TER𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

XlV

.𖥔 ݁ ˖₊˚✩.𖥔 ݁ ˖๋ ࣭ᰔᩚ.ᰔᩚ ⭑. ݁ ˖₊˚✩.𖥔 ݁ ˖๋ ࣭ ⭑
A Stranger’s Grace

 
Several voices rang out through the night air.

“Your Royal Highness, Crown Prince! Your Highness!”

“Did you find him? Where did he go?”

“Your Highness! The empress needs to see you urgently. Please come out!”

‘Crow—, Crown Prince? The crown prince is in this forest right now?!’

The sounds of the knights’ distant voices made her heart sink. Slowly, she began backing away from the area, but in the process she accidentally stepped on a piece of dry wood. It snapped it in half with an audible crunch.

The knights turned in the direction of the sound.

“Are you there? Your Royal Highness, Crown Prince?”

‘What do I do…?’

At that moment, a hand popped out from the shadows and covered Viola’s mouth. Her eyes shot wide open, and she heard a familiar voice whisper into her ear from behind.

“Shh, be quiet,” his warm breath grazed the side of her face. “If you get caught, you’ll hurt not only yourself but also your people.”

This voice… It was the voice of the head knight. He seemed to have managed to follow her.

Viola heard a brief rustling as the knight searched for something on his person before he lightly threw the object toward the area where the other knights were approaching. A small, white tail appeared as it landed, and she could tell that he had released a rabbit.

“Huh, a rabbit?” one of the knights blinked in surprise.

“Keep looking,” another ushered him forward. “Over there… Your Highness, Crown Prince! Really, why would he go out hunting in the middle of the night…?”

After some time, the knights found no trace of the prince and went to look somewhere else. As they went away, the man retracted his hand from her mouth.

“I can let it slide,” the leader of the Royal Knights said to her, in reference to her escaping the villa, “but if you get caught by them, it is going to get messy, Princess Viola…”

At that moment, a thin ray of moonlight briefly illuminated Viola’s face before disappearing behind a cloud.

“What do you mean you will let it slide…?” she asked as her wariness continued to heighten.

“Yes, I’ll keep what happened today a secret,” the knight replied. “However, it would be wise not to do anything so rash in the future, as this forest isn’t somewhere just anyone can come to. More importantly…”

He narrowed his eyes and intensely scoured her face. She hurriedly covered herself as best she could, but she couldn’t hide from him the fact that her skin tone had become splotchy..

“That skin color…” the knight murmured softly.

“Ah, this… This is…”

“Do you have something you need to hide from someone?”

“…!”

‘What do I do? If he gets suspicious…’ Viola bit her lips.

“Okay, I’ll keep this a secret too.”

Viola’s eyes widened in shock. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. He was letting her go not once but twice in a row. His actions were so uncharacteristic of a dutiful knight that she couldn’t help but doubt his intentions in doing so. She stared at him and suddenly realized that she did not even know his name. Actually, she did not know anything about him besides the fact that he was the head of the Royal Knights…

‘Should I ask for his name?’

It was ironic for her to even entertain the idea of learning more about him, because she had stated that she had no intentions of forming any sort of relationship with anyone in the empire, let alone an enemy knight. She hadn’t even wanted his help in the first place… On the other hand, she was currently a hostage, so in all honesty it likely wouldn’t have hurt her to develop good rapport with at least one royal knight. There was a possibility that she could perhaps make use of him to gather some valuable information later. Of course, he probably wouldn’t just meekly help her, but there was no reason to antagonize him right now.

“I don’t get why you’re helping me,” Viola frowned in suspicion.

“What do you mean?” he smirked. “I really didn’t see anything out of the ordinary tonight, and I never met a runaway princess in this forest.”

“… Thank you. I will for sure pay back this debt.”

Viola expressed her gratitude but couldn’t raise her head because of the state of her face. He removed his coat and placed it over her head.

His actions surprised her.

“It, it’s okay,” she tried to return the garment to him. “These clothes are too…”

“Don’t you want to hide your face? Of course, it’s fine if you don’t. I would like to see your bare face.”

Viola’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. The knight pointed his finger in a certain direction.

“Run along that road. If you follow the path, you’ll see the entrance to the Royal Villa.”

She nodded, “Thank you.”

“Next time, don’t get lost. There are a lot of scary beasts here.”

“What?”

“In particular, a very foul beast.”

Viola didn’t know why, but the way the knight’s tone had changed just now bothered her. She felt like he was referring to a person rather than an animal. And for whatever strange reason, his words made her feel self-conscious.

“Come on, go. The beast might come soon.”

She quickly said her goodbyes and ran off in the direction he had pointed to.

After Viola’s figure had completely disappeared, the group of soldiers from before returned from the area they had been searching and looked surprised to see Lustian.

“You were here? Did you catch any game?”

“I caught some,” Lustian said pensively, his tone laced with regret, “but it escaped. Not like it matters since I would have let it go anyway.”

“I don’t understand why you let go of them after you work so hard to catch them,” one of the knights expressed his confusion. “Isn’t there no point in hunting, then?”

“Who knows…” Lustian shrugged his shoulders. “A person’s mind can change at any moment. I might not let it go next time. Anyway, let’s head out.”