Madame Verny’s words were hard to believe. She spoke calmly, addressing the dazed Amelia as she continued her explanation.

“Lady Amelia, thanks to my husband, Admiral Licht, I’ve grown quite weary of matters like diplomacy and politics. That’s why I focus solely on managing our estate.”

Madame Verny portrayed herself as someone entirely removed from external affairs, but it was excessive humility. With Admiral Licht spending more than half the year at sea, it was only natural for his wife to take charge as the head of the household.

“I don’t know which ship my husband is on this time or what Duke Leonid is planning. The Verny family sustains itself mainly through orchards and fish farming, so we don’t have to bother with trade.”

“…”

“I have no particular stake in Duke Leonid’s endeavors, nor do I pose any risk of embezzling the funds from diamond sales or spilling unnecessary secrets.”

“Unnecessary secrets?”

At Amelia’s question, Madame Verny lowered her voice even further.

“…Like why the Duke needed such a large sum of money or what Brienne is currently up to. Those sorts of things.”

Disappointment flickered across Amelia’s face. It was everything she had been dying to know. Sensing this, Madame Verny offered her a sympathetic look.

“I’m sorry, Lady Amelia, but I can’t tell you anything right now. In truth, I don’t know much myself. Even mentioning this earlier was a slip.”

Madame Verny spoke in a hushed tone.

“…Then what can you tell me?”

Amelia, aware of her own insistence, pressed Madame Verny further. She understood the significance of the woman’s roundabout responses.

Brienne’s independence.

Mentioning it here in Olstein, in front of Amelia—a political hostage—meant that Leonid’s plans had begun to take root.

But progress would still take time. Until then, Leonid intended to keep his concrete plans known only to a few close confidants. And Amelia was not among them.

She felt hurt by this. Being isolated in Olstein already made her feel distanced from her father.

“Trust me and wait.”

Madame Verny spoke gently.

“That’s what Duke Leonid asked me to convey, Lady Amelia.”

“…”

It felt as though she had peered directly into Amelia’s heart. Left with no other choice, Amelia nodded.

***

Madame Verny left without lingering for further conversation.

“I can see the Lady is doing well. That’s enough for me.”

Her parting words sounded genuinely relieved. She complimented the luxurious fabric of Amelia’s blue and white dress and admired how the pearl necklace elegantly highlighted her slender neck.

“You seem even more beautiful than when you were in Brienne. I’m sure the Duke would feel reassured seeing you like this.”

Though Amelia bid her farewell, she couldn’t bring herself to feel entirely pleased. It wasn’t because of the hushed nature of their farewell in the dark.

Rather, Madame Verny’s compliments felt like veiled reproach, as though saying, “Amelia, aren’t you living comfortably while Brienne struggles?”

Madame Verny wasn’t the kind of person to deliver such biting sarcasm. It was Amelia’s own insecurities twisting the meaning.

‘I should have moved past this by now.’

Still, some measure of subjective interpretation was inevitable. After all, Amelia knew so little.

She didn’t know what her father was doing, what hardships the people of Brienne were enduring, or what she was supposed to do. She was clueless about it all.

“…”

Walking through the western garden, she passed a courtyard strung with lanterns and along a sheltered path toward the crown princess’s residence.

As she walked the familiar, beautiful trail, a sudden loneliness crept over her. It dawned on her that solitude often becomes most apparent after encountering others. Even the star- and moon-filled sky visible through the trees couldn’t dispel it.

‘…May Madame Verny return safely to Brienne.’

After a brief prayer, Amelia continued toward the residence.

***

Henrik had just arrived at the shipyard.

For someone like Henrik, who had only seen ships a handful of times, the scene at Brienne’s shipyard was utterly foreign. It was nothing like the grand image of a ship unfurling its sails that he had imagined.

Laborers, their sleeves rolled up, carried piles of lumber stacked like mountains. Carpenters, drenched in sweat, were sawing planks or tying bundles of wood with rope. Apart from the sound of waves lapping against the docks, the scene resembled a construction site.

“…”

Henrik surveyed the bustling workers with a perplexed expression. He had heard that building a ship took about a year. There was no way he could discern the progress just by visiting the shipyard, especially with his lack of knowledge about ships.

Yet he couldn’t very well report back with something as vague as, “There’s a lot of wood at the shipyard.” The Crown Prince certainly wouldn’t be pleased.

“Hey, what are you doing over there?”

Someone shoved Henrik’s shoulder roughly from behind. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so easily pushed, but lost in thought, he momentarily lost his balance and stumbled.

“Standing in the way while someone’s trying to walk, huh?”

The man who had shoved Henrik was a knight of Olstein. The moment Henrik saw the familiar uniform, tension gripped him, but the laughing knight was already walking away, showing only his back.

Henrik had to suppress the urge to run after him and grab him by the collar. The barkeep’s earlier words about Olstein’s knights constantly picking fights echoed in his mind. Looking around, it seemed a few more knights were wandering about here as well.

Left with no choice, Henrik veered off the stone path along the dock and headed behind a warehouse. The thought that he might look like he was fleeing from fear of the knights made his temper flare.

“Damn it. I’ll make sure to identify him later.”

Henrik committed the knight’s thick blond hair and rough, grating voice to memory. Once he found a clue to report to the Crown Prince, he planned to identify the man and take his revenge.

Walking quietly, Henrik instinctively slipped into a partially open warehouse. Across the road, someone was pulling a handcart toward him.

In a crowded place like earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered, but in a secluded area like this, encountering another worker might raise suspicion about Henrik’s unfamiliar face.

“Up we go.”

The moment Henrik hid behind a wooden crate, the cart’s front end entered the warehouse. The man, who had been hauling thick wooden logs, let the cart drop with a thud.

“Ugh… so heavy I could die,” the man grumbled, clutching his waist.

Then, a slightly older man suddenly appeared behind him, shouting harshly.

“Hey, you idiot! How can you just drop it like that?”

“Ah!”

The younger man jumped in surprise, scratching his head sheepishly as he turned around.

“S-Sorry.”

“That wood’s for a ship’s figurehead, you fool! Be careful with it!”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

The older man barked orders, making the younger man carefully prop up the wooden logs in a corner. As the man hauled the cart back out, he endured a stream of complaints about the significance of figureheads on ships. Initially, the younger man listened obediently, but by the end, he sighed heavily, clearly fed up.

Once the warehouse doors were completely shut, Henrik emerged from behind the wooden crate.

“……”

The only light in the warehouse came from a rectangular patch of sunlight streaming through a small window. The logs intended for figureheads lay horizontally at the edge of that light.

Feeling drained, Henrik squatted and examined the unremarkable logs. This wasn’t why he’d hidden in the warehouse. He’d expected something more substantial, like blueprints for a warship or records of transactions between Kut and Brienne.

As Henrik absently ran his fingers over the wood, they caught on a rough, uneven surface. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be marks carved into the grain with a knife.

“…Are these letters?”

He muttered to himself, scrutinizing the marks. The letters were difficult to discern, their edges jagged and varying in size, but they were unmistakably words. Henrik knew because when he pieced the letters together, they formed a recognizable name.

“Amelia…”

It was a common enough name for a woman, but the Amelia that sprang to Henrik’s mind was Lady Amelia. And this was Brienne. There was no way it referred to anyone else.

“…Bean… Beard?”

But the next word baffled him. Lady Amelia’s surname was Przhemysl, entirely different from what he was reading.

As Henrik frowned in thought, a loud voice interrupted him.

“What are you doing?!”

“You bastard!”

The sound of an argument followed immediately. Startled, Henrik froze for a moment. The noise was so close that it seemed to be coming from right next to him, but the warehouse was empty. It must have been the thin walls amplifying the sound from outside.

Reluctantly, Henrik decided he had to leave the warehouse before someone caught him. Though his findings were insignificant, it was the right time to blend into the crowd and leave the dockyard unnoticed.

***

As Henrik rounded the warehouse’s outer wall and stepped onto the stone path, he saw someone being beaten mercilessly.

“This is imperial territory now, you Kut scum!”

“Ugh!”

The man curled on the ground let out beastly cries as the imperial knight’s boots struck his face and stomach without mercy. The one assaulting him was the same knight who had earlier picked a fight with Henrik.

“Damn it.”

Henrik bit his lip. He didn’t know what had sparked this, but if no one intervened, the man would surely die. Yet stepping forward might expose Henrik’s identity to the knights.

Workers gathered nearby, looking on helplessly at the scene. They seemed too afraid of the violent imperial knights to intervene.

“…Hah.”

Resigned, Henrik was about to step forward, knowing full well this mission was ruined, when—

“Hoo… hoo…”

The knight, now panting from exertion, seemed to tire of kicking the man. He paused to catch his breath, his shoulders heaving.

“Watch yourself from now on.”

“…Ugh…”

With a sneer, the knight spat on the ground and turned away, leaving the trembling man behind.

“Hey! Are you alright?”

Finally, someone stepped forward to help the fallen man.

“Let me… go.”

“W-Wait… hey!”

Before anyone could stop him, the man staggered to his feet, pulled a dagger from his blood-soaked clothes, and in a flash, slit the knight’s throat.

The knight froze mid-step.

“Guh… urk…”

His hands flailed in the air, trying to clutch his neck. As his knees buckled and his body collapsed, blood gushed from the gaping wound, pooling on the ground like water.

“Ahhh!”

Amid the panicked screams of the workers, Henrik stood dumbstruck, staring at the knight’s corpse writhing like a worm under the blazing sun.