Chapter 88
Several days passed after the long night for both Riina and Einar.
At an intermittently held gathering of the princes.
The First Prince clicked his tongue while looking disapprovingly at the Fourth Prince, who was rolling his eyes this way and that.
“Tsk, so restless.”
Knowing these words were directed at him, the Fourth Prince lowered his eyes and answered quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tsk, tsk, what are you apologizing for again there?”
As if that too displeased him, the First Prince clicked his tongue loudly.
He didn’t particularly dislike or hate the Fourth Prince.
Because he wasn’t even worth that.
But since he carried imperial blood anyway, he simply didn’t like how easily he put the word “sorry” in his mouth.
Into such ears came the voice of someone he hated beyond mere dislike.
“Were you bullying the Fourth Prince again?”
The First Prince’s face instantly became crumpled paper as Smith appeared.
He looked at the First Prince and openly sneered.
“No matter how much you can’t sleep since the hunting competition, it’s not good to take it out on innocent people.”
“You!”
Just as the First Prince was about to raise his voice, violent coughing erupted right beside the Fourth Prince.
“Cough, cough cough cough. Gasp.”
The youngest prince tried to hold his breath to suppress the bursting cough, but coughing wouldn’t stop just because you held it in.
He endured and endured, even covering his mouth tightly with small hands showing blue veins, but the cough inevitably burst out.
“Cough, cough cough cough cough!”
The youngest prince coughed as if he might spill his organs from the cough that erupted even larger from needless suppression.
At this, the First Prince frowned while covering his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, and the Fourth Prince hunched his drooping shoulders.
And Smith.
He started to offer a handkerchief to the youngest prince but hesitated.
The youngest prince had been sickly since birth, and if it were a contagious disease, he wouldn’t have come to this gathering.
However, seeing such a state, he didn’t really want to approach directly.
Smith soon furrowed his brow and gestured to a servant.
Just as the servant, who had immediately received the handkerchief with Smith’s initials clearly embossed, approached the youngest prince.
“There, there. That’s right. Breathe.”
The youngest prince’s view suddenly rose much higher, and the servant had to hurriedly step back.
Einar slowly stroked the youngest prince’s back and held him until his coughing subsided.
The First Prince’s face became even more crumpled, and Smith ground his teeth while glaring at Einar with twisted lips, but he merely brushed off their gazes lightly.
Eventually, when the youngest prince’s condition stabilized, Einar casually seated him beside himself.
The youngest prince, who had inadvertently ended up sitting next to Einar, opened his eyes wide with a pale face.
“Tea.”
At Einar’s brief command, the servant who had stepped back holding Smith’s handkerchief quickly offered a teacup to the youngest prince.
There was no need to doubt that Smith’s insides were all twisted watching this scene.
His persistent and murderous gaze turned toward the servant.
Naturally, there was nothing wrong with the servant.
He wasn’t a servant belonging to any specific prince’s palace, and since he was the servant closest to the youngest prince, he had simply done his job.
Feeling Smith’s gaze, the servant bowed his head deeply and stepped back, and Einar tilted his head toward such a Smith.
“No matter how much you can’t sleep since my engagement ceremony, it’s not good to take it out on innocent people.”
The words that flowed from his mouth were the same as what Smith had said while mocking the First Prince.
Smith’s face flushed bright red, venom formed at the corners of the First Prince’s mouth, and the Fourth Prince looked up at Einar with anxious eyes.
And the youngest prince.
He simply observed the four people and quietly sipped his tea.
Smith, who had seemed about to charge at Einar immediately, unexpectedly clenched his teeth hard enough to break them and turned his head away.
Of course, Einar didn’t place much meaning on his attitude and simply brushed it off, gesturing to the First Prince.
“About the trade agreement His Majesty mentioned.”
The First Prince’s eyes crinkled as he had been sending Einar a gaze mixed with some favor for having gotten the better of Smith.
He hadn’t expected such a topic to come from Einar’s mouth.
No, he should have expected it.
Since he had joined hands with the Bolshevik family, it would be Einar, not Smith, who would become his competitor.
Of course, that Smith fellow seemed not to have given up yet.
“The trade agreements are mostly finished. You might not be particularly interested, but appropriately like every year.”
Though anyone could hear it was sarcastic toward Einar, the person who heard the twisted words merely shrugged.
“Tsk.”
The First Prince clicked his tongue and narrowed his eyes.
Was it because of that guy’s unchanging attitude?
Though Einar had clearly become the worst competitor for him, somehow he wasn’t as annoyed as he was with Smith, nor did he feel wary.
This was so even though someone he had never once considered a competitor had suddenly become an obstacle blocking his path.
“I have something to say about that appropriate ending.”
“What?”
“Yes?”
“Brother?”
At Einar’s words, the First Prince, Fourth Prince, and even the youngest prince couldn’t hide their surprise.
Wasn’t he someone who had fulfilled the minimum duties as Second Prince until now but had never once opened his mouth about such official matters?
The First Prince unconsciously blurted out.
“Are you trying to ascend to the crown prince position?”
That wasn’t something he should have asked.
Wasn’t it too blatant and excessively direct?
Just as Smith’s lips twisted, the First Prince made a throat-clearing sound.
“Ahem, no.”
He opened his mouth to recover from his question, but Einar smiled and answered.
“Would you even yield it to me?”
If Smith had said those words, the atmosphere in this place would have constricted their breathing like sharp blades.
But strangely, because it came from Einar’s mouth, it only sounded like a joke.
The First Prince’s heavily crumpled face relaxed somewhat, and he snorted.
“Hmph, ridiculous talk. What do you have to say anyway?”
“The complaints about excessive fees aren’t just at a high level—they’re at the point where they could build a castle with those complaints.”
“Fees? You mean the ones the empire manages?”
“Right.”
The First Prince tilted his head briefly then soon nodded.
“I know. That problem is noisy every year.”
He continued as if it were nothing special.
“Even if they make noise, the families from other countries wanting to trade with the empire increase every year anyway, so there’s nothing much to think about.”
His tone and expression suggested how inadequate Einar was for not knowing such things, but as usual, Einar didn’t mind.
Then the First Prince asked Smith as if he couldn’t miss this opportunity.
“Do you have anything to say about this?”
Smith, who had been keeping his mouth shut until now, glared at the First Prince with flashing eyes but didn’t open his mouth.
There was nothing he could say.
He too held the same opinion as the First Prince, and no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why Einar had bothered to bring up the fee problem.
Seeing the sneer hanging on the First Prince’s lips, Smith wanted to tear that mouth apart immediately, but he only promised himself he would after becoming crown prince.
Just as the First Prince was about to speak again.
“Um.”
The youngest prince opened his mouth with pale cheeks.
The First Prince let out an empty breath seeing him.
“Did the sun rise in the west today? After Einar, even the youngest?”
In the princes’ gathering where only a needle-cushion-like atmosphere flowed, weren’t those who opened their mouths predetermined?
The First Prince and Third Prince.
Einar rarely attended, the Fourth Prince always just watched others’ reactions, and the youngest prince, who attended intermittently depending on his physical condition, just sat quietly and left.
But today was somehow different.
“Right. What is it?”
Instead of the First Prince who only let out empty breaths, Einar gestured to the youngest prince.
The youngest prince continued while setting down his teacup.
“Even if it’s only been noisy until now and those requesting trade have increased, wouldn’t excessive fees become a problem?”
The First Prince, who had been about to reflexively object, closed his mouth, the Fourth Prince opened his eyes wider, and a smile momentarily spread across Smith’s lips before disappearing.
And Einar.
He gazed at the youngest prince steadily then soon smiled brightly.
“That matches exactly what I wanted to say.”
“Th-that means.”
As the First Prince unstuck his lips that had been pressed together, Einar nodded.
“Things that aren’t normal may seem fine right now, but problems are bound to explode at some point for some reason.”
He conveyed the complaints and desperation of foreign merchants he had heard throughout the trade agreement period.
“Since fees have been raised like this every year, you must have known such complaints were flowing, but well, what I felt firsthand was different from previous years.”
Though he claimed no interest in official matters, he was someone who had traveled to more places than any other prince, wherever his feet took him.
That meant Einar’s concerns weren’t mere armchair theories.
The First Prince closed his mouth with a frown, and the Fourth Prince rolled his anxious eyes here and there.
“A problem…”
Smith nodded with an expressionless face.
Normally he would have growled as if to devour Einar and found fault with his words.
This time he was simply lost in thought.
The youngest prince gazed up at such a Smith steadily then gathered his teacup again, while Einar looked at the youngest prince with meaningful eyes, his back sunk deep into the sofa.
