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SARA spent quite some time explaining her birth, her circumstances in life, and the bits and pieces of her past that had brought her to this point in time.
She explained that she was the daughter of a baron, and that her parents had died in an accident when she was twelve years old.
She told them about how, afterward, she had been taken in by her second cousin, Hermine, and how she had started serving as her maid.
And that nearly a year ago, after Saleilles had been defeated, the king had ordered her to take Hermine’s place in a political marriage.
Sara had tried to omit her history with Firmin entirely, but when the king asked her how Princess Hermine could make it in the streets after losing her name and title, she had to explain.
Sara didn’t feel any simmering bitterness when she told them about the love affair between her ex-boyfriend and her ex-master, but she could feel Richard quietly seething beside her, and when she had finished and the king exclaimed, “Ugh! What a pitiful excuse for a man,” and the queen mother said, “Women should simply not behave that way…,” Sara felt immense gratification.
Richard had quietly held her hand from the very beginning, but when Sara struggled for words, he gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and when she pushed through and explained everything, he nodded and listened intently.
“I see…,” said Edouard. “So you were Princess Hermine’s maid and were thoughtlessly manipulated into this by the royal family…”
“I’m so sorry…”
“There’s no need to apologize. If you had exposed their secret before, Saleilles probably wouldn’t have let you live, so you had no choice but to keep it inside this whole time… That damn king never learns his lesson. I shouldn’t have just driven his troops out of Ferrier during the war—I should have asked for his head.”
With the youthful features still clinging to his face, Edouard’s grim suggestion seemed unthinkable. The queen mother, who had been sitting quietly beside him for some time, slowly opened her mouth.
“Hermine—no, Sara… As a matter of fact, I had a hunch about your true identity.”
“What?” Sara and Richard asked at the same time.
“What on earth do you mean?” Richard continued. “You never told me anything like that!”
“I wasn’t entirely sure of it myself… Sara, do you know about my ability?”
Sara shook her head.
“Right. I assumed as much… You know, don’t you, Richard?”
“Your ability is the power to read the memories of the objects you touch, right?” Richard asked, although he sounded uncertain. Sara tilted her head and looked at him.
“Memories…of objects?”
“Right,” he said. “I only found out about it a few years ago, myself. There are very few precedents for her ability—it’s considered incredibly rare.”
“Richard is right. When I touch something, I have the power to perceive the ‘world’ that object has experienced, although it doesn’t work for everything.”
The queen mother explained that many objects, like rings, decorations of military service, and well-used tea utensils, carried memories. They remembered the place where they were made, the person who bought them, the person who used them, if they were passed down to the next generation… It was like the queen mother could see the world that the object had “seen,” but in bits and pieces.
“I can only read memories from objects that have been in contact with human emotions for a long period of time. For instance, there is a good chance I could read the memories of heirloom swords and jewelry, but I can’t sense anything from scrap paper or a house that its owners haven’t poured a certain amount of their emotions into.
“And so…,” the queen mother continued, her green eyes turning to Sara. “Before, you let me hold your beloved corsage, remember?”
“I do… Wait! You’re not saying…”
A part of the corsage had been damaged when Sara was attacked, so she had thought it was strange when the queen mother had specifically told her to wear it during her visit today. Everything suddenly clicked into place.
The queen mother probably had an interest in Sara’s favorite corsage and wanted to try reading its memories.
And so—the queen mother must have realized before…
The queen mother nodded. “Would you let me hold it one more time?”
Sara nervously put the corsage on the tray offered to her. The queen mother took it in her hand, closed her eyes, and was silent for quite some time. She was silent for much longer than when she had held it during their first meeting—she must have been trying to get a clearer picture of the memories.
They all watched her wordlessly. Eventually, the queen mother slowly opened her eyes and smiled at Sara.
“The earliest memory the corsage has is of a low-ranking aristocratic man giving it to a woman as a gift. Shortly after, this woman wore it during a small wedding ceremony. The woman gave birth to a daughter and often let her touch it as well. The corsage also seems to remember the moment this woman died in an accident…”
Sara’s entire body started to tremble. Richard tightened his arm around her.
Surrendering herself to the warmth of his chest, Sara waited for the queen mother to continue.
“After the mother’s death, the corsage fell into the hands of her daughter, by then around twelve years old. The daughter met a girl who looked just like her, who then took the daughter back to the castle where she lived… Even after becoming an adult, you called out to the corsage when times were hard, didn’t you? After your marriage had been decided, I heard your voice hoping that you and Richard could be friends. The corsage remembers you speaking about your pain when you and Richard were at odds with one another.”
“Y-You could see that much?!”
Sara suddenly remembered when she had been on the boat to Ferrier. In an attempt to pump herself up for her new life, she had lined up Richard’s portrait and the corsage. She felt like she might have muttered some embarrassing things to them…
Sara paled and then turned beet red at the thought of all her past foolishness being out in the open, but the queen mother smiled and waved her hand.
“Oh, you don’t have to be so embarrassed! Last time, I could only catch fragments of memories, but they were so incongruent with what I expected of a princess who had been utterly doted on by King Saleilles, so it struck me as strange. Visually, the memories were odd, but I couldn’t pick up any sounds, either. Given how little information I’d been able to glean in so short a time, I couldn’t confidently believe or disbelieve your identity… And while I hesitated, I ended up letting you get attacked by an assassin from Saleilles.”
“No, that’s not true! Um… Your Majesty, may I say something?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
After the king and queen mother nodded, Sara sat up a little straighter.
“I wondered before if the person who attacked me was from Saleilles… But with this, I’m certain it was.”
“Have you remembered something else?”
“…Your Highness, do you remember when I turned down the tea you prepared for me?” Sara asked, turning to her husband.
Richard’s eyes widened, and he nodded.
“I do… Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
“Yes. To tell you the truth…”
As Sara told them that her tea had been laced with poison, the king’s and queen mother’s gazes briefly flickered to Richard. But as Sara continued to explain the situation, the two looked at each other, their expressions grim.
“There was poison in the tea gifted by the Saleilles envoy…?” asked Edouard.
“And you didn’t put poison in Sara’s cup, did you, Richard?” asked the queen mother.
“Of course not! I see now… So you were avoiding me because you thought I might have poisoned you…”
“Yes… I’m sorry for any confusion I may have caused.”
“No, the one who tried to poison you is the one who made you so sad… Wait, then does that mean the poison was put in the tea tin beforehand?”
“I think so.”
If the real Hermine had been there, she wouldn’t have been sent poisoned tea. The scheme was likely thought up by the man who had given Richard the tin of poisoned tea—the envoy.