Marry Me, Your Highness
"Ahh... ahh."
A faint sound reached me—weak confirmation that someone still lived. At that small sound, my eyes flew open.
"Your Highness!"
"...So I'm alive."
A voice whose meaning I couldn't tell—relief, resignation, or perhaps complaint—drifted out from between cracked, parched lips. It was not a voice that belonged to an eleven-year-old boy.
"Shall I get you some water?"
Before Cassion could even answer, I had poured a glass and held it out to him. While I did, our family's valet helped him sit up, tucking a soft cushion behind his back so the hard headboard wouldn't dig into it.
By the time the sequence of motions was finished, Cassion's eyes had snapped into clear focus.
"This is Flac, a valet of House Ehrenberg. Flac will be attending to you from now on, Your Highness."
Flac bowed low before Cassion. Cassion's suspicion-heavy gaze traveled from me to Flac and back again.
I waved the hand holding the glass—a signal to take it quickly—but he only stared blankly at it.
"What are you?"
When I went ahead and tried to press the glass into his hand anyway, he raised his own to push it away.
But the strengthless hand failed its purpose, closing feebly around my wrist before dropping away. Cassion didn't even have the strength left to grip my wrist properly.
"Flac, step outside. Jenice, you too."
Once the two had withdrawn, we sat in silence for a while, simply looking at each other.
When the silence began to wear, Cassion rolled his bloodshot eyes and surveyed the room. His eyebrows twitched.
Had he noticed?
Thanks to a lamp left glowing softly in place of the moonlight, the changes in Cassion's room were laid out plainly before him—the freshly scrubbed room, the desk stocked properly with everything he needed, the open wardrobe packed tight with neatly arranged clothes.
While tidying his room, I had worried that Dayson might come by later, see how much it had changed, and raise hell over it.
But Cassion's room had been in far too sorry a state to begin with. It wasn't fit even for a healthy child to live in; for Cassion the invalid, it had been a punishing environment.
Dayson didn't visit often, after all.
In my past life, Dayson used to tell me whenever he'd been to see Cassion. Now that I counted it back quietly, the intervals had been fairly long. Since he'd come and gone today, he wouldn't seek Cassion out again for some time.
He might as well live in comfort for a while.
I could always switch the room back the way it had been by the time Dayson returned. That was why I hadn't thrown out the squalid odds and ends from Cassion's room, only gathered them in a corner.
"What do you think, Your Highness?"
"What... are you?"
Cassion repeated the same question, his face dazed as though he were dreaming.
"I doubt you're curious about my name. Which means you must be asking why I'm being so kind to you."
"Kind? You call this kind?"
"Of course. I'm nursing you while you're ill, buying the things you need—and in the days to come, I intend to avenge you as well."
"What? Kuh—hack."
His voice climbed higher, and a cough burst out of him. I hurriedly held the glass to his lips.
He'd slept a long while in a fevered state, so his throat was bound to be parched dry. Talking without a drop of water in that condition—anyone, even a perfectly healthy person, would start coughing.
Clutching his chest, Cassion hacked drily for a good while before finally accepting the glass I offered. Gulp, gulp. He drained it like a man who had spent days crossing a desert.
Cassion set the glass down with a clack and fixed his eyes on me. His glare was remarkably fierce.
"Don't glare at me like that. I'd like to get along with the man who's going to be my husband."
Cassion shook his head slowly, then lay back down as though he had no strength left for arguing.
He'd startled at the word revenge but not at the word husband—apparently he hadn't heard that part properly.
Pulling the blanket up to his chin, I spoke.
"You can listen lying down, Your Highness."
"The late Dukes of Ehrenberg in heaven must be sorely grieving. The daughter who was to carry on their family has lost her mind."
If it wouldn't hurt him, I'd smash that rotten mouth of his right now!
Cassion was the sort who earned himself a thrashing with his mouth alone. If I was truly going to marry him, that foul tongue would be the first thing I cured.
"Which do you suppose would grieve them more—a mad daughter inheriting the family, or the family being snatched away by a worthless younger sibling? What if the daughter were cast aside on top of it all? If I were our father, I'd say the latter hurt more."
Cassion, who had been fidgeting beneath the blanket, went still. His eyes sharpened.
He stared into my shadowed face for a long moment. Then, after a while, he ran his tongue over his dry lips and spoke.
"Is it your uncle?"
Cassion was sharp. From my words alone, he had seen straight through our family's situation, skipping several steps to put his finger on the very heart of my problem.
"Exactly. That's why I came looking for this place."
"Why?"
But clever as he was, a child was still a child, it seemed. He couldn't imagine why I had sought him out, so he asked.
"Because I need a husband."
"Whose? Yours?"
I nodded.
"I see. Congratulations on your marriage. Do you need a witness?"
"No—I need someone to marry. I intend to marry you, Your Highness. You're welcome to share in the congratulations. His Majesty will stand as our witness, won't he?"
Cassion turned to stone. His head, which had been aimed at the ceiling, rotated slowly toward me. Every time he moved, I could almost hear it—the creak of a wooden puppet's joints.
Creak, creak.
He really was quite shocked, it seemed.
"You... you've lost your mind, haven't you?"
With an expression of pure disbelief, he spat out words as rough as his chapped lips.
Refusing me was fair enough, I supposed. The Ehrenberg princess arriving out of nowhere, a proposal dropped on him with no warning.
But if he thought about it for even a moment, he would see that marrying me was in no way a loss.
I launched straight into persuasion.
"Think it over, Your Highness. You have nothing to lose. Marry me, and the mighty House Ehrenberg becomes your steadfast ally. You do know what sort of family Ehrenberg is, don't you? The kind even His Majesty cannot treat carelessly."
House Ehrenberg had contributed enormously to building the kingdom's wealth with its brilliant diplomacy and business acumen.
The wars House Ehrenberg had averted numbered more than five; the nations that had opened diplomatic relations thanks to House Ehrenberg numbered more than ten.
There had even been a king who offered the most fertile land in his realm if only House Ehrenberg would emigrate to his country.
I'm quite the prize, aren't I—me, and my family! So come on, Your Highness. All you have to do is say yes. If you're shy, a nod will do. You're a clever one, after all.
"Marry me, Your Highness."
And so, to my proposal, Cassion replied—
"No. I have no intention of marrying you."
He wasn't supposed to refuse!
"Are you going to the palace again today, my lady?"
Jenice asked.
There was no time to nurse the sting of my first rejection.
Having secured a secret passage into the 3rd Prince's Palace during my tour of the royal grounds, I called on Cassion often. Every visit, he turned me away at the door—but I never gave up.
They say it takes years to win a truly loyal retainer. That much effort for a husband was nothing.
"No."
Jenice had assumed, as she always did, that I would be off to the palace, but today I had somewhere else to be.
I had risen before dawn, bathed, and dressed with Jenice's help. Today, of all days, I had taken special care, even fastening a large ribbon to my dress.
Once I'd finished, I turned this way and that before the full-length mirror.
No matter how I looked at it—adorable.
"I don't much care for pumpkins."
That was the absurd reason Cassion had given for refusing my proposal.
"I can't accept being called a pumpkin, but everyone has their own standard of beauty, so I'll let it go. Besides, I'm rich, you know."
"What good is money? You'll die before you've even spent it all."
At the word die, my throat closed up. And in that instant, I finally understood why he wouldn't so much as consider my proposal.
Perhaps it wasn't that he disliked me. Perhaps he'd been worrying about his own position—how he could ever marry when he couldn't even promise to live.
The words I've already seen the man you'll grow into, so throw those worries away rose to the back of my throat, but I swallowed them down.
"If dying is the problem, then I'll simply keep you alive."
"Pardon? What was that, my lady?"
Oh, you saved my life! What is it you desire? No—don't tell me. I'll give you everything!
Imagining what a Cassion saved by my hand would say, I giggled to myself. Jenice stared at me, laughing out of nowhere, as if I'd lost my senses.
"Let's go, Jenice."
"Where? At least tell me where we're going!"
Jenice trailed after me, chattering, but I didn't answer.
I was on my way to meet someone—I just couldn't be sure they would actually agree to see me.
"My lady, where are we?"
In a back alley that matched my splendid dress not at all, I leaned against the wall at a careless angle, waiting for someone.
A foul stench seeped from the grime caked thick on the floor and walls. Jenice held out as long as she could before pinching her nose shut.
"My lady, can't you smell it?"
I could. And I had smelled something very like it before.
In an underground dungeon.
I didn't want to remember that time, but I didn't turn away from it, either. Painful memories fed my anger, and anger was the engine of my revenge.
I was just opening my mouth to explain that a stench like this was nothing—
—when I heard footsteps scuffing lightly against the ground.
Someone was approaching us. Almost certainly the person I had been waiting for.
I lifted my head with a wide smile. And sure enough, the one I'd been so anxiously awaiting was walking straight toward me. I waved at the approaching figure.
Red hair tied high swayed with every step. When I saw the woman's face—younger than the one I remembered—my chest tightened.
How glad I was to see her, how I had missed her, how grateful I was.
"Auntie!"
Chyo—head of Chyorny, and the aunt who had once shown herself at the execution ground for my sake—stopped in her tracks.
"Auntie, it's me! Diana Viola Ehrenberg! Your one and only niece!"
I darted over to Chyo, who stood blinking blankly, and seized her hand, pumping it up and down, hiding none of my delight whatsoever.
"Urk."
But apparently the delight was mine alone. In the blink of an eye, I was pinned. Chyo caught my arms behind my back, bound them, and set a knife against my throat. A faint smell of sweat rose off her body.
"My lady!"
Jenice, who had fallen behind when I ran ahead, shrieked and stamped her feet in a panic. The moment Jenice grew worked up, the rats in the alley began to squeal.
"Make her hold still."
Chyo murmured darkly against my ear.
"Jenice, don't move! She won't hurt me. She's my aunt."
"And quit calling me Auntie."
"Yes, Auntie."
Being the well-behaved niece that I was, I answered promptly.