The Valois princess Lariessa was so overjoyed by the kindness of the golden-haired prince from the neighboring country that she almost forgot the sorrow of losing her elder sister.

She came to her senses with a start and shook her head. No, I’m the kind and gentle Lariessa. While maintaining my gentle image, I must smoothly continue the conversation about whatever topic Alfonso has brought up.

But she had never really talked about herself before.

“Shall I paint a still life? I like painting flowers or vases.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lariessa boldly added,

“A few years ago, I even won an honorable mention at the Prix de Montpellier with one of my works.”

The Prix de Montpellier was a famous gateway for emerging artists in the Kingdom of Gallica. After submitting works anonymously, critics and audiences would score the pieces hung in the gallery, and the results would be revealed a month later.

In addition to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, anyone who received an honorable mention could officially register with the Artists’ Association of the Kingdom of Gallica. The competition was very fierce and of a high standard.

“The Prix de Montpellier? Wasn’t the qualification for that competition limited to married men under 30 years of age?”

Because winning the Prix de Montpellier brought wealth and fame, there were also intense conflicts and checks. After years of slander and labor pains, the competition had gradually accumulated strange restrictions that each side had made to their own advantage.

To prevent established artists from submitting works anonymously, the restriction of “under 30 years of age” was imposed, and to prevent an overly talented young emerging artist from suddenly appearing and shaking things up, the restriction that “only married people are eligible” was added.

Recently, to safely divide the limited pie, the prohibition of female painters was also added.

Lariessa’s face, hidden behind the mask, turned bright red. These were recent restrictions, so she, who in fact had little interest in painting, was not well aware of them.

Painting was something her dead elder sister Susanne had enjoyed, and it was the deceased Princess Susanne who had won an honorable mention at the Prix de Montpellier. The ban on female painters was the result of Princess Susanne’s honorable mention.

There had been a call to ban the submission of works by aristocrats, but when resistance became intense at the last minute, they had changed direction to prohibit female painters. It was a historically significant development, but Lariessa, who had little interest in both society and painting, did not know the details.

She had only known and admired her dead sister’s high reputation and the praise she received.

She swore to the heavens that she had no ill intent. It was just a lie that had slipped from the tip of her tongue because she wanted to look good to Prince Alfonso, but she didn’t know that it would be immediately caught by the very person she wanted to impress.

Thinking it shameful, her breathing naturally quickened. Prince Alfonso, perhaps sensing something strange, lowered his head to her eye level and asked Lariessa,

“Princess Valois…?”

In fact, if she had said, “I tried to boast because I wanted to look good, I’m sorry,” the broad-minded Alfonso would have laughed it off. But to cover up her rising embarrassment, she chose a psychosomatic symptom.

As she thought, “I’m getting angry,” her breathing gradually quickened even more. Gasping for breath, she shouted at Alfonso in a spiteful tone,

“Are you saying that I’m lying right now?!”

Alfonso was startled and let go of Lariessa’s hand that he had been escorting.

“Are you alright, Princess Lariessa?”

When Alfonso let go of her hand, Lariessa misunderstood it as him rejecting her and writhed in humiliation.

No, this couldn’t be happening. How could this be with the “Prince of Gold” she had just met? She had prayed every day to have Susanne’s luck. For everything Susanne had to be given to her as well.

Susanne’s beauty and Susanne’s fame had not come to Lariessa, but instead, Susanne had died.

Everything she had was passed down to Lariessa. The dresses, the jewelry, the prettiest bedroom, and even the marriage proposal with the perfect prince.

In her heart, Lariessa had thought that perhaps Susanne’s death was a gift bestowed upon her by the heavens.

But when the heavens had given her such a gift, she couldn’t accept a situation where, because of her clumsiness, because of her mistakes, she would lose the opportunity that had come from the sky. Lariessa had done nothing wrong. It had to be that way.

“There was definitely an incident where an unmarried woman passed through the Prix de Montpellier! How can you be so rude to me?”

If Lariessa had not done anything wrong, then the one who had necessarily made a mistake in this situation would be Alfonso.

Since it was a fact that Susanne, an unmarried woman, had passed through the Prix de Montpellier, Lariessa accused Prince Alfonso of being ignorant and rude, while only changing the subject.

The more she got angry, the stronger her conviction grew that Alfonso must have thoughtlessly slandered her without knowing anything. Alfonso was at a loss as to what to do when Lariessa, who had been fine, suddenly started shaking all over and getting angry.

“Is there anyone there? Call a doctor!”

Lariessa understood from the short Etruscan words that Alfonso was calling for someone, but she didn’t understand that it was a doctor. Having him call others to witness her current state was a terrible thing.

Suffering from hyperventilation, she grabbed her mask and briefly bent her body like a shrimp. Alfonso approached to support her, but Lariessa mistook it as him trying to restrain her.

“Let go of me!”

Greatly agitated, she pushed Alfonso away, and when the lady struggled violently, Alfonso took a step back, unable to lay a hand on her body.

Lariessa gasped for a while in that state, then abruptly ran into the dark garden.

“Princess Lariessa! Princess Lariessa!”

Prince Alfonso called out loudly, but her back disappeared.

Alfonso was left alone, bewildered and at a loss, in the corridor of the San Carlo Palace where the two had been walking together.

A slight temptation welled up in him. Regarding the premature end of this escort, there was no blame on Alfonso’s part. It was Princess Lariessa who had suddenly gotten angry for unknown reasons and ran into the garden.

Should I tell the attendants to search for the princess, and spend time meeting someone else…?

But Prince Alfonso soon shook his head. He was too honest for that and didn’t know any tricks. Escorting Princess Lariessa was a duty entrusted to him, and if she had run into the garden, it was only right to search for her to the end.

Hearing Alfonso’s call, an attendant belatedly came running.

He told the attendant that Princess Lariessa had entered the garden and might be lost, so they should quietly dispatch people to search for her without causing a stir, and have a doctor on standby in the powder room prepared exclusively for Princess Lariessa.

Then, after giving a detailed description of Princess Lariessa’s appearance, clothing, and mask, and confirming how many people would be mobilized to find the princess, he himself also let out a deep sigh and entered the direction where Princess Lariessa had disappeared to search for her.

Not wanting the princess’s disappearance to escalate into a diplomatic issue, instead of asking, “Have you seen the Valois princess?” Alfonso went around asking people nearby, “Have you seen a medium-height woman in a golden dress?”

In any case, the Valois princess’s face was not known to the San Carlo nobility, and she was wearing a mask that covered her entire face, so this was more efficient.

Alfonso was wearing a bauta mask, commonly worn by men, rather than a mask that covered the entire face.

It was an item that emphasized the nose, covering the eyes and nose bridge, with a fringe hanging below to roughly cover the mouth while allowing for eating and drinking. So people who saw him could immediately tell that he was the prince.

“Well, I haven’t seen anyone going to the garden a little while ago.”

Since he was wearing a mask, the people he met did not directly address him as the prince, but they showed respect to him with the courtesy of addressing a prince.

“Not just now, but I did see a medium-height woman in a golden dress going inside a while ago.”

“Ah yes, I saw her too. She looked like a lady of dignity.”

If she had entered the inner part of the garden a long time ago, it wouldn’t be the Valois princess.

“Is that so? Thank you.”

But he continued to ask around, and no one appeared who had seen a woman in a golden dress in the direction the Valois princess had gone. Eventually, Prince Alfonso headed in the direction the woman in the golden dress, who had been seen a while ago, was said to have gone.

Wandering through the geometrically arranged shrubs and the maze trimmed by the gardener’s hand, he soon found himself not in the main ballroom and its main garden where guests were mostly gathered, but in the garden leading to the Queen’s Palace.

The place where he stopped was in front of a small fountain overgrown with ivy vines. Perhaps untouched by the gardener’s hand, the ivy vines indiscriminately covered both the hedge maze and the old fountain.

He knew this place. It was the abandoned fountain behind the Queen’s Palace, where he had run away to play with Ariadne.

And the person he knew was also there. An elegant, medium-height woman in a golden dress. Although her entire face was covered with a volto mask, Alfonso recognized her the moment he saw her.

“Ariadne?”

“Alfonso?”