Footsteps filled with anger echoed throughout the polished corridor of the royal castle. Claudio wasn’t running, but his steps were by no means slow. He was heading toward a certain room at that particular pace.
“Your Highness, please wait! This is not Her Highness’s fault. All of us instigated her to do so.” A nervous-looking Alto caught up to Claudio from behind, but the prince maintained his pace nonetheless.
(Instigated? Agreeing is agreeing, nonetheless.)
He was flabbergasted upon spotting Rosemarie behind Edeltraud in the middle of the streets. And welling up at the same time was another emotion: anger. He gave himself credit for quickly discerning that condemning her in the middle of the street would have caused a scene, however.
After sending Rosemarie and Edeltraud back to the castle and leaving the assailant in the custody of the knights on patrol, he talked to Alto on the way back to the castle. Alto finally confessed to conspiring with Rosemarie, bringing her out into the city so she could observe Claudio.
Needless to say, that got under his skin.
When he arrived at Rosemarie’s room, he spotted her maid pacing to and fro in front of the door in an uncomposed manner. Heidi noticed Claudio and ran up to him with a frantic expression.
“Your Highness! Squire Clausen! Is the princess not with you?!”
“What do you mean?” he asked back to Heidi in a low tone, the look on his face changing.
“The Princess hasn’t come back. It is raining outside and already getting dark...”
Claudio’s eyes widened in shock.
If he’d encountered Rosemarie, he intended to tell her to ask him anything she might want to know directly, rather than being underhanded and watching stealthily from the shadows.
However, Rosemarie was not here. Her usual gaze of concern over him was nowhere to be seen.
An uneasy sweat dotted his brow. His throat immediately went dry and, despite not having exerted himself, his heart was beating like crazy.
(What is this? Am I feeling a sense of uneasiness? This is the girl who stole my mana we’re talking about here.)
He tried to squeeze his fists to calm himself down, but it did just the opposite, heightening his impatience instead.
(Wait a second. I haven’t apologized yet.)
If he’d known this was going to happen, he would have just apologized right away when he came by to deliver that letter.
Had he just done that, he wouldn’t have to cope with all this guilt, or loss, or whatever it was he was experiencing.
“Your Highness?” Alto asked curiously. Claudio realized that he had stopped talking and snapped back to his senses.
“She should be with Master Edel. No need to worry like that. Just in case, I will go and search the area. Wait here in her room in the meantime and stay calm.” He watched as Heidi nodded her head over and over, on the verge of tears. Then he turned away from her.
He returned the way he came, the thought of a crash slowing their return down running through his mind.
(This is odd. It’s a straight path from the city back to here. Timewise, it’d be unlikely that we’d miss running into one another. Did something happen?)
He assured Heidi that she had no reason to worry so long as Rosemarie was with Edeltraud. But if anything, her being with Edeltraud and this happening anyway made him feel the gravity of the situation.
“Your Highness, we shall go in search. You need your rest...”
“I don’t want to make matters worse. You alone accompanying me should suffice.”
“But sir, you have a military assembly dinner scheduled after this.”
“It’s mostly going to be a bunch of trite bragging about their military exploits, anyway. Tell them I’ll be late.” He hadn’t noticed that he was losing his cool. No, it was more like he noticed and was ignoring it.
Just thinking about the potential danger Rosemarie might’ve been facing would have made it extremely hard to sit through something so annoying.
(If it is gone, then I can’t get back my mana.)
That is what Claudio told himself, at least, as they headed toward the stable. He felt bad for the horses, who had barely been put away without a chance to rest, but they brought them out anyway and rode off. He gave detailed instructions to the soldiers guarding the castle gates to keep their lips sealed.
The rain that started in the evening was still falling, and things were getting dark now that the sun had almost completely set. Claudio and Alto rode their horses while being careful not to get their feet caught in the mud.
“Shall we search the way we came?”
“Yes, let’s do that for the time being.” Claudio met Alto’s question from beside him with a nod. The two proceeded on their way, being careful to leave no stone unturned.
The woods filling the space from the Forbidden Forest in the back of the castle covered a side of the path leading up to the castle. It was like a black wave encroaching on the area.
Claudio clicked his tongue in annoyance at how bad the visibility was. That was when something white slid past the corner of his eyes. Claudio locked on to whatever it was with his eyes. What he found was a plain carriage unnaturally stopped on the side of the road.
(I don’t remember this being here the first time we passed through... It’s really hard to believe that we’d find them so easily.)
Claudio thought that, suspicious, but he started slowing down his horse, nevertheless.