Chapter 27
Chapter 27
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: Did You Think That Flower Resembled Me?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
#27. Did You Think That Flower Resembled Me?
"Your Highness."
Helios opened his eyes at the sound of Esther's voice calling to him once more. There she stood before him, holding something in her hands.
"Happy birthday. I consider it the greatest honor of my house that you have invited me to your twenty-first banquet."
It was strange. His birthday was still several months away.
Helios wanted to ask Esther, who was congratulating him on a birthday that hadn't even arrived, what this situation was all about. But the words wouldn't come.
As the scene unfolded without regard for his will, Helios realized he was dreaming once again—something odd yet familiar. And then Esther spoke again.
"I know full well how grateful I should be simply to attend a noble banquet as a mere commoner."
A surge of indignation rose in Helios, and he roughly rubbed the nape of his neck with his own hand.
Esther was no "mere" anything. No one had the right to belittle her with such a word as "mere."
Her pursed lips. The faint redness around her eyes. The nobles whispering and pointing fingers behind her. He could already guess what had happened.
In that moment, Helios's mood plummeted.
"Your Highness...?"
The urge to whisk her away from this place right now crashed over him like a wave. Those nobles, who only had their mouths to offer, had no right to judge the woman who had led her merchant group with her own strength.
"If I have made some mistake..."
Esther's trembling eyes captured Helios within them.
It was at that moment, as Helios gazed at her and clenched his fist tight,
"...What are you doing, Crown Prince?"
that the Emperor, seated beside him, turned and murmured lowly. His sinister gaze flicked once between Helios and Esther.
"Tch."
It was rare for the Emperor to show such displeasure openly from his seat. And that gaze was aimed squarely at Esther.
In an instant, the Emperor's previous words flashed through Helios's mind.
"I don't leave things that displease my eye alone."
"You still need practice hiding your emotions."
Helios knew what that look meant. The Emperor was the sort to remove anything—or anyone—that didn't sit well with him.
And this time, Esther was at the end of that gaze.
"What have you prepared?"
Helios forced his panic down and spoke with feigned composure.
"Ah."
At his response, Esther seemed slightly relieved; the tension in her shoulders eased just a bit.
At the same time, she placed the object she held before Helios and stepped back two paces.
"What is that?"
"Good heavens! Not jewels, but what is that strange cloth?"
The nobles' eyes filled with shock as they stared at what Esther had set down.
At once, their mouths began moving ceaselessly, like predators who had spotted prey ripe for tearing apart.
It grated on him. Helios glanced toward the nobles, swept by the impulse to clear them all out.
"I heard you have trouble sleeping well."
Esther, standing before the now murderous Helios, carefully unwrapped the cloth. Inside revealed a vial of powder and an crystal orb containing fresh flowers.
"What is this?"
Helios looked down at them and asked her. She began to explain in her small, soft voice.
"During this trade voyage, I brought in flower teas from foreign lands. The one in the vial is from the plum blossom, said to restore fatigue and clear the mind. I hoped it might help Your Highness, even a little..."
Even as she blushed, Esther was endearing. The flower that resembled her so prettily, brought out of concern for his well-being—her thoughtfulness was beautiful too.
The nobles, ever focused on currying favor with Helios, had never spared a glance for the way he pressed his temples in agony from headaches.
To those haughty aristocrats for whom advancement was all that mattered, it was irrelevant.
But Esther was different. She alone watched him with concern for his health.
"And this flower is called the camellia. I wanted so much to present it to Your Highness."
Yes, this woman was unchanged.
From the day they first met until now, the only woman who had treated him not by his status, but as a person.
"What about this flower did you want to give me?"
The sharp edge in his voice when facing the nobles melted away like a lie as his gaze fixed precisely on Esther.
"This flower blooms in November, the same month as Your Highness's birthday, unfurling its beauty most splendidly through the harshest winter. While other flowers freeze and fail to bloom in the cold, it radiates its splendor alone... just like Your Highness, who always gives his utmost..."
As she mumbled softly yet somehow said everything she wanted to, Helios teasingly asked—wanting to touch her flushed cheeks,
"So, you felt that flower was like me? That tiny little flower?"
He knew it would fluster her, and part of him craved seeing that expression—a contradictory impulse, but one he didn't regret.
"Ah, no, the flower isn't small at all...!"
Flailing her hands to deny his twisted interpretation, Esther finally lifted her head and met his eyes.
"Its language is..."
"What?"
Swept by the impulse to kiss each of her dainty fingers, Helios pressed her as she murmured faintly.
But Esther, unwilling to say more, hurriedly changed the subject.
"You can place incense in the upper circle here. I prepared some said to aid sleep as well. These humble gifts—I hope they prove useful to Your Highness."
With that, Esther awkwardly bowed to Helios. He nearly burst out laughing and barely covered his mouth with the hand resting on his chair's arm.
"Very well."
And then Esther brushed past him. The sweet scent of her body made his vision blur.
He barely suppressed the smile tugging at his lips. But soon, his head cooled.
"I don't leave things that displease my eye alone."
Helios watched her red hair sway as she hurried away, vowing to himself.
No harm must ever come to her. That was the one thing he could do for her.
His vision flickered again, pulling Helios back to awareness.
The dream continued. In a rear corridor of the castle where no one passed, Helios stood.
"Baron."
"Yes."
He called to Baron, his trusted retainer.
"Any surveillance nearby?"
"No sign of it. His Majesty ordered focus on the banquet, so there's none of the usual scrutiny."
Helios felt relief at the words, then lamented his fate—he wasn't even free in his own home.
"Did you look into that flower's language?"
"The one you mentioned earlier? I asked Sir Elick and found out."
"Well? What is it?"
Helios was curious about the flower's language that had made Esther hesitate so. Her voice had been a murmur, barely audible even when he strained to listen.
"It varies slightly by color, but for the red camellia..."
"..."
"It means 'I love you more than anyone.' And another meaning is 'waiting.'"
At once, Helios felt the shackles binding him unlock, something vanishing.
Love. He wanted to ask her if this was truly what she meant to say.
"Have you located her?"
If it was sincere? That thought ignited him; he could bear it no longer.
"Lady Elpis, you mean? She..."
Baron trailed off, eyeing his lord's flashing gaze, hesitating long before speaking again.
"Your Highness, may I speak boldly?"
"What is it?"
Helios stared silently at Baron, who wouldn't normally add such words.
"Do you intend to seek her out?"
Helios read the intent in Baron's gaze. It was only natural, perhaps—they had been together since childhood, after all.
"The world she inhabits and the one Your Highness dwells in are different."
Tension returned to Helios's jaw.
"Is not approaching her not the way to protect her?"
He knew. How dangerous it was to draw near Esther. How his power was still insufficient to bring her into this battlefield.
But...
"I just want one word with her. It won't take long."
Just once, he wanted to choose for himself.
"...She's near the pond behind the castle."
Before Helios could note Baron's oddly hesitant tone, he strode swiftly toward the rear of the castle.
"Are you feeling better now, Guild Master?"
Arriving at last, Helios faced a sight he wished he hadn't.
"Thanks to you, I've calmed down. I apologize for showing such an unsightly side."
That damned whelp sat beside Esther. Smiling with his eyes crinkled, glued to her side—Helios felt his blood boil in reverse.
"Don't doubt yourself, Esther. Ah, I called you by name without thinking."
The impulse to shove the brat away halted Helios's steps mid-air.
Esther's eyes were red-rimmed. Anyone could see she had been crying.
Guilt for failing to protect her stabbed fiercely at Helios's heart.
And the words from Esther's lips were enough to crush him.
"We're nothing like that. He was simply kind enough to help me."
Truly a misunderstanding? Did your words not mean that?
Questions he lacked the courage to voice shattered in the air, unheard.
"...Yes, I like him."
With that, the last thread Helios clung to snapped. Waiting. Perhaps that was what you meant to convey.
In the end, hearing nothing, Helios wrenched his feet away and fled into the darkness.
And endless blackness swallowed him.