Chapter 20
Dmitry tilted his head slightly and glanced down at Ariella.
Then he let out a deep sigh.
“Of course, I know.
That among us, I’m the greatest monster of all.
Still, don’t get close to anyone but me.”
Why did that remind her of her brother, who used to say that everyone but himself was a beast?
Dmitry was, without doubt, a dangerous man.
The most dangerous of anyone Ariella had ever known.
And yet, she hated that he defined himself as a monster.
“Anyway, don’t get involved with Austin.
There’s no way he’d have good feelings toward you.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Dmitry ended the conversation with that and turned his back to her.
It occurred to Ariella that she might not see him again until the joust.
Her heart rushed, and she shouted after the man who was already striding away.
“Why exactly does Prince Austin resent you?”
As if struck by her words, he froze in his tracks.
He whipped around, his eyes blazing.
“How do you know that?”
“I just… saw it in his face.”
Ariella shifted her gaze to the distance, feigning distraction.
It was no secret that the Emperor wanted to depose the Crown Prince.
Of course, the relationship between him and the second in line would be strained.
But what Austin had shown her was something different.
Resentment was never simple.
It was more like… like a man who’d had his woman stolen.
While she recalled Austin’s expression, Dmitry had stepped right up to her.
His eyes unreadable, his lips parted slowly.
What in the world was he holding back like that?
“I should have just kept you locked in the tower…”
Honestly, did he think he could just say anything?
“Was that supposed to be muttering to yourself?”
Dmitry didn’t answer.
Instead, he turned sharply, his movements edged with irritation.
“What?
And are you really going to ride in the joust with that injured arm?
Are you really going to do it?”
Her empty cry echoed off the distant mountains and returned like a hollow echo.
In a country where hunting was never abandoned unless a limb was lost, of course, he would ride.
She sighed deeply.
Ariella stood watching the man, who became a shrinking speck in the distance, until he disappeared from sight.
She should be used to it by now, yet every time he turned his back it felt as though she might never see him again.
Only when he was completely gone did she finally shuffle back toward her quarters.
She would embroider white butterflies on a sky-blue cloth.
One stitch at a time, with a prayer that he wouldn’t wound himself again where he was already hurt.
***
In Forenze, nobles and royals usually made their social debut at seventeen, during the spring of that year.
The royal family would set off the fireworks to mark the season, but the true beginning came with the salon of the most influential matron of that year.
Ariella’s own debut had been planned for this spring.
If not for the sudden marriage proposal sent flying to Forenze, she would have made her entrance safely enough, in presentable form.
She glanced down at her flat, unimpressive chest, which showed no sign of blossoming.
It was like hunting for Easter eggs that weren’t there.
Another sigh escaped her lips.
Why did this country make all its clothes like this?
Forenze also favoured feminine dresses, but they pursued a more natural sense of beauty compared to Triphina.
Ariella touched her bare shoulders self-consciously.
The dress emphasised the waistline, while the hem flared out almost excessively.
It was clothing designed to highlight femininity to the extreme.
Of course, she understood she couldn’t wear the kind of dress a young girl would wear now that she was Crown Princess.
But still… wasn’t this going too far?
“If I go out in this, they’ll say not only my face but my figure is amusing.”
“There’s no one in the world rude enough to say such a thing.”
Reina bustled around the room, but still found time to answer Ariella’s grumblings.
“There is someone like that, actually.”
Ariella turned this way and that before the mirror, examining her reflection.
The lightly draped sleeves over her shoulders and the flowing, watery-blue skirt were indeed beautiful.
The fabric whispered with every movement, catching and scattering the light.
“I like Triphina’s style of clothing.
The only flaw is that beauty comes at such a price.”
“Tell me about it I can barely breathe.”
“You’ll just have to endure it.
There’s no other way.”
As Reina said, the gown for the banquet was flawless.
Since Dmitry had declared Ariella would remain as his consort for now, it was only natural that she attend the imperial banquet.
“It’ll look fine if we just pad your chest a little.”
Reina dragged a trunk over from Forenze.
With a grunt, she opened it and began rummaging inside with determined vigour.
Her movements brimmed with the pride of restoring her nation’s dignity at any cost.
Ariella herself was just glad to have survived but Reina’s pride had been battered beyond repair.
A princess almost locked in a tower for having an ugly face unlike her portrait?
“What, you’ve got a magic wand in there to puff up my chest?”
No sooner had Ariella finished speaking than Reina straightened with a triumphant grin, holding up some bizarre-looking object in both hands.
“Ta-da!
Your fairy godmother has arrived.”
“That… that doughy lump of stuff what is it?”
“Dough? Hardly.
This is all the rage in Forenze right now.”
Reina advanced on her like a predator, her expression fierce.
Ariella flinched back, but there was no escape.
“Even if it’s the fashion in heaven, I don’t want it.”
Her feeble resistance crumbled as Reina’s hands invaded without permission.
“Princess, your dressing is entirely my responsibility.
This is a matter of my pride.”
When the other hand followed suit, Ariella squeezed her eyes shut tight.
“In Forenze, they’d have sewn this padding into the dress itself, but here that isn’t possible.”
Reina spoke without the slightest regard for Ariella’s mortification.
“But there are always other ways.”
She kneaded Ariella’s chest as if it really were dough, shaping it at will.
At this point, it wouldn’t be wrong to say Reina was sculpting her like clay.
“Look.
Isn’t it beautiful?”
Ariella cracked open one eye to glance at the mirror.
Her head tilted slightly.
Well… maybe it did look a little better.
“Would you like to feel mine?”
“Yours is fake too?”
“Fake?
No, this is armour.
Who goes into battle unprotected?”
That explained why her once-flat figure had suddenly grown more noticeable one day.
“It’s a secret weapon, so to speak.”
Leaving behind those words, Reina marched off again, her every step like that of a soldier determined to erase past humiliation.
This time she returned with a pair of high-heeled shoes.
Made of deep blue satin, they looked so delicate they might shatter at a single misstep.
They matched Ariella’s watery-blue dress perfectly, as if painted into the outfit.
The slender heels looked precarious, but their elegance would turn any head.
“Go on, try them.”
Ariella nodded resolutely.
She’d already stuffed her chest there was no way she could shuffle into the banquet dragging her skirts.
The shoes fit as though made for her.
Her heels lifted high, forcing her back straight.
Thanks to that, the gown that had looked awkward before now suited her far better.
“You look beautiful!”
“D-do I?”
“Of course.”
Reina beamed at Ariella’s reflection.
“These shoes were meant for your debut, Princess.
I knew they’d suit you.”
Pride glowed in Reina’s face.
If Ariella was going to look awkward regardless, then it was best to aim for the very best.
At least Reina’s spirits would lift.
“Her Majesty the Queen should have seen you like this…”
Reina’s eyes clung to the mirror.
Ariella’s thoughts drifted to her mother.
Was it true that when you missed someone too much, you couldn’t even remember their face clearly?
Her eyes prickled with heat, and she rubbed the back of her neck.
“Thank you, Reina.”
“Oh, come now.
This is just my duty.”
“No.
Without you, I couldn’t have endured this place.”
Reina’s nose stung, and she shook her head.
When their eyes met in the mirror, both broke into smiles at once.
With Reina’s encouragement, the fluttering anxiety in her chest calmed as though it had never existed.
If the banquet hall were a battlefield, then she had completed her preparations for war.
Just as she finished, Eric arrived to escort her.
“Welcome, Princess.”
“Are you ready?”
Ariella nodded, and his smile softened warmly.
How strange that such a kind man was called the Crown Prince’s watchdog.
The nickname felt wholly unfitting.
“Then let us go.
His Highness is waiting for you at the front gate.”
After exchanging a final look with Reina, Ariella stepped out.
Reina watched her vanish down the corridor with the anxious affection of a mother bird watching her
fledgling leave the nest.
Then she suddenly remembered something she should have warned her about.
I should have told her not to act so recklessly, as usual.
“Well, surely she knows that much.”
Reina nodded to herself, chuckling lightly as she returned inside.
It was time for the fairy godmother to rest.
