“……Siset told me to reconcile with you.”

The following year, Rose had found Jade at the Ordo family’s knight cemetery and passed on his dying words.

But Jade had not agreed.

He said something strange, spoke coldly, turned and walked away, and then became a wanderer consumed by dueling.

After that, the two of them still ran into each other occasionally at Hilude hot springs, exchanged a few words, made their small trades, and kept that much of a connection.

Only, Rose had missed her chance to tell Jade she had forgiven him. Missed her chance to thank him. Missed every opportunity to say anything at all about that day.

She had been accumulating this unintentional debt of the heart toward him. More than once.

So perhaps the reason Rose was now working so hard to sort out an unintentionally broken verbal promise was that she didn’t want to add any more to that debt……

“Do you want to read ‘Hoppy the Bunny Girl’ again tonight? Or ‘Achoo! The Ticklish Bear Paw?'”

Rose came into the bedroom in the evening and flipped through the picture books.

Shurelli, sitting on Rose’s bed eating cookies, shook her head.

“Shu is going to read by herself tonight. Grandma said earlier that Aunt Rose has lots of letters to write and is very busy.”

“No, Aunt Rose isn’t busy at all. The letters can wait.”

There was no need to rush the marriage with Benyamin. The remark about writing two hundred letters to everyone else before answering Benyamin had been a joke, of course.

A marriage wasn’t something that came together in a day or two.

Rose could count on one hand the number of times she had spoken with Benyamin alone. There was plenty of time to meet him slowly and at her own pace.

“Shall we read ‘The Little Blue Chick Goes Peep Peep?'”

“Mm…… what about that book over there?”

“Hmm?”

Shurelli wasn’t looking at the picture books Rose had brought. She was gazing with curious eyes at the small book Rose had left on the shelf beside the bed.

“Oh……”

The very book she had extracted from Jade, or rather, received as a gift.

“It’s small and cute and looks like a grown-up book. Is it a book Shu isn’t allowed to read?”

“Hmm. Let’s see whether our little princess is allowed to read it.”

Rose picked up the book and climbed onto the bed. She patted the spot beside her with both hands, and Shu giggled with her mouth open and burrowed into Rose’s side.

“Shall Aunt Rose look through it first?”

“Shu will hug Aunt Rose and wait nicely.”

“Oh, lovely. I’ll take my time.”

Love Songs.

She turned the cover, which bore only the title, and flipped open the first page.

There was no table of contents, only a short poem written in what looked like code, impossible to make sense of at first glance.

Rose flipped through the pages quickly, eyes darting to check for anything suspicious. She was only looking to make sure there were no violent or s*xual words anywhere.

Jade Camelot surely wouldn’t have given her something indecent, but it was said to be a popular book……

“All right, it passes.”

“Yay!”

Rose and Shurelli grinned at each other, and Rose settled into a comfortable reading position. She pulled the blanket over both their laps and opened the book.

“The first story is called ‘The Flower and the Jewel.’ It’s about a flower princess and a jewel prince. How does that sound?”

She showed Shurelli the illustrated title page, with its lovely princess and dashing prince, and Shurelli’s face lit up.

“Read it! Read it!”

Comparing characters to flowers and jewels had always been a common device in stories. Even in the present day, people across the Empire loved naming their children after flowers and jewels, regardless of whether they were boys or girls. Shurelli herself had been named after a gemstone that matched the color of her hair.

So Rose began reading without giving it any particular thought.

“Ahem. Once upon a time, there was a Tulip Kingdom and an Emerald Kingdom.”

Rose read the tiny print in the small book aloud.

“The Tulip King and the Emerald King were bitter enemies who despised each other greatly. Between their two countries lay a land full of flowers and jewels, and they had quarreled over its ownership for so long that neither had ever managed to settle the matter.”

A wry smile came to her at the sudden sense of familiarity.

This sounds a little too close to home.

House Ordo and House Camelot had also, in the distant past, quarreled over territory with unclear ownership. There was Mount Quesa, which cut across both families’ domains at a distance, and the Empire’s old tradition that great mountains belong to no one had been cleverly exploited by both families, leading to constant clashes over who held the upper hand.

Then a fog forest appeared on Mount Quesa, giving birth to monsters, and healing hot springs with sacred power began to emerge, and the territorial dispute between the two families came to an end.

The imperial family took ownership of the Quesa region and placed it under the administration of the temples, and that was how peace was made.

Hilude hot springs, as it stood today, had become a place of peace in exactly that way.

“After years of fighting, the kings of both countries put a fence around the jewel-flower field and forbade anyone from either nation from going near it……”

Ordo and Camelot drew attention because they were great lord families, but there must have been countless families throughout the Empire that had become enemies over land disputes.

It was easy enough to imagine why a figure said to have been a prophet and an elder beneath the Emperor, beloved by the people and loving them in return, would have written a story like this.

Rose found herself sympathizing with the characters and slipping naturally into the story.

[“If I can’t have this land, no one can!”

The Tulip King cried out, wrapping the jewel-flower field in a fence of sharp-spined cacti.

“I won’t let some weed of a king who doesn’t know his place set foot in my jewel field!”

The Emerald King shouted back, stringing a fence of razor-sharp steel wire around the jewel-flower field.

“That ignorant blockhead of a king!”

“I’ll grind you to a pulp with this blockhead of mine, you weed king!”

The conflict between the two countries grew fiercer with every passing day.]

“Wh, where do you think you are……!”

The furious shout that rang out was not coming from inside Rose’s head, lost as she was in the story.

It had clearly come from outside the bedroom window.

What was that? Did she mishear?

She listened carefully, and the commotion outside grew steadily clearer.

“……Wait a moment, Shu. Don’t come out from under the blanket.”

Rose climbed out of bed and eased the window open.

In the dark, drizzly courtyard below, several torches were moving. The Ordo family knights were converging on a single point.

A trespasser……?

“It seems Aunt Rose needs to step out for a moment. Go to sleep first, Shu. We’ll read more tomorrow.”

Rose threw a cloak over her nightgown and went outside. She handed Shurelli off to Terra, who had come running at the sound of the commotion, and hurried toward the courtyard.

“What’s going on?”

Outside, the spring rain had made everything dark and close. The only faces she could make out were those lit by the blazing torches.

In the disorderly dark, the first person to meet Rose’s eyes was Anne.

“R, Rose.”

Anne had come out to see what was happening and was on her way back to the main building when she spotted her daughter and rushed over.

The emotion in her unsteady eyes was bewilderment. It didn’t look like fear, which gave Rose a small measure of relief.

“What is it, Mother? Has someone broken in?”

Seeing Rose seemed to settle Anne somewhat. She smoothed her disheveled hair and let out a breath.

“Of all the things to happen, dear! This is very awkward. And of all times, when your father isn’t here……”

“Ha! They came on purpose, taking advantage of the lord’s absence!”

Anton and Piar, who had been among the knights, came scurrying over to Anne’s side.

“That’s exactly like Camelot! How can anyone have so little decency!”

What…… Camelot?

Rose pushed past her mother and brothers and strode toward where the knights had gathered, to see the source of the trouble for herself.

And there she found him.

Standing inside a cage of dozens of drawn blades, surrounded on all sides.

“Jade……”

Rose stopped dead, then caught herself and quickly added.