The Boy in the Garden
I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar space.
As I glanced around wondering where I was, I caught sight of myself reflected in the windowpane.
Neatly combed platinum blonde hair rippled all the way down to the waist, and intelligent blue eyes sparkled with unusual brilliance.
She couldn't have been more than ten years old. The small, delicate girl looked terribly familiar. It was because she was the very girl I always saw in my dreams.
So this is a dream.
It had been a while since I'd last dreamed one.
Ever since I started taking the medicine the Grand Duke had fetched for me, the dreams had stopped for a time — but today, for whatever reason, one had come again.
But still…….
Something was off.
It was always a viewpoint from the outside, like watching a play from the audience — yet today I had woken up inside this girl's body.
I couldn't move or speak of my own will, but I could see and hear the world through the child's eyes.
The girl gazed at her reflection in the window and twirled around in place, a full revolution.
A lovely dress, dripping with frills and ribbons, flared out in a swirl before settling gently back down.
Watching it, the girl smiled with deep satisfaction.
"Perfect."
After deftly smoothing the hem of her dress one last time, the girl padded lightly down the marble corridor, taking in the beautiful scenery around her.
Chandeliers dripping with crystals hung from the high ceiling, and along both walls of the pristine white corridor, gold-rimmed glass lamps cast their light upon the path.
Along the right wall of the corridor stood a row of magnificent windows that stretched clear up to the ceiling, and beyond them came into view a lavish, meticulously tended garden.
This place is…….
It was the imperial palace of the Cadea Empire.
It looked little different from the scenery I had seen when I followed the Grand Duke to the palace.
Light footsteps carried on.
Is she on her way to meet a boy, all dressed up like this?
But why the imperial palace?
That question was answered before long.
Ah, she's headed to the banquet hall.
The moment the girl stepped inside, the crowd surged toward her as if they'd been waiting.
Perhaps because it was a dream, a sort of black smoke hung over their faces, making it impossible to tell who any of them were.
Even inside the banquet hall, the girl kept glancing around. She seemed to be searching for someone.
And in the midst of it all, everyone from young heirs to the heads of noble houses came approaching her.
But the girl offered only the barest minimum of courtesy, refusing to engage with a single one of them.
It might have struck some as arrogant, yet for some reason, the people around her accepted it as perfectly natural.
So her family is no ordinary one.
While I was busy inferring this girl's lineage, yet more people came pressing in.
"Lady Flanker, our family has recently entered the mining business, so……."
"Perhaps you might hear us out on a trade matter of ours—"
Ha! I laughed quietly to myself.
What on earth are they saying to a child?
Business? Trade?!
Naturally enough, the girl gave a listless reply and walked away.
Then another young heir stepped up and spoke to her.
"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Flanker. Would you care to share the next dance with me?"
"Lady Flanker, I hear they've planted new flowers in the palace garden. Won't you come see them with me?"
Lady this, Lady that, Lady Flanker! That blasted Lady Flanker!
Ugh, so tedious!
Maybe it was because I was hearing and experiencing it all from within the girl's body.
I can feel it — she finds this tedious too.
Having given up on finding whoever she was looking for, the girl slipped out of the banquet hall.
"The palace garden, you said."
The words of one of the young heirs who'd asked if she'd like to see the newly planted flowers floated back to her.
Going together was out of the question, but it seemed she did fancy looking at the flowers.
Having escaped the banquet hall, the girl began walking down the corridor that led toward the palace garden.
"Anyway, where on earth is Cadrian?"
Right. All that glancing around earlier — she was looking for the Grand Duke.
Come to think of it, this was the first dream where the young Grand Duke hadn't appeared.
He was always at this girl's side. Where did he go today?
Just then, I sensed a presence stealthily attaching itself to the girl's surroundings.
About five of them, maybe.
There was no trace of hostility, so they were most likely escort knights.
Inside the imperial palace, where no weapons could be carried — and that, in the very midst of a banquet in full swing, they still brought escorts…….
They said Lady Flanker, didn't they.
I'd prided myself on having memorized every noble house in the Cadea Empire while studying up on it, but I had never once heard of the Flanker family.
Which means…….
The house erased from history — the one the Grand Duke had spoken of before.
The family that ruled the Kentrow Fief, slumbering beneath its preservation boundary, was the Flanker family.
I'd resolved not to read meaning into my dreams, but dreaming something this vivid again made that impossible to keep up.
Besides, it's so vivid it hardly feels like a dream at all.
No wonder I kept suspecting I was a fragment of someone's memory.
Let's be honest with ourselves.
This is no ordinary dream.
The dreams before it were the same.
Though I still couldn't wrap my head around the pocket watch's initials, or why the Time Capsule couldn't be found.
So much time has passed since then — variables could well have crept in.
How long had I been walking? The soles of my feet grew hot and began to ache little by little.
"Wow, here already!"
Judging that no one was in the garden, the girl went hopping and skipping through its gates.
She had a cheerfulness that bordered on the absurd.
As if the refinements a noble lady ought to possess were of absolutely no concern to her whatsoever.
Once inside the garden, the girl wandered along the path for a good while, and upon discovering a stretch of flat lawn, plopped straight down onto it.
She even kicked off her shoes and flung them aside, then spread her arms wide and lay back on the grass.
"Ahhh……, this is the life."
Heehee. The girl laughed, feeling wonderfully light.
She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and gazed quietly up at the garden sky, wiggling her sock-clad toes back and forth.
"I really don't get why banquets even exist. They're no fun, and they're not the least bit enjoyable."
And most of all, I can't see Cadrian anywhere.
Just as she was grumbling along like that, another voice drifted over from one corner of the garden.
"It's thanks to banquets that enemies become friends, you know — and that tangles of misunderstanding, knotted like thread, come undone."
"!"
The girl shot upright. Then she snatched up the shoes she'd set beside her and hurriedly put them back on.
"Wh-who goes there?"
At the girl's question, a young boy stepped out from among the bushes.
"I had no intention of startling you. We were introduced when I paid my respects to His Majesty the Emperor earlier. Do you remember?"
The moment she saw the boy bow politely at the waist, the girl took a wary step backward.
Something unpleasant and uneasy was blooming in the girl's chest.
I too could not hide my shock. It felt as though someone had seized me by the throat — a suffocating, airless feeling.
You — you — how could you…….
The boy was far younger than the version I remembered, but I recognized him in an instant.
Because the boy standing before me was none other than Serhin, Crown Prince of the Tenasis Empire.
Serhin……!
How could you — how are you here……!
The cry I could not voice scattered and dissolved somewhere deep inside me.
When I opened my eyes, the sight of the Grand Duke's residence greeted me once more.
But it wasn't the familiar ceiling I was used to seeing.
Where am I?
Startled, I bolted upright and looked around wildly.
Then — huk — I sucked in a startled breath.
"Y-Your Highness?!"
The Grand Duke was sitting right beside me, watching me in silence.
My heart pounded like a drum. But whether I was startled or not, the Grand Duke — expressionless as ever — held out a glass of water and said, just as he always did.
"……Drink first. Talk after."
"Ah, yes……."
I gulped down the water he handed me.
Perhaps judging that I'd had enough, the Grand Duke spoke first.
"Planning to die before you even get your memories back?"
"……I'm sorry, what?"
Oh, right. I did collapse…….
But wait — what? Planning to die?
Excuse me? You think I collapsed on purpose?!
No warning, nothing — and then he springs that on me. What am I supposed to do with that?
His way with words, honestly!
I glared at the Grand Duke for a moment, then turned my head away.
But why am I in the Grand Duke's bedroom, of all places — not even my own room?
I sipped the rest of my water, thinking.
And above all, I woke from the dream at such an infuriating moment.
The boy I saw at the very end was definitely Serhin.
The golden hair and the ruby eyes that only the imperial family of the Tenasis Empire could possess — they were proof enough that the boy was Serhin.
And then there was the emotion the girl felt as she looked at Serhin.
Disgust, and fear.
Had her instincts simply warned her that he was a dangerous child?
No……. Never mind that for now…….
The point was that this body's owner had met Serhin in her childhood.
But why?
How? How was the crown prince of an enemy nation inside the Cadea Empire's imperial palace?
My head began to spin.
Then a single word from the Grand Duke sent my heart plummeting straight down.
"Serhin."
"……Yes?"
"How do you know that name?"