Adeline Won!
I half-rose from my seat and stared at the track. Adeline sat atop her horse, tugging the reins as she slowly lifted her head. Her silver-gray hair was slightly tousled. Dust clung to her riding clothes. My gaze kept drifting back to her.
“Your Grace!” someone shouted.
I turned. A young noble clutched the railing, only realizing what he had just done and clamping his mouth shut.
“Did you see that?” a voice burst out from the other side. “She cut inside!”
“That’s impossible!”
“How is that even possible?”
The murmurs spread. One voice, then two, then dozens speaking at once. Names, exclamations, and incredulous sighs scattered across the stands. Nobles leaned forward, eyes shining, unable to hide their excitement as they turned to one another. Some clapped. Others stomped their feet. A few even stood up entirely.
Strangely, I liked it. It felt as though something tightly bound had finally come loose.
The applause split in two. One side burned hot; the other stayed cold. The section filled with young nobles and newly risen houses pulsed with life. Their clapping started clumsy but grew sincere—people startling themselves with their own shouts, then opening their mouths again anyway.
The old nobility, however, sat rigid. Especially around the Empress and the First Prince. That corner remained unnervingly silent. They disliked seeing emotion displayed in ways they had not permitted, outside the etiquette they themselves had written. Tiresome people.
“Haha.” A low chuckle came from beside me. The First Prince. He was smiling—gentle, elegant, the picture of a benevolent elder brother. Yet the laugh felt twisted, barbed.
“Noel,” he called.
I blinked deliberately. “Yeah?”
“Your voice was rather loud today.”
“Yeah!” I answered brightly. “Adeline won!”
“So I saw.” The First Prince tapped the armrest with a languid finger. “I thought the imperial box had turned into a marketplace. Spend time with merchants and you pick up their habits, it seems.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Elena before returning to me, his expression feigning concern. “I worry you might stray too far.”
His acting is terrible. That is not how you do it.
I smiled blankly. “I like the market! It’s fun!”
The First Prince’s smile twisted further. “I see,” he murmured, letting his superiority show through deliberate dismissal. “Of course you do.” He reached over and patted my head, voice dropping low. “Perhaps we need to revisit your etiquette lessons.”
A cold stare settled on me. I forced another smile.
“It is unseemly for royalty to display emotion so openly,” the Empress said this time. Her eyes rested on me, looking down from above, wrapping coldness in a thin layer of warmth. She forced her unmoving lips into motion.
I tilted my head. “…Why?”
Her brow twitched, almost imperceptibly. “You ask why.”
“Yeah.” I pointed toward the track. “I like Adeline! I like her even more because she won!”
The Empress fell silent for a moment. A few nearby nobles chuckled quietly.
“Then why hide it?”
“Hide what?”
“Something good.” I tapped my chest lightly with a finger. “It feels nice here, so it hurts if I don’t say it out loud. Lying is bad!”
“Indeed,” the Empress replied with a gentle smile. “Honesty is a virtue.” She continued slowly. “You will see and hear many things once you reach the North.” Her eyes grew moist. “I worry what hardships our delicate youngest will face there.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. “As a mother, it troubles me greatly.”
Disgusting. Since when has she ever played the mother?
“So if you simply tell me everything you see and hear, perhaps this foolish mother of yours might be of some help.”
“Yeah!” I blinked, answering as innocently and brightly as possible. “When I go to the North, I want to watch Adeline ride horses again! And if there are tasty sweets, I’ll tell you about them too!”
“Sweets, you say.”
“Yeah! Do you think sweets get cold in the North too?”
“Perhaps hearts grow cold there as well.” Her tone made it clear she hoped so.
“Very well. Tell me whatever you can.”
“Yeah!”
Could it be as cold as the imperial palace? Could it be as cold as their hearts?
The First Prince spoke again. “The Grand Duchess of the North certainly knows how to put on a show.” He glanced toward the track. “The capital nobles seemed to enjoy it.”
Cayen answered calmly. “It appears to be the first time many have found such enjoyment.”
The First Prince’s gaze shifted to his brother. Cayen smiled serenely. “Watching a race is one thing, but cheering makes it far more entertaining.” He looked around. “It might be good to create more opportunities like this in the future.”
“How vulgar.”
“You seem overly concerned with others’ opinions. I was under the impression that dignity is something one cultivates for oneself.”
The First Prince offered a sharply twisted smile. “If that is what you believe, then so be it.”
A brief silence fell between them—not the warmth of brothers, but something colder. Whispers continued among the surrounding nobles.
“The young nobles these days have no patience.”
“Shouting names at a racetrack…”
“A merchant-born viscount hosts the event and the atmosphere turns common.”
“Cheering for a northerner, of all things.”
“The capital has grown far too frivolous.”
The voices stayed low. They looked down on those who had cheered—the young nobles, the lower houses, the newly risen, the moneyed viscounts, the ones who had not yet internalized proper etiquette. That was how they saw them.
From the other side came different voices.
“Wasn’t that actually fun just now?”
“Should we do this at the next race too?”
“Calling her name really seemed to make her go faster.”
“I actually enjoyed horse racing for the first time.”
“The Grand Duchess isn’t as frightening as I thought.”
“She’s impressive. I think I’m falling for her.”
Opinions of Adeline were shifting as well. Such shallow relationships. Even something this small reveals the cracks. Then again, the water has been stagnant for far too long. Stagnant things always struggle to accept that they are rotting.
Suddenly the stands fell quiet, as though the commotion had been sliced away. I turned my head. Adeline was approaching. She had dismounted the black horse and walked toward the low barrier at the edge of the track. She placed one hand lightly on the barrier and vaulted over it. Her ponytail swayed in the wind. Color lingered on her cheeks. She walked straight toward me.
Adeline stopped in front of me and slowly dropped to one knee.
“……”
She bowed her head and took my hand. Her palm was still warm. That heat spread through my entire body. She pressed her lips lightly to the back of my hand, then raised her head to meet my eyes. Calm eyes holding a fierce heat—the heat of the race, the heat of victory, and something else I could not easily bear.
“Your Highness’s voice reached me,” she said clearly. “Thanks to that encouragement…” She did not release my hand. “Your knight has returned with victory.”
I swallowed. “Adeline.” My voice sounded strange, so I quickly forced a bright smile. “I won!”
Adeline blinked once, very slightly. I pulled a small pouch from my robes—the ten pieces of candy I had received for betting on the winner.
“I bet on you!” I said as brightly as I could. “So I got lots of candy!”
The face that had moments ago overwhelmed everyone as the victor softened. Her eyes grew gentle.
“Is that so.” Still kneeling, she spoke again. “Then…” Her breath seemed to catch. “It is also Your Highness’s victory.”
“Yeah! You earned it for me!”
She held my hand and bowed her head a little deeper. “Next time as well,” she said, “if Your Highness wishes it, I will bring you victory no matter how many times it takes.”
“Yeah.” I grinned like an idiot. “I’ll cheer for you again next time!”
“Then I,” she replied, “will simply have to keep winning.”
Adeline took one candy from my hand and placed it in her mouth. The sound of it rolling across her tongue rang strangely loud in my ears. She was the one eating the candy, yet somehow I tasted sweetness. In the end, I could not understand why.