“Kreis, why...” Gilles’s tears dripped down his cheeks. Claude was the only one fooled by those tears now. Still, the fact that he kept up the act was commendable if only for his sheer audacity.
Siegfried sent the nobles away, along with Albert, Claude, and the others, then dismissed his guards as well, leaving just the two of us in the room.
He sat down on the rickety bed, then looked up at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your Majesty, please don’t stay in such a place...”
“Kreis, I’m speaking to you now as your friend.” He’d maintained his composure up until now, but it was gone. He sounded angry.
He was usually so calm, but today all I’d done was give him reasons to be upset. I couldn’t bring myself to push back against the mixture of anger and pain I heard in his voice, so I gave him a sincere apology instead.
“I’ve been living in this room since I was seven. It’s been so long I just didn’t feel like I needed to explain it to anyone.”
“It was Albert who treated you so coldly?”
“Gilles has always been frail. So maybe I just wanted to believe that was the only reason father always put him first.”
Kreis was used to having to endure, and it had been that way ever since he was a child. I understood that well, having lost my parents at an early age and lived in a group home in my first life.
Getting used to something can be a horrifying prospect. Once you convince yourself that something is normal, the will to escape it starts to fade. But as long as you’re thinking about asking for help or running away, you still have the strength to do it.
But Siegfried was the one person I couldn’t ask for help. All I wanted was to be useful to him, to serve him one day. I couldn’t possibly ask him to rescue me.
“You were living here this whole time...” His voice trembled as his gaze fell to the floor.
“You get used to it after a while. It’s not so bad,” I said, trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but he looked back up and glared at me.
“‘Not so bad’? This place is covered in dust, reeks of mold, and there’s barely any space to store anything! I’m amazed you haven’t fallen ill.”
I scratched my cheek awkwardly. “Sorry...” Maybe I should’ve taken things more seriously and apologized. But somehow his scolding made me feel a little warm inside—he was angry because he was worried about me.
“I still can’t believe you jumped out the window over a sorcerer’s stone. What if I hadn’t stepped into the courtyard for some air?”
Ah, so that’s why he was there. He must’ve slipped away from the party. He always used the courtyard as his escape, ever since we were kids.
“I’ll be more careful from now on,” I said with a solemn nod, and finally his expression softened just a little bit.
“Did you make those for me?” His gaze found the pastries that Gilles had crushed on the floor.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to properly thank you even after receiving this outfit and the stone...”
“They were birthday gifts. You don’t need to repay me. But honestly, it’s hard to stay calm after seeing what you made for me be treated so carelessly.”
Just knowing he felt that way made all the frustration and bitterness from earlier seem worth it, and it eased the sting of the whole ordeal.
It wasn’t that he pitied me, though. I could hear the concern and anger in his voice. He was upset on my behalf—so upset you’d think all this nastiness had been done to him, and that was enough to heal something inside of me.
“Anyway, the sooner you leave this place the better. Can you be ready to go immediately?”
“Right now? But I haven’t even decided where to go yet. Isn’t that kind of hasty?”
“Why not come stay with me? I live in a pretty spacious castle, you know,” he said with a playful wink. I couldn’t help but laugh, but I shook my head.
“I appreciate the offer, really. But I’ll have to decline.”
“Kreis, there’s no need to be...”
“I’m not declining out of politeness. I have my own dream.”
It would have been easy to fall under Siegfried’s protection—plenty of nobles had witnessed everything—but I just couldn’t do it. If I leaned on him now, I’d simply be hiding under his protection again, and that would only drag him down.
“I’m not strong enough to serve you yet,” I said.
I had to earn my place at his side, and to do that I needed a title. Once word of today’s events spread, it would surely reach my mother and grandparents in the capital. At that point, there was a good chance they would take Albert’s title and pass it on to me.
That meant I had to continue to stand on my own. If I wanted to prove I was worthy of inheriting the title of Marquess Louboutin, I couldn’t be some frightened sheep clinging to Siegfried’s protection.
“I’ll earn the right to stand beside you. Just give me a little more time, please.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
“Well, sometimes you have to be cunning to protect what really matters, even if it means taking a roundabout path.”
“And you think I’m incapable of such a thing?” he asked.
I just shrugged. “I can be cunning enough for the both of us.”
“I can’t let you do that alone, so I’ll do my best to be cunning as well.” He said it so earnestly I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
After that, life at the Louboutin estate was peaceful.
Kreis’s grandparents had caught wind of the rumors and sent an aide from the capital. Now Albert could no longer act out against me in the open. Gilles was confined to his room and under constant watch, but Claude visited him frequently.
The only real annoyance now was how Claude glared at me every time we passed in the halls, but I just thought of it as him being a sore loser. It was nothing I couldn’t bear.
I received a report that a promising property had become available within the marquisate, so I decided to leave the estate. Although it was more convenient to keep an eye on Gilles if I remained here, it was better for me in the long term to move on.
At first I’d planned to leave alone, but a few of the house servants I’d grown close to asked if they could come with me. One of my allies was obligated to stay at the house, but Karina made arrangements for them to secretly keep me informed about Albert’s and Gilles’s actions.
“You’re not seriously thinking of leaving me behind, are you?” she asked. She had been absolutely furious with Albert and Gilles and had been the first to offer to come along with me. So I made her my head maid, in charge of running my new household.
Once my new life began to settle down, I took the opportunity to explore the nearby town and get a lay of the land.
After breakfast one morning, I went out to the market to see what was selling lately. The market drew not only goods but people. And where people gathered, so did rumors—which made it the perfect place to get a feel for my new home.
“Hmm... Maybe I could sell some kind of affordable wheat pastries here...”
“Wait, what? You’re going to make more pastries? I’ll be your official taste tester, any time!”
As I imagined my future in the town around me, I noticed a group of children gathered in an alleyway.
“Hmm?”
It wasn’t that I approached them out of pity—I genuinely had no idea what they were doing. But once I got close, I froze in shock. The children were huddled around a young man who was lying on the ground.
“Theodore, Theodore, don’t die!”
The young man lay sprawled in the filthy back alley in ragged clothes, rats scurrying around him. These children were clearly poor, and no adult was around.