Chapter 95
Though he had given Sierre advance notice, the reaction seemed too dramatic for merely failing to specify exactly when he would visit.
Almost as if they hadn’t expected his visit at all.
Suddenly, Sierre’s reaction when he had mentioned his visit came to mind.
Hadn’t the child nearly had a fit?
The unpleasant premonition he had felt while looking at Sierre—though it seemed impossible—was growing increasingly intense.
Einar didn’t delay any further.
Passing by the servants who, despite their obvious anxiety, maintained the basic courtesy expected of Imperial Palace servants, he headed straight inside.
Thud, thud.
His footsteps and the acrid smell of medicine mingled and dispersed in the unusually quiet corridor of the palace.
There was no need to ask the servants to guide him to the reception room or Sierre’s chamber.
In this palace permeated with the scent of strong medicine, the place with the most intense smell would be where Sierre was.
Eventually stopping before a door, Einar raised his hand.
Knock, knock.
“Cough, cough-cough-cough.”
Instead of permission to enter, violent coughing somehow seemed natural, causing deep furrows to appear between Einar’s brows.
The increasingly severe coughing changed to a sound as if Sierre were about to stop breathing, and Einar turned the doorknob without waiting for permission.
After all, the moment he entered the palace, word would have reached Sierre.
“Sierre, I’m coming in.”
Einar’s face openly crumpled as he opened the door and entered.
In the center of the enormous bed, Sierre, buried under blankets and quilts, was coughing so violently he seemed about to sink.
Swiftly lifting him up, Einar rubbed his thin back.
“Cough, cough-cough!”
“That’s it. That’s it. Breathe slowly.”
As the prolonged coughing gradually subsided, Sierre went limp, too drained to even hold up his head.
Einar, still rubbing Sierre’s back, slowly lowered him back onto the bed.
Sierre parted his lips, tinged purple, in a face so pale that no trace of blood could be found.
“B-brother.”
Calling Einar with a cracked voice and great difficulty, Sierre smiled awkwardly.
“I’m sorry for being in such a state.”
Stroking Sierre’s forehead, Einar merely shook his head and personally poured lukewarm water to hand to him.
Though it was difficult to swallow due to his swollen throat, Sierre seemed accustomed to it, enduring the pain as he let the water trickle down his throat little by little.
“Huwh.”
As Sierre exhaled a hot breath that radiated fever, Einar spoke.
“You didn’t tell anyone I was coming.”
The small shoulders, limply stretched out, flinched, and Einar chuckled as he wiped away the water droplets on Sierre’s lips.
“I doubt you forgot. You must have had a reason.”
“Aren’t you… going to ask why?”
Meeting the sunken, lifeless eyes that seemed too old for a child who had spent a long time bedridden, Einar lightly flicked Sierre’s nose.
“If you wanted to tell me, you would have answered before I asked.”
Sierre unconsciously touched his nose, experiencing the unfamiliar sensation, and opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again.
His lips moved several times as if he had something to say, but Sierre eventually bowed his head deeply and firmly sealed his lips.
Soon, a large hand that could entirely envelop the small head patted the child gently.
“I’ll listen anytime. Whenever, wherever, my ears are open to hear your story. Any story.”
At that soft whisper, Sierre tightly closed his eyes.
He wanted to speak, but the aftermath of speaking was so vividly clear.
He couldn’t bring himself to speak because he wasn’t prepared to accept the consequences.
No, was he prepared?
Is that why he hadn’t told his nanny about his brother’s visit to the palace?
‘The Second Prince has arrived.’
The nanny’s eyes had trembled madly like a small boat caught in a storm as she said those words.
Of course they would.
There wouldn’t have been time to hide.
The truth that the most devoted nanny of the youngest prince was slowly killing him with various medicines.
Licking the inside of his mouth, which tasted unbearably bitter, Sierre slowly opened his eyes.
His brother before him would listen to his story, as he had said.
He wasn’t someone who visited frequently or cherished him dearly.
Hadn’t his nanny said?
‘The Second Prince? I’ve heard he’s like a free yet terribly capricious wind.’
When Sierre first met Einar, he had felt the same way.
Someone whose presence no one could clearly perceive, yet everyone was affected by, and no one could grasp.
But as time passed, Sierre began to think a little differently as he occasionally encountered Einar.
His brother seemed to be dying bit by bit, though in a different sense than himself.
Since he always disappeared somewhere without leaving a chance for even a brief conversation, Sierre couldn’t know why…
But it must have been so.
Then, at some point, his brother, who had been slowly suffocating from boredom and tedium, changed.
The ashen eyes that always gazed somewhere far away now shone brightly toward one place, and his attitude of indifference to everything changed to movements with clear intent.
And for Sierre, Einar’s change was truly shocking.
Enough to cause great ripples in his mind.
Sierre, who had vaguely endured each day thinking he just had to live and die like this, suddenly—
Truly out of nowhere, began to think he wanted to escape this situation.
But he was still hesitating.
His nanny…
The warm love in her eyes as she looked at him was certainly not false.
It’s just that she probably loved the situation itself—making him sick, nursing him, and being devoted—more than she loved him.
No, even this was merely his speculation.
Unless he asked his nanny directly, he wouldn’t know why she was doing this.
“…erre, Sierre? Breathe.”
“Uh, hah! Hah, hah.”
Apparently having held his breath without realizing it, Sierre gasped and inhaled before finally raising his head.
Sierre, who had been looking at the leaves swaying in the wind beyond the window, soon turned his gaze to Einar.
With a precarious smile that seemed about to shatter at any moment, Sierre opened his mouth.
“May I accompany you when you go on your outing?”
Suppressing the many words he wanted to say, needed to say, he instead blurted out an impulsively occurring thought.
Einar noticed that this wasn’t what Sierre had originally wanted to say, but merely nodded.
“Of course. You’ve never been out before, have you?”
“Yes, that’s how it turned out.”
Since birth, Sierre had never left the Imperial Palace.
Despite having passed the age when princes were obligated to begin their incognito outings, his body was so weak that even this duty had been waived.
Einar opened his mouth toward Sierre, then closed it.
The child’s eyes looking up at him had begun to flutter.
“Brother?”
Sierre reflexively tried to get up when Einar’s hand gently pushed his forehead down, but for some reason he couldn’t move at all and could only squirm.
Einar, who had blocked Sierre’s movement by pressing his forehead with just one finger without much effort, said:
“For now, you should get some sleep. You’ll need rest if you want to go out.”
The darkness spreading from the hand covering his eyes—a hand much larger than his own—felt somehow warm, and Sierre carefully felt for Einar’s hand before exhaling a long breath.
Looking down at Sierre, Einar whispered while still covering his eyes:
“I’ll stay by your side.”
Einar remained for a long time beside Sierre, who had his eyes closed but couldn’t fall asleep.
The unpleasant premonition he had felt from Sierre was increasingly roughly scraping at his nerves.
Around the time Einar was reaching Sierre’s palace.
In the Third Prince’s palace, located in another part of the Imperial Palace.
“Begin.”
Smith jerked his chin toward his tense aide.
“Yes!”
The aide, flipping through a considerably thick stack of documents, explained to the best of his ability.
“As you commanded, I conducted an investigation, but they were foreign merchants with confirmed identities. They weren’t individuals who suddenly entered the Empire this year either…”
Smith raised one hand as he listened to the aide spitting out words in rapid succession, as if he might not be breathing at all.
“So in the end, you’re saying you found out nothing.”
At this, the aide firmly closed his mouth and reflexively took a step back.
However, Smith did not get angry, throw whatever was at hand, or berate him as the aide had feared.
Instead, he asked about something else.
“What about Einar?”
The aide’s face brightened considerably as he hastily picked up another stack of documents.
Unlike the First Prince, the Second Prince didn’t conceal his movements or create diversions to keep his activities from becoming known externally.
Thanks to this, the aide had been able to obtain information about him easily and quickly, and this time he could finally provide an account that wouldn’t upset Smith.
“…and so he visited the youngest prince’s palace, and they will soon go on an outing together.”
“What? With the youngest prince too?”
“Yes.”
The aide swallowed dryly as Smith’s face contorted.
How much time passed as Smith was lost in thought and the aide’s blood ran dry watching him?
“What is he thinking?”
In response to Smith’s quietly uttered self-question, the aide answered like a scream:
“Though no specific conversation was exchanged, it was the youngest prince who proposed it first!”
