Chapter 3: We See Each Other at Last
THE next day, after sleeping in late for the first time in a long time, Amelia finished her work in the fields and was relaxing as she enjoyed a cup of tea.
Though she called it tea, there naturally wasn’t anything like normal black tea available in her palace—it was a blend made from drying leaves from peach trees growing in the Fifth Palace. Her life in imprisonment had grown substantially lengthy, and now, she could even discern edible vegetation. Secretly, she thought that she might survive even if someone abandoned her on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
She frowned. “He’s taking a long time…”
After Helt had finished working the fields with her, he went over to the gate, saying that he had heard some kind of commotion. She secretly thought that he might be a bat with his ridiculous hearing—there was a significant amount of distance from the fields to the gate. She couldn’t imagine anyone being able to hear from that far away.
Amelia sighed. “What a shame. I just made the kusa mochi version of strawberry daifuku.”
She’d been experimenting with her magic, wondering how far she could go with her imagination and mana when it came to strawberries. As a result, she’d successfully singled out and transformed the rice cake component of the strawberry daifuku. The red strawberry faintly showed through the mugwort rice cake that had an invigorating shade of green, and Amelia was as pleased as she could be.
“It’s pretty exhausting, so I can’t sell it for profit, but it’s just right as a snack. I wanted to share it with him since I managed to pull it off. Oh well…”
At this rate, the tea was going to grow cold, too.
Amelia rose from her chair and walked outside. She advanced down a path with cobblestone paving—which was a chore to walk on because it was bumpy and full of holes—until she saw the gate. There, Helt and the gatekeepers were frowning sternly as they gazed at the closed gate.
“Helt, what happened?” she asked.
“My princess.” Helt turned to face her. “There appears to be some sort of dispute taking place on the other side of the gate…”
The second Helt replied, the gates flung open. Ten or so men and women—likely gatekeepers and servants—stood outside. When they noticed Amelia’s presence, all of them bowed humbly.
The man standing at the front of the crowd addressed her. “Pardon me if I am mistaken, but I believe you are Amelia Glaisharle, the fourth princess of this kingdom, yes?”
Amelia blinked in surprise. Judging by his attire, he was likely the group’s representative, but she couldn’t figure out what this was all about. “Y-Yeah, you have the right person.”
Not a moment after she affirmed his statement, women surrounded her in the blink of an eye. Before she knew it, they had brought her outside the gates.
“Um?” Amelia was disconcerted. “What? What’s going on?”
One gatekeeper raised his voice and bellowed, “You cannot take the fourth princess outside without the fourth consort’s permission! This is out of the question!”
The representative stepped in front of the gatekeeper. For some odd reason, he smiled broadly. “Our lord has endured and waited patiently for the past four years despite his requests being rejected time and time again for one lone reason, and that is his consideration for Her Highness’s health. That concern is no longer necessary, yet all his messengers who have come to request an audience with the princess have been turned away.”
“Four years…” The gatekeeper’s eyes widened with shock. “By messengers, you can’t mean…”
The representative nodded slowly. “We have come to fetch Her Highness under the orders of our lord and Princess Amelia’s official fiancé: Lord Luke Klein.” He paused. “If you have any objections, please raise them directly to House Klein.”
After shutting out all rebuttals, the representative turned around and bowed deeply at Amelia. “I am Hans, Lord Luke’s retainer. I have come with the order to bring you back with me, Your Highness. My apologies, you must be rather surprised by our sudden visit.”
“By Lord Luke, you mean the Lord Luke, right?” Amelia asked for confirmation. “As in, the young Lord Klein?”
“Indeed, I am referring to Lord Luke Klein.”
Amelia’s mind raced. Luke, who’d maintained a subzero frosty attitude to an impressive extent for the past four years, was determined to bring her out of this place to the point of going against the fourth consort’s decree. There was no way he was doing this because he had too much spare time on his hands. Which means there’s only one possibility.
She pressed her lips into a tight line. “Prisca sure works fast, huh?”
Hans cocked his head in puzzlement. “Pardon?”
Amelia, however, wasn’t in the frame of mind to pay attention to him. Did this mean Prisca had already won Luke over, even though the timeline had just reset?
This meeting was likely taking place because he wanted to negotiate directly with Amelia, who would be an obstacle to his love life, about calling off their betrothal. Or, Luke and Prisca might intend to announce that they were forcefully breaking off the betrothal to her face.
It wasn’t a simple matter to annul a betrothal with a princess, but assuming that his new partner was indeed Prisca, she was also a royal. From the country’s perspective, it didn’t matter which one was his fiancée—in fact, since Prisca had proper political backing, it might even be more desirable for her to form a connection with House Klein.
“All that effort selling strawberries is going to come to nothing, huh…” Amelia muttered to herself, dejected.
“Strawberries?” Hans repeated quizzically.
She’d been too naive—she’d thought that she’d manage one way or another as long as she could meet him at some point before the coerced proposal one year later. But she’d forgotten that the current time loop was Luke’s route—of course, things wouldn’t go the same way as before.
Trying to find even a glimpse of hope, she asked, “Where am I going, and what am I going to do there?”
Hans curled his lips into a radiant smile. “After a change of clothes, we would like you to attend the evening party tonight.”
“Alone?”
“Certainly not. Lord Luke will be your escort.”
That one statement was as if someone had poured an endless stream of muddy water over her heart. Luke must intend to publicly announce their broken betrothal.
Amelia hadn’t made any public appearances for the past four years, but her betrothal with the young Lord Klein must be common knowledge. If the betrothal had been dissolved before anyone was aware, then Luke announced his betrothal to Prisca, she could already imagine the rumor mill gleefully taking the ball and running with it. They likely planned on announcing the falling out in full view of the public to emphasize their unshakable bond.
Even in the scenario that Prisca was forcefully controlling Luke’s affections, considering how she was able to make such a bold move this soon, Amelia felt like things had already progressed to the point of no return.
She could resign herself to the fact that she couldn’t have a future with Luke. But becoming a spectacle for a couple’s relationship fodder was a different matter—she was shaken.
Amelia held back the tears that threatened to moisten her eyes. “Do I…really have to go?”
Hans, who’d been smiling, seemed taken aback. “I-It is your own choice, Your Highness. That said, Lord Luke is looking forward to being able to meet you from the bottom of his heart.”
“Oh…”
True, he couldn’t break off their betrothal in public if the other party wasn’t around. It should be possible to accomplish the same thing in a peaceful manner by reporting to the king or finishing the necessary paperwork to make it official, but he’d chosen to summon Amelia, which meant that right now, Luke wanted it to be a demonstration.
Helt seemed to have noticed Amelia’s spirit shriveling up by the second. He rushed up to her and knelt by her side. “My princess, are you all right?”
Seeing the concern and kindness in his eyes, the tears she should have suppressed threatened to spill over again. “Looks like my strawberries didn’t make it in time.”
Now that things had come to this, she’d at least be useful to Luke one last time before she left it all behind her. It was the best she could do to repay everything that her first love had done for her.
Forcing her tears back down, she replied to Helt with a smile. “I’ll go with them. I’ll go see Lord Luke and get properly rejected by him.”
“My princess, that is—” Helt opened his mouth to say something, but she raised her hand and stopped him.
Without hesitation, she broke into a vigorous sprint. At the very least, she had the chance to see Luke for the first time in four years, and he was going to escort her to boot, even if it was just the beginning. Wasn’t that alone more than enough happiness for her?
“Right,” she muttered to herself. “Compared to being ignored altogether, breaking off our betrothal in public is actually more like a reward.”
The person standing by his side might be Prisca, but in that very moment, Luke’s gaze would be reserved for Amelia alone. She’d practically been a prisoner anyway, so she was only going to return to her original life, nothing more. Yeah. I’ll enjoy the last of Luke I can see, after being unable to meet him these four years, to my heart’s content.
Amelia clenched her hand into a fist. She tossed the small strawberry that manifested in her grasp into her mouth.
“Everything’s all right,” she told herself. “You can do anything if you have strawberries.”
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