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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Kindness
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Meanwhile, the dozen or so men who had rushed to the imperial palace, eager to get a look at the princess, now mounted their horses with grim expressions.
Their minds were a whirlwind of thoughts, though for different reasons than their master's.
From the moment they stepped into the audience chamber, they had been seething with rage.
‘How dare they insult our lord?’
But the moment they saw Chloe up close, they faltered.
What was this delicate, adorable creature, looking like a little white snow cat?
Her silver hair, tinged with blue, was like snow on a vast field at dawn.
It was the same mystical color that appeared when the blue of the dawning sky reflected upon a fresh blanket of overnight snow.
Though it was the same color as the Emperor's hair, on the princess it seemed far more special, lending her a dreamlike aura, as if untouched by the world.
It was truly strange.
‘We’d heard the Arental royals were steeped in luxury and hedonism.’
Why, then, did the princess give off no such impression?
The Emperor, the Empress, the prince—greed was written plainly on all their faces.
Yet Chloe showed not a single trace of it.
‘Is she good at hiding her true nature?’
It was possible.
The Arental people they'd encountered were, for the most part, experts at concealing their dark intentions, delighting in hurling insults with their serpent-like tongues.
‘Don't be fooled by her appearance.’
They stared hard.
But whenever Chloe blinked her large, glass-like eyes with that innocent face, their vigilance wavered.
‘Is it sorcery?’
They'd thought only the Empress used sorcery. Was the princess also using it to bewitch them, to make them lower their guard?
Otherwise, it was impossible for a person to look so adorable and beautiful.
‘Could it be true that our lord fell for the princess at first sight…?’
After all, Calius had a soft spot for cute things.
He had a weakness for small, cute animals—so much so that he had already rescued and nursed several dying snow cats he'd found in the snowfields.
In truth, most people from Ronheim were the same.
No matter how hungry, the people of Ronheim never hunted small creatures like snow rabbits or snow cats with their soft, white fur.
There were historical and environmental reasons for this, tied to Ronheim's unique ecosystem, but the point was, they had a custom of protecting small, weak life.
And so, their slowly softening hearts froze solid once more at the derisive whispers of the Arental nobility.
Words like ‘primitives,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘a pack of thieves’ drifted from all around.
‘Damned Arental bastards.’
‘Why would a princess be any different? She's just a wolf in sheep's clothing.’
The princess no longer seemed so lovely.
Come to think of it, ever since they had arrived, the princess had avoided looking at them directly, only stealing unpleasant glances.
Their feelings already rubbed raw by the Arental nobles, even Chloe's minor actions struck them as offensive.
‘Does she mean she can't even stand the sight of us?’
Then, when Chloe answered Empress Cavalla’s question about the marriage, their discontent reached its peak.
“Yes, I agree.”
It was a tiny voice, barely audible.
What was that half-hearted reply, uttered as if against her will?
‘It's not like we're thrilled about this either, you know?’
They wanted to shout it at her right then and there.
But seeing the back of Calius’s head as he stoically endured the humiliation, they managed to suppress their rising anger.
If they felt this repulsed, how much worse must it be for Calius, the one actually getting married?
And yet, he was enduring it all for the sake of Ronheim.
At least, that was how it appeared to his men.
And so, their hearts broke as they watched Calius kneel before Chloe.
‘Why must you bow so servilely to the princess of Arental, my lord!’
They screamed in silence.
Blinded by their outrage, they failed to see her gaunt hand, frail as a root, resting upon Calius's.
Had they calmed themselves for even a moment and noticed that the arm peeking from beneath her slightly raised sleeve was unnaturally thin, they might have suspected, as Calius did, that Chloe was being mistreated.
But their vigilance, worn thin and made hypersensitive by the prejudice of the Arental people, was stretched too taut to notice such details.
They glared at Chloe with displeasure when she snatched her hand from Calius’s as if having a fit. They continued to glare until the betrothal ceremony ended and they had left the audience chamber.
And now, with cold, hard expressions, they followed Calius, mounting their horses one by one.
Was there no way to stop this absurd marriage?
Just as they were all spurring their horses onward with such thoughts…
“Um…!”
A faint, delicate voice, no louder than a mosquito's buzz, came from somewhere.
Calius and Brentian were already gone. Alex, at the rear of the group, caught the faint sound just as he was about to leave.
An unwelcome face appeared beside his horse.
It was Chloe.
“The princess? …Your Highness, I mean.”
Flustered by the unexpected encounter, Alex had addressed her without her title, then hastily corrected himself.
He scowled, inwardly cursing his stupid slip of the tongue.
‘Is she going to make an issue of this?’
He'd lost count of the times Arental people had seized on some trivial matter to cause trouble, so Alex was certain Chloe wouldn't let his mistake slide.
Of all the rotten luck, he, the least eloquent among them, was the one to face her, and right when the quick-witted Calius and Brentian were gone.
Alex shifted nervously, his eyes darting about.
But Chloe didn't seem offended in the slightest.
Her face was slightly flushed as if she had been running, and after catching her breath, she simply held out her hand to him.
“…?”
Alex stared blankly at her small, white fist, no bigger than a child's.
‘Is she telling me to bow my head and beg for forgiveness?’
Thankfully, before he could press his forehead to her fist in apology, she spoke.
“You dropped this.”
“Pardon? What was that?”
He hadn't misheard her; he simply couldn't process the situation and had asked out of confusion.
But Chloe, assuming he hadn't heard her quiet voice, repeated herself, speaking clearly and a little louder.
“This. I saw you accidentally drop it in the hallway a little while ago.”
Only then did Alex see the bracelet in her hand, woven from threads of many colors.
It was terribly old, frayed and dirty in places—unmistakably his.
“Ah…!”
He scrambled off his horse and respectfully took what she offered.
He was bewildered.
“Did you come all this way yourself just to give this to me…?”
To his astonishment, Chloe smiled.
It was a radiant smile.
“It’s a precious item, isn't it? I know because my friend has a similar one.”
Alex's mouth hung open.
He was stunned, first by how beautiful her smile was, and second by the realization that it held no mockery or scorn, only pure kindness.
And he was stunned a third and fourth time that she seemed to know the meaning of the bracelet.
“Th-thank you! Thank you so much!”
“It was nothing.”
Chloe smiled, looking immensely pleased to have returned it to its owner.
It was a truly heart-stoppingly beautiful smile.
Soon, horrified maids rushed over and dragged Chloe away, so Alex parted from her with barely a farewell exchanged.
As he mounted his horse again and spurred it on, Alex belatedly tilted his head in thought.
‘A friend? Does she have a friend from Ronheim…?’
The bracelet he had dropped was an item called a Platus.
Platus means ‘a prayer for a precious one.’
In Ronheim, there was a custom of weaving bracelets from threads of various colors and giving them as gifts, imbued with prayers for a loved one’s happiness, safety, and good fortune.
It was a unique custom born from the superstition that if one wore it when leaving home and kept it safe until their return, they would be guaranteed a safe journey the next time as well.
Alex's Platus bracelet was a gift from his mother.
‘Nah, there's no way an Arental princess has a friend from Ronheim. Still, it's strange that a princess from a nation that calls us barbarians would know about our culture.’
She even came to deliver it in person.
Chloe's radiant smile still flickered in his mind.
‘What was that about? She can speak perfectly clearly, so why did she mumble in the audience chamber? She knows how to smile like that, yet she didn't even crack a smile for our lord.’
Did she have a sudden change of heart in that short time?
‘Hah, I really don't get it.’
Alex scratched his head.
‘She doesn't have some dark ulterior motive, does she?’
He worried she might use this incident against him later.
‘Still… I owe her one.’
Even as he told himself to remain suspicious, a small flicker of hope that Chloe might be a good person sparked in a corner of his mind.
With a conflicted expression, Alex looked down at the Platus bracelet in his hand.
