“Your Highness.”
I was frozen there, lost for words, when somebody who couldn’t stand to watch any longer leaned in and whispered carefully in my ear.
The voice belonged to the personal attendant who had followed me out. He was doing his level best to keep himself composed, but a fine tremor ran through his hands.
“The sun is very strong today. I think it would be best to end our walk here.”
“...”
“By now Her Highness Celine will have finished dining with His Majesty and returned to her chambers. So please, don’t delay any longer, let’s make our way back. I’ll have fruit jelly prepared for you the moment we arrive. You like fruit jelly, don’t you?”
The impatience was seeping further into his voice with every word. He’d witnessed the same scene I had, so of course he was desperate to be anywhere but here.
Before he had to see anything worse. Or perhaps, before it happened to him.
Watching him, I had to admit it was a truly heartbreaking effort, and I really was sorry about it. How to put this... I think it’s already too late to run.
Because over there, they’ve already spotted us.
“Who’s that over there?”
At that clear, ringing voice, my attendant’s shoulders jerked.
Anyone who heard it would have said it was the innocent voice of a young child, pure and unclouded, but in an atmosphere like this one it did nothing but inspire terror.
At some point the frantic commotion of people trying to put out a fire had died away into dead silence.
The small sobs of someone swallowing pain were still there, but even those I could feel being crushed down with everything the man had, as if he was terrified of souring the tyrant’s mood.
When no answer came from anyone, Ignis put on a deliberately wounded tone.
“Nobody’s coming out. Do you want to play hide-and-seek or something? Shall I count?”
...They say curiosity kills the cat, and this was exactly that, wasn’t it.
Just because I’d spotted my target through a window didn’t mean I should have come charging out here to take a look. Regret washed over me, but it was already too late.
...I take back the part where I assumed his brain would still be soft because he’s young.
A fresh green shoot will grow up straight if you plant it in good soil, but what are you supposed to do with a sprout that was already rotten from its very first leaves?
Beside me, the attendant kept sending me silent, wordless signals that we should run for it right now.
A tight clutch.
He was plainly scared out of his wits, yet the hand that caught my sleeve carried a stubbornness that said he wasn’t going to leave me here alone.
“...”
My heart was beating in a way I didn’t like.
Someone had gotten tangled up in this because of me, so I couldn’t just stand there wavering. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then opened them wide with an expression full of resolve.
Whatever. Let’s just go for it.
“Y-Your Highness, you mustn’t go out that way!”
The attendant nearly fainted when he saw me heading in the exact opposite direction from our escape route.
In his eyes I probably looked like a clueless child walking straight into a tiger’s den. Still, I hoped he could put just a little faith in me, a man on his second run at life.
The way I saw it, in a situation like this, turning yourself in voluntarily was the correct move.
Obviously, if I thought I could slip away unnoticed, I’d have bolted in a heartbeat.
But as long as my opponent could use that cheat code of an ability called magic, that wasn’t an option.
A power that let you flick one finger and instantly do harm to someone! Translate that into modern terms and it’s basically a firearm, isn’t it.
If a bank robber with a gun started counting down and telling you to come out, would anyone stay hidden? Unless you’d lost your mind or your head entirely, nobody holds out.
I carefully stuck one arm out past the bushes and waved my hand, as if to advertise that I was not a threatening presence.
“...Hup.”
From among the attendants who’d been playing the board game came the sound of someone quietly sucking in a startled breath. Fair enough, really. My short little arm was obviously not an adult’s.
“Your Highness...!”
My attendant tried to hold me back with a face on the verge of tears. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to grab hold of my trouser leg and hang on, but since he couldn’t exactly lay hands on a prince and physically restrain him, all he could do was flounder.
I don’t want to do this either, but I’ve got no choice if I want to live...
I poked just my face out first, like I was scouting the situation, then slowly eased out from behind the bushes and showed myself.
I could feel a small dead leaf stuck in my hair, but I didn’t bother picking it off. I wanted to look as sloppy and harmless to him as possible.
With the rose bushes no longer in the way, I could see Ignis in detail.
Among the attendants, some collapsed on the ground in a panic, others with their heads bowed low because they wanted to look away from it all, exactly one boy stood there perfectly intact.
When our eyes met, the pupils of those golden eyes, dilated wide until a moment ago, gradually narrowed to slits.
“...”
“...”
Not a word passed between us, but we were sizing each other up with our eyes.
Say what you like about the circumstances, this was the glorious first meeting between brothers. Sick as I was, I rarely even left my bedroom, so there was almost never any occasion for me to cross paths with the other imperials.
Hussshhh—.
With nothing audible but the wind tickling its way through the rose garden, it felt as though time itself had stopped.
Ignis looked even more boyish than I’d expected.
He was taller than me, but you could tell he was still unmistakably a young boy. Looking at the way his features sat neat and close together in that small face, he’d clearly grow into a strikingly gorgeous man.
Granted, the upward tilt of his eyes made him look a touch headstrong, like a child who wouldn’t listen to anyone... but thanks to the way he was dressed, every inch the young gentleman, even the arrogance got converted into something that passed for respectable.
If it hadn’t been for the tea table lying in ruins, his looks would have struck you as nothing more than a brazenly innocent noble boy.
And with a face like that he still managed to pull off something that psychopathic, huh.
The instant I finished my appraisal in my head, he seemed to finish sizing me up too, and parted his lips in a low murmur.
Every trace of wariness and menace was gone from his voice; all that was left was pure puzzlement.
“...A puppy?”
What?
“Since when have we been keeping a puppy in the garden?”
The word was so completely out of left field that I found myself glancing around before I could stop.
Had some lost stray wandered in? But no matter how carefully I looked, there wasn’t a single living thing out there that could pass for a puppy.
On the off chance, I glanced at Ignis. His eyes were still fixed squarely on me.
The question hadn’t been aimed at anyone in particular, but one of the attendants near the tea table read the room and took the bullet.
“Th-that is, he isn’t a puppy, he appears to be Your Highness’s younger brother...”
I had a bad feeling, but he really was talking about me?
I hadn’t expected to be treated like a dog within seconds of our first meeting, and for an instant my face nearly froze.
“My brother?”
Ignis’s voice lifted like he’d been handed a piece of delightful news, then he tilted his head, as though he’d found the spot where the puzzle didn’t fit.
“Strange. I don’t recall Mother ever being with child. Could she have arranged him behind my back as a surprise gift?”
...I was too dumbfounded to speak. You think she hid a little brother away for eight years just to gift-wrap him for you? The whole world really does revolve around him, doesn’t it.
The absurd response must have thrown the attendant too, because he stumbled through his explanation.
“Your Highness’s brother... that is, His Highness Michel is Consort Celine’s son.”
The attendant hesitated a moment, watching for a reaction, picking his words.
“You share a father with His Highness, but not a mother. A half-brother, if you will.”
It was a subject that could cut rather close, and the garden went another degree quieter. Every head stayed bowed; nobody wanted to meet Ignis’s eyes.
The boy at the center of it, though, couldn’t have been more unbothered.
“Then he’s a gift Father arranged?”
“I’m sorry? Ah, yes. That’s right.”
Getting back an answer that had missed the point by an absolute mile only drained what little color was left in the attendant’s face.
“He doesn’t look a thing like Father, though. And he doesn’t look like he was born without so much as a drop of blood or tears in him, either. Not the way Kailan does.”
I take after my mother’s side, so of course there’s no resemblance... I drew a slow, deep breath. If I just stood there, the whole thing was going to run entirely at his pace.
Not happening.
To avoid being dragged clumsily along in his current, I had to stop being an object under observation and become a participant in the conversation.
So I gathered my courage and decided to strike first.
Pretending I was only returning something he’d dropped, I walked slowly toward him. The nearer I got, the heavier the air pressing down on my shoulders felt.
“Um, here, this...”
The half-burnt card that had happened to drift down by my feet. When I offered it up politely in both hands, Ignis’s eyes widened like he was looking at something rare and curious.
The sort of interest you’d show watching a decorative doll get up and move on its own.
He didn’t take the card, though. He just looked at my hands with an odd expression, as if demanding to know what exactly I meant by handing him a piece of trash.
Sure. I’d already figured you wouldn’t just take it quietly.
“It looked like you dropped it, so I picked it up...”
I let my fingertips twitch a little, as though I were wavering, and spoke with great care, like someone asking permission.
“Um, are you... Ignis hyungnim?”
The small, unconfident voice, the shoulders pulled in, the palms gone damp: none of it needed acting. It all staged itself.
You might think that made me no different from the frightened attendants, but add one small gesture here and the impression changes completely.
Namely: not looking away.
My body stayed locked rigid, but my eyes kept stealing up to his face, as if keeping them under control were beyond me.
The point was to read not as a boy tense from the savage mood in the garden, but as a boy who couldn’t hide his trembling at finally standing before someone he’d longed to meet.
Like a child who’s curious about a person but edges closer carefully, afraid of being rude. Closing the distance without trespassing on it. A razor-thin line to walk.
“You know my name?”
And there it was: a response at last from the boy who’d been saying nothing.
Ignis’s eyes curved into a slow smile, a playful, probing glint flickering across them.
Good. The reaction isn’t bad so far. But I can’t let the tension slip, not for a second.
I pounced on that one scrap of interest he’d tossed my way, whipping my head up with my eyes shining.
“Of course I do! I’ve always been hoping I’d get to meet you!”
I’ve pulled the aggro. Now it’s time to run my mouth for all it’s worth.
