Mel made a brief assessment of Rudrich in a detached voice as she picked up the lady-in-waiting uniform and stood before the mirror. In the clean mirror, she saw her reflection—wearing an expensive, elaborate dress but in a complete mess.

“……”

How amusing it looked—as if being a fake meant she wasn’t allowed such noble beauty. Mel planned to change into the lady-in-waiting uniform and quietly slip out of the lounge.

‘I’ll go to the duke, explain the situation, and return to the mansion. I don’t want to go back to that party hall.’

Mel was certain that if she reported today’s accomplishments to Genoa, he would surely send her back to the mansion.

Mel began unfastening her dress buttons one by one while looking in the mirror. She grew anxious, needing to change into the uniform before Rudrich’s lady-in-waiting returned.

‘Still, this is a prince’s lounge, so surely no one would enter without knocking?’

After glancing nervously at the door a few times, Mel decided to focus on changing as quickly as possible rather than worrying. The liquid-soaked dress was becoming increasingly heavy and uncomfortable. The sticky feeling of the drink on her skin made her want to wash even more.

Rudrich’s lounge had a space where one could wash up briefly, but given her status as a princess, it would be difficult to make excuses to avoid the imperial palace maids’ assistance.

“……”

Mel checked the scars on her back that were gradually being exposed in the mirror, then bit her lip and looked straight ahead again. Normally, Mel would have simply covered the scars on her back before changing, but feeling uneasy, she chose to hurry instead.

After removing her dress and putting on the maid’s skirt from the bottom up, just as she was about to put on the shirt—

“Gasp!”

Mel realized through the mirror that the lounge door had opened slightly and quickly turned around while pulling her shirt closed. There, she met eyes with a man who had frozen while peering into the lounge through the door gap.

“……!”

“……!”

Their gazes locked instantly. Mel stiffened, unable to even scream, and widened her eyes. It was a familiar face. With trembling lips, Mel called out to the man.

“Y-Your Highness?”

It was Second Prince Rudrich, who had hurried to the lounge out of concern for the princess.

Surprised, Rudrich accidentally pushed the door, which slowly opened wider. The two remained frozen, staring at each other for a long while.

“Pr-Princess. I mean, I……”

One step, then two. Rudrich backed away hesitantly. His face, covered by his hand, turned crimson. His eyes shook terribly as he desperately tried to recall where things had gone wrong.

Watching him, Mel’s mind was consumed by a single thought, leaving her unable to think clearly.

The scars. Had Rudrich seen the scars that Mel had desperately hidden?

These scars had been hidden even from Lin, whom she had been close to throughout her stay at Duke Ivanstein’s mansion. They were scars that could never exist on the princess of Reibritton’s body, and if anyone discovered them, they would surely become suspicious.

“I apologize, princess. I will personally send my apologies to Duke Ivanstein’s mansion!”

“Your Highness!”

Mel quickly turned around and urgently called out to Rudrich, who was trying to leave. At Mel’s voice, which sounded like a scream, Rudrich froze again, half-turned. Slowly turning his head to look at Mel, his face was as pale as a condemned prisoner the day before execution.

“Could we talk, just for a moment?”

“Right now?!”

Rudrich seemed about to shake his head vigorously in horror at Mel’s words. But Mel nodded more violently.

“Yes, now!”

“……”

He hesitated, not knowing what to do, then sighed deeply after noticing knights and attendants approaching the lounge. Judging that neither his presence here nor the princess remaining in such a state was good, he forcibly pushed himself one step into the lounge.

“Princess, you should first properly…… dress yourself.”

“Ah, yes.”

Mel hurriedly turned around and finished buttoning her shirt. Meanwhile, Rudrich pressed his forehead against the closed lounge door and sighed deeply.

When Mel, having hastily put on the shirt, called Rudrich, he apologized to her without hiding his uncomfortable expression.

“I formally apologize, princess. I absolutely did not intend to peek. I should have naturally assumed you would be changing clothes, but due to my carelessness, please feel free to reprimand me……”

“I have a question.”

Mel anxiously cut off Rudrich’s earnest apology that seemed endless. Hearing her voice, which seemed to have completely lost its composure, Rudrich spoke in a subdued tone.

“Please ask.”

“How much did you see?”

“……Princess.”

Rudrich groaned, pressing his hand to his forehead. It was maddening enough to have become a scoundrel who peeped at a lady changing clothes, but verbalizing his depravity was extremely difficult.

But despite Rudrich’s reaction, the princess did not back down and pleaded with desperate eyes.

“Please answer me. This is important to me.”

“As soon as I realized you were changing, I immediately averted my gaze. So I didn’t see anything concerning, so the princess……”

“I’ll change my question.”

“Princess?”

Perhaps his rambling answer had been unsatisfactory. Rudrich couldn’t hide his bewilderment at her sudden change of question. But Mel didn’t care about his circumstances.

“What did you see of me?”

“The question doesn’t seem that different.”

“It is different.”

Seeing the princess shake her head firmly, Rudrich quietly pondered the question. He thought she was asking whether he had seen intimate parts of her body, but he was perceptive enough to realize she meant something else.

“What I saw was……”

As he had previously answered, Rudrich had averted his gaze as soon as he realized through the door gap that the princess was changing clothes. So he couldn’t have stored in his mind the kind of improper memories the princess feared. But even he noticed one anomalous thing in that brief moment.

“Scars.”

Something that absolutely could not and should not exist on the princess’s body. Something that remained so vividly clear in that brief moment that it couldn’t be erased from his mind no matter how hard he tried.

“It was scars, princess.”

The moment Rudrich uttered the answer she had expected but not wanted—

“……!”

Mel doubled over in pain, unable to breathe, and collapsed forward.

“Princess!”

Alarmed, Rudrich quickly supported Mel’s falling body. As Mel struggled to breathe properly, gasping, Rudrich patted her back and checked her condition.

But Mel couldn’t give him a proper response.

Since the Second Prince’s lounge was a place where no one could enter without permission, Mel had assumed no one could enter except the lady-in-waiting who had been authorized to bring her there. In her haste to change without the lady-in-waiting’s help, she had failed to consider that the Second Prince, the lounge’s owner, might enter—a miscalculation.

‘What a stupid mistake.’

The sense of crisis flooding her mind was so overwhelming, it felt like her nerves were being shattered—leaving her barely able to breathe, let alone speak.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

Mel knew Rudrich was anxiously checking her condition. She also knew she needed to act as normal as possible while talking with Rudrich.

‘What should I do, what should I do, what should I do, what should I do, what should I do……’

But Mel was currently incapable of proper thought. She needed to come up with an excuse and figure out how to silence the Second Prince who had seen her secret, but her reason was helplessly swallowed by the sudden anxiety and impatience.

She shuddered at the feeling of the vertical scar on her back splitting open, as if something inside was continuously flowing and bursting out.

“I’ll end your breath with my own hands instead. Then at least this pain will end quickly.”

“No, no, gasp, I want to live. I will live……!”

This was the evidence of her gritting her teeth, begging for her life, and surviving tenaciously. The fear she felt then, her dimming vision, and the pitying eyes that weighed her hands and harm vividly came back to life. With these memories, Mel felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“Save me, huh……, save me……”

“Are you really alright? Should I call a doctor?”

The princess gasping for breath and beginning to speak nonsense looked extremely precarious. Rudrich recalled the rumor that Duke Ivanstein had personally nursed the sick princess.

‘Is that why Duke Ivanstein nursed her himself? Does she have a chronic illness? Or……’

Rudrich thought of the scars hidden under the princess’s shirt. Though he had glimpsed them for just a moment, the scars remained vivid in his mind, indicating how large they were. Such scars were not easily left on royalty unless someone had deliberately tried to harm her.

These scars, so out of place on a princess who should have been raised preciously in the royal palace, made Rudrich imagine thousands of possibilities.

‘Duke Ivanstein brought the princess as a prisoner when he destroyed the Reibritton palace…… Could it be?’

Then, he recalled rumors about Duke Ivanstein saying he only felt alive when drenched in blood on the battlefield.

How he might have captured and brought the princess, what might have happened until she stood here, in this place. Rudrich’s imagination swelled endlessly, despite not being sure about anything.

“Does Duke Ivanstein know about this wound?”

“……Ugh.”

Mel groaned softly and shook her head.

If Genoa knew about these scars, he would certainly thoroughly investigate the very existence of the princess of Reibritton. It would only be a matter of time before he discovered that she was actually a runaway slave.