Lennox watched the girl diligently chewing the hard bread, then spoke.

“Have you seen anyone looking for me? They must be searching for me.”

“Not yet…”

“They probably don’t know I’m here. So we need to let them know.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I…”

Lennox opened his mouth. Suddenly Ann spat out the bread she’d been chewing and held it out. Lennox looked at her with an expression that said ‘what kind of strange behavior is this?’

“It’s not hard anymore.”

“Thanks, but I don’t put things in my mouth that have been in someone else’s.”

Lennox politely declined. His stomach churned, but he couldn’t show it. Ann turned away with a sullen face. He felt sorry, but there was nothing he could do. He was truly hungry, but his stomach turned and he couldn’t eat it.

Cold sweat dampened his forehead. Lennox lay his upper body back down on the floor after barely managing to sit up. The cold rising from the floor chilled his spine. He shivered and suffered like an old man with rheumatism. The temperature dropped every time the sun set.

Though it was summer and shouldn’t be too cold, Lennox, who’d been beaten until his bones nearly shattered, wasn’t normal.

Ann, who’d been watching him quietly, carefully approached his side. Lennox glanced over to see the girl with her hair hanging down like a thicket. The girl who would surely become a tremendous beauty if she grew up lay down beside him.

“What are you…”

Lennox flinched, having never been so close to a child of the opposite s*x. But Ann embraced him with an attitude that suggested nothing was strange about it.

“This way you won’t be cold.”

A small whisper settled in his ear like a bird’s chirp. It was a voice that gave a strange sense of stability. Lennox closed his eyes at the warmth the girl provided. 

When he bit his lower lip where a scab had formed, slender fingers touched it. Surprised, he opened his eyes to see plump lips moving.

“Don’t do that.”

The girl’s rough voice was like a dried flower petal. Lennox flinched and looked down at her. Her white face buried in wavy silver hair was fluffy like a feather. It felt like his heart was being tickled by dried flower petals. The feeling was strange.

“Can’t you move away a bit?”

He asked, unable to bear the sensation. The girl looked up at him steadily and said.

“We have to do this so you won’t be cold.”

Her firm voice was quite solid. Lennox had no choice but to close his eyes and burrow into her embrace. He couldn’t tell how the night passed.

* * *

It was morning. Hazy sunlight came in through the broken window. Lennox blinked to correct his flickering vision, then turned his head toward where he heard steady breathing.

“Ann.”

The girl who held him with her slender arms was still asleep. He looked down at the girl again with a strange feeling. Though rough, her snow-white cheeks were like beeswax. Lennox raised his hand and traced her neat eyebrows.

His heart beat irregularly. It felt exactly like when he encountered the doll in Charlotte’s hidden drawer. He slowly stroked her delicate features with his finely trembling fingertips, then kissed her round forehead. He recalled the night when she’d clung desperately to save him.

“B-Baron Bensweed will be looking for this child! It’s true!”

Even in his flickering consciousness, only her outcry had been clear. Lennox suddenly wondered who this ‘Baron Bensweed’ was. Though he’d lived in the court and seen quite a few nobles, the name ‘Bensweed’ was new to him.

Was it perhaps a name she’d made up to show quick thinking? 

Lennox stared at the girl. He had more than one or two questions, but he couldn’t ask right now. He was thinking he’d ask who he was when she woke up.

Suddenly the door shook violently. Ann, who woke with a dazed, confused face, sat up abruptly and looked at them. Lennox pressed his lips together. The door fell with a thud, revealing David’s angry form. Beside him, the tall Oliver was also visible.

Ann stared at them, frozen pale like she was having a nightmare. David was grabbing the collar of Johnny, who was bigger than him, with a brutal face.

“Da-David…”

“Look at these cheeky little brats.”

David giggled and laughed. Ann instinctively hid Lennox behind her. Lennox stared at the frail girl protecting him. Her white face with its downy fuzz was quite cute. He glanced at the girl frozen pale, then brushed himself off and stood up.

David with his crooked nose smirked, then threw Johnny in front of them with terrifying force. 

Lennox didn’t lose his composure like yesterday. David seemed even more angry about that. Oliver leaned against the wall like he was something special, watching David and Lennox.

Ann trembled as she looked at Johnny collapsed in front of her. His nose and mouth were bloody pulp, all his front teeth apparently gone. Horror washed over her.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”

“Well, well.”

David tilted his head and sneered. Lennox looked across at him, shorter than himself, and flicked his hand. The expression disappeared from David’s face.

* * *

“Ugh, argh! What did this b*stard do!”

David, fallen on the floor, clutched his arm and wailed. He looked up at Lennox with a greatly agitated face, then looked back at Oliver and shouted that they needed more kids.

Lennox mercilessly kicked David’s face and stomped on his head with his foot. Oliver’s eyebrows, leaning against the wall, twitched.

“Last night you were less than a bug.”

His bass voice, changed by puberty, was like a cave. Lennox looked at Oliver, who had a quite trained body for a slum boy, then roughly kicked David’s solar plexus.

No matter how delicately raised a prince he was, he was a boy receiving military training as the next king. One or two people were easy to subdue, though a group would be different. 

Unlike yesterday when he’d been caught up by those guys and beaten by a group while confused.

‘It would have been easier with a sword.’

Lennox thought this as he looked at the girl trembling in the corner. Ann was busily widening her eyes as she watched them. Lennox felt his shoulders fill with strength inside. 

Ann had protected him desperately enough that the phrase ‘sacrificing oneself for others’ wasn’t wasted. But Lennox was secretly hurt in his pride.

He didn’t know why, but… hiding behind a scrawny young girl to save his life was shameful. Lennox was a man and also a prince.

“Where do you…”

A fist flew at him. Lennox barely dodged it.

The reason he hadn’t felt anger yesterday even while being beaten until his jaw nearly came off was because these scrawny slum boys were his subjects.

Poor orphans untouched by his father’s grace. He didn’t want to get seriously angry at such orphans. Even if he’d been mercilessly lynched, it was the same. He pitied the boys before him who would ultimately meet miserable deaths.

Even if Lennox showed mercy, the Queen—no, his father—wouldn’t forgive them. Lennox wasn’t just the son of a wealthy noble but the kingdom’s heir. No matter how ignorant they were, ignorance didn’t excuse crossing the line.

It was when he’d driven his fist into Oliver’s solar plexus. Outside the door became very noisy. 

Lennox saw soldiers bursting in like they’d demolish the building. Oliver looked back at them, aghast.

At the center of the soldiers stood Count Altuart, the Guard Captain, with a face that couldn’t be more deadly. Lennox relaxed his shoulders.

David, staggering up from the floor, along with Oliver and Johnny, were subdued by the guard knights. Lennox watched the soldiers clean up the scene of carnage in an instant as though it were natural, then heard a sharp scream.

“Ahhh!”

It was Ann’s voice. Lennox shouted in surprise, “Let that child go!” but the guards didn’t listen to him.

“Count Altuart!”

“Let’s return, Your Highness. I’ll escort you to the carriage.”

“That child…”

“His Majesty and Her Majesty the Queen are waiting.”

Count Altuart wrapped his long arm around Lennox’s shoulder. He saw Ann being dragged along. He was angry for the first time. Even when Oliver and David had dragged him into their group and beaten him mercilessly, he hadn’t been this angry.

But when he thought Count Altuart was treating Ann like livestock to be slaughtered, his head burned pitch black.

She was a girl who’d risked her life for him. To treat that pale, frail girl so roughly…

“Let go!”

“Your Highness.”

“Release Ann!”

Lennox clenched his fists, seething. Count Altuart looked at him with eyes that said he couldn’t understand, then gestured with his chin to the subordinates holding Ann. 

Ann, who’d been dangling in the guard knights’ hands, was released.

Lennox took the hand of the frightened, crying Ann and put her in the prepared carriage. Ann looked around at the guards, then hunched her shoulders and entered the carriage.

“Don’t cry, Ann.”

Lennox sat in front of her and murmured softly. Ann curled up into a ball and sniffled like she hadn’t heard. His heart ached. He could see she was dejected by the appearance of unfamiliar soldiers. He felt sorry.

Lennox sat beside her as she cried and carefully extended his arm. Ann, smaller and thinner than any girl he’d seen before, fit right into his arms.

The feeling was different from the precocious Charlotte. Lennox traced the scent of dry earth and sunlight from the scrawny girl’s crown. 

He thought he seemed a bit perverted, but he didn’t release the arm holding the girl.