I was surprised to hear him say this without prompting, but it meant that he approved of the relationship between me and His Highness. A delighted smile came to my face, though he didn’t neglect to grumble, “Don’t get me wrong. I still can’t stand that stupid prince.”
General Bakula, the hero of our kingdom, must have come around to acknowledging His Highness at some point. He’d begun to see him as an equal. I wondered if perhaps that was part of the motivation for sniping at him.
Once we’d seen the men off, a certain someone popped up out of nowhere.
“Phew... They finally left.”
“Oh, Jean. Where have you been?”
I’d spotted him among the party returning to our territory, but I’d seen no sign of him on the road or since we had arrived at the estate.
My lazy manservant scratched at his head, deflated. “The general was hell-bent on chasin’ me all over the place, yellin’ about how he was gonna retrain me along with the rest of his knights. I had a hard time givin’ him the slip.”
Annoyed, Jean wondered aloud if the old man was really over sixty. I cracked a rueful smile.
Later, I gave Lady Anna a tour of the area, during which I set foot inside the regional library for the first time in years. The sturdy stone building was dimly lit, and in the present season of early spring, the simple act of standing around reading could chill one’s feet to the bone. It was far from cozy, but there were still a handful of patrons with their noses buried in books. The building almost seemed to go on forever, and the space stretched unevenly overhead due to all the additions tacked on over the years. And every inch of it was crammed to bursting with books.
Furthermore, there was a separate building next door used as a school for reading and writing. Some played music there, while scholars debated theories among themselves. Lady Anna looked on in surprise, shocked to find that some of those people were women. Soon enough, she found herself drawn into one group’s discussion on historical theories. She listened intently, and when she was asked for her own opinion, she seemed thrilled about the chance to contribute.
I watched her for a while, then began to explore the nostalgic grounds of the library. I savored the unchanged scenery, the musty quality to the air, the life of the books, and the scent of ink. It was almost as if time had stood still for the past five years.
In keeping with my own tradition, I picked out a few tomes and went straight to reading. It was then that I noticed a half-destroyed building just outside a door toward the back of the library—the greenhouse devastated by a major storm a long time ago. The place had taken on a gloomy appearance, with the surrounding grass and trees left to grow wild and the ivy creeping up its sides. Still, some of the glass had been left intact, making it warm and toasty on days with nice weather. It used to be one of Jean’s favorite spots to nap. Today was slightly overcast and chilly, so he’d probably found somewhere else to sleep.
Having stumbled upon the grounds after a long time away, I decided to sit down on the sun-dappled steps to read. All that talk about ancient myths with Uncle Andrew had put me in the mood to revisit old favorites. Some of them depicted the cruelty of the gods, while others contained anecdotes about flowers; there were stories that escalated from golden apples to war, and all manner of witches and monsters made an appearance. One story told of a harvest goddess who stopped blessing the earth when her daughter was dragged to the pits of hell. Yet another told of a woman who waited and waited for her lover to return from a voyage, only to end up chasing after him in the form of a bird.
Just as I had grown absorbed in reading, I could have sworn I heard the cry of a skylark and smelled the scent of the sea, and I glanced up from the pages as though beckoned.
For a moment, I wondered if I was dreaming.
A fairytale prince emerged from the half-shattered door. Clad in a cloak the color of the ocean, he had long, slender limbs and an eye-catching presence, as well as a vigorous, well-trained physique and captivatingly well-proportioned features. His lips formed a gorgeous smile as he called my name.
“Eli.”
The man had dazzling golden hair and eyes the color of a clear blue sky. His smile was radiant and his voice was sweet. He was none other than the crown prince of Sauslind Kingdom, Prince Christopher himself.
I stared back at him blankly, forgetting even to blink. Smiling back at me, he knelt in front of the steps where I was sitting in one fluid motion. The blue eyes looking up at me and the voice calling my name both undoubtedly belonged to His Highness.
But...this must be a dream, right?
There was simply no way that His Highness, who was supposed to be visiting a port city far to the west, could suddenly appear before me. Once, long ago, I’d dozed off while reading a book, turned into a character from the story, and found myself unable to distinguish between dream and reality. Was the same phenomenon happening to me now?
“Eli?” His Highness prompted when I sat there in his silence, his expression as gentle as ever. The note of concern in his voice drew a blink from me.
“Your Highness?”
Incredulous of his affirmative answer, I asked him if he was real. He chuckled, leaned forward with one hand pressed to the stone steps, and kissed me from below. Surprised, I almost pulled away on reflex, but he’d already wrapped his other hand around my back to hold me in place. My breath started to come in gasps as his mingled with mine, and by the time our lips parted, it was full of heat.
The reflection of my face in his blue eyes, mere inches from mine, was bright red. Torn between protesting or telling him that he had successfully dispelled my doubts, I settled for mumbling his name again.
His Highness flashed me a mischievous smile. “That was your punishment for running back to your territory without telling me.”
If I told him I’d planned to return right away, he’d only hear it as an excuse. Embarrassed as I was, I opted to apologize.
“But...how on earth did you get here, Your Highness?”
It was almost like magic.
Bobbing his head, he flashed me a carefree, boyish smile. “I enlisted the help of the sea breeze. I wanted to see you as soon as physically possible.”
When I heard the words “sea breeze,” a possibility occurred to me. The journey from the western Kelk Harbor to the Bernstein Domain would take nearly a month by land. However, I’d read in a book that so many ships set sail around this time of year because the winds were exceptionally strong.
“Your Highness... Don’t tell me you sailed all the way south?”
The Bernstein Domain was located to the southeast of Sauslind. All in all, it was closer to the southern harbor than to the royal capital.
His Highness nodded back without missing a beat. “For my first time at sea, I rather enjoyed myself. Shall we set sail together next time?”
This came as yet another shock. Though sailing was gaining popularity, I’d heard there were still plenty of unknowns and dangers lurking at sea. I could already imagine Lord Alexei scolding the crown prince, of all people, for taking such a risk.
Before I could comment, His Highness took a small box wrapped in paper from his breast pocket and handed it over. He said it was a souvenir.
“What’s this?”
It was a small box inlaid with mother-of-pearl that glittered and emitted a rainbow of light. A relic said to have been unearthed from the ruins of a southern continent long ago, it was now exclusively imported from the Far East, making it an extremely valuable item. But what struck me most was the pattern on the box. It conjured up images of the story of a woman who had pined for her seafaring lover and ultimately turned into a bird to chase after him—the tale of a very beautiful, pitiable bird called the kingfisher.
And now His Highness had brought the lover back home to me. It was a coincidence, to be sure, but something about it felt like fate. This was what His Highness had picked out for me. By the way it cast reflections of light around us, I could tell the sun had come out again.
I was so happy that I smiled and said, “Thank you so much, Prince Christopher.”
He took one of my hands in his, then, still kneeling, fixed me with a much more solemn expression.
“Eli. I decided I’d ask for your hand in marriage once I came home from the harbor. Though the kingdom will have the final say about our wedding ceremony, it is of my own free will that I wish to marry you.” He looked me straight in the eye, adopting a more formal tone of voice. “I love you. I swear to protect you for as long as I live and offer you my unconditional affection. Will you marry me, Lady Elianna?”
I had once asked His Highness to make me his wife. Now, however, he was proposing to me not as his future queen, but as an individual woman.
Bursting with joy and inexplicably overcome with the urge to cry, I gave him my answer in a trembling voice. “Yes, Prince Christopher.”
His Highness’s grave expression lit up with delight, and he leaned forward to kiss me again. This time, it was chaste and sweet.
“I love you, Elianna.”
Gazing into his blue eyes at point-blank range, I, too, was overwhelmed with bliss.
The cry of the skylarks served as a reminder of the coming spring, their song almost seeming to congratulate the two of us.