Chapter 11

“Your highnesses. If you feel uncomfortable going back to your bedroom, I will serve you.”

It was around the time when I got tired of staying in bed all the time even though I was better. It was good news for us, who had been quiet for two days in this desolate room, without saying anything.

‘Let’s get out.’

Argen looked at me with a slightly reddish face and spoke after a long time.

‘I don’t know when we can go out or not.’

Fortunately, we haven’t seen the emperor in two days and people aren’t friendly to us, but at least we were more comfortable than we were in the city of Derolina.

After deciding to go out, I had to walk a long way. We were small and the emperor castle was wide.

I was proud of my physical strength, but I wondered if other nobles my age suffered this pain every time they walked in the hallway.

Fortunately, the road to the garden was shorter than the corridor between the bedroom and the dining room.

The maid took us to a place where flowers were in full bloom, and after noticing that she was telling us to play here for a while, I sat on the floor and began to pick flowers and make flower crowns.

Dozens of eyes have been glued to my every movement.

I didn’t say anything because I felt burdened to watch every word and every breath I make.

Of course, on the surface.

‘I’m bored.’

‘How long are they watching us?’

‘I’m sure they’ll be watching all day long.’

‘All day long…..’

‘All day long.’

They followed us around as if we were being watched and had no intention of letting us go out of their gaze unless we were sleeping. Like being under surveillance……

‘Surveillance?’

‘Huh?

“Argen, the maids of the emperor’s palace are the servants of the former Emperor, right?’

‘Right.’

‘They’re the emperor’s people.’

‘….. Ah.’

It might not be wrong to say that they are watching us.

“Shall we put the flowers in this way?”

I said, carefully showing the pile of flowers to Argen, just in case they think we’re not like children if we don’t keep talking.

The flower crown was crude, but it was worth looking at.

I had never seen these pretty flowers before when I was in Derolina castle.

“Not that way, but this way.”

He acted in perfect harmony. In this view of the servants we were just children.

It might be boring to watch us play with a pile of flowers, but they didn’t remove their eyes. They weren’t robots, but I was wondering if they were even blinking.

‘It’s burdensome, it’s burdensome.’

‘You’re not the only one.’

‘I wish I could return my head.’

‘They keep looking this way.’

‘… Ugh.’

Pretending to smell the flowers, I lowered my head and began think about how to get out of their line of sight.

“What are you doing here?”

Of course, it wasn’t long before an uninvited guest came and I had to stop thinking about it.

I raised my head to the voice of a man who I seemed to have heard from somewhere.

Argen’s back in front of me was stiff.

As I looked up more and more, there was only one person shining among the servants wearing similar clothes.

The first thing I noticed was blonde hair.

Not anything else, but Blonde hair.

With a friendly voice, his purple eyes met my eyes.

“It looks fun.”

It was the man from back then.

A man with dark purple eyes who we met on the birthday of the 2nd Prince and the day Lulahel died.

He was still full of smiles.

Blonde hair……

I couldn’t take my eyes off the opponent’s blond hair. On this wide continent, there was only one bloodline allowed to have blond hair.

The man grinned. Somehow the back of the man was a little buzzing, but as soon as the man turned around, it became quiet as if nothing had happened.

“Did I surprise you?”

Saying so, he came a step closer and bent one knee. As if he were taking an oath of a knight, he kept at eye level with us kneeling on one knee.

“I’ll say hello properly this time.”

He showed us a smile that was so bright enough to revealing his teeth as if he had been waiting for this moment.

“The 2nd prince of the Yuriana Empire and your family.”

The man said so.

*******

He was the 2nd prince. The man I met on the tree at that time.

The only difference was hair color, but the man looked better in gold than dark hair.

‘The 2nd prince……’

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

He sat down before I could even wrap my head around it.

Sitting together on the flower bed, he saw the flower crown we had made with a languid face.

Although he had a soft gaze, I wriggled my hand holding the flower crown as my fingers felt hot due to the gaze.

‘Arien.’

‘What?’

I didn’t know the 2nd prince, whose birthday is only two weeks apart from ours, was that man. The first imperial family I met had to be corrected to the 2nd prince, not the emperor.

Perhaps it was because of the 2nd Prince that I thought I had seen the emperor somewhere before.

Yeah…… So he was my half-brother and Argen’s half-brother…. Who, unlike us, could be the future crown prince of the empire.

One way or another, he was an imperial family. It means the same blood that left us in a remote castle. We tried to get our expressions together so that we didn’t show a deep sense of alertness.

Isn’t the second prince 10 years old?

“…… eh?”

At that moment, I made a big noise when Argen said it.

The 2nd prince gave me a curious look, seeing me astonished with only the flower crown fluttering.

I had to panic in a different sense when I saw the 2nd prince.

This man with a tall sturdy build enough to look like an adult with a heavy voice and flexible way of speaking… is 10 years old?

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh……It’s nothing.”

“Oh my, you’re finally answering me.”

The voice was so soft, but we couldn’t relax as the other person was our opponent.

“How does it feel to be in that beautiful place you were talking about?”

They said we were illegitimate children and ignored us, but he didn’t know the righteousness of asking us such a question, so I lowered my head and moved my eyes.

“……..”

AsI was on edge, the 2nd prince smiled softly.

“I hope you like it.”

“…….”

“You know, don’t you want to know my name?”

“….. Um… What’s your name?”

The remark drew his head with a smile.

“Alec.”

“Alec?”

The name he said was strange, so I just followed him. At first glance, the 2nd prince’s name didn’t feel that light.

When Argen also gave a curious look, he took his index finger on his lips in a hushing position.

“To be exact, I’m Alexander Eugen Yuriana”

Then is Alec a nickname? To avoid the prince who tries to sit as close to us as possible, I  subtly moved my body back.

Unlike when we met that evening, the blonde hair that was a little darker than us shined in the sunlight.

“Alec is a nickname that ‘family’ only call.”

Family…

Alec didn’t seem to know how sensitive the subject is for Argen and I.

The half-brothers who didn’t even know us were nothing but objects of resentment.

In fact, they were innocent.

I don’t know what my father does to his children from outside.

However, I didn’t feel good about it because my heart couldn’t understand even though my brain understood it.

They had no reason to resent us, but we were still young to know it and pretend nothing was wrong.

Even if the 2nd Prince approached us with a smile and was 10 years old, he was still an outsider.

An outsider who is strange and may be dangerous at any time.

“Argen, Arien. What’s your nickname?”

“…….”

“We do not have…..”

I wish you would stop asking questions and go back.

I and Argen are the only ones who call each other’s names, but I’ve never made anything like a nickname or ever had one.

“You don’t need it because the original name is pretty.”

The 2nd Prince extended his hand as if he were thinking of something. It was towards me, not Argen. Even though I tried not to be nervous by the hands coming down from above as if he was trying to touch my head, my body naturally became stiff.

“You’re the first one to have a name that our father gave you. My mother named all the other brothers.”

I knew he wouldn’t hit me, but my shoulders trembled little as it has been adapted that way…..

The 2nd prince’s eyes narrowed when he saw it. I couldn’t take his hands off and kept silent for a while, but then he continued.

“…… Because there’s something on it.”

He took the petals off my head, I furrowed my eyebrows without knowing it.

‘Let’s just go.’

‘Since the Emperor brought us, he seems to be curious…..’

‘….. is it strange?’

‘It must be strange, he’s got a younger brother and sister over night.’

I suddenly looked at the man in front of me. To the point where I wondered if he was really a prince, he remained unwavering in comparison with the emperor.

Judging from the maid’s reaction, I think the 2nd prince is right, but why is he so big?

‘If it’s curiosity, it won’t last long.’

‘He’s probably observing a stranger in his territory.’

Here we deserved to be completely ostracized.

They should have ignored and despised us for being illegitimate instead of talking to us with curiosity and unknowing interest like the 2nd Prince.

That’s one of the few things we’ve been through in this world.

“Ouch…!”

At that moment, one of my forearms felt a great prick. Something poked hard enough for me to let out a sound of pain even though I was used to it.

“Arien, what’s wrong.”

Once again, our pronunciation was very poor. What Argen worried about might have been hard for others to understand.

I tried to put my hand on my sore forearm, but something rolled out of my clothes.

Something that looked like a bee rolled around the flower bed once and flew up into the sky. It’s a well-managed garden without a bee, but it must have been really hard to get rid of all of them.

It was an unavoidable event, so I just shook my fingertips and endured the pain. I knew how good this body was, so I was just holding it in, hoping it would heal soon.

“Come here.”

The 2nd Prince has sharply narrowed the distance I had maintained a little. He tried to look at the wound while holding my wrist so that it wouldn’t hurt.

Everyone keeps spontaneously touching us like this, then becoming surprised on their own.

This is the second time today from the emperor to the 2nd prince.

“What is this?”

He rolled up my sleeves and spat out cold words. Then, with a scary face, he grabbed my wrist and pulled it up. The exposed arm had burn marks and scarring similar to Argen’s. The moment when my forearm throbbed, I groaned, but in the end he never let me go.

“What’s wrong here?”

A word with a piercing coldness that was first heard on the tree, knocked on the edge.