“Hm?”

“Your progress is actually quite fast, Princess. And there was nothing today that warranted any kind of scolding—frankly, the whole situation is absurd.”

Ah, that’s right…

“For a royal tutor to treat a member of the royal family like this—”

Only then did Isabel realize the boy’s identity, as he expressed his anger with such plain sincerity.

He was the tutor’s assistant, assigned to her by her father not long after she first entered the palace as a child.

She also remembered that it was around this time that she started suffering at the hands of her so-called tutor, who dished out ab＊se under the guise of ‘education’.

As a result of those lessons, her shins were battered and bruised. The tutor hadn’t been this brutal at first, but he slapped her across the face on the first day for speaking without permission, calling it ‘rudeness’.

Judging by the way he seemed to relish the pain on her face, he was either a natural sadist or simply venting years of pent-up frustration with the royal family.

As she looked up from the floor, she caught sight of the boy’s tidy black hair; his hands paused midway through tending her wounds. He pulled out some ointment and met her gaze.

“Given the teacher–student relationship, would you find it difficult to respond?”

His question came suddenly, close enough that she could feel his breath.

“If that’s the case, please let me know, Princess. I’ll try to find a way to help in my own way.”

Taken aback, Isabel couldn’t look away, but she shook her head, embarrassed.

“Thank you for worrying, but… I’m all right.”

“I see.”

He was unusually mature for his age — almost unsettlingly so. Until now, Isabel had hardly noticed him, regarding him as little more than a shadow who always quietly assisted during lessons and rarely spoke. She had even wondered if he might have been born mute.

But seeing the sharp, cold precision with which he expressed his anger now, he seemed like a completely different person. Isabel couldn’t help but feel quietly taken aback.

“Has anything else made you feel uncomfortable here in the palace?”

“Mm… No, not really, I suppose.”

“Aren’t you homesick?”

He asked the question so calmly, smoothing ointment onto her wounds, that Isabel hesitated before answering.

It was such a rare situation—and such a rare kind of person to ask.

Everyone else she had met at the palace avoided her gaze, treating her as though she were a troublesome burden, eager to avoid getting involved with her.

“Honestly, I don’t really remember.”

Instead of making something up, Isabel chose to tell the truth.

“I’ve actually seen the doctor several times because of it. He thinks it might be some kind of memory disorder. Some things are just completely missing.”

She’d been told that the shock of being brought to the palace so suddenly was probably to blame. As she spoke softly, the faint, bitter scent of herbs wafted up from the ointment that the boy was applying to her bruised shins.

He remained silent, his face as impassive as ever. On closer inspection, however, she realised that it wasn’t just a lack of expression.

Rather, she couldn’t fathom what he was feeling, which piqued her curiosity.

“Come to think of it—what about you?”

No, that wasn’t quite it.

She realized, with surprise, that she was actually asking him a question, something she almost never did.

“You… What’s your name?”

His fingers froze. For a moment, that hard-to-read face faltered, and as he parted his lips, it twisted—somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

“I…”

Just then, a sharp, piercing sound cut through the air, overlapping his words.

With a metallic ringing in her ears, Isabel saw the boy’s face suddenly vanish into darkness, as if someone had painted over it in black.

It was over in an instant, but Isabel suddenly realized—this was an old memory.

No, this isn’t right.

I have to remember this.

If I don’t, when I wake up, even if I see you…

‘I won’t be able to breathe.’

She couldn’t breathe—she gagged, curling in on herself, retching dryly. It was all she could do to drag in a ragged, wheezing breath, unable to even lift a finger.

Then, someone pulled her into a firm embrace—wrapping their arms around her shoulders and behind her knees, drawing her close as if they’d done it countless times before.

In that solid, familiar hold, her frantic heartbeat slowly began to steady.

Thump, thump—her wild pulse gradually settled into a calm, even rhythm.

Isabel tried to open her eyes, but her body wouldn’t move. Her eyelids wouldn’t obey. All she could do was peer through a thin slit, watching someone—silhouetted against the blue dawn light seeping in through the window—gently patting her back.

That warmth pressed against her cold, stiff body, and she found herself instinctively leaning closer.
Something inside her kept stirring, rising from the depths.

What is this? The sensation and emotion felt foreign. As she struggled to focus her hazy mind, Isabel realized—

It wasn’t unfamiliar at all.

This was something she’d repressed for a very long time, deep within her subconscious.

The moment she realized it, her heart began to race.

Anxiety and restlessness swept through her, and she strained to hold on to the feeling, desperate to recall more, but her eyes slid shut again.

“Pr-Princess?”

When she next woke, it was early morning.

Meli was at her side. The moment she saw Isabel open her eyes, she started to say something, but Isabel quickly turned away, unable to meet her gaze.

She couldn’t look directly at Meli—her face still bore the marks of last night’s ordeal.

“Please, Princess, wait—just listen—”

Isabel didn’t answer, pointedly keeping silent, intentionally avoiding conversation.

Surely, even someone as kind as Meli would realize by now what happened to anyone who got too close to her.

After being slapped and dragged by Kailhart’s attendants just the day before, she must have finally understood.

So Isabel turned down her offer of help, insisting she wasn’t sick enough to need looking after. She made a show of pulling herself together and left, using a visit to the library as an excuse. When Meli offered to accompany her, Isabel had to firmly refuse.

She flipped absently through a few pages of a book, barely seeing the words, then glanced up at the library’s high stone ceiling.

The air was so dry and heavy that it pressed down on her eyelids like a tomb.

As dusk fell and she returned to her room, someone suddenly covered her eyes, restraining her limbs and dragging her away.

When her sight returned, it was a familiar scene.

“Why haven’t you changed at all in these past few days? How dare you ignore me?”

It was Charles again. Even the place was the same as a few days before.

Isabel only lowered her head in silence.

“Well, look at you. Getting favored by His Majesty and now you think you’re above everyone else, huh?”

The violence from Charles’s men was merciless, as if they wouldn’t stop until they heard her scream. But Isabel simply stared off into the dusty corner of the storeroom, showing no reaction.

“You think His Majesty’s attention and favor will last forever? It’ll all be over soon. By the end of this winter, you’ll be cast aside as if you never mattered, so you’d better start thinking about how you’re going to survive.”

He had it all wrong, but there was no point correcting him. Why would she ever want the affection or attention of the man who had killed her sister so mercilessly?

“I never once wanted His Majesty’s favor…”

“Hmph. That’s what all the concubines say.”

Strictly speaking, her situation wasn’t exactly the same as that of a royal concubine. Perhaps it was because he saw his own mother, the third consort of the late king, in Isabel’s face that Charles unleashed so much unnecessary anger on her.

But even this didn’t matter much. It’s fine. As long as she doesn’t die, everything will be OK. All she had to do was stay quiet, keep her head down, and endure.

Isabel slowly curled her fists. Suddenly, she sensed something strange in the air.

Her eyes widened. Her field of vision stretched out, and the scene before her slowed almost to a crawl. However, she was bound, so there was nowhere to run.

Every hair on her body stood on end in alarm.

The next moment, a blinding violet light sliced through the air and hit the centre of the storeroom, about ten metres away. It cut from ceiling to floor, as though tearing the very fabric of space itself.

The power was overwhelming — so intense that it felt as though it didn’t belong to this world. It radiated a chilling presence strong enough to subdue everyone in the room at once.

“H-huh…!”

“W-what is this…?”

Charles’s men gasped in shock when a flock of crows burst through the broken window. Their cries filled the air as they scattered into the sky.

“What is that? What’s happening?”

Isabel squinted through the pain throbbing around her battered eye. In an instant, the space warped and a dark figure closed in on them. Its aura was so familiar that it almost made her laugh.

Maybe I’m just losing my mind. I must be seeing things.

There’s no way Kailhart would come here.

But Isabel’s consciousness, already pushed to its limit, finally snapped and everything went black.