Helt had talked her ears off countless times about how unladylike it was, but as it turned out, her many years of wall climbing experience were going to come in useful.
Brushing those thoughts aside, she gripped a plate fragment with her bleeding hand and prepared to sever the ropes around her feet next. But suddenly, someone’s voice reached her ears.
It sounded like a man’s voice—perhaps it was a guard. Just having him stationed in front of the door was an obstacle, but if he came inside, he’d discover that she’d cut her ropes. In her current state, she couldn’t exactly pretend that she was still tied up. She had to hurry.
In her fluster, Amelia grasped tightly onto the shard, and blood trickled down from her hand, but her priorities were elsewhere. After cutting the ropes around her feet, she stood up.
Not a second later, the door vigorously swung open. On the spur of the moment, she lifted her hand to brandish the shard at the shadowy silhouette as a threat, but before she was ready to put up a fight, a giant cluster of strawberries rained down like a monsoon.
“Whoa!” someone yelped.
Amelia’s eyes widened. She knew that voice. She knew that ashen hair.
The moment realization sank in, the rain of strawberries stopped, revealing the amber orbs of the intruder who’d been covering his head with his hands.
Amelia grasped. “Lu—”
“Amelia!” Sooner than she could call out his name, Luke’s arms reached out and trapped her within his embrace. Her nose picked up a faint, sweet aroma—was it possibly from the strawberries?
Her heart bursting with elation and reassurance, Amelia snuggled her head up against Luke’s chest. She felt the arms around her tightening.
“I’m so glad I found you. Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” Luke whispered, finally loosening his hold and peering into Amelia’s face. In the blink of an eye, his expression turned grave. “You’re bleeding.”
Oh, right. One of the plate fragments grazed my cheek at some point or something. Did that cut deeply enough to bleed?
Amelia hurriedly shook her head. “I-I’m okay! Really!” It was true—she hadn’t even realized it until he pointed it out. Frantically, she waved her hand to emphasize her point.
But this time, he grasped her hand. Blood trickled down her right palm, where she’d gripped the plate shard without caring about the consequences.
“Your hand’s bleeding, too.”
Amelia averted her gaze. “I, well, just got scratched when I cut the ropes.”
“Ropes?! Is that why your wrist is all red?”
She’d meant to reassure him with her explanation, but instead, Luke only deepened the creases between his brows. If she wasn’t imagining things, even his eyes seemed to be moist.
Amelia peered into his eyes. “Are you crying?”
“I’m not!” Luke wiped away his tears with his hand before taking out a handkerchief and gingerly pressing it against Amelia’s cheek. Then, he skillfully wound it around her right hand. “I’ll bandage it with this for now. Let’s leave this place at once.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Luke clasped her left hand, and they walked out the door together. Amelia noticed someone resembling a female attendant approaching from the other end of the corridor.
It’d be troublesome if an attendant at the Fourth Palace discovered her escape. Just as Amelia was about to break into a run, a familiar voice echoed down the corridor. “My princess!”
In the blink of an eye, the female attendant—or at least, someone disguised as one—rushed up to Amelia’s side and gazed at her with delight.
For a moment, Amelia was rendered speechless. “Helt… What in the name of the Saint are you wearing?”
Her guardian knight, who’d been with her for years on end, was clad in a maid outfit and was even wearing a wig. The frightening part was that, although he was a man far past his youth, the outfit suited him just a little. Gone was the seasoned warrior. Now, she could only describe him as a veteran female attendant. When he bashfully hung his head, he even gave off a most peculiar sense of allure.
“This is, well, a lot has happened,” he muttered. “I understand it is discourteous to wear this outfit before you, but I am afraid this is an emergency.” He sounded so remorseful that Amelia feared he might not stop at bowing in apology and even start prostrating himself before her. Somehow, she also started feeling apologetic.
“Ah, okay. Sorry, it’s probably my fault, isn’t it? But I’m glad that you’re safe.” She paused. “Don’t worry, Helt! It suits you rather well! I think you’re sexy!”
After a moment of hesitation, Luke spoke up. “Amelia, I hate to break it to you, but…that isn’t really going to make him feel better.”
Helt shook his head. “Her Highness is a kind soul, I understand. In any case, we should vacate this palace as soon as possible.”
Instead of cheering him up, she made him comfort her instead. Amelia felt a tad disappointed in herself.
Leading her by the hand, Luke broke into a run, and Helt moved forward to run at the vanguard. From behind, he looked exactly like a tall female attendant, and Amelia’s mind stuttered as it struggled to process the discrepancy.
Putting those thoughts aside, she got back to business. “So I really am in the Fourth Palace. But how did you know, Helt?”
“The scene of your kidnapping was littered with strawberries and covered with juice, allowing me to clearly see the intruders’ footprints. Furthermore, strawberry vines were growing rampantly in one direction, and I followed their trail. I discovered that they were growing toward the wall separating the Fourth Palace and the Fifth Palace. It seems that those fiends infiltrated by scaling that wall.”
Amelia certainly hadn’t expected to hear that she owed it all to strawberries. I knew it. Strawberries are the best! she marveled.
“That makes sense. But why is Luke here with you?”
This time, Luke explained, “I knew well that we were up against a pair of brash fools. For caution’s sake, I appointed lookouts outside the Fifth Palace, and I was actually in the middle of making preparations that would allow me to stay the night within the royal court. A guardian knight would be turned away at the gates at best if he went to the Fourth Palace alone—and depending on the fourth consort’s actions, he might be seized for insolence against royalty at worst. That’s why I arranged for him to enter the Fourth Palace as my female attendant.”
Amelia had heard about the lookouts before, but she’d never thought that Luke had planned on staying over in the royal court. “How did you even convince them to let you in?”
“I simply said that there’s someone I’d like to see.” He narrowed his eyes. “They looked like they had a most bizarre misunderstanding, though. The servants told me to wait because ‘she’ has to get ready, and I took that chance to slip away.”
Luke had come to visit the Fourth Palace—it was certainly plausible for people to mistakenly assume that he’d come to see Prisca. Actually… he probably worded it ambiguously on purpose.
“Your kidnapping is my blunder. I shouldn’t have only been vigilant of the gates,” Helt said remorsefully. “You have my most sincere apologies.”
“That’s not true.” Amelia shook her head. “You’re doing everything you can, even though you’re only one person, and no one would have predicted that they’d brazenly crawl over the walls. So…that means the Fourth Palace is our neighbor, huh? That’s news to me.”
When you looked at how they were numbered, it indeed made sense that the two palaces would be next to each other, but the entrances—the gates—of the two buildings were distant. She’d never imagined that they were separated by a single wall.
“Your surprise is understandable. The positions of the gates and the layout of the outer walls are notably complex, partly for security reasons,” Helt told her. “In fact, there are perhaps more people who aren’t aware of this fact than those who are. At any rate, we should focus on escaping right now. The mistress here is the fourth consort—even the king would have difficulty openly interfering with events that take place in her territory. We would land in a thorny situation if anything undesirable happens.”
Following Helt, Amelia rushed out into the garden. Not a second later, Luke stepped forward before her like a shield.
Wondering what was going on, Amelia peered out from behind his back. Helt stood protectively in front of Luke, and further ahead of him was a row of men who were likely guards.
“Our orders are to seize the intruders,” one soldier barked. “Resistance is futile.”
A chill ran down Amelia’s back. She was here because she’d been kidnapped under the command of either Prisca or the fourth consort, and Luke and Helt had come to rescue her.