The Duke's Sulk and a Dream's Name
The Grand Duke's brow was already deeply furrowed, as if the long meeting had worn him down to the last thread.
Oh no. That was a mistake.
I should have stood up and gone straight to the Grand Duke the moment the Crown Prince appeared....
The Crown Prince being here meant the meeting had ended quite some time ago. I had only meant to keep him company for a brief moment before slipping away, but apparently it had eaten up far more time than I'd anticipated.
Keeping my composure, I drew out the chair across from the Crown Prince so the Grand Duke could sit, then nimbly stepped back a pace.
"I'll bring some tea, Your Highness. Please, carry on with your conversation."
"......."
But the Grand Duke didn't take his seat. He simply stared at the Crown Prince.
What is this? What's with this atmosphere?
The chill rolling off him went beyond merely cold—it felt as though the air in the dining hall was freezing over solid, inch by inch.
Then the Grand Duke turned away and said, "I'm tired."
Ah! So he wants to rest!
I hurried after him at a brisk pace.
"I'll have a bath prepared for you, my lord."
"......."
Even so, I didn't forget to turn back toward the Crown Prince and bow my head in a polite farewell.
When I turned forward again, the Grand Duke was already far ahead of me.
Those ridiculously long legs of his!
"Hmm."
Click. Rixon set a cup of honey tea with ice floating in it down on the table.
"Have it cold, Your Highness."
"Mm."
Left alone in the spot where Freya and the Grand Duke had vanished, Artair rested his chin on his hand and spoke up.
"Rixon."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Didn't the Grand Duke just storm off in a sulk?"
"Ha ha.... I wouldn't presume to— that is, how could I possibly...."
Rixon stammered, clearly at a loss.
Artair tilted his head.
He did sulk. That man definitely sulked just now.
Artair was one of the very few friends capable of reading the faintest shifts in emotion beneath Kadrian's expressionless face.
The furrow between his brows was evidence beyond dispute, and so was the subtle tightening of the muscle along his jaw whenever he ground his teeth.
Evidence of a sulk.
And yet this wasn't a man who ever wore his heart on his sleeve.
Still, that aside....
"The Third Princess will throw a fit if she hears about this. No—she's probably already heard."
She'd been in an uproar ever since stepping down from her carriage, so the story of Freya had no doubt already reached her ears.
Just then—
"Say what about me?"
"......."
A familiar voice drifted from behind them.
Damn it. Artair muttered under his breath and slowly turned around. There stood a girl with a doll-like, delicate face and honey-sweet golden curls.
The Third Princess Ellaris, only months away from her debut into society.
Artair rose from his chair and flashed a picture-perfect smile—the same mask he wore when working a crowd at banquets.
"My darling little sister. What brings you all the way here? I thought you swore up and down you'd rather die than set foot in the star palace's dining hall, what with the smell."
It was a place she normally sneered at, calling it crawling with lowborn rabble.
And sure enough, Ellaris pressed her fan over her nose and scrunched her face up as hard as it would go.
"Brother. Were you just talking about me?"
"Was I?"
"Ha ha." Artair's eyes crinkled with a smile—and apparently the sight of it was too much to bear, because Ellaris shoved him hard in the shoulder.
"Move."
"......."
After staring down the length of the corridor for a long moment, Ellaris spoke.
"....Is that her?"
"Hm?"
Ellaris jerked her chin toward Kadrian and Freya, a distant speck far down the hall.
"That woman. The butler our Grand Duke brought with him."
Our Grand Duke? Artair sneered inwardly. How dare a woman who couldn't so much as catch his eye call him 'our' Grand Duke?
If Kadrian had heard that, he'd have drawn his sword on the spot.
Artair clenched his fist where Ellaris couldn't see it, his gaze fixed on her.
Ellaris's eyes were burning hotter than usual.
"She's no one you need to concern yourself with. Merely the Grand Duke's butler, nothing more."
"......."
Then Ellaris's frosty gaze swung around to Artair.
"You always say that, Brother. But do you know something? Of all the things you dismissed as nothing—there was never once a time when it actually was nothing."
"......."
"What, is it because everything I touch falls apart?"
"Ellaris. That's not what I meant—"
"Enough, Brother. Spare me the excuses. I have my ways of finding everything out, you know."
Ellaris spun on her heel and swept out of the dining hall. Watching her go, Artair sank back into his chair.
Another storm is coming, then.
He gazed in the direction where Kadrian and Freya had disappeared, and let out a long, quiet sigh.
"My lord, have you eaten?"
"......."
"I heard they brought something to the meeting room for you separately, but I wanted to make sure."
"......."
"You must be exhausted—shall I have a bath drawn so you can wash up?"
"......."
As I trailed along behind Kadrian, I tossed out question after question.
But Kadrian simply kept walking, giving no answer at all.
What on earth is wrong with him?
I clenched my jaw, barely managing to hold down the fury bubbling up inside me.
"Or would you prefer to sleep right away?"
"......."
Still nothing. The Grand Duke, who had maintained his stubborn silence the entire way, only turned to look at me once we were inside the bedroom of the star palace.
"You—!"
"....Pardon?"
His voice was even lower than usual, though it lost none of that pleasant deep timbre.
When I blinked rapidly up at him, he swallowed down one round of emotion and spoke again.
"Do you intend to befriend every soul gathered in this palace?"
"......."
"Ed made it perfectly clear that attendants had no need to mingle with the other escorts. So why were you there?"
"Well, that was because—"
"And the Crown Prince called you by name."
"Ah, that was—"
"Are you close enough with him now, that he calls you by your name?"
"No, my lord. That—"
"Since when?"
"......."
"Did you meet with him every time I stepped away?"
"......."
The Grand Duke fired off his questions without granting me so much as a breath to answer.
What now? What misunderstanding has he cooked up this time?
I carefully retraced my steps, searching for whatever mistake I could possibly have made.
Hmm.
I have absolutely no idea.
If you asked me to find a single failing in my service as a butler—here in this palace, at least—there wasn't one.
And yet... what is this?
This atmosphere. This situation.
Why does it feel so familiar?
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Just then—throb!
Ugh, my head....
A headache struck without warning. Without thinking, I rubbed at my forehead.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, my lord. It's an old ailment of mine. I get headaches from time to time...."
Especially when I'm around you—that part, I swallowed for the moment.
Just then, another throb!
Ah.... it feels like someone is driving a needle into my skull....
Why is this happening?
It was the very moment that puzzlement crossed my mind. The headache surged fiercer still, and then my vision began to blur. Startled, I reached for the side table right beside me—but even that slipped from my grasp, and I lost my balance.
Ah—I'm falling!
I squeezed my eyes shut. And in that instant—
"Freya!"
The Grand Duke's urgent voice rang out, and a heartbeat later my plummeting body stopped dead at some point above the floor.
It felt as though something solid had caught and held me—and at the same moment, the headache vanished.
I slowly opened my eyes. My vision was still hazy, though. Something dark shifted in front of the blur—it had to be the Grand Duke's face.
So he had caught me mid-fall, then.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound of his heartbeat reached my ears through his chest.
His breathing, slightly ragged, made my head spin all the more. His familiar scent suddenly flooded into me, thick and close.
I could see nothing—but precisely because of that, every part of him registered with startling clarity.
His body, hardened by relentless training, was firm rather than soft. And yet, within his embrace, I found myself seized by an inexplicable sense of safety.
Perhaps that was why. The headache had stopped, but my mind swayed drowsily, and my eyelids began to grow heavy along with it.
He's so warm.
Maybe it was the Grand Duke's astonishingly high body temperature, but being held like this felt like sinking into a bath of steaming hot water.
My eyelids drifted shut.
And then, as a deep wave of relief seemed to melt every bone in my body, darkness rushed up to swallow my sight.
And with that, I lost consciousness.
"Why are you angry?"
That was the girl's voice I always heard in the dream. But this time, for the first time, a boy's voice spoke alongside it.
"Was it not the pet name I gave you?"
My best guess was that this was the boy whose face the dream never showed.
The boy went on, sounding hurt.
"Then why does that young lord know the name I gave you? Was it not meant for you and me alone?"
"No, I never told him—"
"When did you grow so close to him? While I was away in the southern territories?"
"Kadrian, just calm down for a moment—"
"Who else knows, then? The name I gave you. The name that was supposed to belong to only the two of us."
"That's not it! Kadrian! You fool!"
My eyes flew wide open.
Even now, freshly woken from the dream, the girl's final cry seemed to still be ringing in my eardrums.
Rubbing the rim of my ear, I tried to piece the dream back together.
Wh-what....
Kadrian?
For the first time, the girl's voice inside the dream had spoken that name. Kadrian.
The boy in that dream... was the Grand Duke?!