Chapter 89
Wasn’t he always the sickly youngest prince, born frail and perpetually afflicted with various ailments?
Yet today, this child had noticed something that neither the pretentious First Prince nor Smith, who couldn’t even pretend to be impressive, had perceived.
Come to think of it, the tutors had casually mentioned the youngest prince’s intelligence in passing.
Einar narrowed his eyes as he observed the youngest prince with renewed interest.
His face was even paler than before, with lips so purple they were nearly black.
His frame, already much smaller than other children his age, looked even tinier buried under the blanket draped across his shoulders.
The teacup looking oversized in his hands wasn’t merely an illusion.
“Huwh.”
The moment the youngest prince’s low, fever-tinged sigh reached his ears, Einar’s brow furrowed.
Something about the youngest prince grated on his nerves.
And that made it even stranger.
Hadn’t he known this child since birth?
Unlike with others, there was no reason for the youngest prince to have new people around him or experience any significant changes.
One must look to the sky to pluck stars.
What could possibly happen to a child so weak he rarely left his own palace, let alone his bed?
However, to make such assumptions and ignore his instincts…
Suddenly reminded of Lione, Einar wiped the cold sweat from the youngest prince’s pale forehead and said, “Your Highness, I’ll visit your palace soon.”
“What?”
Perhaps because it was so unexpected, the youngest prince, Sierre, startled violently, almost having a fit.
It was a sudden statement, but wasn’t his reaction excessive?
Einar’s eyes sharpened like blades before quickly softening into a gentle smile.
He lightly flicked Sierre’s nose bridge.
“Why so surprised?”
“N-no reason. Just wondering when you’ll come.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be coming right away.”
“…Yes. Then I’ll look forw— cough, cough cough.”
As Sierre, who had been nodding obediently, began coughing again, Einar picked him up once more.
“You should go in now. The wind is growing chilly.”
Einar placed Sierre, who couldn’t even respond properly through his coughing, into the wheelchair and signaled to a servant with his eyes.
As Einar watched Sierre’s small—excessively small—retreating back, a figure rushing urgently toward Sierre entered his field of vision.
Though they were quite far away, Einar could hear their conversation without much effort.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
A faint smile appeared on Sierre’s bloodless cheeks, but the corners of his mouth trembled intermittently.
The nanny, noticing this, pushed his wheelchair herself and shook her head as if frustrated.
“I told you today would be difficult. Yet you insisted on going out.”
“This much is fine.”
“I know you’re in pain. I truly don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Apologize to your own body, Your Highness.”
At first glance, it seemed like the conversation of a nanny excessively expressing concern for her prince.
Some might even consider it impertinent toward someone who was, after all, a prince.
But wasn’t she the nanny who had cared for Sierre since before his birth?
Sierre’s mother, also frail, had passed away shortly after giving birth to him, and the nanny, who had been her closest servant, had raised Sierre ever since.
She had poured her heart and soul into raising a child who wasn’t expected to live long, grinding her bones to dust to ensure he could at least move about.
So there was no need to call her impertinent or stir up trouble.
Weren’t all the servants around wearing expressions of concern mixed with respect for the nanny?
But Einar’s gaze didn’t leave the nanny’s shadow.
He couldn’t shake off a certain premonition that wasn’t merely a feeling.
However, this lasted only a moment before he was forced to turn his attention away, twisting the wrist of someone attempting to grab his shoulder.
“Aargh! Einar!”
“Ah.”
Seeing Smith grimacing with his wrist twisted, Einar released him lightly.
“I thought it was another habitual attack.”
Smith’s face momentarily contorted into something grotesque at Einar’s smiling yet cutting remark, but he soon shook his aching wrist and said:
“You went on at length about how the commission fees would cause problems, but nothing’s been confirmed yet, right?”
Although Einar’s words had been irrefutable logic, Smith had managed to find a gap.
In response to this near-nonsensical argument, Einar smiled and did something Smith would never do.
“There were non-merchants mixed in among the merchants.”
“Non-merchants?”
When the First Prince asked dubiously, Einar elaborated.
“Yes. They were stoking discontent toward the Empire, nurturing dangerous sparks. There were too many for it to be coincidental—it’s safe to assume it’s an organized movement.”
He had just openly shared information he’d gathered alone—information that, if handled properly, could bring him significantly closer to the position of Crown Prince.
The First Prince gaped in shock, while Smith pressed his lips into a line and rolled his eyes cunningly.
Suspicious groups inciting merchants over the Empire’s commission fees?
This wasn’t just a temporary issue that would blow over during trade negotiations.
The problem Einar mentioned that would eventually erupt was no distant concern.
This was precisely the opportunity he needed to seize.
“That needs to be investigated and resolved as quickly as possible.”
Smith had no intention of missing this rare opportunity.
Thanks to that fool Einar blabbering in public, there would be competition, but he was determined to be the first to resolve this issue, no matter what.
Or rather than resolving it, he should exploit it.
Being someone whose mind worked exceptionally well in such matters, Smith instinctively recognized this as something he could use, even without a concrete plan yet.
Naturally, Smith wasn’t the only one who saw “opportunity” after hearing Einar’s story.
“You’ll resolve it? How? You can’t even run to the Bolshevik Duchy anymore.”
The First Prince’s snide remark scraped both Smith’s pride and self-esteem in one go.
If Einar had said something like that, he might have endured it once.
But to hear such words from the First Prince, whom he considered “merely” or “just another person”?
Smith lost his reason for a moment, and when reason is lost, words that shouldn’t be spoken often emerge.
“I don’t need Bolshevik. In any case…”
He clamped his mouth shut at that point.
But unless one’s ears were blocked, his words were already spilled water.
Just as the Fourth Prince’s eyes darted toward Einar and his complexion began to turn blue:
“In any case?”
Einar’s mouth was smiling, but the cold light flowing from his ashen eyes sent a chill between Smith’s parted lips.
Though it shouldn’t be possible, that chill seemed to slither around Smith, as if about to strangle his throat.
Yet Smith bit his trembling lips firmly and raised his chin.
“In any case, I’ll accomplish it with my own power.”
Though completely different from what he had originally intended to say, Smith had managed a plausible answer in that brief moment, and opened his mouth again.
“You will never become Crown Prince.”
It was partly to cover his slip of the tongue, but also something he couldn’t bear to keep inside any longer.
To Smith’s seething whisper, Einar chuckled and whispered back:
“Neither will you.”
With just one sentence completely turning his insides out, Smith’s bulging eyes reddened as blood vessels burst.
But Smith only glared at him without lunging forward.
He couldn’t even show the impulse to grab Einar by the collar.
Wasn’t his wrist still throbbing from being twisted just minutes ago?
Unlike with the First Prince, he had to suppress his boiling insides, but he couldn’t stay there any longer.
Smith turned on his heel and left without a word, and the First Prince sneered at his retreating figure.
“Crown Prince? What nonsense. Just a greedy bastard.”
Einar also agreed with the First Prince’s words.
However…
While he had always observed Smith’s greed—coveting things beyond his ability—wasn’t his certainty excessive?
“Don’t need Bolshevik, in any case? In any case…”
Though Smith had added later that he would do it himself, Einar had already discerned that it was merely a belated but plausible excuse.
Einar stared at Smith hastily leaving before soon moving away himself.
Sierre, who had left even before the princes’ gathering ended, was resting in his small and modest—or plainly speaking, unimpressive—palace.
As always, his nanny was stuck firmly by his side.
“Your Highness, please take this.”
When Sierre grimaced at the foul-smelling medicine, the nanny sternly admonished him.
“You must take it. You nearly had a serious episode today with that cough that wouldn’t stop.”
Sierre’s small shoulders flinched momentarily at her words.
“Did you… hear the coughing?”
“Of course. This nanny knows everything concerning Your Highness’s well-being.”
As the nanny offered the medicine with a warm smile, Sierre finally sighed and chewed the bitter medicine before swallowing it.
He had to chew it rather than swallow it whole, having nearly choked several times before.
Having learned from experience that not breathing was better than breathing while taking medicine, Sierre held his breath and quickly chewed and swallowed the medicine.
“Ugh…”
The nanny, who hadn’t taken her eyes off Sierre’s grimacing face, tapped his chin.
“You need to open your mouth.”
