Chapter 19
“Hyah—! Hyah!”
“Neigh.”
I was a horse.
A beast running on all fours—a horse.
“Neyche, to the right!”
“Neigh.”
A steed of steeds, one that would brave even cliffside paths at its master’s command.
“This time, turn! Spin around!”
“Neigh.”
Right now, I wasn’t a person—I was a horse.
“Na, Nanny?”
Catherine stared in shock at the sight of me crawling on all fours with the princess on my back.
“Catherine, say hi to my horsey.”
“Ah, hello, Nanny—no, Horsey?”
She actually greeted it? This woman was no ordinary person either.
Who greets a horse like that in the first place?
“Neyche, you have to greet back!”
How was a horse supposed to greet a person?
I nearly snapped out of it right then and hurriedly cleared my throat.
“Neigh.”
“Nanny……”
Catherine gazed at me with pitying eyes.
Damn it, to receive sympathy for something like this.
That grated on me in its own way.
“Puhahaha—!”
The prince laughing his head off grated on me even more.
After laughing for a good while, Edwin smirked as if he’d just thought of something amusing.
“Lia!”
“What, Oppa?”
“Your horse can do tricks too, right? Is that true?”
“Twicks?”
“Yeah, like rearing up on its hind legs and shaking them around.”
“Yesss! Of course it can!”
Emilia grabbed both sides of my head.
“Neyche, tricks! Tricks!”
Tricks, huh.
Daring to order the leader of an assassin guild to perform tricks?
“Neyche! If you don’t listen, I’ll spank you—!”
But even the leader of an assassin guild didn’t want to get his butt spanked by a kid in front of witnesses.
I recalled a horse’s proper role and thrust both arms up toward the sky.
“Neigh!”
“Nanny……”
Catherine’s pitying gaze made my face burn.
But the trials a prince’s nanny had to endure weren’t limited to just this.
‘Childcare really is heavy labor, no doubt about it.’
Anyone who says raising kids is easier than work should be strung up upside down and tempered in a mountain stream.
‘I’d rather lie in wait in a swamp for a fortnight.’
Once the horse-riding game was over, I entered the grand bath to wash Emilia.
“Your Highness, raise your arms.”
“No! Lia, it tickles!”
We had to finish the bath on time to make dinner.
Whether she knew of her nanny’s worry about missing mealtime or not,
Emilia simply kept her arms clamped tight to her armpits and shook her head.
“No! I won’t! Lia just wants to play in the water!”
No helping it.
Time to deploy the secret weapon.
“Your Highness.”
“Yeah?”
“Look here.”
I pulled a small candy from my pocket and dangled it above my head.
The moment Emilia spotted the candy wrapper, her eyes sparkled.
“Candy!”
Emilia flung both arms up to snatch the candy.
I didn’t miss the opening and scrubbed her armpits with the sponge.
“Kyaaah! It tickles—!”
Splash—
The princess couldn’t stand the tickling and flailed her arms, leaving me soaked like a drowned rat.
“Oh, Neyche got bathed too! When?”
“…Just a bit ago.”
I wrung out my wet hair once, then dried Emilia from head to toe.
After that grueling bath came study time.
Edwin had lessons with a tutor who visited once a week, but Emilia did not.
In the imperial household, it was customary for the nanny to handle a young princess’s education.
Only around age twelve could they bring in a lady from a prestigious noble house to teach her the virtues and learning befitting a woman.
Thanks to that, Emilia’s education fell to me.
“Neyche, what does this say?”
Fortunately, the previous nanny had taught her imperial script quite well.
Emilia would read picture books on her own and then ask me about words she didn’t know.
“Which one?”
“This!”
Emilia pointed to a single word in the corner of the book.
[Emperor of the Night]
“……”
“Lia’s daddy is the emperor, so what’s the Emperor of the Night? Are there two emperors?”
The problem was that she occasionally brought strange books and asked embarrassing questions.
I sighed as I eyed the cover’s title, [Night of Burning Flesh and Bone].
“Did you take this from the annex maids’ reading material again?”
“Yeah! Catherine was reading it, and it was so pretty, so I took it!”
Emilia proudly held up the ornate book cover.
“Your Highness, this book is still too difficult for you, so I’ll select another one.”
“Eh? Why? This book’s pretty.”
“Go pick a different book.”
Of all the books to choose, why an adult romance novel?
I couldn’t very well nag an adult like Catherine to change her reading habits.
“Neigh.”
Meanwhile, Emilia sulked with a gloomy face as I carried her like baggage on my arm.
“Then when can Lia read this book?”
“Much later.”
“So what’s the Emperor of the Night? Lia’s curious!”
“…A man who is strong at night is called the Emperor of the Night.”
Emilia tilted her head, as if she didn’t quite get it.
“Then is Lia’s daddy the Emperor of the Night too?”
“…Why would you think that?”
“Lia’s daddy is the emperor, the strongest in the world, so he’d be strong at night too, right? Isn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Damn it, how the hell would I know if the emperor was some stud or not.
I wasn’t curious about it at all and had zero interest in confirming. Suddenly, my stomach turned.
“Why do you just keep saying you don’t know, Neyche? Are you worried Lia won’t understand? Lia’s not stupid!”
But Emilia puffed out her cheeks, unsatisfied with my answer.
In the end, I had no choice but to throw out some irresponsible nonsense.
“Why don’t you ask His Majesty directly next time you see him.”
“Ah, that’ll work! Got it!”
I felt like I’d done something unforgivable to the emperor, but whatever.
By the off chance he actually visited this place, Emilia would have forgotten all about that question by then.
* * *
An ordinary nanny’s day was packed without a moment to breathe.
While the princess napped, I tidied the room and took her worn clothes to the laundry room.
After picking up fresh clothes, I had to wake her for mealtime.
Edwin was always trouble at meals.
His picky eating seemed to improve for a bit, then it didn’t.
Just the other day, he’d secretly dumped some precious raw oysters and gotten an earful from Catherine.
‘That was the first time I realized that woman could actually get mad.’
Catherine, who was also the head chef of this palace, was extremely strict about food.
- When I was little, our house was poor, and food was really scarce. So I just can’t stand seeing food thrown away.
It was a perfectly reasonable stance.
In any case, ever since hearing that from Catherine, Edwin never left food on his plate when she was nearby.
Truly astonishing.
Once the chaotic mealtime ended, it was bedtime for them.
Edwin was at least accustomed to sleeping alone, but Emilia was not.
She couldn’t fall asleep unless someone stayed by her side until she drifted off.
What a peculiar kid.
For me, sleepiness vanished the moment someone watched over me.
“Neyche, pat pat!”
At that moment, Emilia called out to me from the bed.
It looked like this kid wasn’t going to sleep again today until I left her side.
* * *
When night fell, the weather took a turn for the worse.
Dark clouds filled the sky, and before long, rain began pouring down.
The empire’s one and only princess, Emilia, lay in bed gazing out the window.
The princess looked somehow anxious.
It was just then, as her nanny Rachel moved to extinguish the bedside lamp and end the day,
that Emilia grabbed her sleeve.
“Neyche, stay here. Can’t we leave the light on?”
Rachel hesitated at the princess’s request.
In the imperial palace, everyone—regardless of rank—had to put out the lights at bedtime.
It was to save oil, of course, but also to prevent any potential fires.
If a fire broke out and killed imperial family members, it would be a catastrophe.
“Very well.”
Reading the desperate plea on the princess’s face, Rachel pulled her hand away from the lamp.
Thanks to that, the lamp continued to emit its warm glow.
Emilia blinked in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected her request to be granted.
“Really? We don’t have to turn it off? Emma always said we had to put out the light every night.”
“She was a bit rigid about rules.”
“Huh? What was that, Neyche?”
“Nothing.”
After muttering to herself, the nanny tucked Emilia under the covers and patted her chest.
The motions were unmistakably mechanical.
But for some reason,
Strangely enough, drowsiness came flooding in with those steady pats.
By the time Emilia was on her way to the land of dreams.
“Good night, Your Highness.”
The nanny withdrew silently with a quiet bedtime farewell.
Even so, the princess’s room remained brightly lit by the small lamp.
* * *
Rumble—
Blue lightning streaked across the sky amid fierce winds and rain.
It was a stormy night.
Whoosh—
The gale brought by the storm battered even the princess’s room.
A single draft slipping through the window cracks snuffed out the lamp without mercy.
Then, as if it had been waiting, a massive thunderclap boomed through the air.
“Eek!”
Emilia’s eyes flew open at the deafening thunder.
Everything was pitch black.
“D-Dark.”
The young princess rubbed her eyes and peered around.
The lamp, placed far from the bed, was left with only a half-burned wick.
“Lia s-scared……”
Emilia sniffled as she climbed down from the bed.
There were exactly two things in the world that the lively princess feared most.
Darkness and thunder.
“Neigh……”
Thunder on a dark night was especially terrifying.
Emilia huddled in the corner of the wall, as far from the window as possible.
“Eek, Lia’s so scared all alone……”
The frightened princess couldn’t even think to call for anyone.
That was when it happened.
Knock knock—
“Your Highness, are you still awake?”
A familiar voice came from beyond the door.
It was the nanny, Rachel.
