Her tongue refused to move anymore, but she wrung every last bit of will out of her mind and forced her body into motion. Driven by one single thought: she had to survive and get to Atleta with Erin.

“Brothers, please open the door…! I need to get out…!”

She rushed to the door and begged frantically toward the other side, but those devils never opened it. They might have already left. Given the complete lack of any sound outside, that seemed likely.

These crazy bastards…!

Rowen cursed silently and glanced back over her shoulder. Tehern still held the maid in his arms, glaring at her.

At this point, only one option remained. To survive, Rowen decided to give up on the door entirely.

“I’m really sorry…!”

She tried her best not to look toward Tehern as she bolted for the window. Even in the middle of running, she didn’t forget to throw out a groveling apology.

This lecture hall had gone unused for a long time. The window might not open at all. If that happened, Rowen planned to smash it open with her elbow.

But God spared her that particular hardship. The window opened easily, and without a moment’s hesitation, Rowen threw herself out of it.

For the record, the lecture hall she’d been trapped in sat on the second floor. Jumping from the second floor, Rowen’s right ankle, unsurprisingly, snapped clean.

“Ngh, aaah…!”

In her entire life, this was the first time Rowen ever broke a bone.

If she’d attended the training grounds even occasionally, she might have felt the pain of a broken bone once before during a sparring match. But because of her principle of living quietly hidden away, she felt that agony for the very first time now.

Breaking a bone hurt in a way that defied all reason. The moment Rowen’s feet hit the ground, unbearable pain shot through her. A scream climbed up her throat, but fearing it might carry through the open window and provoke Tehern, she desperately swallowed it back.

It would have been wonderful if someone had found her collapsed in the flower bed, but unfortunately, the area saw almost no foot traffic. Determined to survive, Rowen dragged herself across the ground toward somewhere with people.

A prince crawling across the ground in broad daylight with a broken ankle. It was about the worst possible way to avoid catching people’s attention.

But the thought of staying unnoticed had long since been swallowed by the unbearable pain in her ankle.

Fortunately, before running into any princes, Rowen came across an attendant walking by.

Seeing what looked like a corpse crawling out of a grave, the attendant let out a startled scream. But he quickly realized she wasn’t a corpse but a prince, and rushed toward her in shock.

Rowen was carried straight to a doctor.

* * *

Rowen used to send letters to Erin only once a week. But lately, that frequency had grown exponentially.

With so many hardships piling up one after another, and no one inside the Crystal Palace to listen to any of it, the increase made perfect sense.

Her room, converted from a storage closet, was cramped, barely fitting a bed and a desk. There, Rowen wiped her tears with the back of her hand as she wrote to Erin. Her bandaged ankle throbbed with pain.

When Rowen mentioned that two princes had recently taken to underestimating and tormenting her, Erin grew deeply saddened. She assumed the reason they looked down on Rowen was her low birth.

That wasn’t entirely wrong, of course, but the real reason they underestimated her had more to do with her small build.

[I miss you, Mom.]

Sniffling, Rowen wrote this line at the very end. Strangely, no matter how many times she repeated these words, she never grew tired of writing them. If anything, the more she wrote it, the more she wanted to write it again.

Let’s definitely escape someday and go to Atleta together. She wanted to write that too, but she couldn’t. If she put those words in a letter and someone ever managed to decode its meaning, this time her head would surely be cut off.

Rowen sealed the finished letter inside an envelope. When she peeled away the seal she’d pressed firmly onto the envelope, the imperial crest, one she despised the sight of, stood out clearly on the letter. She glared at the emblem for a moment before rising to her feet.

Clutching the letter carefully, Rowen hurried outside.

The constant throbbing in her broken ankle had made her linger too long sniffling over the letter, so a good deal of time had slipped by. Soon it would be time for the attendant to collect the letters gathered from the Crystal Palace and head outside.

Limping on her injured leg, she still pushed herself as hard as she could toward the front gate. Please, don’t let me be too late.

“…..”

But reaching the gate, she froze in place. Jun and Kyle stood right there. They seemed to have come to send their own letters too.

Maybe I should have left earlier…

Rather than face them and endure another humiliating scene, she decided to just turn back to her room for today. But just as she made up her mind and turned around, her eyes met Jun’s as he scanned the area. He rushed over, grabbed her wrist, and called out to Kyle.

“See? Told you I was right. I said she always comes here.”

From the way he spoke, this wasn’t a chance encounter. They’d clearly been waiting here the whole time. Just having her wrist caught already left her mentally exhausted.

“What’s with your leg? Don’t tell me you jumped out a window just because we didn’t open the door for you.”

“The knights would’ve come by on patrol at night and let you out eventually anyway. Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark? What are you, a baby?”

Kyle, who’d wandered over by then, glanced down at Rowen’s bandaged leg and asked, but she kept her mouth shut and said nothing. They clearly had no idea Tehern had been inside that old lecture hall.

Then again, if they’d known, they never would have pulled something as insane as shoving her into a room where Tehern was in the middle of things with a maid.

Just then, Jun, who’d been teasing Rowen with idle chatter, noticed the letter in her hand. Sensing his gaze, Rowen tried to hide it quickly, but it was already too late. He twisted her arm and snatched the letter away.

“Ugh…!”

“Who’s this to? Erin Hydra? Oh right, wasn’t your mom a dancer or something?”

Erin had risen from a dancer to become the emperor’s wife. Because of that, her name had apparently spread through the palace, at least somewhat.

Jun recognized exactly who she was the instant he saw Erin’s name written on the letter.

It made sense that her name would get around. A woman who became the emperor’s wife despite having no backing and no special talent to speak of. And on top of that, she didn’t even bother flattering the emperor, so she lived essentially discarded in some forgotten corner of the palace.

“So your mom’s alone in the palace too, huh? Doesn’t it worry you, knowing she’s living all by herself without even a single knight?”

“…..”

Jun chuckled quietly and tickled Rowen’s chin with his finger, like she was nothing more than his pet. The warm touch against her chin felt deeply unpleasant.

“…Just give the letter back.”

“Just give it back? Is that any way to talk to your own brother?”

You should ask nicely.

Rowen reached out for the letter, but Jun lifted it mockingly out of her reach. Jumping up with her injured leg to try to snatch it back, she lost her balance and nearly fell forward. They snickered, finding her stumbling hilarious.

“Hah!”

Mocking her desperate attempts to reclaim the letter, Jun finally shoved her shoulder and knocked her to the ground. Rowen let out a short cry as she fell helplessly.

Dirt caked her clothes, and her palms turned bright red from the fall. The scraped skin stung sharply.

She’d lived groveling on the ground just to avoid drawing anyone’s ire, yet she couldn’t understand why these lunatics kept tormenting her without any real reason.

She wasn’t some bastard dog, yet she had to come running whenever they called. Had to carry heavy loads whenever ordered. She’d obeyed every single time, yet they still shoved her into a room where Tehern was in the middle of things with a maid.