Chapter 4.1

He looked up at Esha with a frightened expression.

With how he was crawling on his hands and knees to sit in front of the swing, it almost seemed as though she was the one intimidating him.

“What are you doing out here?”

“…”

“Where’s your attendant? Did you come out here alone?”

“…”

{…Do you not speak Elendorian?}

Esha asked in Atlanian, her voice tight with impatience. The boy hesitated, then gave a small shake of his head.

She dabbed at her tearstained eyes with a handkerchief and asked again.

“Then why aren’t you answering?”

“…”

{Do you not speak at all?}

At her question, the boy flinched as though struck and shook his head vigorously.

Finally, he parted his lips and spoke, his voice soft.

“The maids… they said my Elendorian sounds strange.”

Aha. Esha tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve and folded her arms.

If even common maids dared to mock him, she could imagine the sort of treatment this prince endured on a daily basis. To them, a prince from Atlan, a vassal state, was hardly worth fearing.

Unconsciously, she compared her position to his and felt a flicker of relief at realizing she still held the higher ground.

“It doesn’t sound strange. Just a little clumsy.”

“Isn’t that the same as strange?”

The boy’s eyes drooped, his lashes casting long shadows.

Esha couldn’t hold back a sudden laugh.

“Your name… was is Johannes?”

“Johannes de Bator.”

“We met at the engagement ceremony, didn’t we? Ah, my sister’s engagement, I mean.”

“Yes… I think. Princess Portia.”

At the sound of her familiar, suffocating name, Esha’s face stiffened. Before she realized it, her teeth had sunk into her lower lip.

Ah, if only my sister hadn’t died, then…

“Our engagement ceremony is in four days.”

“Yes.”

“Have you prepared the bouquet?”

“The bouquet?”

The boy blinked, repeating the word as though he’d never heard it before.

Esha forced down the smile tugging at her lips and continued speaking with an almost deliberate slowness.

“Yes, the bouquet. In our country, we have a tradition where the man gives the woman a bouquet made of her favorite flowers at the time of their engagement ceremony.”

It was a lie. There was no such tradition. But the boy, unaware of this, widened his eyes in alarm.

“I-I’ve never heard of that before… At my engagement ceremony with Princess Portia, I didn’t prepare a bouquet either.”

“You’re from Atlan, aren’t you? You don’t have that tradition there, right? It makes sense you wouldn’t know. But for the second engagement, don’t you think you should?”

Esha covered her mouth with her hand, pretending to cough to hide her laughter. She couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of his bewildered face.

She still couldn’t forget how this tiny boy had carried a bouquet of chrysanthemums in his arms at the funeral.

“What’s your favorite flower, Your Highness?”

The boy fidgeted with his hands as he asked.

“Cyclamen. I love cyclamen the most.”

“Cyclamen. Okay, I’ll remember that.”

As if he could find any. Cyclamen bloomed in winter, and in Elendor’s April, they had long since withered away. Symbolizing Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, the flower had once filled Portia’s chambers, strewn among countless proposals and bouquets.

When Esha let out a soft, lilting laugh, the boy tilted his head, clearly unable to understand what was so funny.

“Say, would you stand up for a moment?”

Esha rose from the swing and stood before him. The top of his head barely reached her waist.

“My goodness, you’re so small.”

The boy’s cheeks flushed a deep red. He looked mortified.

“My nanny says… I’m shorter than most boys my age…”

“Lucky you. I wish I were small.”

“Why?”

He looked up at her, his voice curious. To someone desperate to grow even a centimeter taller, her wish to be smaller made no sense.