Interlude 1 — After The White Smoke Cleared

She had escaped.

Prince Saryu had saved her from the chancellor.

She had felt relieved when he embraced her.

His… Saryu’s broad chest.

His strong arms.

Only after being enclosed within them could Shitoen finally breathe.

“You’ll be safe as long as you’re in my arms.”

The words Saryu always said.

The words she had heard over and over.

At some point, Shitoen had begun to believe them too.

She would be safe as long as she stayed beside him.

That must have been why.

She was safe now.

Even though she had breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wha…?!”

It lasted only a moment.

At first, she did not understand what had happened.

One moment Saryu had grabbed the back of her clothes, and the next he had thrown her onto the floor.

Her forehead struck the floor hard with a thud.

The geometric sound of windowpanes shattering echoed from every direction. Shitoen planted her hands on the floor and raised her head.

The windows must have been broken and the entrance thrown wide open.

The white smoke was drawn away as though being sucked out.

At that moment.

Shitoen clearly saw an unfamiliar man.

“W-Who…?”

She curled herself up tightly and murmured. The man approached her with a delighted smile.

What should she do? She shuffled backward while remaining seated on the floor.

The white smoke clinging around her gently dispersed, and her vision rapidly cleared. Knights in the order’s uniforms hurriedly running about came into view.

“Ah… I suppose time’s up. And after I finally got rid of the Winter Bear too.”

The man muttered regretfully. His eyes had also caught the knights’ movements.

Shitoen quickly swept her gaze around the area.

There was no longer any white smoke where she was.

The man, however, stood in the midst of it and waved like a child.

“Bye-bye.”

And then.

With a smooth motion.

He slipped toward the area where the white smoke still lingered thickly…

And disappeared.

As though taking his place.

The thick scent of blood reached her.

“C-Commander!”

Raul was always calm and composed.

It was the first time Shitoen had ever heard him make such a sound.

Raul ran forward, leaning so far ahead that he nearly fell, then dropped to his knees just behind Shitoen.

Splash.

Hearing the strange, watery sound, Shitoen spun around as though struck.

There.

Saryu lay collapsed.

“Commander! Commander!”

Raul called out with a deathly pale face. But Saryu’s eyes remained closed.

At first glance.

He looked as though he were merely sleeping.

However.

Splash.

Whenever Raul moved, a wet sound followed.

“His leg…”

Blood poured endlessly from Saryu’s left thigh and soaked the floor. Raul shook his body in an attempt to wake him, and the movement caused even more blood to spill out.

“Don’t move him!”

Shitoen screamed.

Raul froze with a start. Shitoen pushed past him, knelt beside Saryu, and pressed down around the wound on his left leg.

“Prince Saryu! Prince Saryu!”

She called his name again and again, but his eyelids neither trembled nor opened.

Even though the white smoke had completely cleared, his face was pale.

His usually lively face showed no expression, and his slightly parted lips did not bashfully call Shitoen’s name.

His powerful arms and legs.

Now they lay limply across the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Shitoen’s hands grew wetter as she pressed the wound, becoming stained crimson.

(I’m not compressing the wound properly…)

Shitoen strained her eyes, but it was nighttime to begin with.

There were no lamps or lights like those from her previous life here.

“Commander! Commander…!”

Before she knew it, Raul was across from her, gripping Saryu’s hand and desperately calling out to him.

Beside him, Crown Prince Leonias sat speechless while Yulia worriedly stroked his back.

“Find the chancellor! Pursue the bandits!”

Crown Prince Arios’s furious shout rang out. Perhaps Mone and Roze had informed them, because his escort knights entered the room, received their orders, and several immediately ran off.

When Shitoen looked around, the chancellor was nowhere in the devastated room. Neither was the man who had been restrained.

Nor was the mysterious man.

(Did they escape…?)

A sudden gust blew through the shattered windows, and Shitoen narrowed her eyes. The curtain whipped against Mail’s face near the window.

Their eyes met.

Shitoen felt genuine relief.

Mail was unharmed.

She placed a hand over her chest in relief, but…

Shitoen stiffened when she saw Mail’s eyes.

How pitiful.

Mail was looking at Shitoen with pity.

The man she loved would soon die. Poor Shitoen.

What a pitiful woman she was.

“Crown Prince Arios…!”

Mail ran over with quick little steps and threw herself into Crown Prince Arios’s arms.

“It’s all right, Mail. We will capture the bandits soon.”

“Yes.”

Embraced by Crown Prince Arios, Mail shifted her face slightly.

“I’m glad Crown Prince Arios is safe.”

Seeing Mail smile brightly, Shitoen tore her gaze away from her.

She no longer cared about that girl.

She drew a firm line within herself.

“You will be all right, Prince Saryu.”

Shitoen spoke softly to Saryu, whose eyes remained closed.

“I will protect the flame of your life until the very end.”

Firmly.

Telling herself the same thing, Shitoen resolutely raised her head.

“Sir Raul… Sir Raul!”

“Wha…?! Huh…?”

Raul’s body jolted as though he had been struck, and he stared blankly at Shitoen.

“Don’t make that face! Prince Saryu will absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely be all right!”

Shitoen repeated “absolutely” five more times.

With each repetition, life returned to Raul’s face.

“Of course he will! There’s no way the Winter Bear of Tidros would die from something like this!”

Shitoen smiled and nodded at Raul’s forceful declaration.