Dancing with the Princess!
It was true that I kept my distance from her because of my memories of Erika from the original story, but that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to avoid dancing with her now. I am Maria von Letiaponk, daughter and official heir of the most noble ducal house in the world. Etiquette, magic, and dance—I was supposed to be flawless in all of them. Yet while I had picked up many things since transmigrating, dancing was the one skill I had never learned.
If my partner had been Zophy, I could have trusted her to guide and accommodate me even if she scolded or smacked me a little. But the Erika before me now seemed to hold high expectations. I was terrified of disappointing her.
Still, when she pulled me toward the center of the hall and our hands met, I realized my worries had been pointless. My body remembered.
It was as if I had been waiting for this dance with her all along. My hands and feet moved on their own—sliding smoothly sideways, turning once, returning to position. I became so absorbed in matching my breath to Erika’s that I didn’t even notice the young ladies around us had forgotten their own steps and were staring.
What exactly was my body remembering? Why were my movements so fluid, so natural? As the tempo quickened, my golden drill curls swayed, carrying Zophy’s perfume and my own scent into my nose. Erika had been right. The smell of shampoo or perfume was clearly distinct from one’s natural scent. But for me it still wasn’t enough to become intoxicated…
“Your skills haven’t rusted at all. Have you been practicing with other girls?” Erika asked quietly. Her voice was so soft it nearly vanished beneath the sound of our footsteps.
I answered in the same hushed tone. “Why are you assuming the other person would be a girl?”
“I am the emperor’s daughter. It is my duty to interact with the empire’s most exalted nobles. So I know. Among the princes and young lords of this empire in this era, there isn’t a single one who would catch your eye.”
“It sounds like you’re saying there are women besides you.”
Erika glanced sideways at Zophy, confirmed her position, and drew me even farther away as we moved. Zophy would probably be annoyed with me later, but that was a price I was willing to pay. After all, I was the one secretly enjoying this moment; I would have to bear the consequences myself.
Erika stepped quickly to the side, her silver hair swinging as wildly as my own. When a few strands brushed past my nose, I caught a completely foreign fragrance—nothing like my own scent. It was so potent it made my head spin and blurred my vision.
The dizziness was not a metaphor. Memories of Erika, awakened by the dance, were stirring inside my mind with images, sensations, and voices.
The princess, noticing that I was blankly waving only the arms connected to her hands, asked, “Do you remember why we didn’t see each other for two years, three months, and twelve days?”
“Thirteen days,” I corrected instinctively.
Erika smiled. “I knew you would remember. But for me it’s twelve. The day before the entrance ceremony, I visited your house. I didn’t have the courage to face you, so I only greeted the duchess. I told her that from this year onward I would be spending time with her daughter again and asked for her good favor. I saw you from a distance—through the window, but I saw you.”
“No wonder Mother suddenly mentioned your name.”
I was still struggling to organize the memories. A story that had never appeared in the original work. A story I could never have guessed from the clues I possessed… Why had these two people, who seemed so tightly entangled now, ever separated in the first place?
“Maria, there was never any reason we couldn’t be together.”
“Was that how it was?”
“The day His Grace the Duke brought you to introduce you to one of my brothers, you pointed at me without hesitation and said, ‘That girl is the prettiest.’”
“Ah… I suppose I did.” The feeling that it had truly happened washed over me. The novel never mentioned it, but Erika had three older brothers. She was the only daughter, and while all three were presentable and reasonably talented, none possessed her charisma or natural command of a room. It seemed I had been drawn to that unique quality of hers.
“Our fathers looked at each other and smiled. You may not remember, but I remember the conversation that followed.”
“His Majesty said, ‘This is troublesome, Percival. A binding alliance through marriage only holds meaning if the union of the two houses can produce an heir.’”
“Your father replied, ‘If it is not a union between witches, would two girls not be difficult, Your Majesty?’”
“I remember His Majesty bursting into laughter on the spot. He clapped my father on the shoulder and said, ‘Let us wait and see, Percival. Let us simply wait and see. They are the only daughters of the two most noble houses. Who is to say it cannot be done?’”
One month later, Erika awakened her magical talent. It took me two months. During that time our interactions were permitted, and we grew close as friends, spending our childhood together. We only separated two years ago.
Erika had said to Maria, “Father has given permission for us to take things further.”
The proud Maria von Letiaponk had apparently not been satisfied with those words. Perhaps the way the conversation began that day was one of the root causes of the catastrophe that followed.
“His Majesty’s permission has nothing to do with our matter. It is something to be mindful of at most; there is no reason to be swayed by it.”
“I only meant we should be mindful of it, Maria.”
“Then what conditions are attached to this permission? You’re not exactly leaping with joy at the thought of being bound to me, so it must be quite a difficult condition.”
Erika’s expression darkened. “They told me to topple you.”
It might have sounded like a request about bedroom positions, but the meaning was far from simple. After that, Maria and Erika had engaged in an argument that bordered on war. Maria had even removed one glove and thrown it at Erika—a formal challenge to a duel. Accept the duel, or choose to part from me.
When Erika refused the duel and returned the glove, Maria took it back, put it on, and returned to her mansion. For the next two years and three months, the two young ladies never encountered each other once.
“There was no reason for us to separate, Maria,” Erika said again.
Memories that felt like mine yet not mine… But in that moment the emotions, the memories, and the judgments of the time were all vivid. Breathing in Erika’s scent, I traced the feelings we had both held and answered.
“We couldn’t stay together, my friend.”
“We never even made it to bed. It makes no sense to regress to mere friendship—or even further—because of that.”
“I’ll speak plainly, Erika. Inside this dreamlike music, beneath this dreamlike chandelier, within this nightmarish academy of madness, I will tell you the truth. You are the youngest princess of the imperial family. I am the eldest daughter of Letiaponk. No matter what happens, I will be the head of the family I build. The moment you passed on that demand—knowing full well the obvious scheme that if I ever acknowledged you as head of our household, our entire domain would be absorbed by the imperial family—you proved you knew nothing about me.”
The original Maria probably would never have explained it so directly. The Maria von Letiaponk I remembered was too proud and too indirect to lay everything out like this. But if I wanted to avoid repeating the original story’s ending—the one where she destroyed herself in a frenzy of incomprehensible lingering feelings for Erika and hostility toward Elena—I had to properly convey and organize the motivations still left in my memory.
Whether this was the first time she had heard such words from Maria, Erika could not hide the shadow that crossed her face. Her steps faltered. The moment her composure broke, our steps tangled. I managed to recover with quick thinking, but before any further mistakes could turn us into the laughingstock of the crowd, I stopped dancing entirely.
At some point the entire orchestra had been following our lead. The music halted the instant I released Erika’s hand. Stopping the dance only drew even more eyes to us.
“This is a personal matter between the two of us,” Erika said.
I shook my head. “It is also political.”
“I didn’t want to make it that way.”
“Ah, Erika.” I took two steps back from her and grasped the hand of Zophy, who had already moved to my side.
“In any case, the orchestra will keep playing until the ball ends. There is no way to cut things off at the exact point you desire. Not the nature of our relationship, nor my behavior at this ball. You can only decide your own actions. Nothing more. That was true two years ago, and it is still true now.”