9

“Your Highness Princess Eugenia, I am pleased to see you in good spirits.”

Rodney knelt and took Eugenia’s hand.

“It has been quite a long time, Rodney. Before I fell asleep, you were still only a child, yet the passage of years is truly frightening.”

Eugenia gave a soft chuckle and smiled at Rodney’s face.

Without even obtaining Noel’s permission, Eugenia sat down on the old sofa.

Softly, the scent of medicinal herbs rose. Eugenia frowned unpleasantly at the unfamiliar fragrance.

“What a very distinctive greenhouse. I heard from Ezra-sama that the cultivation of the Immortal Lily succeeded here.”

Eugenia looked around with curiosity.

The gardens and greenhouses where a princess entered were specialized for growing flowers pleasing to the eye.

A greenhouse like this, where only plants with medicinal effects were cultivated and no especially beautiful flowers were blooming, was likely something unusual to Eugenia.

“Your Highness. Are you feeling well?”

“Thanks to you, as you know. By now, my body has recovered enough for me to live a normal life. Since last week, I have resumed socializing, and my dance lessons are as they were before.”

Then she smiled fearlessly.

“The faces of the maids when they learned that I had been conscious even though I was asleep were truly something.”

“To think your mind had been awake. That must instead have been painful for you.”

Noel sighed.

The first thing Eugenia had done after awakening was personnel changes among the ladies-in-waiting and maids assigned to the third princess.

The ladies-in-waiting who had taken advantage of the fact that the princess was unconscious and spoken various discourtesies, and the maids who had treated her roughly, were dismissed that same day. Conversely, it was said that a commoner cleaning girl who had worked as a menial servant, who alone had continued every day to encourage Eugenia’s recovery and pray at her bedside, was greatly promoted to a new lady-in-waiting.

The yellow marigolds that bloomed everywhere, which the cleaning girl had picked fresh every day and offered at Eugenia’s bedside while praying for her recovery, were now a symbol of recovery from illness and good fortune in this country.

“The defensive magic Noel activated before we were attacked by the poisonous mist activated properly. My body fell asleep, but because my mind was protected by Noel’s magic, I remained awake the entire time. Beside my pillow as I lay in that unfortunate sleep, all kinds of people had all kinds of conversations. Therefore, I know very well who truly had us attacked.”

“So as expected, that was not an accident, and you know who had us attacked.”

Noel’s expression became stern.

Just thinking of how many words must have been spoken at her bedside that disturbed this princess’s heart made Noel suffer.

“Noel. In the midst of your busyness, you truly came often to visit me as I slept.”

In contrast to Noel’s stern expression, Eugenia’s face was gentle.

“On that day when your consciousness recovered, you took my hand while drowning in tears and swore that you would complete the elixir without fail. Even as you despaired at your own helplessness, you spent years after that fighting desperately to save me, no matter what means you had to use.”

“With a voice that would not come out and a body that would not move, I wanted to tell you to please give up already. It was not your fault that we were attacked by a magical beast, and both you and I were merely used. And yet you spared not even your sleeping hours for my life, which everyone in this kingdom had given up on, threw away everything you had, and exhausted every means for me. I wanted you to hurry and give up on my worthless life and quickly be united with some other noble lady. Mother could do nothing but drown in tears, and as the girls I had thought were my friends stopped coming to visit one by one, for me, who had fallen into despair toward both people and fate, you were my only hope and my one sincere friend.”

“I noticed that your voice had grown softer once you began speaking of the greenhouse arranged by a girl named Beth. That you had finally found a place where you could feel at ease. That perhaps, if it were in that greenhouse, the Immortal Lily might bloom. That in that greenhouse, an unbelievably large slug was doing as it pleased. Your voice sounded happier than I had heard it in these past few years.”

Eugenia looked toward Nana-chan, who was slowly crawling at the edge of the greenhouse. Then she said.

“Noel, you fell in love with that girl named Beth, did you not?”

Eugenia looked straight into Noel’s eyes.

Noel nodded.

Slowly, Eugenia turned her body, which had been facing Noel, around and looked outside the greenhouse.

Outside the greenhouse, a spring with a small bridge built over it could be seen.

It was a bridge Noel had made, thinking that when morning came, the parent and child turtles would use it for sunbathing.

A single tear quietly ran down Eugenia’s cheek.

The beginning of this engagement had been Eugenia’s very girlish love for Noel, back when she had still been a girl.

“Your Highness.”

Restraining Noel as he tried to say something, Eugenia spoke.

“Noel. From now on, I will join hands with the goddess faction of the Temple and aim for the throne. I will force the king and the First Queen, who had us attacked by the magical beast, to abdicate, and disinherit the first prince. I have already spoken with the Temple faction within the country.”

Though it was the Temple faction that had the first prince, the Temple faction was not monolithic.

Now that the royal-family faction was dominant, if the third princess becoming part of the goddess Temple faction could drive back the royal-family faction, even the disinheritance of the first prince, who belonged not to the goddess faction but to the Temple prophet faction, was possible. Such was the world of politics.

Eugenia was no longer crying.

But in her bright, blazing eyes, what could be seen was not the frail girl who had been in love with Noel, but the resolve and strength of the next queen.

“For that, rather than marry the eldest son of the Saratoga marquis family, which has been incorporated into the royal-family faction, I need to be connected in marriage to a Temple of another country. If I marry an influential figure from the goddess Temple faction of the neighboring country, my mother’s homeland, that will be possible.”

This princess’s foreign-born mother had, as her own mother, a shrine maiden of the goddess Temple faction.

If she could gain the backing of the goddess Temple faction, the political situation would change.

Rodney said hesitantly.

“That would be possible if Noel-sama, the national hero who succeeded in producing the elixir, cut ties with his birth family, which turned to the royal-family faction, and if he would never produce the elixir again… But how would you deal with a national hero who succeeded in producing the elixir…”

“There is no need for Noel to fall from grace. It is a simple matter. We need only say that he swore to the goddess of the Temple worshipped by my grandmother that, once the elixir was completed and I awakened, he would abandon everything. Let us use Noel’s eccentric behavior as a beautiful tale for the goddess. And I will express deep gratitude to the Temple goddess, who saved me from an unfortunate sleep through the vow of my former fiancé, and become part of the Temple’s goddess faction. It is consistent.”

Eugenia said this with a cool expression as she pointed at Nana-chan.

Certainly, if a noble as distinguished as Noel suddenly became friendly with a slug like this, no matter how one thought about it, it could only look as if he had gone mad or was acting under some religious restriction.

Noel perceived Eugenia’s heart.

(This person is doing this to set me free.)

In Noel’s mind, Eugenia from three years ago, when she had still been merely a girl, came back to him.

Over these three years, this frail girl had become an adult, and in her sleep, she had grown into a strong and beautiful woman.

“Your Highness. Today, I thought that you would drag me out of this greenhouse and order the execution of our marriage. If it was the wish of you, who fell asleep because I could not protect you to the end, I intended to grant any wish at all. I thought that was the least atonement I could offer.”

“But that was my conceit. Far from needing my existence, you have grown so strong and beautiful that I would only be a hindrance. Strong enough that you can tell me I lack the ability to be your husband. I am proud of you.”

But during those three years of sleep, this girl who had once been frail had chosen to become not a wife who was merely protected by Noel, but a comrade-in-arms.

She would no longer let anyone toss her life about because of weakness.

Noel looked up in reverence at this noble woman, who held strong resolve in her heart.

Eugenia smoothly held out her hand.

“If I had been who I was three years ago, yes. I would have done that. But Noel. I have grown. Just as you have grown. At the autumn festival, let us free you from everything. That is my gratitude and farewell gift as the princess of this country, as your friend, and as your former fiancée.”

Noel took the hand Eugenia had extended and, as a friend, exchanged a handshake with her.