10. The Flower Left Behind

“Your Highness, what are you…… saying?”

Lady Miller’s face went white with shock.

“Exactly what I said. Pass the information I just told you to Duke Brienne.”

“You mean…… that the two of you entered a contract marriage……?”

“I can’t go into detail, but it’s true.”

Lady Miller was too stunned to speak.

It was an understandable reaction. Tilda had taken no small blow herself.

“I won’t apologize for deceiving you. You hid a great deal from me as well.”

Blair had offered Tilda a sincere apology, telling her there were circumstances she hadn’t been able to explain sooner, but she felt no such inclination toward Lady Miller.

After blinking blankly for a moment, Lady Miller spoke again.

“But why would you want me to pass that information to Duke Brienne……”

“Because it’s the only way to get what we need without arousing suspicion.”

“What you need?”

“The alchemist who made the potion you fed to the boar. Get me information on them.”

Duke Brienne still didn’t know that Lady Miller had been found out. Since the luncheon, his attention had been entirely fixed on Grand Duke Clovitz.

But if Lady Miller started asking around about the alchemist, he would suspect her immediately. To deflect that, she needed to offer him something worth his interest.

“Tell him you overheard a private conversation between me and Kalintz about the contract marriage. That should take the edge off his suspicion.”

“But the Duke will want proof.”

“That’s exactly what we use.”

Lady Miller was quiet for a moment, then her expression shifted to one of understanding.

“Tell the alchemist you want medicine made for your elderly mother. Say that in return, you’ll do everything you can to bring back proof of the contract marriage.”

“……Will he agree to that?”

She lowered her pale face, looking uncertain.

“Well. That depends on you.”

Blair said it in a dry voice.

“If things go wrong, all I lose is one piece of evidence. But what you lose is your life.”

A new resolve entered Lady Miller’s eyes.

That’s right. That’s how it should be. I need you to come through, or this gamble of mine means nothing.

She had said it was only one piece of evidence, but in truth, that evidence mattered enormously.

Blair kept her expression carefully neutral so as not to show what she was thinking.

“Good luck, Lady Miller.”

❀❀❀

That night, Lady Miller sent word of the date, location, and time arranged for the meeting with the alchemist.

“A meeting point. That’s a bit tricky. I was hoping she could find out a name or an address.”

Blair leaned back against the headboard as she spoke. Kalintz naturally draped an arm around her shoulder.

“She probably doesn’t fully trust Lady Miller. Instead of giving out information, she wants to meet at a time and place of her own choosing.”

“So she wants to keep the situation under her own control as a precaution. I knew she wasn’t someone to underestimate, but…… haah.”

Blair let out a short sigh.

“It’s all right. We’ve at least managed to draw the alchemist out. We just follow Lady Miller to the meeting point.”

“But there could be an ambush. The moment anything looks suspicious, they’ll try to deal with both the alchemist and Lady Miller.”

Given everything Duke Brienne had shown himself capable of, it was entirely plausible.

“I never expected it to be easy.”

Kalintz’s tone said he had anticipated as much.

“Still, there’s no other way. This is the best we have right now.”

Blair sighed again. There was no arguing with that.

“You’ll go with the mercenary company?”

“Yes. None of the members know who I am except Ariela, so it should be fine.”

The Eiron knights couldn’t be used. They needed to move quietly.

“Please be careful.”

“You’re worried about me?”

“Of course. If you get hurt again, I really won’t let it go.”

She shot him a sideways look, and Kalintz’s easy smile filled her vision. The moment she registered how close his face was, his lips touched her eyelid lightly and pulled away.

“I like it when you look at me like that.”

“Isn’t that a bit of an odd preference?”

“Maybe.”

The open smile curved warm and bright, and Blair found herself laughing quietly despite herself.

“But won’t Duke Brienne notice if you disappear?”

“I’ve already thought of a way to handle that.”

She found out what that way was two days later.

“Why me, of all people!”

Ernst shouted, flushed with indignation. In one hand he held a black wig that matched Kalintz’s hair exactly.

“You want me to wear a wig and impersonate you all the way out here in Valia!?”

“You don’t need to impersonate me. Just stay in this detached palace. So Brienne’s informants don’t catch on.”

Ernst fumed, insisting he absolutely refused.

“It can’t be helped. You’re the closest to my build out of anyone.”

“We’re nothing alike! You’re taller than me and in better shape!”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

No matter how much Ernst whined, Kalintz showed no sign of budging, and Ernst tore at his own hair in despair.

“Being left out of an operation this important…… how does that make any sense……”

“This is part of the operation. I don’t know what the Duke might do once I’m gone. Stay here and keep watch over the other knights and Blair.”

Being told to protect the princess consort left Ernst with no more room to argue. He pressed his lips together with a miserable look and said nothing.

Then came Tilda’s voice, knocking at the door.

“Your Highness, Ariela has arrived.”

“Must be nearly time to leave.”

Kalintz pulled his black hood low over his face and stood.

“I’ll be back, Blair.”

“Come back safely.”

Kalintz smiled gently and pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

“……I’m still here, you know.”

Watching the whole thing, Ernst made a face, but quickly bowed his head and wished Kalintz a safe return.

A short while later, Tilda came with word that Lady Miller had left the palace.

“Kalintz must have slipped out of the royal grounds by now.”

Kalintz’s plan was to use an underground passage Ariela knew of to leave the palace, then tail Lady Miller’s carriage once she set off.

“Will it be all right?”

“There are always variables. But His Highness always makes the best choices he can, so please don’t worry too much.”

Ernst adjusted the unfamiliar black hair as he spoke.

Blair nodded and looked out the window.

The sun, tinged a deep orange, was already tilting toward the west.

❀❀❀

“Are you Siana Miller?”

Lady Miller flinched and turned around. A man in a drab grey hood was walking toward her.

“……Yes. I came because I need medicine made.”

“Hm. That particular stiff-necked lord sending me someone directly. What, are you his secret lover or something?”

The man snickered and said something crude.

“Watch your tongue. Don’t speak carelessly about His Grace the Duke.”

One of Duke Brienne’s men standing beside Lady Miller said it with a threatening edge, and the man went quiet at once.

Lady Miller quietly held out a folded note.

“I’ve written the illness and symptoms. Please have a look.”

“Oh? You’re Valian? You don’t look it…… hm?”

The man fell silent for a moment after reading the note she handed him. But he soon spoke again in his usual pompous tone.

“This much? Easy enough.”

“Can you do it.”

She stared at the man’s face without blinking.

“Ah, but there’s one ingredient I’m short on for this medicine……”

“Where can I get it?”

The man paused briefly, then pulled a quill from his coat and scrawled something quickly on the back of the note.

“Go to this place and get what’s written there.”

“……Thank you.”

The man said nothing and turned back the way he had come. Lady Miller carefully folded the note he had given her, tucked it inside her coat, and got back into the carriage.

Meanwhile, watching the entire scene from the undergrowth, Kalintz narrowed his eyes.

“Something’s off.”

“Hm? What is?”

Ariela asked without using formal speech, mindful of the other mercenary company members around them.

“Why write the note in Valian when the common Imperial tongue would do. And…… the conversation was strange.”

Kalintz turned over the exchange between Lady Miller and the alchemist in his mind.

“She said there was a missing ingredient just now, right? The natural first question should be what it is, not where it is.”

And then there was the alchemist’s expression when he read the note Lady Miller handed him. It had lasted only a fraction of a second, but Kalintz was certain. That was the face of someone gripped by fear.

“So that woman is doing something else…… wait, they’re splitting up.”

“Better to divide into two groups. I’ll take the man.”

At Kalintz’s word, Ariela quickly sent hand signals to the unit members.

Kalintz moved quietly after the alchemist with a few of the members.

“D*mn it, d*mn it all……”

The man was practically whimpering curses under his breath as he quickened his pace.

Something’s definitely going on.

Kalintz sharpened his attention and closed the distance with the alchemist.