Chapter 3: 3

‘How……how should I do it?”

Philomel absentmindedly turned her head away. Then, from a few steps away, her eyes met red eyes looking this way.

“….Majesty.”

It was her fiancé, Nazar Ave Riden, born a year before Philomel.

“Nazar, this is not a good moment. Let’s go back at once.”

At that moment, his father, the Duke of Avrydon, grabbed Nassar and took him away.

“Father, but…”

“Hurry.”

The boy, who had hesitated at the duke’s resolute voice, reluctantly moved on. Unlike his fiancé, not a single drop of rain hit him, and the dry boy drifted farther away.

Philomel, too, was soon brought back to her quarters by the hands of her maids. She went into a bathtub filled with warm water and thawed her body, but her heart was still cold. Only Eustis’ back figure came to mind.

“What? What were you guys doing while the princess was doing that!”

She couldn’t see the nanny, who did not accompany her to the event because of back pain, making a fuss after hearing the story. Coming out of her bathroom, the nanny stood with her cane.

“I can never get past this. I didn’t want to go this far either, but I think you’ll get used to it after being scolded.”

Match-! Match! Match!

A slender cane repeatedly hit the white calf.

‘Sick. It hurts so much.’

Philomel shed tears, using the pain in her calf as an excuse. Even though the painful part was separate, she couldn’t appeal to anyone. After the corporal punishment, the nanny said, “Reading is poisonous. You won’t say a word that’s wrong,” she muttered in full audibility, “It seems that probation is not enough, so you will enter the special management system from now on. You’d better be prepared.”

“…Yes.”

“Did you understand? I will always watch over the princess!”

The nanny said the same thing to her several times before she left.

“It’s true, princess. Why did you do that?”

“Tell the nanny that she was wrong unconditionally. That way, the princess and we won’t get scolded.”

Philomel felt the hand of the maids lubricating her calf, and she stared blankly at the floor. When Philomel didn’t respond, they must have been taken aback. The maids looked at each other and offered her comforting words.

“Don’t be too heartbroken. Nanny is moody, so she won’t be angry for too much time.”

“And I heard from the chief chamberlain earlier that it has been decided that the postponed construction international event will be held in a week. At that time, will Nanny allow us to see the festival with Her Highness?”

“…one week?”

“Yes, in a week. The High Priest collapsed in the returning carriage.”

“Isn’t it too late? We can do it in two or three days.”

Philomel asked in a trembling voice.

“I do not know. Nothing like this has ever happened to him, and the High Priest must be shocked that the sacred ceremony was interrupted because of the rain at the time he assumed the official ritual.”

Another maid also helped.

“People are whispering that the blessings of the gods who protect the empire have been exhausted.”

The legitimacy of the Belerov family came from the power of God. There was room for it to be heard that raising questions about divine protection was denying the legitimacy of the imperial family.

“Hey, there’s no word that can’t be safe!”

When her colleague noticed, she babbled as if the maid had made an excuse.

“…No, it’s just what mothers and fathers are saying that doesn’t mean anything! That’s how it sounds…”

Philomel waved her hand helplessly.

She said, “Okay. Go away.”

After everyone had gone, Philomel limped over to her desk.

Inside her drawer was a book with the title <Princess Elensia> in a brown cover, just as it had been put in it. How likely is it that the founding festival, which has never been postponed since the founding of the country, will be postponed this year? And how likely is it that a fiction book will hit it by chance? Besides, everything that happened after that was the same. Even the collapse of the high priest, and the event being postponed for a week because of it. The cruel realization spread like ink. The appearance was the same as any other popular romance novel, but this was not a novel.

‘Prophecy’

The hand holding the book trembled.

The emperor was not Philomel’s father.

She was fake

* * *

The next morning. Perhaps because of the rain the day before, Philomel eventually caught a bad cold.

“Princess. Time to wake up.”

The nanny shook Philomel awake.

“…Nurse. I can’t get up, it hurts. It must be a cold.”

Philomel suppressed a cough and spoke in a low voice. Her head was spinning and her throat was so sore that it hurted to swallow saliva. However, despite Philomel’s appeal, the nanny did not budge.

“Are you faking it again? You can’t get over today by pretending to be sick. His Majesty is calling the princess for yesterday’s work. If you’re going to be so scared, why did you make such a fuss in the first place?”

In the past, she had skipped several classes on the excuse that she was sick because she found the various classes she took every day so difficult and boring.

“…I’m not faking it. It really hurts.”

Philomel answered in a hushed voice. It was definitely her fault for skipping, but she was saddened when she was suspected of malingering.

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“Because I want you to wake up… You’re really hot.”

The nanny’s eyes widened as she placed her hand on Philomel’s arm. 

After a while, the doctor who came to see Philomel at the call of her nanny diagnosed it as a simple fever. He said she would get better if she took some medicine and got some rest. Philomel barely managed to gorge herself on the red soup as she had no appetite and had a hard time passing something in her throat.

The nanny said to Philomel, who swallowed her pills and went back to bed, “I told His Majesty that you have a cold. But you know very well that I’m not the kind of person who will take care of you in pain, right?”

“…”

“How many people must have regarded the princess as immature yesterday. I can’t even lift my face in public. What kind of festival was that?”

People seemed to regard Philomel’s sudden behavior as a child’s whining.

‘How nice it would be if that was true’

Philomel thought blankly.

“Get some rest. If you need anything, call the maids in the next room.”

Saying that, the nanny left.

Shortly after, Philomel fell asleep quickly under the influence of her medicine. How much time passed until her eyes opened by themselves? A cold sweat soaked Philomel’s whole body. She had a scary dream. She herself was executed and Eustis was an insensitive spectator of her fake daughter dying alongside her real daughter.

Her little body trembled.

She wanted to live. She was afraid to die. Se had never wanted to die.

‘Will my father really kill me?’

Even though she already knew the answer, she was madly tempted to deny it.

What if Philomel lives steadily from now on? What if she becomes the daughter her father desires? Maybe the future would be different. Even if the book said she’s fake, anyway he hasn’t considered her his daughter for 9 years. She might have a little warmth. She wanted to check right now. She wanted to ask.

“I have to go…”

Her body was still heavy and her head hurt, but not to the point of immobility so Philomel slipped out of her room.

It was already close to noon. In the sense of getting a good night’s sleep, the nanny had said that today’s lunch would be prepared two hours later than usual. Even if she left her seat for a while, no one would realize that Philomel was gone.

She crept through the hallways, sneaking around so as not to be seen, but the sound of conversation leaked from the room next to her. It was where the maids stayed.

“What kind of trouble is this because of the princess?”

Hearing the annoyed voice, Philomel stopped involuntarily and put his ear to the door. Four or five people were having a conversation.

“Shh. Someone may be listening.”

“What? We’re the only ones here. The princess fell asleep from the drug energy.”

“She isn’t wrong. If she hadn’t had accidents every day, we wouldn’t have had our wages cut.”

The man who said that was Martin, the escort knight in charge of Philomel. Not working and flirting with her maids, it was clear negligence.

One of the maids agreed.

“That’s right.”

“Nanny is just catching us like mice!”

“The princess was at fault, but it’s always us who get scolded.”, said Martin flirting.

“The sadness of the lower ones, well. If you’re dissatisfied, then you too will be born as His Majesty’s daughter in your next life.”

The maid with an exceptionally loud voice shouted.

“Ah! I really want to do that. If I were the princess, she would have been loved by His Majesty because of how pretty I would be!”

“What are you talking about? You are dreaming.”

A roar of laughter filled the room. Everyone seemed happy.

“Oh, I really hate Philomel.”

The words someone threw at her stuck in Philomel’s chest.

“Are you crazy? What if someone hears you calling Her Highness by her name?”

“Why. Because she is the princess? What kind of princess is not even treated as a daughter by His Majesty the Emperor?”

“Still…”

“Furthermore, Philomel doesn’t even have divine powers, the symbol of her royal family.”

“I don’t know if she’s in the room, but she’s the first one of the direct imperial family to be born without divine power.”

“Only the pattern is the royal family.”

Philomel’s little shoulders shrank.

“I’m still envious. Someone was slapped on the cheek by a nanny for not paying attention, but the person in question slept peacefully.”

“I want to see the festival and wear my new clothes in front of a lot of nobles.”

“I don’t know why they do not break the engagement between the princess and the Duke of Ave Riden.”

“She is not a suitable match for the little Lord, who has already been rumored to be clever.”

“Ah, did you see the expression on the face of the little Lord the other day when the princess was feeding him a cake?”

“He really hated it. Poor princess, she didn’t even notice.”

“If she had such a sense, would she have been hated by His Majesty?”

“That’s right. Well, the other day…”

That was enough. She didn’t want to hear any more, so Philomel withdrew from the door.

Her tears welled up as she recalled the faces of those who had been kindly concerned about Philomel’s well-being until earlier. Their care was fake. There was no one on her side there.

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