The Mirror and the Witch's Blood
“What exactly are you proposing?”
Even as he pointed out that I had misunderstood, Henrik kept his easy, unhurried air about him.
In truth, what I had just said amounted to turning the question back on the man who had come carrying a flag of peace.
I let the words I had prepared spill out without hesitation.
“Because the royal family cast me away.”
He had not thrown me out on the spot—he was actually listening. He had not demanded an apology for the audacity of an uninvited guest.
Whatever the reason, I had clearly caught his interest.
“All the more reason I stand to gain nothing.”
In that instant, I read a flicker of something in Henrik's amethyst eyes.
On the surface, I was not to his taste. And never had a lack of interest been more welcome to me.
“There is no need for Your Highness to state outright that I don't catch your eye.”
I allowed a faint smile to show, hiding nothing. Only then did Henrik shift out of the posture in which he had been buried in the sofa, crossing one leg over the other.
“There is something you stand to gain from me. That much is certain.”
I knew the blade would come flying next, and I did not stop.
“You intend to conquer this entire land, don't you?”
“Hahaha.”
Henrik burst into laughter, wearing an expression of amusement, but I felt the air itself tighten around my throat. His laugh was that cold.
Yet the blade never came. In that moment I realized my expectation had been wrong. I couldn't say why, but the surprise barely registered.
Perhaps because this was an atmosphere I knew well from the battlefield, my heart did not pound wildly.
I folded my hands with deliberate courtesy.
“A war of conquest would require a great deal of preparation.”
“That is not a field you have knowledge of.”
I met his eyes squarely, refusing to look away.
“I am aware that in war, too, it is ultimately a matter of people—and that reading the hearts of people matters above all else.”
“Something no one manages easily.”
“Your Highness, I carry the blood of a witch.”
“A witch.”
At some point Henrik had withdrawn his laughter, and a subtle interest stirred in his violet eyes.
“You are known far and wide as the heir of the Black Dragon, Your Highness. I believe you possess a power that could stand beside that legendary being himself. A power unlike mine.”
“So you do have an ability?”
“Yes. I can read the hearts of people. And the future.”
“Could I become king?”
Henrik asked with such easy nonchalance that I answered without changing my expression in the slightest.
Your Highness—if I am to confess with my own mouth, I gave everything I had to this country, and now I am someone who cannot even be summoned to a banquet. If I were to lay out every thread of the future for you right now, I am afraid I would never be allowed to leave for Bwendowska.”
“No excessive concern, that.”
Henrik gestured without hesitation to the knight standing at his side.
“Read him.”
I made my judgment swiftly.
I had no idea who that knight was, but it was clear that there was something in him for me to find.
It would likely be something awkward for him. Something the knight had not shared with his master, yet something a man like Henrik could well guess at.
In short—not something too obscure.
Only then did it make sense for Henrik to test me. If this were nothing at all, merely a scheme to deceive me and laugh at my expense—
Well, then I could simply seek out some other prince instead of him. I was gambling with nothing left to lose.
“If you will have the others withdraw as well—that knight included—I will speak.”
“Gentlemen. Give us the room.”
At Henrik's light wave of the hand, the knights withdrew without a word of protest.
Even at a glance, it was a relationship built on deep trust. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to bite down hard on my lip.
I had not come to propose this bargain out of any trust in Henrik. And yet, seeing that display, my chest stung a little. Because I had no bond like that—and never would.
Attilenta. Focus on this moment, and this moment only.
I had no wish to show a needless bitterness, so I bowed my head slightly.
When I drew the mirror I had hidden within my robes, I could feel Henrik's gaze boring into me.
I handled the mirror with care, polishing it—my mother's last trace in this world, the only thing of hers I had left. Deliberately. For him to see.
Come now, help me, mirror. I must pass this man's test. Only then can I reach the future I desire.
Before long, a green light spread across the mirror's surface like ripples over still water. Henrik, seated across from me, would surely have recognized that peculiar glow.
“You may have no doubts about that knight's loyalty—but he seems to be entangled in some small difficulty.”
“Explain.”
I leaned toward Henrik and whispered it out, step by careful step. Passing along someone else's secret behind their back did not sit entirely easy with me.
But such courtesies no longer mattered. I kept turning my one goal over and over in my mind, and it worked remarkably well as an anesthetic.
The moment Henrik had heard everything, he rose from his seat and disappeared into the inner chamber, apparently to speak with his knights.
Left alone, I let out a small sigh.
“Hoo……”
Strangely, a certain feeling washed over me. As though this were a familiar place.
“Ah. This is where I used to play hide-and-seek with Selena.”
The realization struck me all at once. This detached villa was steeped in memories of my childhood. Back then, I had wondered why the King allowed us such games.
Yes—only now did I understand the answer. It was entirely for Selena's sake. For the Duke's sake.
Selena, as a count's daughter, could only make her formal debut into society once she came of age. The Duke had been passing in and out of the palace since childhood, following the previous Duke.
“……He arranged for the two of them to meet here in the palace by chance, didn't he.”
Even as I vowed revenge, even as I chewed over a venomous emotion I had never once felt in my life, my memories refused to fade.
Quite the opposite—the more they revived, the better. If I meant to temper my heart into steel.
I sank into that damp, gloomy past and closed my eyes.
“You were right.”
Henrik's cold, low voice echoed through the darkness behind my lids. Thanks to it, I shook free of my brooding and straightened my throat.
“Your Highness—I want to emphasize once more that I will be of use to you.”
“Hm. You mean to bargain with your ability. Your purpose in making this offer seems clear enough.”
“It is.”
I could see where this conversation was meant to end. From the very beginning, Henrik had not once denied his intention to conquer this land.
“I begin to wonder whether I might even have a use for you on the battlefield. Though at present, that is only because I believe you have some ability at all……”
Henrik let the words trail off, laced with a sliver of mockery. Apparently, guessing the hidden heart of a single knight here did not earn my ability any great esteem just yet.
In truth, the wariness was only natural. If he had trusted me on the strength of a single performance, I would have been the one doubting his competence.
Because I had expected it, I felt no particular tension. I simply played one more of my prepared cards.
“Last year, there was a rebellion at the Battle of Genoa in the south. The remnants of Syracuse. Three days later, the rebel general took his own life.”
“That struck me as odd, I recall. Syracuse honors a soldier's honor—yet a man of that caliber chose suicide?”
“It was I who led him there, Your Highness.”
In an instant, Henrik's brow crooked upward. All traces of mockery now wiped clean, he folded his arms and asked,
“How did you manage it?”
The credit had, of course, gone to Antoni—but I continued my explanation in a way that emphasized my own part.
“He was playing the double agent between the armies of Syracuse and Messina. The evidence had been concealed in secret, but I found it and delivered it to the Duke. Had it been left to the knights, it would have taken a very long time.”
“……And so Syracuse, having lost its general, and Messina, its treachery laid bare, were both suppressed with ease.”
Antoni's clean conquest of Syracuse and Messina had run in the newspapers.
Henrik could have doubted this as well, but there would have been no way to uncover a lie on the spot.
“Yes, Your Highness. That is correct.”
Moreover, he had fallen silent. It seemed he had understood precisely what I meant. Don't leave this dangerous ability—the kind that could uncover your own secrets as well—sitting idle here. Take it for yourself, now.
If he was a man with ambition to match.
I had provoked him, in a sense. As if my life were nothing worth keeping.
Henrik let out a long, unreadable breath.
“Offering yourself as a spy to bring down your own homeland.”
“I have done something like it before.”
Back then, the Duke had wanted my ability so desperately—and I had been glad of it.
When in truth, a Duke's wife taking the field herself was something strange, something set apart from everyone else.
A small, bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Seeing it, Henrik seemed to have misread me.
“You're accustomed to this, it seems.”
I intended to let the remark pass with a vague nod. There was no need to dig up a past that had nothing to do with this man.