Chapter 9.2

The night was deathly still. Heavy fog clung to the air so thick that even the shape of the moon looked foreign.

Esha stood at the foot of the West Palace’s rear gate, the hood of her cloak pulled over her head as she waited for Johan.

A little further ahead, her maid kept watch, her face tight with anxiety.

“Princess, he’s here…!” the maid whispered.

Far down the path, a carriage emerged from the gloom, its wheels rolling swiftly across the damp earth. Only then did Esha let out a breath of relief.

The black carriage halted at the gate.

Yet there was something wrong about the coachman’s face. Strained, almost nervous.

When Johan stepped down from the carriage, Esha hurried toward him. But as soon as she saw him up close, her eyes widened in shock.

“My goodness, Johan!”

It looked as though he’d been crying. The skin around his eyes was red and raw, and his face was pale, his hands trembling smeared with dried blood.

Quickly, Esha wrapped him in a spare cloak and drew him into her arms. He smelled of the damp forest, as well as something metallic.

“Did you— did you see your nanny? What happened?”

Her voice was a low whisper, but Johan did not answer.

Beside them, the maid spoke in a strained, urgent voice.

“Forgive me for interrupting, Your Highness, but we must go inside. The guards will be here any moment.”

Johan still said nothing.

Esha could not place the source of this unease crawling up from the tips of her toes.

Together, they slipped quickly through the rear gate and made their way toward Esha’s chambers.

Her room could only be reached by traveling through a secret corridor known as the “Hall of Mirrors,” a passage once used by her late mother, Empress Deina, for matters of utmost secrecy.

As they walked between rows of flickering candles set into tall mirrored walls, a chill ran down Esha’s spine.

Just as she tried to hurry them inside, Johan suddenly seized her wrist, pulling her to a halt.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror beyond his shoulder and felt a sudden uncanny dissonance.

She had the eerie sense that her entire day had been carefully scripted. That something was right in front of her… yet just out of view.

“…Sister.”

“We have to get inside. There’s no time. The patrol guards will be passing by my door any moment.”

“Sister.”

Johan’s voice trembled so much it made her chest tighten in pain.

Again and again, he whispered her name.

“What happened?” Esha asked softly.

All she feared was that his next words would be, “I want to return to Atlan.”

“Where have you been…?”

His question made no sense.

Esha tilted her head slightly in confusion.

“I’ve been in the West Palace all day. I took a short evening walk as the sun set, then took a nap in my room until I went to fetch you. Why?”

“…It’s nothing.”

“Johan, what is this? Something happened, didn’t it?”

“Truly, it’s nothing.”

His head fell forward. The gesture was quiet but clear: Please… don’t ask me anymore.

Standing there in the dim, wavering light of the candles, he looked so fragile, like a glass figure on the verge of shattering.

Gently, Esha drew an arm around his shoulders. She no longer had the time to entertain his silences and strange moods.

Johan said not a word as they entered her chambers. Not as he bathed. Not even when he lay down beside her.

He only spoke once she was drifting at the edge of sleep, balanced between dream and waking.

“My nanny… the woman who raised me… she was from Elendor.”

“Hm?”

Esha kept her eyes closed, her body heavy with the exhaustion of a day that had felt disturbingly unreal in every moment.

Outside, only the lonely hoot of an owl broke the silence. Dawn was close.

“She was born in Elendor but lost her family during the conquest war… she ended up boarding the wrong ship and drifted all the way to Atlan. She was so young…”

“The wrong ship?” Esha murmured, her voice heavy with sleep.

To her, the war was nothing more than a story of her father’s time. Something distant and untouchable.

“She was a commoner who entered the royal palace as a maid. Eventually, she became head maid… and then, my nanny.”

“Mhm…”

Esha’s mind was sinking deeper into sleep.

She wanted to respond to him, but her lips refused to move.

Every fiber of her attention was concentrated on listening, desperate to hear Johan’s last words.

{So what is she, truly? Elendorian, or Atlanian?}

He spoke in Atlanian, but no answer came.

Esha had already fallen asleep.

Lying there quietly by her side, Johan pulled the blanket over his head.

He couldn’t contain the emotion boiling inside him. He wasn’t sure if it was grief… or resentment.

The next morning, news spread across the country that an Elendorian had been found murdered in the forest near the border.