The Princess Holds Her Breath
The princess held her breath.
"...My lady."
Even at my call, mournful as it was,
"..."
the princess did not move an inch.
Her body still trembled, but she never once turned to look back at me. As if to say she had no desire to hear a single excuse from me. As if there was nothing left for us to say to each other.
And the sight of Rebecca like that set a dozen thoughts colliding in my head.
The thought that I should never have answered the Saintess. The thought that I should have simply walked on by, even if it meant being branded forever as some shameless madman in her eyes. What was I doing, wishing happiness upon the other characters of this story when I couldn't even take responsibility for my own fiancée's happiness?
It had been colossal arrogance. The most important thing should have been Rebecca's happiness and mine — and yet I had meddled in everything else without sparing a thought for the one thing that truly mattered.
"...My lady."
"..."
Rebecca still did not so much as stir.
But as I'd said before, I couldn't just stand there and do nothing. So I walked toward her, one slow step at a time.
Thud... thud...
The only sounds in the garden were the cry of crickets in the grass and the careful crunch of my footsteps on the lawn. When the distance between us had shrunk to about half of what it had been, the princess's firmly sealed lips finally parted.
"...Don't come any closer."
The same voice as before, refusing to let me near her.
I had heard those words quite a few times already. The first time I fed Rebecca by hand. The time I fed her the cake I'd made myself. The night the Duchess's magic bound me and forced me to spend it in the same room as her. I'd heard that sentence more times than I could count.
The only difference from before was that back then, she'd said it while looking me dead in the eye. Now the princess wouldn't grant me so much as a glance, spitting the words out cold and flat.
Thud... thud...
I didn't stop walking.
"...I told you not to come closer."
Even as her frigid warning rang out again and again,
Thud... thud...
I drew closer, slowly, inch by inch. The gap between us kept narrowing until barely three steps remained —
"I told you not to come near me!"
Rebecca whirled around to face me.
Her crimson eyes — the ones I'd always thought so beautiful — were brimming with tears on the verge of spilling over.
How long had it been? Since the princess had truly shouted at me like this. Even the first time we met, she had yelled at me while apologizing, but the difference between that shout and this one was something we both knew perfectly well.
Where her apology back then had been drenched in embarrassment and shame, this one was stained through with the blotches of betrayal.
"Why... do you keep coming closer?"
The princess who always wielded that infuriatingly prim polite speech with me was nowhere to be found here.
"I told you not to come... so why do you keep coming..."
Only an eighteen-year-old girl, crying from the sting of betrayal, was looking at me.
The readers of [The Crown Prince Wields a Sword] had described the character Rebecca Valencia this way: "A cold-blooded munchkin princess with no blood or tears in her." "A selfish princess who cares only about whatever catches her interest and dismisses everything else."
But that had been wrong. Rebecca was nothing more than an eighteen-year-old girl. Heir lessons from the ducal house since childhood, and a life lived a touch too preciously, had shaped a self-centered way of thinking — but at her core, she was a girl. The kind of girl who blushed scarlet at her fiancé's mortifying words, and who wept at her fiancé's betrayal.
"So this time, too, you're going to grant my wish with that stupid wish of yours?"
"..."
"Doesn't it get tiresome? What am I, some machine that cools your temper down every time you make a wish?"
"...My lady."
"I'm a person too, you know. I know how to be sad. I know how to get angry..."
I knew. I knew she was only a girl, nothing more. Not once, not a single time, had I ever thought of her as a machine that forgave me whenever I made a wish.
But my actions, all of them up to now, were exactly the kind that she — the one on the receiving end, with no explanation ever offered — could not help but misread. And because not once had a proper explanation ever accompanied them, the price was this: all I could do now was watch the princess shed her tears.
"You said I was the most beautiful thing in the world."
"..."
"You said you wanted to have every last part of me to yourself, like you'd want to save every inch of me in photographs."
"..."
"You said... you were my one and only fiancé."
Then why... why do your words and your actions never match?
Rebecca's eyes, glistening brighter than usual with unshed tears, were saying it to me.
I had never once shown Rebecca my true heart. To be precise, I had shown it — it just had never properly reached her. Because Rebecca had always assumed that when I said those mortifying things, it was simply because I liked teasing her.
But it wasn't. Every embarrassing word, every humiliating confession I'd ever made to her had been filled to the brim with sincerity. The only thing that kept me from saying it outright was a coward's fear — the terror of not knowing how I'd survive once she knew exactly how I felt.
Not once had any of it been a lie.
And so —
"So all of that was a lie too, then?"
"...My lady."
"Everything you've ever said to me — all of it?"
"My lady."
"Stop just calling me 'my lady' and actually say something—"
"Rebecca!"
"..."
Apparently now was the time to toss aside my cowardly excuses. If I kept going like this, I would spend the rest of my life hiding my true feelings behind a mask.
"...Hic—!"
Rebecca, who clearly hadn't expected me to shout, froze mid-sentence and hiccupped.
Of course she was stunned. Not once — not a single time in all our time together — had I ever called her by her name without the word "princess" attached. I had always addressed her with impeccable honorifics, unfailingly polite.
But —
"Please listen to me. I'm begging you."
that wasn't what mattered now. What mattered was whether I could convey these thoughts in my head to the princess. Nothing else mattered at all.
"...I'm sorry."
"..."
"For calling another woman beautiful when you were standing right in front of me. For running off to the garden on my own and leaving you behind. For talking to another woman, just the two of us, alone."
"..."
"I'm sorry for all of it. There's no excuse to be made — it was entirely my failing, entirely my fault."
"...Hhk."
Had my desperate apology reached her, even a little? The tears that had briefly stopped were threatening to fall again —
"But there's one thing I need you to understand."
I didn't want to see the princess's sorrowful tears any longer. The only tears she should ever show me were tears of joy.
"Of everything I've ever said to you, the only lies were the words that tore you down."
"..."
"And even those I only said because your reactions were funny and cute — there wasn't a shred of truth in them."
"...Then."
"When I said you were beautiful. When I said you were lovely. When I said I wanted every part of you to myself. When I said I was your one and only fiancé. Even when I said I loved you—"
"..."
"every word of it was the truth."
Even if the princess never forgave me, I wanted her to know this much. Forgiveness is the sacred right of the one who was wronged — but telling the truth is something anyone can do.
I was simply conveying to Rebecca the full, honest feelings I had always carried with me. What came after was hers to decide. It was not mine to choose.
How much time had passed?
Rebecca had stared at me, dumbfounded, for a long while after hearing the words brimming with my heart. And for just as long, I had met that gaze of hers without flinching away.
"...Really?"
At last, Rebecca spoke, ever so carefully. It was doubt — the question of whether she could truly believe me.
"All of it... you meant it?"
A question asking whether everything I'd said until now had really been true. The princess tossed me one small question mark, as if it were my final chance.
"...Of course."
I was not enough of a fool to kick away my last chance.
"...Huaaang—!"
Whump—
Rebecca crashed into my arms, sobbing.
"Do you have any idea... how scared I was...?"
"I'm sorry."
"When I saw you alone with that woman you called pretty... do you know what went through my head?"
"...I'm sorry, Rebecca."
"Huaaaaang—!"
Ordinarily, her munchkin reputation made the princess seem endlessly, toweringly large — but held against me like this, she felt smaller than anyone else in the world.
The thought that I had made someone so small so sad buried the guilt in my chest another layer deeper. I vowed that I would never do this again. I vowed that I would make the princess happy, always.
And I held Rebecca all the tighter.
We clung to each other like that for another long while — until her grip, far stronger than I'd expected, actually began to hurt —
Prickle—
goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
...Killing intent?
Faint now, but what I felt was unmistakably killing intent.
"Huaaang—"
Rebecca, still wrapped in my arms, was too busy crying to notice — but the Rebecca Valencia of any other day would have sensed it instantly.
The assassins were supposed to go after the Crown Prince and the Saintess... why...?
I couldn't understand why they had strayed from the original story and come all the way to us, here in the heart of the garden, instead of heading for the Crown Prince and the Saintess as they were meant to.
"Rebecca!"
There was no time to hesitate. While I'd been lost in thought, arrows were already flying at her —
and there wasn't even time to draw my sword. The guards at the palace entrance hadn't confiscated it, but they had sealed it away with painstaking care.
Which left me exactly one thing I could do in this situation.
Thwock—
"...Khhk."
"...Albert?"
I hid Rebecca's body behind my back.
Two arrows... was it? Three were incoming, though one seemed to have gone wide entirely. An arrow wound was treatable with sacred power, as long as it hadn't struck anything vital —
but the real problem lay elsewhere.
...Poisoned arrows.
Of course — assassins dispatched to kill the Saintess would have coated their arrowheads with poison.
And as a result, my eyes were beginning, slowly, to close.
"Albert!"
I heard Rebecca crying out my name in desperation.
"Don't... worry about me... hurry... get ready for what's coming..."
"...Albert?"
What I wanted was for her to prepare for the assassins' next attack rather than worry over me.
In the end, unable to see how any of it played out —
"No... you can't..."
I could only collapse, using the sound of Rebecca's beautiful voice as my lullaby.
...Hurry up and get here, you lunatic of a protagonist.
Desperately searching my heart for the one person who could save this situation,
I blacked out.