Chapter 42
IV.
“Lena.”
‘Ah…’
It was a morning like a dream. She opened her eyes to find Regnos’s face before her.
“Prince Regnos!”
Lena sprang up as if launched and threw herself into his arms. Regnos patted her back with his large, elegant hands.
This was the encampment of the Aitalosian independence forces, located near the border.
The night before, after shaking off her maidservants, Lenasia had run until her heart nearly burst to the forest east of the imperial palace.
There, she had met the person Regnos had sent, and then she had ridden on horseback with him, once again racing until her heart nearly gave out.
After barely making it to the encampment, Lena had fainted the very moment she saw Regnos’s face. When she awoke, she found herself inside a neatly kept tent.
“Lena, how hard it must have been to come all the way here? You have endured so much, haven’t you?”
“Ah, no.”
Lena waved her hands in denial.
What had it all been for, being dragged to a distant empire and suffering every kind of humiliation?
When she thought that it had all been for Regnos’s safety, and now just seeing him before her eyes, all the hardship of those days scattered in an instant.
“It was for you, Your Highness, so everything is fine. What I endured is nothing at all.”
“Our Lena is always so kind. That’s the trouble with you.”
Regnos’s hand stroked her silver hair. Lena closed her eyes and basked blissfully in his touch, then asked as if a thought had suddenly jolted her awake.
“What sort of place is this? It looked as though many soldiers had made camp… Are they the same ones who attacked Godfrid’s procession?”
“Godfrid?”
Regnos cut in with a word unrelated to the question, his expression stiffening.
Only then did Lena realize that she had called the emperor by name, just as she had done in his bedchamber.
She tried to continue speaking, but her pale face reddened like a peach from shame.
“…It still seemed to be within Taringian territory, so if the emperor were to invade…”
“That is what we are hoping for. We have gathered solely to strike his army and reclaim our land and people.”
“Yes…”
Two conflicting emotions swept over her.
Regnos was striving to revive Aitalos, just as Lena had hoped.
He wore armor and carried weapons, rallied the refugees, and stood at the vanguard of the battlefield.
While the sight of him was so gallant it made her chest feel as though it would burst, the danger he was throwing himself into was so great that her stomach clenched tight.
She wished he would abandon the duty of royalty, the name of Aitalos, everything, and flee to some faraway, remote land.
It was a wish she could not dare to utter aloud.
“Let us go out. I will show you around the encampment. You can greet the people as well.”
Lena pulled herself together and followed behind him.
The cold wind was markedly fiercer than it had been on the day the royal palace fell, so Regnos unfastened the cloak he was wearing and draped it over Lena’s trembling shoulders.
It was a cloak of cold, deep blue, as much a symbol of Aitalos as anything.
“Your Highness, good day.”
“Your Highness.”
As they walked among the tents flying blue banners just the same, the armored soldiers greeted Regnos as they saw him.
They looked at Lenasia, who wore Regnos’s cloak, and their eyes were busy sweeping her up and down with curiosity of the lowest sort.
“It is Princess Lenasia. Show her proper respect.”
Regnos, who had noticed their looks right away, rebuked them sternly. Lena waved her hands in a fluster.
“Ah, no, no. That is not necessary…”
The one who had been known to people as the sixth royal grandchild all this time was Princess Lenasia. Those who had learned that her true identity was in fact Prince Regnos would naturally know that Lenasia was nothing more than a lowly fake.
So she understood why they stared at her as if mocking her. It was not so much heartbreaking as it was simply expected. Posing as a false princess was always bound to be exposed before the whole world.
Lena had, after all, spent her whole life protecting Regnos precisely for that day…
“No, that will not do.”
Just then, a dignified voice spoke, and a middle-aged man in armor appeared.
His graying brown hair and beard were finely styled with oil, and his polished plate armor and boots without a speck of mud showed he had taken great care with his appearance.
“The battle for the throne between the Second and Third Princes was fierce indeed. The royal palace of Aitalos had run dry of princes apart from them. Had the Fourth Queen not used her wits to create ‘Lenasia Aitalos,’ we cannot even be certain whether Lord Regnos would be alive before us now.”
“Duke of Maido.”
“Then should we not properly express our gratitude to this person who protected Lord Regnos?”
“…Y-You speak justly.”
At his words, the soldiers reluctantly bowed their heads toward Lena.
But the man himself, even while expounding on that gratitude, merely smiled at Lena and did not particularly show her any respect.
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