Eustar looked at Aline with a surprised expression.

“Did you see a toad? Did you touch it?”

Aline shook her small head.

“I didn’t touch it. They said it was poisonous.”

“Who?”

“The toad mister.”

Toad mister? Eustar’s brow furrowed meaningfully.

There were hardly any men among those who looked after Aline. If it had been an official or another servant, they would have said so, but suddenly a toad mister…

“Aline, who do you think the toad mister is?”

Aline shrugged her little shoulders and snapped off a blade of grass by the water.

“He just said to call him toad mister. He put the toad on his hand and let me see. He said not to touch it because it’s poisonous. When he put it down, it crawled slowly.”

Then Aline looked up at Eustar again and asked with an innocent expression.

“Father, why don’t toads hop?”

“Aline.”

Eustar picked up Aline to meet her eyes.

“What did this toad mister look like? Was he a gardener or a servant? Or…”

“Neither.”

Aline answered. Her fidgeting fingers were stained with light grass juice.

“He’s just the toad mister. He wore black clothes.”

Black clothes. An ominous image flashed through Eustar’s mind. He didn’t know who it was, but there weren’t many positive images that could be associated with black clothing.

“What did that mister say to you, Aline?”

“He just said toads are poisonous. And when he called the toad, it went to him.”

The toad went to him when he called it. Was it really a coincidence? He had never heard of or seen anything like a toad trainer.

There weren’t many beings who could control such things.

“Did he say anything else?”

Then Aline, who had been just blinking thoughtfully, looked up at Eustar gently and said.

“He said I look like my mother.”

At that moment, Eustar’s heart sank. There was a face clearly appearing in his mind.

— I dislike you, foolish descendant of Hyanmorik.

It’s him. Eustar thought. There was no one else who would say such things.

Badin.

“But he said it’s a good thing because I have father’s blood.”

At Aline’s whispering, chirping voice, Eustar snapped back to attention and looked down at his daughter. Aline’s light green eyes sparkled.

“And he said it’s a secret from mother, but the babies are boys.”

Eustar’s fingertips trembled as he held Aline. Whether the young girl knew this fact or not, she was comfortably nestled in her father’s arms, fiddling with her fingers stained with grass juice.

— I’ll make that witch woman bear you sons.

This time, another voice flashed through Eustar’s mind. It was a voice that had clung to him persistently throughout his life, never letting go. Yet it felt so unfamiliar now, as if from a distant past.

“Aline, your mother…”

“He said mother will be fine.”

Aline said, as if seeing right through Eustar. He had been worried about what would happen if something went wrong with Laila giving birth to the children this time.

The heir promised by the demon, but that demon would now be chained, rolling in a place hotter than a fire pit, cursing Laila.

“He says mother will be fine. I don’t know how he knows, but… Father, do you know who he is?”

Eustar looked at his daughter’s face for a moment, then smiled and stroked her chubby cheek.

“No, father doesn’t know.”

The moment he answered, was it an illusion? He seemed to hear something like Badin’s snort. Eustar tried to calm his unsettled feelings as he adjusted his hold on Aline.

“Aline, if that mister appears again, go straight to your mother. Understand?”

To Eustar’s words, Aline unexpectedly chewed her lip with a thoughtful expression before looking at him.

“What if mother is far away?”

It was an abrupt question, but Eustar became more serious and solemn than ever before.

Aline’s sudden words weren’t just due to innocent curiosity. Rather, it was the manifestation of some sense, a sharp intuition of this child that even Eustar or Laila couldn’t accurately grasp.

At times like this, giving a vague answer like ‘Your mother will never be far from you’ was of no help. Instead, Eustar looked Aline squarely in the eyes and answered like this:

“Then come to father. If father is also far away or busy, then tell him this: ‘Father said not to talk to you.'”

Aline, who had been pondering for a moment, blinked.

“I understand.”

“That’s my good Aline.”

Eustar kissed Aline’s round forehead and hugged her tightly. Then, after debating whether to tell Laila about this or not, he finally decided to keep quiet.

The next day, Eustar and Laila left the royal palace just as dawn was breaking. It was best to set out at daybreak as the flower market started early.

Laila asked several times what was wrong, noticing that Eustar’s expression seemed more serious than ever, but each time Eustar brushed it off with a smile, saying it was nothing.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t completely hide that he was concealing something.

“Maybe we should have brought Aline with us after all.”

Eustar blurted out as the carriage was nearing the market. Laila, who had been gazing at the lengthening shadows of light, turned to look at him.

“Why do you say that so suddenly, Eustar?”

“…Just thinking. Aline might have enjoyed seeing the flowers…”

“You know she sleeps so deeply that she wouldn’t wake even if someone carried her off.”

That’s true. Eustar thought.

Aline was a child who had an unsettlingly adult side to her that went beyond her years, but once she fell into a deep sleep, she rarely opened her eyes until she woke up on her own. If forcibly awakened, she would whine and be tired all day.

“You seemed to be talking with Aline yesterday… Is there some problem with Aline?”

At Laila’s sharp question, Eustar hurriedly waved his hands.

“Of course not, how could there be. There’s no problem at all. I told her we were going out, but I just thought she might feel left out.”

Laila still looked dubious, but before she could ask another question, the carriage came to a stop. She carefully stepped down from the carriage with Eustar’s escort and said,

“We should buy a flower that Aline would like as a gift.”

“Let’s do that.”

Even though the sun hadn’t fully risen yet, the flower market was already full of energy.

The entrance was almost too crowded to step in due to merchants coming in with their carts everywhere. You could also see merchants subtly competing to secure good spots, trying to set up their stalls as quickly as possible.

“There are a lot of people.”

Laila said. She had deliberately worn a hat today to cover her black hair.

In Sierou, if you mentioned someone with black hair, it could only mean the queen, herself, and she didn’t want to unnecessarily draw attention. Even so, it would be immediately obvious if someone made eye contact…

“Many people buy fresh flowers every morning to place around their homes. Look, there seem to be a lot of employees.”

Eustar said. Looking around, his words were indeed correct.

There were maids who had come out still wearing their headdresses, and many middle-aged ladies wearing long dresses with buttons fastened up to their necks. They were probably housekeepers of some family or secretaries to ladies.

However, not all the customers were people who had come out to display on their master’s table and corridor.

There were also many local residents and many children could be seen. The children would buy baskets full of flowers, probably to run to other neighborhoods before the sun fully rose to sell them at a higher price.

“It smells nice.”

Laila said, slightly bowing her head towards a bunch of jasmine flowers. A soft, sweet fragrance wafted from the cozy-looking white flowers.

Lilac branches and tuberose, various types of jasmine, cattails shaped like elongated paper balloons… There must have been dozens, hundreds of different flowers and plants swaying in the wind, scattering their fragrances.

In fact, in Laila’s case, she knew the types of wildflowers scattered in mountains and fields better than these neatly trimmed, expensive flowers.

She learned names like tuberose and muscari after becoming queen, and that was thanks to Mel’s subtle injection of education, saying ‘It’s better if you know at least this much.’

But learning the names of flowers was a good thing.

When you know what something is called, that’s when it becomes visible to you. Scenery that you would have passed by indifferently when you didn’t know its name becomes more vivid and precise to your eyes. As if your vision becomes clearer.

“Laila, look at this.”

At Eustar’s voice, Laila turned her head towards him. He was more interested in small trees than flowers. Whether it had been propagated by cuttings, tiny new leaves were just beginning to sprout on the thin branches.

“Isn’t it pretty?”