Meals on the Abyss were always the same. Hard bread and watery soup, salt-cured meat and liquor. It was a diet meant to fill the stomach rather than please the palate.

Expecting fresh vegetables on a ship with no proper means of preservation was a luxury. In the hot, humid weather compounded by sea wind, most ingredients went soft or rotten in no time.

The Victore’s stores were no different. Most of the plundered provisions were salted goods with a long shelf life, and there was not a piece of fruit or vegetable to be found. The only real gain was getting their hands on some prized spices and fine wine.

Aslan took a spoonful of the cold soup and grimaced. The cook must have forgotten the pepper, because the fishy smell was overwhelming. He pushed aside the plate with the badly charred steak and picked up his cup.

“Captain, I’m coming in.”

The visitor who came at this hour every day knocked on the captain’s cabin door. Timo poked his head through the gap and shuffled inside. Aslan asked the same question he asked that morning.

“The meal?”

Timo shook his head with a helpless look.

“She didn’t touch it. The water was untouched too.”

“Tch.”

Quite the stubborn princess.

He planned to wait until her pride gave out, but five days without so much as a sip of water made him think leaving her like this might actually be dangerous.

He thought she would drop the act after a few days, but is she actually planning to die? Then again, she was stubborn enough to give her body to a stranger as a princess, so it might not be impossible. Reaching an unwelcome conclusion, Aslan set his cup down with irritation.

“Timo.”

“Yes.”

“Who made this soup?”

“Sorry?”

“Go get whoever made this right now.”

“Uh…… yes.”

Timo left the captain’s cabin looking baffled. Not long after, a scrawny man knocked on the door.

“You called for me, Captain?”

“Roxon, did you make this food?”

“Yes, is there a problem?”

Aslan scowled.

“The food is a disaster. The bread is hard, the meat is burnt, the soup smells fishy.”

“Well…… I’m not a real cook.”

Roxon, recruited as the Abyss’s cook on the grounds that he could heat bread without burning it, protested with an aggrieved look.

“Did you send the same food to the prisoner’s cabin?”

“Unless Timo made something behind my back, yes.”

Aslan smiled wryly at Roxon’s disgruntled answer.

So that’s why the princess is refusing to eat. She spent her whole life eating the finest food in the palace, and we put this reeking meat in front of her. No wonder she won’t touch it.

“Make something edible instead of this. Now.”

“……Understood.”

Roxon bowed with a sullen face and turned to leave. Aslan called after him.

“Hereis-style.”

“Pardon?”

* * *

Aslan took the food Roxon spent four hours completing, which Roxon himself called Hereis-style, and went to find Canasia. He knocked out of habit, then turned the handle without waiting for an answer.

“Pardon the intrusion, Your Highness.”

Aslan greeted Canasia with a teasing bow as she lay straight on the bed. She didn’t stir at all, deep enough in sleep that she didn’t notice someone entering.

“Princess.”

Aslan set the tray down and approached the bedside. He made noise with his footsteps on purpose, but there was no reaction. With a flicker of concern, he held his hand close to her face and confirmed the faint warmth of her breath.

“Open your eyes.”

At the low but commanding voice, long lashes trembled faintly. The blue eyes hidden beneath the firmly closed lids revealed themselves. Canasia met his gaze and let out a weary sigh.

“Sit up.”

He said it quietly. Realizing he wouldn’t back down easily, Canasia forced herself upright. Her body had no strength in it, and the hand braced against the bed kept slipping.

Aslan supported her and helped her sit up, limp as a waterlogged cloth. Canasia leaned against the hard headboard and stared at him with vacant eyes. The dark shadows under her eyes and the sunken cheeks were gaunt enough to be pitiful.

“I brought food.”

“……I don’t want any.”

“Eat even if you don’t want to.”

“Just go. I’m fine.”

Canasia waved her hand, as though even talking was a nuisance. Aslan ignored her and held out the soup.

“I had it made Hereis-style. Try just a little.”

“I don’t want to eat…… mmph.”

The spoon filled with soup slipped between her lips. The revolting fishy smell of clams made nausea rise in her throat. Canasia swung her arm roughly and shouted.

“I said I don’t want it!”

Clang! The bowl she knocked away hit the floor. The soup that spilled from the broken dish spread wide across the floor. A suffocating silence followed. Aslan looked back and forth between the ruined wooden floor and Canasia with a cold gaze.

The woman with her eyes cast down pressed her chapped lips together without a word of apology or acknowledgment that it was a mistake. Aslan’s patience ran out and he threw down the spoon he was holding.

“Is it because of that man?”

“……?”

“The one who kept fighting even after getting stabbed. His name was…… Roderick, wasn’t it?”

“How do you know Roderick?”

The dead eyes came alive. An emotion he couldn’t name boiled up, and Aslan curled the corner of his mouth.

“Was he your lover?”

“What happened to Roderick?”

“I asked if he was your lover.”

“Did you kill Roderick?”

Canasia sat up and grabbed his sleeve, asking desperately.

I threw that out to get a reaction, but I wasn’t expecting this much of one.

Aslan looked down at the woman who, for the first time since boarding this ship, had reached out and touched him. Her face was twisted like she might cry at any moment, and it grated on him, so he decided to be a little more cruel.

“Judging by how desperate you are, he must be your lover. I didn’t know you were bold enough to bring your lover along on your bridal journey.”

“Don’t insult Roderick! He’s nothing more than my escort knight.”

“He seemed rather dear to you for an escort knight.”

Canasia opened her mouth at his sarcastic reply.

“He was my sister’s fiancé.”

“Your sister’s fiancé?”

“Yes. He and I…… we’re truly nothing to each other.”

Canasia’s eyes welled up as she tried hard to deny Aslan’s assumption. Whatever else was uncertain, one thing was clear. This guileless princess was absolutely terrible at lying.

“Ah, so that’s why he turned a blind eye to you sleeping with another man.”

“……!”

Canasia couldn’t hold back at the worst insult she ever heard in her life and raised her hand. Her small, thin hand was just about to reach his cheek.

“He’s not dead.”

Canasia’s hand stopped in midair. She stared at Aslan with bewildered eyes. He smiled wryly at her demanding look and continued.

“I let Jeff Dawson live, so that man probably didn’t die either.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“The lifeboats.”

“The lifeboats?”

Aslan nodded. He explained that a large vessel like the Victore would have lifeboats on board for emergencies, and Canasia’s expression shifted with confusion.

“I left them on purpose. There needs to be a witness who can testify that the princess is alive.”

“The waters around here are supposed to be extremely dangerous…….”

“Jeff Dawson would have gotten out safely. He’s underhanded, but quite capable at sea.”

“Oh…….”

Only then did relief seem to settle in, and tears fell one after another from her large eyes. Aslan held out the plate with the steak, now gone cold.

“So eat. If you want to see him alive.”

* * *

It was an excessively lavish table. The sheer amount of food, more than enough to fill the narrow table and then some, was almost off-putting before she even started eating. Canasia looked at the plate balanced precariously on the edge of the table and swallowed a sigh.

Oyster soup simmered with white wine and cheese, fish cutlets with olives and mashed potatoes, dried figs stewed in rum. For something prepared on a pirate ship, it was quite a remarkable spread. The problem was that the person meant to eat it had no appetite whatsoever.

“Well done.”

“I put some effort into it.”

The scrawny man, who looked more accustomed to gutting people than gutting fish, puffed up his chest and flapped his ridiculous apron.

“You can go.”

Roxon, who looked at Aslan with an expression full of expectation, seemingly hoping for more praise, bowed his head dejectedly at the blunt dismissal.

“Enjoy your meal.”