Chapter 10

Chapter 10

「Originally, before a princess or princess reached 2 years of age, they should have had their names and titles put up on temples all over the continent, but some people said the princess was sick, and others said that the princess had died early.……. 」

「Died, who said she died!」

「……Wait. Your Ladyship, why are you yelling.」

「Do you think I can’t not yell in this situation?」

She had perfectly fine webbed feet and an adorable little beak!

My kid might be cursed, but that doesn’t mean she’s lacking in other ways!

Ho-onk!

I flapped my wings, trying to cool off.

My voice cracked a little, and Haniel turned around to look at me and giggled.

I’m not sure if a baby swan can actually laugh like that, but it looked like that to me.

「Your, Your Ladyship. Why do you keep getting worked up, is there something going on?」

「………No. It’s nothing.」

I suddenly thought of something while I gave an evasive answer.

And thinking back on what I’d heard from Selene so far, I felt a spark of hope light up in me.

「Hey, if the emperor doesn’t really care about the princess, doesn’t that mean he won’t know if she’s gone missing?」

「……Uhh yes? But why do you ask?」

「The emperor is already busy with the war conquest and on top of that, he still has yet to crown an empress, so even if he had someone taking care of the princess, if she disappeared, he wouldn’t really……」

「Yes. He wouldn’t really kill someone over it.」

「……..」

「He’d probably tear them limb from limb.」

Selene slowly opened her eyes and then shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

「That’s the kind of person the emperor is. Years ago when the youngest prince was kidnapped, he caught the criminal himself and then had him burned over a fire for an entire week. He made sure to only scorch him gradually so that the criminal wouldn’t die immediately…….」

「Hey hey hey, you are just, seriously. 」

How can you say something like that with such an innocent face.

The ray of hope disappeared as I looked at Selene gleefully imitating what the kidnapper must have looked like burning at the stake.

And after turning round and round like a roasted duck, Selene noticed my complicated look.

「Really, Your Ladyship. And on another note, what should we do with that kid? I also asked around today but no one knows about it.」

「What do you think we should we do.」

I heartlessly took back the hands I’d automatically stretched out towards Haniel.

I was unlucky as it is, it’d be the worst case scenario to get caught up in this mess.

「We need to find its owner immediately.」

……Of course I’d hate to be a smoked swan.

◇ ◆ ◇

“How did it go?”

Rashid’s voice dropped to a cool tone as he spoke while sitting on the throne.

His gaze was aloof as his eyes skimmed over the letter that was passed to him, not even giving the kneeling fourth prince, Tenon, a glance.

“……Your Majesty.”

“I asked you how it went.”

The throne that was embellished with diamond and silver seemed to lose its shine in front of its owner.

The overwhelmed Tenon falteringly opened his mouth only after being prompted to quickly speak by his second brother, the Grand Duke Kirel.

“It, it seems that Loam cast a hypnosis spell on the princess’s maids. They don’t remember anything that happened after Loam entered to visit the princess. They all get splitting headaches when they try to remember more…….”

“Then just cut them off.”

“………”

“What’s the use for heads that only hurt and can’t remember anything.”

Rashid lifted his eyes with a look as if what he said was completely natural.

His eyes, which were the reddest and closest to the color of blood among the royal siblings, held no emotions within them.

“………Why are you just standing there?”

How dare you, when I told you what to do.

Growing impatient, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

His beautiful looks, as if sculpted, kindled with an otherworldly rage.

“If you can’t do it then I have no choice but to do it myself.”

“Hyung-nim.”

Unable to watch from the side any longer, Kirel stepped in front of Tenon and spoke.

As the next oldest younger brother to the emperor who had yet to have an heir, he had a little more say than the other siblings.

A golden cloak, which could only be worn by the ruler, fluttered beneath Rashid’s feet.

“Please calm down. Loam probably cast a powerful spell and thus it will be absolutely impossible for those maids to remember anything.”

“So you’re saying, spare the things that lost their owner?”

“Pl, please reconsider for when Haniel returns. We need to have people to watch over the child, and as Your Majesty knows, you….ehem.”

Not only Kirel, but Tenon as well, lowered their heads as if powerless.

And if the other princes were here, they would have acted in the same way.

The only girl in the imperial palace that was originally full of boys.

Just by thinking about it would make one get body aches all over.

The princess’s small, delicate body that looked like it would break at any moment.

The brothers, who at the warfront would yell at each other, ‘I’m first,’ before running into the chaos, would push each other forward while saying, ‘You first,’ in front of their baby sister.

As for the only person who’d approached the baby without hesitation…….

“……..What did I do?”

“No, nothing.”

Kirel dropped the thought.

He swallowed a sigh as he looked at Rashid’s eyes. He still couldn’t forget how his older brother treated the newborn infant.

“………Your Majesty, Mother didn’t have enough energy as she gave birth to the child and has…My deepest apologies. She was without much strength in her old age, and was shocked by Father’s death.”

“Is this the child?”

Step step.

Unlike a man who had returned home only to hear the sad news, Rashid had on a calm expression.

He didn’t seem to be very sorrowful or surprised at the news of the one who’d passed on.

His blood stained cloak fluttered as he approached the golden cradle.

“……Hyu, Hyung-nim! You can’t-!”

“Is it dead?”

Poke, as expected, the finger that he used to jab at the baby’s cheeks was covered in blood.

What did he want to do!

As the appalled brothers desperately rushed forward to stop Rashid, but before they could do anything, the infant’s large red eyes flinched and opened, quickly filling with tears as the small face appeared very close to bursting into wails.

“Hm…… Looks like the child’s alive.”

That was all he could think to say when he saw his newborn sister after returning from the warfront.

At that time, he looked as though he was bored, without any emotions expressed on his face.

“It’s fine as long as the child’s alive. I’m going to return, so I’ll leave the child’s welfare to Kirel for now.”

He turned around and, after cleaning his hands of blood with the handkerchief offered by a maid, walked away without pause in his step.

It was obvious where he was returning to.

Kirel, who was about to be abandoned with the blood-stained child, raised his voice.

“Pl, please give her a name! Only you, Hyung-nim, can grant the princess a name according to Rohanian tradition…….”

“How annoying.”

Rashid stopped walking and turned his head.

His eyes held a look as if wondering if a baby girl really needed something like that, but of course, a name was necessary for everyone.

After sinking into thought for a bit, he loosened his furrowed eyebrows and raised his chin as he spoke.

“…….Haniel. Use that.”

“Hyooh.”

Are you serious, how could you give the child a name that Mother used for her pet in the past.

Kirel thought of the pet swan that used to float around the lake in the empress’s palace, and shook his head.

Though they weren’t able to get an oracle for the naming like they had for the other princes, Kirel couldn’t believe that Rashid would just casually stick on a name like that without doing anything else.

But his older brother, who had ascended the throne as a strict emperor after their father’s passing in battle, had given the order, so unless another order came out of his mouth and since there wasn’t an oracle or anyone else to contest this, all everyone could do was just smile and take it.

“…..Speak. What are you saying I did?”

“Hyung-nim.”

At the unexpectedly persistent Rashid, Kirel started sweating bullets, but it was better this way if he could prevent his eldest brother from killing the maids.

“Haniel seems to still be shy and unable to break out of her shell. She also seems to struggle with speaking as her speech is slower than others her age, so if you change the people who had been taking care of her, that would definitely-”

“The child’s speech is slow?”

“……Did you not know?”

Kirel opened his eyes wide as he appeared shocked and confused. He then looked at Rashid with a slightly reproachful expression on his face.

“Then when will she be able to talk properly?”

“That, that is.”

“………”

In actuality, neither of them knew about the child’s education and development.

From the 27-year-old Rashid to Loam, who had just gone through his coming-of-age ceremony, the brothers had been born within a year or two of one another, but the siblings after Loam were born with more years in between.

The sixth and seventh children, the twins who had turned ten this year, were young enough already.

But then their mother gave birth to the youngest that was three years younger than the already young twins, a girl, turning their family into a situation beyond what words could describe.

……What a situation.

Though the brothers had all worried for their mother, who at that time was past forty, her pregnancy to them had always been like a story from a far off country.

Looking at their mother’s bloated stomach made them turn their heads in a daze already, of course they couldn’t have imagined a tiny sister growing inside.

“Um, Hyung-nim. Perhaps if you throw or drop the child like you did with Helon or Aaron and she cries from it hurting-”

“Are you crazy, Tenon!”

“……….”

That’s also a method, though!

But the Grand Duke glared so hard at Tenon that it looked like his eyes were about to fall out.