When we arrived at my room, Cecil and Ser Wayne immediately treated me then put me back inside the crib.
Ugh, the crib again. I can’t just keep on lying inside here. At least let me crawl on the ground, or even teach me how to walk.
“Is the princess okay?” I heard Ser Wayne ask Cecil.
“Yes, she’s fine.”
“She’s a peculiar baby, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, when she looked at me earlier, it felt like she’s telling me to calm down. Like, she knows how to handle the situation. Although, it might’ve been my imagination.”
I can’t see where they are standing but from the sound of their voices, I guess they’re standing near the door.
“I remembered when we found her last night, she was not even crying.”
So, Ser Wayne was one of the people who found us last night.
“Is that even possible?” Ser Wayne asked Cecil.
“I don’t know. This is my first time taking care of a baby, but I do know that the princess is not like any other baby.”
“Will you report this to His Imperial Majesty? You were tasked to report to the head maid everything about the princess, right?”
Should I start acting like a baby? I don’t want them to think that something is wrong with me. What would the emperor think of me? Will he get rid of me?
I remembered how he looked at me last night. It was far from being happy. He had the same look as the Duchess earlier, although he changed it after inspecting me. I guess he was holding himself back from judging me.
I kind of understand their hostility towards me. It seemed like the man who protected me was the emperor’s son, and he was my father or something like that. I guess they’re still doubting if I’m truly his daughter or not.
“I don’t know. I think it would be a problem if they’d found out about the princess being peculiar. You already know that rumors are already spreading about the princess.”
“Rumours do travel fast huh. In less than twenty-four hours, I bet everyone in the capital already knows of the existence of the daughter of the late crown prince.”
Crown prince, huh. I’ve been wondering how come the crown prince of this empire was running outside the capital alone. No guards, no maids, no one. He only had me, his daughter. Well, why was I even born in the first place? Did he run away because he fell in love with a commoner or something?
I heaved a sigh.
There’s no point in asking myself things like that. I’ll find out when I’m older if I’ll get older. I have a feeling that my life here would not be easy. But what would they achieve by killing a baby?
I squirmed again to get on all fours, this time I succeeded. I leaned over the crib and saw Cecil and Ser Wayne still standing by the door.
“Cecil look! The princess is holding herself up!” Ser Wayne told Cecil excitedly.
He sounded like a woman being all giddy over something.
“Oh! Right, I forgot about something! I was told that the merchants are coming over today!” Cecil looked at me with the same excitement as Ser Wayne.
“I need to do something for a while. Will you look over the princess for me?”
Before Ser Wayne can respond, Cecil hurriedly ran outside the room.
Ser Wayne smiled at me as he scratched the back of his head.
“So, um. How do I look over you, princess? Do you want to go uh, hmmm?” He looked at the balcony.
“Okay, let’s go get some fresh air.”
With that, he picked me up and opened the double glass door.
The balcony is spacious, there are tables and chairs too. We can see the garden from up here. I looked at the forest.
There must be a way out of here, somewhere over there. I should go over there and inspect it when I can walk on my own.
There’s a flowering tree next to the balcony. Rose-colored flowers filled the tree.
“Look here princess, aren’t the flowers pretty today?” As he said that a flower floated down towards us and he caught it.
“Here” He put the flower behind my ear. “The flower suits the dress you’re wearing today, princess.”
With that, he smiled at me.
“You really are peculiar, princess. You don’t display any emotion, you do not cry and you do not seem to smile. I wonder what would make you smile, princess?”
What would make me smile?
After living sixteen years in that awful hell, I never really knew what can make me smile. I was only raised to kill, I never had any emotion within me. And now that I’ve been given a new chance at life, I don’t even know what I should do. All I know is that I need to survive, I need to live. Maybe I’ll just figure it all out later when I’m all grown up.
“It looks like you’re thinking hard, princess. Are you thinking about my question?” He smiled gently at me.
I was about to nod but stopped myself. He would find it weird that a one-year-old baby would understand his question. Should I start acting like a baby?
I tried to look at him with different emotions, but how? I adjusted my face to make an expression but Ser Wayne suddenly chuckled.
I looked at him covering his mouth, trying hard to suppress his laughter.
“What are you doing, princess?” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for laughing. It’s like you don’t know how to put any emotion and decided to just drop every emotion at the same time. Although, it made you look more like a baby.”
Suddenly we heard the door open. We both looked in the direction of the door and saw numerous maids coming inside carrying boxes.
“Ser Wayne.” An old lady in a maid’s uniform came last together with Cecil.
“Miss Schezclar.”
“We prepared food for the princess in the garden, please take her there while we arrange everything here.”
Ser Wayne bowed his head and carried me out of the room.
“Princess, let’s take a different path towards the garden. Maybe you want to see your cousins also.”
I tilted my head, thinking ‘what do you mean by cousins?’
He chuckled as he looked at me.
“You really can understand me, huh? It’s like I can initiate a conversation with you. Okay, let’s go!”
We walked towards a different path inside the palace. There were various portraits of different people along the walls as we walked through the hallway. I mostly stared at them on our way out, rather than listening to Ser Wayne talk. I thought back at the organization, the hallway was also like this. Filled with portraits, though I don’t know who they were. The only difference is that these are portraits of red-haired children rather than grown men and women.
“You’re staring intently at the portraits, princess. Do they interest you?”
I looked at him as if asking him who these people were.
“They’re portraits of the past princes and princesses who once lived inside Caelum palace when they turned ten years old.”
I looked at him to explain further but he looked excitedly at one portrait stopped in front of it.
“Look! The late crown prince. This is how your father looked when he was ten, princess.”
I stared at the boy in the painting. Although he’s young, his expression is filled with authority. A thin line on his lips, a gaze that seemed to know more about the world than any other ten-year-old. Unlike me, his skin is white and fair and his hair is color red. We look nothing alike.
I stared at the portrait even more, and I just noticed that his portrait is different than the others. Unlike the other portraits, something else was painted together with him.
I stared at the red beast sleeping comfortably on his lap. It looks like either a big red lizard or a small red alligator. I pointed at it as I looked at Ser Wayne.
“Oh! That’s the crown prince’s dragon.”
He looked at the portrait proudly.
‘What? A dragon?’
Ser Wayne noticed my expression filled with shock and this time he did not only chuckle but laughed as well.
“Oh my, Princess. You’re so adorable.” He calmed himself down and exhaled. “Yes, a dragon. Each member of the Imperial Family has a dragon. The imperial family will hold a Vinculum Ceremony. That is when a member of the imperial family turns ten, they will have a chance to call out a dragon as their familiar through their blood.”
Ser Wayne paused and looked at me to check if I was still following. When he saw that my attention was still glued to him, he continued.
“You saw the Duchess’ familiar dragon earlier. That woman in white, she’s a white dragon. Don’t worry princess, you’ll learn more about these during your studies.”
A dragon huh? Am I really in a fantasy world, where dragons and magical beasts exist?
I remembered how I floated when the emperor flicked his hand. Magic also exists in this world huh.
Will I even have my own dragon? The imperial family calls their dragon through their blood. Am I even part of the imperial family? I noticed how each of them has red hair, but my hair is black. Is that what the maids meant when they talked about my hair color?
“You look down, princess. Are you alright?”
Am… I alright? Strange, no one has ever asked me that before.
I looked up at him, not knowing how to react.
“Is that the baby?” I heard a young boy from afar.
“Your highness, you’ll trip when you run like that!” I saw a maid running behind the boy.
The boy has red curly hair and is running excitedly towards us. Behind the maid, there’s another boy who is walking calmly. He has the same face as the boy who was running towards us, the only difference is that he has red straight hair. Obviously, they’re twins.
The curly-haired boy stopped in front of Ser Wayne and raised his hands up.
“Can I also hold my baby cousin?” The boy asked with a big smile on his face.