“Then you’ll know the duchy is quite famous for its alchemy.”

“Well, naturally, since ancient times……”

Blair had been about to answer the prince’s matter-of-fact remark when she stopped, as though something had just clicked.

Dying. And only for a short while. Coming back after, but not through myth or legend.

Blair held her breath, and the words slipped out almost in a murmur.

“……Could it be alchemy?”

A satisfied smile spread across Kalintz’s lips.

“Quick as ever.”

“That’s actually possible?”

Blair had only ever heard that the Valia Duchy was famous for its alchemy, never having been there herself, and she found it hard to believe.

“I received word not long ago that the experiment was a success.”

He continued, still looking pleased.

“Apparently, taking the elixir puts you in a state indistinguishable from death. All bodily functions slow to an extreme degree, and there’s no conventional way to detect otherwise.”

“And after some time, you recover completely? Back to normal?”

Even with Blair’s incredulous question, Kalintz nodded.

“Literally coming back to life.”

“Good grief…… that’s absurd.”

Blair felt a chill at the thought that alchemy could produce such an elixir. But what baffled her even more was why he intended to use it.

“So you’re planning to fake your death using that elixir?”

“That’s right.”

“For what reason?”

Why on earth would the sole heir to the Kingdom of Eiron stage his own death?

Blair could not make sense of it. But what Kalintz said next was even more unexpected.

“Because I don’t want to be king.”

“Pardon?”

What is that supposed to mean. Not wanting to be king.

Blair opened her eyes wide and asked again, wondering if she had heard wrong.

“You said it to me before. That you wanted to live freely.”

Kalintz spoke with a look that had grown serious.

“That you wanted to live a life you chose for yourself, not one dictated by your parents or your family.”

“I did say that.”

Blair nodded, recalling the conversation she had shared with him in the garden that time.

“Same for me. I want out of this suffocating place.”

His dark golden eyes settled low.

“Even if it means faking my own death.”

It was not an answer she had expected.

She had known he sometimes showed a cynical attitude toward the royal family. But she had never once imagined he might want to leave it entirely.

Blair looked at him quietly. Something she did not know seemed to lie deep and sunken within those heavy eyes.

“So, Blair.”

Kalintz opened his mouth again.

“When I ‘officially’ die two years from now, you’ll naturally be removed from your position as well. Of course, if we were to have an heir between us, that would be impossible, but…… that won’t happen, will it?”

“O, of course not!”

The word heir came out of nowhere and Blair’s voice shot up in a fluster. Amused by her reaction, Kalintz let out a small laugh and continued.

“In any case, when that happens, you’ll be sent to a royal estate in Lis. Just as I told you before.”

Blair swallowed without meaning to.

A place where she could live without worry for the rest of her life, with the support of the royal family. A place where she could live freely, on her own terms, without her parents’ interference.

People would talk, of course, but did that matter? Others’ opinions had never been particularly important to her.

Sorting through her thoughts quickly, Blair found one question surfacing.

“Then what will you do? After you ‘officially’ die, I mean.”

He would have to give up his identity as a prince, so there had to be another plan.

“Ah, I’m thinking of crossing over to the Valia Duchy. There’s a mercenary company I know well.”

“Mercenary?”

Blair recalled something he had said during the interrogation that time.

She had marveled at his brazen ability to fit himself into any situation and told him to join a theater troupe, and he had answered that he would rather be a mercenary if given the choice.

But there was another problem.

“Then what about the throne?”

If he, the sole heir, were to die, someone would need to succeed him.

“Other than Your Highness, there’s no one to inherit the throne…… ah.”

Blair was working through the royal family tree one by one when she stopped, eyes going wide.

“Could it be?”

Kalintz grinned and gave a nod.

“That’s right. Princess Lina. I’m going to put her on the throne.”

“But she……”

Blair paused, startled.

“Princess Lina cannot inherit the throne. She is Queen Rhea’s……”

No child born of Rhea Clovitz shall ever inherit the throne.

That had been the one condition King Rubens had set when he had no choice but to marry Queen Rhea, leaving behind the woman he loved.

Kalintz’s birth mother, Vivian Kruger, and Rubens Einhart had been lovers unlike any other in the world.

From the moment they first met, they fell for each other as though by fate. The love between a lady of an old noble house and a grand duke held in high esteem was blessed by many, and the two became engaged before long. Vivian conceived Kalintz, and nothing but happiness seemed to lie ahead of them.

Until Rubens’s elder brother, King Karl, died without warning on the eve of his marriage to Rhea Clovitz.

“After the late King Karl passed…… I heard that His Majesty had no choice but to marry Queen Rhea in order to take the throne.”

Blair broached the subject carefully, watching Kalintz’s expression.

“Otherwise, war would have broken out again.”