Roxiana could no longer bear it.

“Stop it!”

She cried out like a scream.

“Stop it, Your Highness. I understand. I understand, so please stop.”

A smiling face flashed in her mind.

That abominable smile of Elise Hailis, not the Queen of Gania. The vivid memory of that face smiling lasciviously while talking about the death of my family made me want to vomit.

It felt as if time had gone back to that moment. As if I had been dragged into that hopeless darkness in an instant.

That’s why I didn’t want to hear anymore.

“No, I must continue.”

“Why? Why are you recalling such terrible memories?”

“Because we need to share.”

“What?”

“If we are to walk the same path, we need to know what each other holds.”

Roxiana tightly closed her mouth and looked up at Floyd. Her face was reflected in his unwavering gray eyes.

How pathetic. How terrified.

“The princess doesn’t tell me everything. So I will. I’ll tell you everything, so at least you should properly know about me. That way, if any conflict arises between us, at least one side will be able to fully trust the other, won’t they?”

“…Do you not trust me?”

“Sometimes I’m afraid because of you, Princess. Afraid you might do something reckless. That’s why I’m telling you. What’s inside me.”

Floyd poked his chest with his index finger.

“What it is. How deep it is. How far I can go. So that the princess won’t risk her life alone.”

His consideration was so intense that Roxiana felt as if she would be burned. Despite how difficult it must be to recall that horrific past, he was telling everything just to prevent Roxiana from doing anything reckless.

What have I asked of such a person?

She felt ashamed of her past request, asking him to kill her and throw her into the sea.

Roxiana wiped away the tears flowing down her face with both hands. Her endlessly trembling eyes fixed steadily on his face.

“Yes, I understand Your Highness’s intention well. Please continue speaking. I will listen attentively.”

“Good. Well, what follows is as you might expect.”

Roxiana quietly looked at him, as she had neither expected nor wanted to expect any of it.

“The fire spread in an instant, and my mother embraced me. Even though there was no way I could survive just by her embracing me, she held me tightly, trying to protect me from the flames somehow. But my hair started to burn, and it became hard to breathe. Then, I heard a voice.”

−”Do you want to live?”

“There was no time to think about whose voice it was. I just begged to be saved. I pleaded to save me and my mother. Then that voice said.”

−”Your mother is already dead, but I’ll save you at least.”

Floyd spread his arms slightly.

“And that’s how I became this body. I felt something rush into me, and after that, I no longer felt hot or short of breath. The fire was extinguished much later, but I survived.”

“Your Highness’s mother…?”

“She was burned black. Unrecognizable.”

“…”

“Don’t make that face. It’s a thing of the past.”

“Will I be alright after that much time passes? Will I be able to talk about my family as casually as Your Highness does?”

Floyd looked down at Roxiana, unable to answer as clearly as usual. Then, realizing that she wasn’t really asking out of curiosity, he felt a deep sadness he had long pretended not to notice.

Floyd covered his eyes with one hand.

“I’m sorry, that’s a lie.”

The voice of the man who had been monotonously recounting all those terrible memories trembled.

“It’s not alright.”

The trembling carried longing. Tears of yearning flowed for the maternal love that had faded with the flames.

If you long, you lose. If you grieve, you lose. The sorrow that had been barely suppressed by repeating these words like a mantra overflowed raw after a long time.

Beside the giant man crying silently, Roxiana quietly watched as his painful past flowed into the present.

+++

Even after Floyd’s tears had stopped, the two sat side by side in silence, watching the distant sea. They watched as the sky turned orange and the massive sun slowly sank below the sea.

Only when the sun had completely set and the moon revealed its presence did Roxiana open her mouth.

“Then how did Your Highness end up coming to our Ider Palace?”

“After my mother passed away, things didn’t get better, and because of the thing inside me acting up, fires would break out here and there. It’s somewhat better now, but back then I had no self-control at all, and flames would suddenly spread. At that time, I heard that the Queen was trying to send me to the Magic Tower. I didn’t want to be confined in the Magic Tower, so I ran away.”

“I see.”

“I saw the princess at Ider Palace. You were running around quite busily here and there.”

“Ah…”

Roxiana blushed, recalling her childish self from that time. Floyd leaned to the side to look at Roxiana’s face and smiled gently.

“I heard your brothers calling you a wild horse.”

“Please forget such memories.”

“I can’t forget such memories. It was the first time I’d seen a princess like a wild horse.”

“…Is that why you remember me? Because I was too… boisterous?”

“That’s one reason. And it rained. The day I left Ider Palace. I was about to leave because I had caused another fire and didn’t want to cause any more trouble, when the princess ran to me.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You ran up and gave me an umbrella. Telling me not to get sick.”

Roxiana looked at Floyd’s face with wide eyes. There was one scene that came to mind very faintly.

Her brothers’ prank. A frog. And someone walking desolately in the rain…

“No way.”

Roxiana covered her mouth with both hands.

“No way. That boy… that boy from back then was Your Highness?”

“You remember?”

“But… but that boy was small and thin…. And pale….”

She remembered a boy so frail that just watching him made her heart ache. She recalled thinking it strange that he was said to be the same age as her third brother Naufried, yet he was so small.

It had pained her heart to see such a boy trudging through the rain, so she had given him an umbrella.

But in the sturdy man before her now, she could find no trace of that boy from back then.

Floyd’s eyes sparkled mischievously as he looked at the bewildered Roxiana.

“That scrawny boy who looked like a malnourished horse is me.”

“How…?”

“Thanks to that umbrella, I didn’t catch a cold, and I grew taller by eating well, and my skin darkened from learning swordsmanship under the sun day after day.”

“Ah…”

“What do you think? Do you feel it was good that you gave me that umbrella?”

This time, tears welled up for a different reason.

Seeing that small and fragile boy from back then grow up to be so refreshing, she felt relieved, reassured, amazed, and for these various reasons, her eyes stung.

“Truly.”

With a trembling voice choked with emotion, Roxiana said,

“You are truly admirable. You’ve really grown up so well.”

She had meant it as the highest praise she could give, but Floyd found it so amusing that he held his stomach laughing before saying,

“Ah, Princess, you really are peculiar.”

+++

The mountain path after sunset was particularly dark and dangerous, but I didn’t feel scared.

‘Is it because I’m with the Grand Duke?’

When I was young, I was afraid of the dark. Once, when I lost track of time playing in the forest next to Ider Palace and night fell, I cried my eyes out in terror at the rustling sounds and animal cries coming from all around.

−”See? This is what happens when you don’t listen to me and play alone until late.”

How relieved I was when the guard knight Robert, who had been hiding behind a tree, appeared. I cried the whole way back while being carried on his back.

‘I was such a crybaby back then.’

Roxiana glanced at Floyd walking beside her.

‘The Grand Duke probably never had such moments.’

His past was unimaginably horrific. She had thought he was just born as the king’s illegitimate son and experienced some discrimination and conflict, but it was beyond imagination.

A life of trying not to make mistakes to protect his mother from the age of 3 or 4. A life where he had to watch his mother being tortured for a small mistake, or even just because someone was in a bad mood. Roxiana couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of life it was to be beaten every day.

‘At that age, I was just a clueless and ignorant child…’

She recalled the thin boy trudging along in the rain. She remembered the dark look in his eyes when she ran up to him with an umbrella.

A dull pain throbbed in her chest.

Now Floyd was walking with a faint smile as if he had forgotten all those memories, but Roxiana’s heart still ached unbearably, as if she were still wrapped up in his past.

She wanted to do anything for him, but couldn’t think of what she could do. So, after hesitating, she carefully took his hand.

Although holding his hand wouldn’t convey these feelings, and it wouldn’t sweeten his terribly torn past, she hoped that even a tiny bit of warmth would be transmitted.

When the small hand wrapped around his, he seemed surprised and turned to look at Roxiana, then gave a refreshing smile. That smile was brilliant enough to dispel the darkness of this forest, but the pain lingering in Roxiana’s chest still wouldn’t disappear.

As if that sadness had shown on her face, he carefully examined Roxiana’s expression and erased his smile.

“Why are you making that face? Are you scared because it’s dark?”

Roxiana quietly shook her head.

“Then? Is it because of me?”

When Roxiana nodded honestly, he grinned.

“Do you pity me?”

“No! How could you be pitiful? Your Highness is not pitiful at all. It’s just, just…”

“I know. How you feel.”

He gripped Roxiana’s hand tightly and started walking again. He walked slowly to match Roxiana’s pace and said,

“I feel a similar emotion every time I see the princess.”