Chapter 10.1

It was Johan’s nanny that was murdered.

Since the papers only listed her as “Elendorian” without releasing any personal details, the people of Elendor grew furious. They cried for vengeance against Atlan.

Given the current state of relations between the two nations, people had already made up their minds about the culprit being an Atlanian citizen. Many newspapers declared it outright.

Esha’s hands shook as she turned the page. With just a single line in the paper reporting the Elendorian was murdered near the border, public outcry holding Elendor accountable for the Combatpool Harbor incident noticeably died down.

And then, a thought flashed across her mind, and a face came to her.

Why had her father suddenly invited her to lunch yesterday? That wasn’t like him.

When Esha woke, Johan had already gone back to his room. She rang the bell in haste, summoning a maid.

“Fetch Johan. Immediately.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Esha bit down on her lip. Soon, the blame for his nanny’s death would fall squarely on Atlan. And if her father was involved, as she was sure he was, then it was already too late.

Esha loathed politics with every fiber of her being, but having spent years with her father taught her how easily public opinion could be steered. Because of that, she could already predict what would come next.

Somewhere along the way, their plan had been discovered. She doubted it all. Was it from the beginning? Had Johan’s letter been intercepted? Every possibility clouded her mind with suspicion.

In this palace, there was no one on her side.

“P-Princess…”

A few minutes later, the same maid knocked on her door hesitantly. But she hadn’t brought Johan, only a message.

“He said he wouldn’t come… He didn’t give a reason…”

“Nothing else? He didn’t say anything else?”

“Ah, he said to tell you that she… she was already gone when he arrived. I’m not sure what that means exactly…”

But Esha understood instantly.

Johan must have arrived to find his nanny already dead.

Last night… he came back from seeing her body. The blood on his hands, it had been hers.

Esha buried her face in her palms.

And she had asked him, “Did you see her?” as if nothing were wrong. The thought made her sick with shame.

When had her father begun investigating the woman? If she hadn’t summoned Johan’s nanny here in the first place, would his target have been someone else instead?

The guilt was suffocating. She couldn’t even lift her head.

And despite how far this had all spiraled, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do.

⋆༺˖° ♛ °˖༻⋆

A few days later, a rumor began to circulate among the palace servants.

That Johan himself had murdered the Elandorian woman.

No one knew where the rumor started, but the Elendorians—including the palace servants—were furious, demanding that Johan be arrested and interrogated, and that the three ports recently returned to Atlan be seized immediately.

Even after another man was eventually found guilty and publicly executed, the slander toward Johan didn’t stop.

Inside the royal court, Johan’s status plummeted to the ground. Johan spent nearly every waking hour in the training yard and took all his meals alone in his room.

Within one year alone, there were four separate attempts to poison him.

“Johan, the weather’s lovely today. Why don’t we have lunch together in the garden?”

No matter how gently Esha coaxed, how often she begged, or even when she grew angry, Johan never came to see her.

She only ever saw him at official events that required both their attendance. Johan’s body had grown taller with age, but the bright gleam in his eyes had dulled. His complexion had grown pale, like a corpse.

Esha, too, began to give up on him. At first, she tried speaking to him. She even waited outside his room all day, but all she ever received in return was silence.

The person she caught glimpses of now was nothing like the eleven-year-old boy who had once given her a drawing of a cyclamen.

The following summer, under Edmund’s orders, Johan and the knights were dispatched on an expedition to Combatpool Harbor. They succeeded in driving out the pirates.

But in the process, many innocent harbor residents were mistaken for pirates and killed. Even so, Edmund offered Atlan no compensation.

Johan’s reputation somewhat recovered following his military achievement, but he withdrew further from society, shutting himself away and avoiding people altogether.

Two more years passed in that silence.