Chapter 3
Those who knew that the sixth princess was in fact a prince were exceedingly few: the fourth queen, her father the Duke of Maido, and the royal steward Bendry, among a handful of others.
And so the days passed, then the years, then more years.
As Regnos grew, his body reached a shape that could no longer be passed off as a princess’s. Even in women’s clothes, his height differed from Lena’s, and his voice was not the same. Naturally, Lena came to appear more and more often at royal events and gatherings.
Having her portrait painted was one of those duties.
Whenever the court painter lavished praise on her, calling her the most beautiful person he had ever painted, Lena shrank inside. The more faint and forgettable her presence, the better suited she was to her role. A lovely appearance drew attention. And attention put Prince Regnos at risk.
<But you can hardly make a pretty face ugly, can you.>
The fourth queen spoke lightly as she penned a rejection to yet another marriage proposal. Once Princess Lenasia’s portrait was made public, countless proposals came flying in, but the princess’s answer was always a refusal.
The reason was simple. Regnos, who was in truth a prince, could not possibly marry a man. When the time came, he would have to reveal his identity and become the king of Aitalos. Lena, on the other hand, was nothing more than a stand-in, bound to return to the life of a slave the moment her role came to an end.
Rumors of an arrogant, peerlessly beautiful princess living in seclusion at the Aitalos royal palace crossed the borders, but Lenasia had no way of knowing. She simply did as she always had, quietly holding her breath and walking the palace corridors as carefully as if stepping on thin ice.
The king had no interest in the sixth princess, who possessed no outstanding qualities beyond her lovely face, so he did not interfere. But once she reached full marriageable age, the situation would become impossible to avoid. The play of the false princess had to end before then.
The feud between the second and third princes dragged on in its ugliest form, just short of a final resolution. Prince Regnos’s faction, which had been quietly building its strength all the while, sensed that the time had come.
The time to appear like a comet and sweep both princes aside in a single surge of power.
Lena, too, had counted the days waiting for that moment. But what came before the day a crouching Regnos could stretch to his full height was the day Godfrid, the conquering emperor of the rising Taringia Empire, trampled the Aitalos royal palace under his military boots.
Even as the Taringian army smashed down the palace gates, the second and third princes kept arguing, blaming and slandering each other. Fortunately, unlike those fools, Regnos slipped out through a window and escaped the palace in time.
<I’m sorry to leave you here, Lena.>
The grown Regnos was a beautiful man. His silver hair, the very same color as Lena’s, streaming behind him, he looked as composed and dignified as ever, even while clinging to the windowsill.
<Your Highness…!>
<A princess cannot inherit the throne, so they won’t aim for your life. You must survive.>
Lena ran to him with tears in her eyes, and Regnos pulled her into his arms, patting and soothing her.
<As long as you stay alive, I will come for you soon.>
With those words, Regnos left, and Lena, with trembling hands, straightened her tiara and made her way toward the audience chamber.
<I protected him to the very end.>
Fear rose all the way to her throat, leaving her breathless, but hope remained in her chest. Even if she could not keep her promise to Regnos to survive, her death would make him safer. It would buy him more time, as the last remaining royal of Aitalos, to rally the scattered forces and stand against the empire.
Although, the situation unfolded far too differently from her resolve to die with dignity.
The conqueror of Taringia, the emperor.
<Those legs of yours had better grip me tight. Then I’ll let you live.>
She was no longer young enough not to know what it meant to grip something with her legs. His demand was unimaginably obscene, and picturing herself subjected to such a thing was utterly wretched.
After that moment of fleeting interest, the emperor seemed to have forgotten her. Dragged out of the palace, Lenasia was bound and thrown in among a column of Aitalosian prisoners.
Her crown and jeweled ornaments had long since been taken. The elegant, delicate dress that had so suited her silver hair was now crumpled, trampled, and torn under the rough hands of the Taringian army. Her frail wrists bound, she walked endlessly through the muddy water. Unable to endure the forced march, she collapsed into the mire over and over, rolling in the filth until she looked too pitiful to have ever been called a princess. And so she thought the conquering emperor had clean forgotten her, along with his own words.
‘And yet…’
The moment the nights-long march ended and they arrived at an unfamiliar city between Aitalos and the imperial capital, she was washed clean and shoved into his bedroom.
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