5. I Worry About You

In the quiet stillness, the only sound was the soft crackling of wood burning in the fireplace.

How much time had passed.

Blair pushed the bitterness to a corner and opened her mouth.

“I ended up talking about myself too much. And nothing but gloomy, cheerless things at that.”

She felt a little embarrassed for having been swept up in her feelings, and a self-conscious smile came out.

“……I was the one who asked. Besides, between two people in the romance of the century, this much is nothing.”

Kalintz said it with a faint smile.

His shameless teasing turned out to be quite a comfort tonight.

“And it’s not as though it only applies to one of us.”

“Pardon?”

“Everyone has a gloomy, cheerless story or two.”

Blair was about to ask what he meant when a face surfaced in her mind.

Vivian Kruger. The woman who looked so much like him, his birth mother, the love King Rubens cherished above all else.

But something about her was off.

The sharp edge and the manic look in her eyes on the terrace at the banquet. And the old rumor Tilda had mentioned.

Turning those things over one by one, curiosity quietly stirred in Blair’s chest.

“You look like you want to ask something.”

Kalintz, who had been watching her steadily, spoke up.

“……Is it all right if I ask?”

“I’d need to know what it is before I can answer.”

He said it with a small laugh.

“What kind of person is…… Lady Vivian?”

A brief silence followed the careful question. His expression gave nothing away.

Then, after a moment, he asked in return.

“Well. What did she seem like to you?”

“Oh…… you knew?”

Blair was a little surprised to find he already knew she had met Vivian at the banquet.

“I’ve told you more than once. I pay particular attention.”

He said it lightly, pouring himself another glass.

“She looked exactly like you. Extraordinarily…… beautiful.”

The jet-black hair, the striking features, the pale skin. She had looked like a goddess painted in a masterwork.

“That sounds like a compliment to me as well.”

“Surely you’re not going to pretend you don’t know.”

It was the reason every woman in the Kingdom of Eiron envied her.

“Hearing it from someone else is a different thing entirely.”

“I’d rather you didn’t know, then.”

Blair shook her head and muttered, and Kalintz found it funny again and let out a low chuckle.

“Anyway, was there nothing else?”

When he asked about Vivian again, Blair thought for a moment before speaking.

“She did say something, but……”

“It’s fine. Go ahead. I have a fair idea.”

A fair idea. What did that mean.

But either way, Vivian was his mother, and Blair could not speak carelessly.

She chose her words slowly and relayed what Vivian had said and done at the banquet with care.

“Ah, hatred. So that was what she said.”

Kalintz let out a low, contemptuous laugh. The sound of someone who had expected exactly this. Someone already long accustomed to it.

“This may be overstepping, but…… is the relationship between Lady Vivian and His Majesty the King not a good one?”

Blair asked carefully. Kalintz tilted his head and answered.

“Looking only at my mother…… she still loves His Majesty.”

“Then why—”

“Enough to want to kill him.”

His eyes darkened.

“Love and hatred seem very far apart, but they are apparently quite close emotions. For my mother, at least.”

“……”

“As for where the two of them stand now…… I suppose love-hate is the closest word.”

At that, Blair recalled Vivian’s words about how the greater the love, the greater the hatred grows.

“Even after my father suddenly ascended to the throne and was forced to marry the current queen, his relationship with my mother remained unchanged, apparently.”

Kalintz began to speak slowly.

“They had already been engaged before that, and she was carrying me.”

He continued in an even tone.

“Half a year later I was born, and His Majesty declared once again, as he had already announced, that I was to be his sole heir. And from that point, my mother began to change.”

“Change how?”

“She began to think that perhaps the promise might not be kept. That his heart might change.”

It was an understandable feeling. No matter how deep the love, a person’s heart could change at any time.

But what he said next was something she had not anticipated at all.

“To my mother, my existence was…… a proof of love. The most certain evidence that Rubens Einhart loved her without change.”

A deep weariness passed through his eyes.

“Paradoxically, because of that promise, I had to be perfectly suited for the throne no matter what. In case any shortcoming of mine might give him reason to revoke it. For my mother, that would have meant…… the end of her love, forever.”

There was a profoundly buried feeling in his voice.

“You can probably sense where this is going.”

Blair could not bring herself to speak easily.

“From a very young age, I had to do everything perfectly. On any day I made a mistake, harsh punishment followed.”

“……That’s unconscionable.”

“Thinking back on it, it was horrific.”

“But that’s…!”

“Obsession. A deeply pathological one.”

Blair felt she now understood why he carried himself with that almost compulsive, unbreakable composure.

“To my mother, I was always a vow of love, a promise that must not be broken, a perfect heir to the throne. Never myself. Not once.”

His eyes went flat and dull.

“Yes. Not once.”

Something caught in Blair’s throat.

“So if you ask me what kind of person my mother is…… honestly, I’m not sure.”

“……”

“Well. That’s roughly it. My gloomy, cheerless story.”

Blair looked at him quietly.

Just as she had not told him everything about Allen, he had surely left things out as well. Even so, something like a shared understanding passed between them.

Blair picked up the wine bottle in front of Kalintz and filled his glass. Then she held it out to him.

“……What kind of response is this.”

“A toast. Between two people with gloomy, cheerless stories.”

Kalintz looked at her for a long moment, then broke into a soft laugh.

“I like it. I’ve never told anyone this before, so I had no idea how to bring it to a close.”

“Same for me.”

She had not said everything, but it was the first time she had ever spoken to anyone about her sister’s and Allen’s deaths.

“That’s an honor.”

Kalintz laughed quietly and clinked his glass against hers.

That night, trading small comforts with each other, the clear sound of glasses meeting rang out a few more times.

And a short while later, Kalintz bitterly regretted what he had done.

“……Blair.”

Kalintz looked at her, asleep against the sofa without so much as a twitch. She had been drinking the fairly strong wine without trouble, so he had left her to it, but he had not expected her to go out like that.

She slept so deeply and defenselessly that her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm with each soft breath.

Naturally, his gaze fell to the slender line of her neck. Her pale skin had flushed faintly from the wine, and below it, her collarbone stood out in a clean, straight line.

“……Haah.”

What exactly does she think I am.

Kalintz sighed and rubbed his dry face. A thirst had settled in him.

No, in truth, the thirst had been there from the moment he first stepped into this room.

He was not sure what she had on underneath, but the loose robe draped over her was already more than enough to unsettle him.

Whether she knew it or not, Blair had nearly driven him out of his mind with that careless little trick of hers, baring her nape and shoulder.

Talking through one thing and another had helped settle it somewhat.

But his restless gaze kept drifting back to her.

Had his patience always been this thin. He had always thought himself dull in this regard, but she had shaken that belief in an instant.

Feeling like a fool, Kalintz let out another sigh and rose from the sofa.

“Mmm……”

“I’ll put you to bed. Stay still.”

Leaving her sprawled on the sofa was not an option. It would invite suspicion that the two of them had not spent the night together.

Kalintz carefully lifted Blair into his arms. The fresh scent of roses and the sweet warmth of wine mingled together and teased at his senses in a way that was difficult to ignore.

He bit down on his lip and moved quickly toward the bed. Every second sooner he could put her down and step away was a second better.

But perhaps he had moved too fast. In his hurry to lay her down, he did not notice the tie of her robe come undone.

“……I’m going to lose my mind.”

The sight revealed through the fallen robe made Kalintz’s head swim.

“Ha. What is she wearing…… this is absurd.”

He clenched his jaw looking at the nightgown, which left nothing to the imagination.

The maids who had given her something like this to wear, and Blair for putting it on without question. Both were equally unbelievable.

But the most unbelievable thing of all was himself, standing here flustered like this.