When Bern went to the White Palace to get Eva’s dress, Annie, whose face had turned pale with worry, blocked Bern’s way.

“Sir Knight. Please take me with you.”

“There’s no time. We need to hurry. Besides, the mountain path is too treacherous to take you along.”

Bern avoided Annie’s gaze and pushed her slender shoulders aside.

“Then please tell me the truth. Is His Majesty badly injured?”

“Her Majesty the Empress Dowager has ordered silence.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“He was injured but has recovered now.”

“What about Lady Eva?”

“……”

“Is she… in critical condition?”

“She’s passed away.”

“Ah…”

Annie collapsed onto the dirt ground. Bern passed by Annie and mounted his horse. Annie, coming to her senses, rushed after him and grabbed Bern’s strong arm.

“Sir Knight. Please take me with you, okay?”

Bern brushed Annie’s hand away. Her small hand stubbornly grabbed onto the edge of his cloak and wouldn’t let go.

“Where are you going?”

“The Heunzok hunters’ village. Keep quiet.”

Bern had no time to comfort the young maid. Barka, the Heunzok hunters’ leader, had been kind to the Empress but showed no courtesy.

When the Empress Dowager ordered silence, the icy glare she gave made onlookers freeze. It was a piercing gaze filled with murderous intent.

He heard what was to be relayed to the aide through the head of the guard.

That he would personally hand over the corpses of Empress Pamila and two assassins, along with one assassin captured as a witness, to the Emperor; that telling the Emperor to come retrieve the Empress himself meant he was holding the Empress hostage.

Bern felt his lungs might burst from anxiety.

Despite being deep in the treacherous mountains, the closed-off Heunzok hunters’ village was prosperous. With tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, and even healers, it seemed they could manage without outside contact.

It seemed like even brutal crimes could be concealed in that place wrapped up like an iron fortress.

If harm were to come to the Empress!

Bern spurred his horse along the treacherous mountain path, feeling that if anything happened to the Empress, he would have to die too.

Fortunately, when Bern entered the yard, the Empress was watching the carpenters making Eva’s coffin.

*

Annie blankly watched Bern galloping away, his summer cloak fluttering, and clenched her fists tightly.

She quickly walked to the main palace. She asked the servant standing at the entrance for Princess Carolina’s quarters, saying she was running an errand for the head maid of the White Palace. Guided by the servant, Annie entered Carolina’s reception room and knelt at the princess’s feet. Only then did she open her fists to wipe away her flowing tears.

“Your Highness, I’m from Tanae…”

“I know. So, has the eagle come down?”

“That’s not it, Your Highness.”

“Wait.”

Carolina had already guessed the Empress was in a dangerous situation based on the confession of John, who had been Julia’s coachman, and Annie’s expression was also unsettling, so she ordered her maid to leave. Once they were alone, she took Annie’s hand and sat her on the sofa.

“Now, calmly tell me everything.”

Annie precisely relayed what she had heard from Bern. Including the Empress Dowager’s order of silence.

Carolina remembered the Heunzok hunters’ leader who was said to be caring for the Empress. He was the one she had mistaken for Patrick.

“A maid from Tanae died?”

Carolina instructed her maid to prepare a carriage with an experienced coachman, then boarded it with Annie. She stopped her maid from getting on and told her she was leaving the palace regarding the Julia matter.

Even the experienced coachman struggled to find the Heunzok hunters’ village. They climbed steep mountain paths, then backtracked. The carriage swayed precariously at every sharp turn.

Carolina felt a sudden fear. But she had to confirm the Empress’s safety.

A maid from Tanae died in these deep mountains. Yet the Empress Dowager ordered silence.

She couldn’t understand her mother. The Empress Dowager consistently demanded that the princesses maintain the dignity of the imperial family. But her mother’s own dignity varied with her mood and the status of those she dealt with.

Carolina remembered a childhood visit to an orphanage with her mother, when a young orphan boy touched the sparkling red jewel on her mother’s dress hem with his dirty hands. Her mother’s cold touch and gaze as she brushed away the child’s hand with her gloved hand had startled Carolina.

She couldn’t understand her mother and Isabella wearing expensive dresses to volunteer at an orphanage in the first place.

When Carolina first visited the orphanage, she felt ashamed of her lavish dress in front of girls her age wearing drab, sack-like clothes. She had gone dressed as her maids had adorned her, against her own will.

After that, she always went to the orphanage alone, not with her mother or Isabella. In simple dress attire.

So her mother would have treated Julia with higher regard if she were not Tanae’s shadow princess.

As the carriage wheels rattled and felt loose, and the sun was setting, they arrived in the yard of the Heunzok hunters’ village.

Carolina opened her parasol to hide her frightened expression as she alighted.

“Your Majesty!”

The young maid spotted the Empress coming down the mountainside and ran out. Carolina tilted her parasol.

A man with silvery blue hair was holding the Empress. The tall, sturdy man had a tender expression as if holding something very precious, and white birds flew around them like large flower petals or butterflies.

If Harchen saw this scene…!

He would probably charge in as if to blow up the entire mountain.

As Annie ran up, the man carefully set the Empress down. Carolina approached the Empress, lifting her dress hem and bowing her upper body.

“The rising morning sun, Princess Carolina greets Your Majesty the Empress.”

“Lady Carolina. You’ve come such a difficult path.”

The Empress lightly touched Carolina’s gloved hand, saying she had injured her calf and shoulder. Just then, Bern came tumbling down the mountainside.

The Empress said she had come down after holding Eva’s funeral up on the hill. Annie said with an earnest expression that she wanted to go pay her respects at Eva’s grave even now. Patricia smiled weakly and turned to Bern.

“Sir Bern, please. Take Annie to see Eva.”

Bern answered by touching his forehead to his bent arm, then gestured for Annie to follow as he climbed the steep mountainside. Annie fluttered after him.

Patricia looked up at Barka, who stood expressionless with his arms crossed, then looked at Carolina.

“Barka, say hello. The 3rd Princess…”

“No. I’m not interested in imperial etiquette. This is my closed-off space unrelated to the imperial family. Introduce that woman to me first.”

‘You will be my woman.’

Barka whistled briefly twice. The white birds flew to Carolina, touching her long black hair before flying to Barka’s face.

‘You have a very nice scent, Princess.’

Barka knew Carolina.

When he came out after the Empress Dowager’s insulting encounter, she had approached Bern and looked at him with curious eyes.

That she was the second daughter of the Empress Dowager who had treated him like a barbarian was Barka’s first reason for wanting to possess her.

When Patricia helped bring down the white eagle and showed him the letter from Patrick, Barka read it.

As I told you, I will propose to Princess Carolina. Wish me luck.

That she was the woman Patrick would propose to… was Barka’s second reason for needing to possess her himself.

Carolina looked at Patricia’s troubled expression and said with a faint smile:

“Lady Patricia. I’ll introduce myself directly.”

Then she put on a very haughty expression and looked up at Barka with alluring eyes, slightly lifting her dress hem. Unlike when greeting the Empress, she did not bow her head and upper body.

“I am Carolina Eint Carl Berk. Thank you for taking care of Lady Patricia.”

Barka smiled, brushing back his silver hair with his crossed arms.

She omits that she’s a princess? And omits the Empress’s title too. She immediately grasped the intention behind my saying this is the Heunzok hunters’ closed space.

Her scent is pleasing and she’s clever too… Barka’s third reason for needing to possess her.

“That’s enough! I’m Barka.”

Barka said that and then turned abruptly.

“Bi!”

Barka’s subordinate followed. Soon the white birds flew chaotically around them.

“Lady Carolina. Let’s go to where I’m staying. I have a favor to ask.”

As soon as they reached where she was staying, Patricia took out Patrick’s letter from her bedside and showed it to Carolina.

Carolina found it mysterious that the letter Annie had seen attached to the eagle staring endlessly at the sky in the White Palace garden had been delivered to Patricia. And she blushed reading Patrick’s letter.

“I injured my right shoulder and can’t write back. And Harchen doesn’t know about my current situation, right?”

“Yes, shamefully, Mother has ordered the entire palace to keep silent.”

“Patrick probably has a way to contact Harchen.”

Patricia took Carolina’s hand.

“Please write a letter for me.”

“Of course, I must.”

Carolina usually carried a notebook she made herself, along with a quill pen and ink, instead of cosmetics and perfume bottles in her personal bag. She opened her notebook.

Patricia went to the window to look up at the sky so Carolina could write the letter comfortably.

To Your Highness Patrick,

Her heart fluttered as she wrote the name Patrick. She needed to objectively convey the current situation, but her mind was filled with the obsessive thought that she should write beautifully, along with phrases like I miss you, I want to see you, Please come quickly. Carolina flipped through several pages of her notebook before completing the letter.

“To Your Highness Patrick,

This is Carolina. The Empress has injured her shoulder, so I am writing in her stead. We are currently in the Heunzok hunters’ village. There has been a complicated incident related to the Empress of Tanae, and the Empress Dowager has ordered silence. It seems Harchen must come for this to be resolved.

With longing, Carolina.”

Carolina thought her handwriting looked too rigid, so she rewrote it slightly slanted in a softer hand. After writing, the phrase “With longing” bothered her.

Talking about emotions in such an urgent situation.

She was about to rewrite it when she saw the Empress turning to look at her and stood up. She read the letter to Patricia, omitting the final greeting.

“But I don’t see Briga. Lady Carolina. I need to whistle.”

Carolina followed Patricia’s instructions, bending behind her and holding her lower lip with her thumb and middle finger, pressing the middle with her index finger.

‘Then who helped blow the whistle to receive the letter? Sir Bern?’

“Whee-eek, whee-eek!”

Despite repeated whistling, no white eagle appeared in the darkening sky.

She went out to the terrace railing and whistled again. A white bird flew to the railing, and soon after, Barka leapt onto the terrace.

“Trying to call your eagle?”

“Mind your own business.”

Barka laughed, touching his forehead at Patricia’s reply.

“Your eagle probably ate the meat I threw during the funeral earlier and fell asleep. The meat was laced with sleeping medicine.”