The hustle and bustle of the harbor unfolded before my eyes. With the Boat Festival only a few days away, Kelk Harbor seemed more lively and crowded than ever. Locals happily came and went, while peddlers advertised their wares and shouted back and forth. All sorts of foreign tongues mingled together. A mélange of music and laughter played out faintly in the background. It all came together to paint a picture of a prosperous port.
It was an enticing hubbub sure to lure first-time visitors toward the city’s streets. Unfortunately...
“Randy, water.”
A voice that was neither charming nor cordial echoed through the room. With an unenthused reply, I, Randolph Eisenach, turned my back on the commotion of the port and came inside from the balcony.
The blue sky sprawling overhead was nothing compared to the boy who’d given the order. As he silently pored over paperwork in his room at the inn, I came up beside him and poured water from a jug. He had dazzling golden hair and handsome features—from his cheeks, which still showed traces of youth at fifteen, to his jawline and nape. However, his eyes, which darted over his paperwork and reports, bore a sharpness that didn’t match his age.
He was only two years older than me, but I was positive there were more calculations and schemes running through his head than I could ever hope to imagine. I couldn’t help but heave a sigh.
“You sure take your work seriously, Your Highness.”
His lack of response was nothing new. With a sidelong glance at the mountain of numbers and words I could never hope to decipher, I poured myself a cup of water and gulped it down.
“When we were in the Speer Region a little while back, you exposed one official’s corruption after another. At this rate, someone’s going to publish a book titled The Revolutionary Travels of the Hooligan Prince.”
The moment I muttered that the author would be one of the usual suspects, his bright blue eyes lifted from the page. Their slightly bloodshot look was something one would never see around the royal palace.
Perhaps he was under the impression that if he overcame all the trials he was given, he’d eventually get his hands on the prize at the end—the princess. But anyone who paid close attention to the family in question would know that was utterly impossible. Thinking to myself that love was blind, I gave a small shrug.
Since we were officially here on an inspection tour, we could have marched right into the city hall or the Maritime Merchants’ Guild, the two entities in charge of the port, but instead, he’d chosen to hide his identity and start with a thorough reconnaissance. He was probably quietly sifting through all those documents in search of clues.
I remarked that he was a lot more stubborn than he looked. Being nothing like my three older brothers, I searched for the right words. “You don’t need to go looking for problems on every inspection. I mean, sure, the Hoover Domain is the territory of that wily man who’s constantly trying to set you up with his daughter or relatives, so I get why you’d go looking for a weakness of his until your eyes glaze over...but still.”
His gaze sharpened even further, so I threw in a few words of sympathy. I commented on how obvious it was that the duke thought Prince Chris was obligated to listen to him and how it frankly pissed me off to see it.
When the look in his eyes softened a touch, I added, “Nothing’s going to come of pushing yourself. Let’s take a little breather. Just think, we have the chance to see Sauslind Kingdom’s famous Boat Festival! Well, then again...that’s just a consequence of being sent off on an inspection the second we tried to visit the Bernstein Domain. Man, they were so thorough in shaking you off that instead of feeling impressed, I was left wondering why they hate you so much.”
My thoughtless ramblings turned his blue gaze hard again, at which point I shut my mouth. Talking too much really was the downfall of us Eisenachs.
I gave an inane little laugh to put my naivete on display and draw attention to the fact that I was the younger one, then went on. “As I was saying, Prince Chris, let’s take a break. You don’t have to be giving orders or carrying out missions all the time. Maybe you were just sent here to broaden your horizons.”
I kept the thought that they wanted him to go out into the wider world, broaden his horizons, and then give up on his damned princess to myself. Unlike the brother closest to me in age, I strove to avoid putting my foot in my mouth a second time.
My continued attempts to placate him drew a beleaguered sigh from Prince Chris. “You just want to have a look around Kelk Harbor.”
I didn’t deny the accusation. Prince Chris dropped the documents in his hand with another sigh. As I watched him stand from his chair and pick up the cloak he wore to hide his face, I pumped a victorious fist on the inside.
This was Kelk Harbor, the western gateway along the continental highways. I couldn’t bear the thought of coming all this way just to shuttle between the inn and city hall. I wanted to go out on the town, even if I had to bust out in the middle of the night to do it. Of course, I realized that line of thinking was probably a big reason why my father had ruled me out as a potential candidate for the imperial guard.
As opposed to the eldest and third sons of the family, I had yet to find that one and only person to whom I wanted to swear my fealty, be it a royal or someone else. I was perfectly willing to offer up my sword to this prince, but given how easily distracted I was, I figured my father and the higher-ups were probably correct in their judgment.
Thinking to myself that this might be the reward for my trials, I took my first step into the busy harbor—and all the while, I contemplated the terrors of lovesickness, which could drive a prince who had been extolled for his intelligence from an early age to madness.
We ran into trouble almost as soon as we headed into town.
“I swear something’s wrong! Please look into it!”
All eyes were on a shabby-looking man who was pleading his case at the police station. He was dressed in clothes that suggested he was a fisherman from the city outskirts, and his skin was dark with sunburn. He belonged to a race that looked out of place on a posh street where exotic goods were bought and sold. In fact, both the surrounding crowd and the patrolling officers shied away from him with disapproving glances.
The police tried to chase him away by insisting that he wasn’t in their jurisdiction and needed to go to the station in his own neighborhood, but the man refused to back down. He claimed that when he’d gone there, they had sent him to the station on Main Street, and city hall had just told him to go to the police. Ignoring his desperate cries asking where he was supposed to go, the officers callously drove him off, as if he were nothing but a nuisance.
At first, the passersby looked at the man who had been dumped on the side of the road with a mix of pity and curiosity, but soon enough, everyone went about their business like nothing had happened. As the young lord who had been watching this play out from a corner of the street strode forward, I sighed like I’d known this would happen. The same went when the several guards accompanying him followed along with a rueful smile.
My brother deserves a medal for putting up with this since he was little, I thought to myself. Not that it mattered.
~.~.~.~
The sound of music swelled through the twilight harbor. The mansion at the end of the wharf was abuzz with festivities to usher in the night. Tonight was the eve of the Boat Festival. Held only in Kelk Harbor, it had become one of the most famous events in the whole of Sauslind Kingdom.
There was a certain time of year when a calm fell over the inland sea that stretched from the western gateway. During that period, Kelk Harbor was always flooded with vessels bound for the neighboring Miseral Dukedom, the Western Isles, and even the southern continent. The sight of ships of all shapes and sizes setting sail en masse was said to be breathtaking. For that reason, the cost of penthouse lodgings overlooking the harbor doubled during the season.
“Wow, this place is lively.”
Spring came earlier here than in the capital of Saoura. In Kelk Harbor, the season brought with it an important celebration to pray for safe voyages and commercial prosperity.
That evening, we were attending a pre-festival party in a manor along the wharf, far from the city center. It was a huge mansion, the sort owned by wealthy nobles who lived on the city outskirts. Waiters made the rounds, and the master of the house had invited bands and dancers onto the premises for this garden soiree. It was a much more relaxed affair than the formal, stuffy parties held in Saoura or the royal palace.
No doubt that was helped by the ever-present scent of the sea and the sound of the waves. Plus, taking stock of the guests, I noticed there were more merchants and townspeople in attendance than nobles. In addition to the bonfires, foreign lamps cast a fantastical glow around the area, lending it an exotic air.
In the midst of all the festivities, I, Randolph, was playing the part of a footman on standby, casting glances at the man wearing a disguise next to me. His dazzling golden hair was hidden under a dark cloth, and he was wearing the same uniform I was, but in reality, he was a man of exalted status. When I stifled a burst of laughter, his calm blue gaze landed on me. I did my best to keep it together, steeling my expression to show I understood what was at stake.
When we asked the fisherman for his story earlier, he’d told us that a child—not his own, but one who came around each day to help him with the chores—had abruptly gone missing. The police had written it off as a common enough occurrence, but this was different. The child had younger siblings. A fisherman’s salary was a pittance, but the boy had always shown up to help first thing in the morning, no matter how hard the work was, to make sure he earned enough to support his siblings. It was unthinkable that he would disappear without a word.