Eric was silent the entire walk back to his study. He was probably considering whether to believe Dale. Dale wanted Eric to believe him, but it was a mystery what Eric would decide.
Prince Dale is even harder to read than I originally thought.
I remembered liking him when we first met; I thought he was simply a good person. Though I had only spoken to him a number of times since I moved to the palace, he was always kind to me. It hurt to see him act so suspiciously that I questioned my own feelings.
We were almost at Eric’s study. What would he say to me first? That he believed in Dale? Or the dreaded alternative?
Lingsha greeted us from her post as we entered Eric’s study. “Eric, Leia! You’re back! Did ya go punch out some bad guys?”
“No, we actually went to speak with Prince Dale,” I said. It was only natural that she didn’t know, since all we’d told her was that we were going to go question the intruder.
“So ya punched out Dale! Ohh, yes!”
“That would cause a major incident, Miss Lin,” I said. “We had a peaceful conversation.”
“Ohhh? So that’s why Eric looks so blue. Try this pastry. So good!”
Eric was lost in thought ever since we set foot in his study. I knew it would take a while for him to open up. I had seen that troubled look on his face so often that I could tell if it meant he had compiled his thoughts or was still mulling something over.
Noticing this, Lingsha offered the newest popular pastry from the capital to me, instead of the prince.
“Ooh, it really is scrumptious.”
“Right? I’m gonna get Johann some next time, oh yes.”
“I think he’d like that. He must feel rather glum being under house arrest.”
We passed the time with conversation. Now that there were no longer assassins constantly after Prince Eric, this was how much of my time as a bodyguard was whiled away these days: I would chat with Johann or Lingsha while Eric worked. As a result, I was starting to feel less and less like I needed to be there, but there was still a possibility Prince Eric would be in danger until the reform went into effect.
There I sat, keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings as I chatted with Lingsha.
“No matter how you look at it, Dale must be lying. That’s the only conclusion I can draw.”
About two hours after we returned to the study, Eric finally broke his silence—and he had arrived at the conclusion that Dale was lying.
I wonder what made him conclude that Prince Dale had lied? Did we notice the same thing?
One thing Dale had said made me feel something was amiss. It was something in the conversation that just didn’t make any sense to me.
“Okay then, can I blast away Dale?”
“No. You don’t need to ‘blast’ Dale into the sky,” Eric said.
The hidden meaning in Eric’s statement was that Prince Dale had lied, but he wasn’t our enemy.
But what about Prince Dale’s lie?
“When he said he hastened the execution by mistake—he was lying, right?” I asked.
“Yes. No matter what the excuse, Dale would never kill a man by mistake. He has common sense. It’s his common sense I trust, more than anything.”
Eric was right, but I felt that there was more to it than that. I also knew that Dale was a levelheaded person. So when he gave us the sort of excuse that we couldn’t dig any deeper into, it made it seem like he was signaling that it was a lie.
As the lie was so obvious, that was the only conclusion I could draw.
“Prince Dale wanted us to know he was lying. Is that your thinking, Your Highness?”
“Indeed. You’re right, Leia. He could have come up with a number of more believable lies. If he really wanted to plead his innocence, he would have chosen a better explanation. But he didn’t do that. It is therefore logical to conclude that he did so intentionally.”
Eric and I were on the same page. Dale had lied, but he wanted us to notice. The question now was why?
That was probably the very question Eric had spent the past two hours mulling over. If we could figure out the reason, we would know Dale’s true motive.
“What are your thoughts, Your Highness? Do you have any ideas on what Prince Dale is trying to accomplish?”
I touched on the crux of the topic. After all this speculation, I just wanted to learn the whole truth. What was Dale hiding, and what was he hoping to achieve?
I felt like the answer was right under my nose, but I waited for Eric to speak.
“Dale is closer to the Great Four than me,” Eric answered. “He has ties with them.”
“Yes, I have heard that he is close with Duke Merhide and Duke Algrene, so I assume it’s true.”
“He was also quite close with Berklein.”
“Yes. And Berklein despised you, so it was only natural of him to become friendly with Prince Dale.”
Dale’s relationships were common knowledge. He had many friends among the aristocracy, and he was quite popular. But in reality, it was difficult to be friends with everyone, even if you tried.
Dale’s congenial personality came naturally to him. It set him apart from Eric, and it was a quality that made him born to lead.
“I have a theory. What if Dale suspected Duke Algrene before I did?”
“Huh? But Prince Dale agreed to add his mercenary company to the royal guard, didn’t he?”
“Indeed. That’s why my theory is that Dale is pretending to be Duke Algrene’s ally until he slipped up.”
Now I see. That explained it.
Lingsha had said, “You can’t catch a tiger without entering its den.” Had Dale gotten close to Duke Algrene, aware of the danger?
If that’s true, then that means we have an even bigger mystery on our hands.
If Eric’s theory about Dale was true, that made his behavior all the more inexplicable. He would never do something like that.
“But Prince Dale still hastened the execution. If he was just biding his time until Duke Algrene made a mistake, why would he go out of his way to destroy that possibility?”
If only we could’ve questioned the intruder, we would have found a connection to Duke Algrene. It was the only way we had of proving that Algrene was behind it all. Yet Dale blocked that path of investigation. And then he lied to us in a startlingly obvious way.
Huh. I really don’t get it. What exactly are his actions pointing to?
“You’re quite right in saying so, but Dale told us a transparent lie. In other words, I believe he was sending us a coded message. Dale must have had a good reason to kill that intruder.”
“But what reason could he possibly have?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to think hard about what it might be.”
It was a precarious, vague deduction, but Eric’s eyes brimmed with confidence. It looked like he had worked through something very important during the past two hours.
“Are you certain then, Your Highness? That Prince Dale is our ally?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it now. Besides, he said, ‘Please, trust in me.’ I haven’t been much of a big brother to him in the past, but that’s exactly why I want to believe in my little brother now.”
When I saw the slight smile on Eric’s face, my breath caught in my throat. His countenance reminded me of his gentle nature.
“Prince Eric, I think you’ve changed a little.”
“If I’ve changed, I have you to thank, Leia.”
“Me? But I haven’t done anything.”
“Nonsense. You changed my outlook on life, the way I see the world. I’m eternally grateful…”
Eric’s eyes smoldered as he thanked me. But I couldn’t agree. He did the work himself to become more mature. Even if meeting me had sparked that change, it was he who had put in the work.
“I humbly accept your thanks. But, Your Highness, I think you—”
“Stop right there. Don’t be modest. Please. I want to cherish my feelings for you.”
He pressed a finger to my lips, asking my silence. My heart practically leaped from my chest, but I obeyed.
Eric began the investigation under the assumption that he could trust Dale, so I had to respect his judgment and do my best to aid him.