Chapter 41: The Rose-Colored Youth and Faustina
The two men who had abducted Faustina disguised themselves as deliverymen, transporting legitimate cargo as they drove their carriage southward from the royal capital.
Along the way, they were stopped by soldiers patrolling the streets and asked to present their cargo.
They showed the delivery slip and the labels affixed to the goods, all bearing real names and addresses, and were waved through once everything checked out.
Even if the contents were inspected, there would have been no issue.
The box containing Faustina had been placed in a cleverly constructed hidden compartment beneath the driver’s seat.
…
Two days had passed since the abduction of the Wittgenstein duke’s daughter.
The pair stopped their carriage at an inn located at the southern edge of the city.
It was both a rest stop and a chance to procure supplies.
They opened the lid of the box hidden beneath the seat, stuffed Faustina into a burlap sack, and entered the inn bearing the sign “Piccolino.”
After checking in, they went to the assigned room and locked the door.
They took Faustina out of the sack.
She lay there with a blissful sleeping face, occasionally murmuring sleep-talk about eating pie.
She was probably having a happy dream.
If she knew that the moment she returned to reality, that happiness would be shattered, what kind of reaction would this young girl have?
She would scream and cry, despair, and be kicked down into the depths after imagining a future dyed in darkness.
The bearded man trembled with suppressed laughter, wanting to burst out in crude guffaws as he pictured it.
The other man looked at him coldly.
He was a strikingly beautiful youth with rose-colored hair, the left side at the nape long enough to reach his shoulder, and eyes of the same hue.
There was a restrained knock on the door, four times.
The man seemed to know who it was and opened it without asking.
Standing there was a man with neatly cut red hair and small black eyes with almost no eyelashes—
It would be rude to say it outright, but his facial features were unfortunate.
Cain Fuchs.
He was the man who had been plotting Faustina’s abduction behind the scenes for seven long years.
The moment he saw Faustina lying on the bed, he spread his arms wide and strode toward her with an ecstatic expression.
At that instant, the rose-haired youth, who had been watching Faustina’s sleeping face, threw a knife from his sleeve in a single, efficient motion.
The blade flew past Cain’s cheek by a hair’s breadth and embedded itself in the ceiling.
The youth fixed Cain with eyes even colder than those he had directed at the bearded man.
“Don’t approach her carelessly.
If she wakes up and starts screaming, it’ll be troublesome.”
“You bastard…
You’re nothing but a nameless orphan.”
“And who was it that asked that orphan to kidnap a duke’s daughter?”
…
Struck where it hurt, Cain bit his lip in frustration.
Without this man, the plan would never have succeeded.
“Well then, shall we discuss how to get out of this country?”
“…Yeah, you’re right.
Hey, keep a proper watch on Faustina.
If she wakes up, gag her so she can’t scream.”
…
Receiving no reply and expecting none from the start, Cain snorted, took the bearded man with him, and left the room.
“…You’re unlucky too.
Because you resemble someone called Arva, a freak like that took notice of you.”
Arva was the name of Citrine’s cousin.
It had taken seven years to abduct Faustina while evading the tight security of the ducal estate, a testament both to Cain’s caution and to the fact that failure was absolutely unacceptable.
The ducal house was surely searching desperately for Faustina by now.
The royal family too, without a doubt.
Cain and the bearded man, laughing arrogantly that she would never be found, were fools.
Yes, seven years had been spent perfecting the plan.
But the opposing side was not stupid either.
If the highest-ranking nobles searched with everything they had—eventually, she would be found.
Precautions had been taken.
To begin with, the Cain who had served the Wittgenstein household was a fake.
Both the ducal and royal houses recognized him as a man with slicked-back black hair and glasses.
In reality, he was a man with short, neatly trimmed red hair and small black eyes nearly devoid of eyelashes.
That disguise itself—
Had been fabricated using artificial skin and artificial hair by this very youth.
“Ciel-sama…”
The youth murmured a name.
“Mmm… mnh…?”
…
Milk-colored eyelids twitched.
Hidden beneath them, pale yellow eyes slowly opened, gazing blankly at the ceiling.
After blinking twice, Faustina turned her face to the left—
Toward the youth.
…
…
Sleepy pale yellow eyes met rose-colored ones.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Faustina’s eyes widened to their limit.
“Huh?
Eh?”
Right, up, left, up, right, up.
After checking the room by moving her neck in every direction she could, Faustina suddenly sat up.
Her mouth hung open in stunned silence.
She turned toward the youth with an eerie, doll-like motion.
“…Wh…
Where… is this… place…?”
“…I feel sorry for you, but you’ve been kidnapped.”
………
There are scenes in novels where characters are so shocked that they turn to stone.
Faustina was exactly like that now.
The youth vaguely wondered if such states from stories could really happen in reality.
After remaining frozen for several minutes, Faustina suddenly moved and grabbed the youth’s sleeve.
“…I see…
Then you’re a victim too, aren’t you…?”
…
—Huh?
“I mean, I don’t know who you are, but you’re really handsome.
You were kidnapped because of your looks too, right…?”
…
He had expected her to understand the situation and either cry, scream for help, or try to run away.
Instead, she gave him an entirely unexpected reaction.
His thought process ground to a halt.
He quickly recovered and glanced down at himself.
The butler’s uniform he had worn during the abduction had already been disposed of.
He was dressed in plain commoner’s clothes.
“If you’re wearing commoner’s clothes, then you’re probably a commoner, but…
To suffer something like this just because you’re good-looking…
That’s bad luck.”
…
“Hah…
I guess I’m unlucky too.
To be kidnapped while I was asleep…
Huh?
But you know, it’s impressive they managed to kidnap me when there were guards around.”
…
Should he say that he himself had slipped past those guards to kidnap her?
Or should he play the role of a pitiful fellow victim?
Judging that telling the truth and causing a commotion would be troublesome, he decided to go along with her story.
“Well…
Unlike you, I was awake when I was taken.
Or rather, I was threatened.”
“I see…
Hey, what’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Huh?”
“I may be dressed like a commoner, but I grew up an orphan in the slums.
So I don’t have a name.
These clothes were put on me by the kidnappers.
They said I’d stand out if I looked too shabby.
Getting a bath was lucky, in a way.”
“I-I see…”
It was easy to weave lies and truths together.
Being kidnapped was a lie.
But the life story he told was real.
After listening, Faustina lowered her gaze.
He said, “That’s something nobles wouldn’t understand.”
The gap between nobles raised in abundance and slum dwellers who risked their lives just to survive each day was like heaven and hell.
He hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, but it came out sounding that way.
Before he could speak again, Faustina, who had remained silent, cut in with a “But—”.
“Before long, the slums will become much better than they are now.”
“Why can you say that?”
“It’s a secret.
But it’s true.”
…
Where did her confidence come from, to assert something so firmly without proof?
She should have been anxious, not knowing what would happen to her next—
Yet she looked at him with pale yellow eyes lit by a strong will.
“…Whatever.”
He looked away, feigning disinterest.
The image of a sky-blue color flashed through his mind.
“…What do you think will happen to us?”
Faustina hugged her knees.
It was the first time she spoke in an anxious tone.
When noble children were abducted, the usual outcomes were ransom demands or being sold as merchandise.
During the journey, the bearded man had been eager to demand ransom, but the youth had told him to stop.
The risk was too great.
Money was not an issue.
Cain had prepared a large reward.
Half was paid in advance, with triple the amount promised upon success.
Why Cain possessed such funds was something the youth already knew.
Half came from the wages he earned while working at the ducal estate for seven years.
The other half was his parents’ inheritance.
Cain had told him all of this unprompted when he approached him with the plan seven years ago.
“…Usually, they sell girls like you to perverted old men.”
“!?”
“And the kidnappers said that since you have such a rare appearance, selling you to some deranged cult was also an option.”
“!!?”
Every possibility spelled utter despair.
“H-Hey, is there any way we can escape together?”
“No.
If there were, I’d have escaped on my own already.”
“…Yeah.”
Faustina collapsed backward with the expression of someone who had reached the end of the world.
Something like her soul seemed to leave her mouth—then quickly returned when she sat up again.
“What about going out now?”
“There’s probably a guard.
And who knows when the kidnappers will come back.
You can’t take a risk like that.”
“…Right.”
He didn’t actually know if there was a guard outside.
He just said it as a guess.
Faustina looked outside through the window.
The sunset-dyed sky was beautiful.
She thought she might never get another chance to see such a crimson view again.
She tightened her grip on the youth’s sleeve.
“I wanted… to find so many things I wanted to do…”
“Things you want to do?
As a noble, you can do anything.”
“That’s not true.
It only looks free, but there are so many restrictions.
Because of how I look, I was decided to be the Crown Prince’s fiancée from the moment I was born.
Every day was strict lady’s training and etiquette lessons, and this year, queen-consort education started too.
It wasn’t suffering.
It was fun, actually.
Learning new things made me want to learn even more.”
…
“But…
I have absolutely no intention of becoming Crown Princess.”
“Why?”
For a noble, marrying into royalty should have been beneficial.
As Cain, serving as a butler, the youth had seen Faustina striving day after day to become Crown Princess.
He suddenly remembered how she always ran away whenever the Crown Prince came.
She studied diligently, yet fled from the prince.
Now, at last, he felt he understood a fragment of that contradiction.
“Because the person His Highness will fall in love with… is my younger sister.”
…
Her younger sister meant Elvira.
She always appeared and secured a spot beside him whenever the Crown Prince visited.
The youth remembered it well, having warned her several times himself.
“Do you really think a prince of the realm would transfer his affection to his fiancée’s sister?”
“You can tell just by looking.
The difference in how he treats me and how he treats my sister.”
…
Come to think of it, Bernhard always looked cheerful when talking with Elvira while waiting for Faustina.
But with Faustina, conversation somehow stalled.
Both of them would fall silent.
Yet on days Faustina didn’t appear, he always left looking sad.
“Well, even if you’re rescued safely, your engagement will probably be broken.
If he keeps an engagement with an abducted young lady, the other nobles will tear him apart.
…Wait, if that happens, then I’ll get my engagement broken, and if I emphasize that changing partners is better than changing houses…
That means… I’ll finally get the broken engagement I wanted…”
…
She muttered the last part quietly, too softly for him to hear.
But his expression changed immediately.
The resigned look on her profile stirred something dangerously inappropriate within him.
Toward an eight-year-old girl.
A chill ran down his spine.
Cain’s talk of a woman named Arva came to mind.
He had boasted loudly that Faustina looked just like her.
The youth had half-listened and couldn’t recall in what way they were similar.
Faustina had all the makings of a future beauty, and shared something with that woman named Arva—
It was only speculation, but Cain might have…
Just as that thought formed—
Shouts suddenly erupted from below.
The sound of hurried footsteps, screams, and clashing metal reached even this room.
Startled, Faustina clung to the youth.
“W-What is that—”
(They’re here.)
The noise grew louder and closer.
A man’s scream and the sound of something being cut.
Faustina clung to him even tighter, trembling.
“I-I’d rather have finished my pie and woken up only to keep dreaming about being chased by call ducks and kicked by them foreverrr!”
(So that’s what you were dreaming about.)
Despite her earlier blissful sleeping face and murmurs, he thought dryly, and gently wrapped his arms around her shaking body.
At the same moment—
The door was violently thrown open.
“—Faustina!!”
At the voice that sounded almost like a scream, Faustina hesitantly looked up…
“…Y-Your… Highness…?”
For just an instant, the small Bernhard standing among the adults overlapped with the image of him she remembered from before.