On the main street of Gino Royal City, people still hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing their infamous king suddenly turn into a beast.
A few young ladies had even fainted from fright, and still hadn’t come to.
Although Noren’s body had already collapsed and lay motionless, no one dared to go near. They only watched from a distance, staring at the brown-haired girl kneeling on one knee, cradling the princess in her arms, and whispered among themselves.
“So that’s the little girl who crossed Muir Forest and killed the oracle beast?”
“She’s that young? You really can’t judge by appearances.”
“Thanks to her, Princess Sophie was brought back. Otherwise His Majesty the King… pft, that mutt Noren would’ve emptied the kingdom long ago!”
“And she just saved the princess’s life again.”
“When she was at the city gate saying she wanted to become a knight, I thought she was crazy. Never thought I’d be the one getting saved by her now.”
“But can a little girl like that really become a knight?”
“Isn’t that lord in the Temple also a—”
“Are you joking? How could that lord’s fate be something you just copy at will…”
The crowd murmured, their gazes on Leif full of praise and surprise. In the end, their tone even turned faintly reverent when they mentioned that exalted person whose name one did not lightly speak aloud.
“Leif, you… cough, cough, cough…”
Sophie seemed to choke and coughed for a long time. Leif patted her back to help her breathe smoothly, and only then did she gradually recover.
Because of the interruption, Sophie’s fear had already lessened somewhat. She looked at Leif.
“Which third-rate knight story collection did you learn that line from?”
“It’s from Volume Seven of the Temple-issued *Travelogue of the Twelve Holy Temple’s Radiant Knights*,” Leif answered carefully. “Cleric Raily personally taught from it.”
That was not some line from a third-rate knight story collection; it was from a first-rate knight story collection.
She added, “He’s told it many times.”
“I’d bet,” Sophie thought, no wonder it sounded so familiar. It did fit the situation, but it was so rigid and old-fashioned it felt crudely pasted on.
Still, when she heard Leif say it, there was a brief moment where her heart really did skip a beat. Sophie couldn’t help thinking that if Leif were Lystinger, she definitely would have pounced on her and rolled around hugging her.
She forced her expression into a stern little mask, pressed down on her racing heart, and used Leif’s arm to slowly stand up.
“…The person who first said that line, even if he isn’t dead yet, must be an old man by now.”
Leif stood up with her and didn’t hear the faint, teasing edge Sophie used to cover her embarrassment.
Sophie’s clothes had been torn and dirtied by Noren; walking around dressed like that was clearly unbefitting a princess of the realm. Fortunately, they were quite close to the place the lady steward had arranged for Leif to stay. The princess announced she would go there to tidy herself up a bit, then ordered the still-shaken guards to return to the palace and fetch a replacement dress for her. They were to come back later to escort her home.
The two of them entered the residence one after the other. After each had done a simple cleaning of the bloodstains on their bodies, Sophie said:
“Leif, you must be wondering why I just happened to be on the main street.”
“I was just about to ask.”
Leif thought that if she hadn’t heard the commotion and rushed outside, she might only have seen Sophie’s corpse.
“I came to see how the wool spinning was going,” Sophie said. “That was your punishment. Even if you just saved me, Leif, you’re not allowed to weasel out of it.”
“It’s all done.”
Leif picked up the ball of yarn by her side and showed it to her.
Sophie took the yarn and froze for a moment. The usual royal coolness and distance on her face instantly vanished. She turned the ball over and over in her hands, her expression beyond words.
In Leif’s mind, it was as if she saw a little lamb staring in daze at the sheared-off pile of its own wool. Then she heard the princess mutter to herself:
“Good job, Sophie… your wool is softer, fluffier, whiter, and more radiant than any other sheep’s…”
Obviously she had only been thinking that in her heart and had let it slip out without realizing it.
The proud and satisfied tone made Leif feel as if her heart had been brushed once by a goose feather—soft and faintly ticklish.
Adorable little Lily.
What a pity she’s not mine anymore.
—For a moment, Leif forgot that whether it was a lamb or a little princess, something that cute always came with a good hard kick to the backside.
She had only just turned her head when she saw Sophie baring her teeth and furrowing her brows, looking at her with a dangerous glint in her eyes.
Leif immediately withdrew the hand that had been about to reach out and touch the princess’s soft hair.
Sophie let out a cold little snort and put the yarn down with a thump.
When she saw the ring of half-knitted yarn and the four needles lying abandoned to the side after just a dozen rounds, Sophie grew curious again.
“What’s this?”
“Oh.”
Leif picked up the loop.
“This is a kind of knitting technique I learned from foreigners. You only need these four thick needles…”
—
The courtyard was close to Gino City’s bustling main street and right at the foot of the royal palace, yet it had a surprising quietness in the midst of all that noise.
When the owner had built the place, he had bought up more than a dozen neighboring homes, so the estate took up a fair bit of land. Most of it was garden, planted thick with greenery. The white hyacinths were already at the end of their season, but there were still other pale little blossoms scattered here and there, tiny points of white nestled in the rich green.
The drowsy sunlight of late spring poured in through the window and fell on the two girls in the sitting room, their heads bent close together. Sophie wasn’t tall, and Leif was only a bit taller than she was; at this moment, their heads were almost touching.
Leif’s dark eyes were fixed intently on the needles in Sophie’s hands. Whenever Sophie made a mistake, Leif would explain as she went, guiding the princess’s hand to demonstrate—though in Leif’s imagination, the whole scene looked suspiciously like teaching a little lamb how to knit its own wool. Even so, she taught with meticulous care.
When the maid sent to fetch the princess’s dress returned from the palace, this was the scene she walked in on.
The golden-haired princess was leaning sideways, practically pressed up against the brown-haired shepherd girl. The two of them whispered to each other, their cheeks almost touching, while in their hands they held four slender wooden needles wound with overly thick wool, the loose end still trailing down into a ball of yarn. Sophie’s face was flushed pink, and her emerald eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Hold these…”
Sophie handed the knitting needles and the yarn ball to one maid, then circled the room once. With a sharp look she spotted the remaining dozen balls of yarn tucked into Leif’s belt pouch—Leif had not even tried to hide them—and took out every last one, hugging them in her arms before passing them to the same maid as well.
Then she looked at Leif.
“Any more?”
“You’re taking all of these?”
Watching Sophie fish out the final ball of yarn, Leif felt a stab of pain and could only shake her head helplessly.
“There really aren’t any more.”
She could only comfort herself: the wool had grown on Sophie’s body to begin with; if the owner wanted to take it back, she had no grounds to complain. Even so, watching Sophie walk off with the yarn ball after ball, she felt large hollow patches opening up in her heart.
Just as Sophie finished changing into a fresh dress and was about to leave, Leif called out to her.
Sophie turned back, puzzled.
“What is it?”
“…”
Leif paused for a moment, then bowed deeply to her.
“Please forgive Lady Natiaveda.”
“Leif…”
Sophie felt a strange sense of dissonance.
“You’re pleading for that woman? Why?”
“No matter what evil the false queen committed, it has nothing to do with Lady Natiaveda,” Leif said. “Aside from the duties required of a lady steward, she didn’t participate in any of it.”
“Of course I know it had nothing to do with her.”
Sophie’s confusion only deepened.
“Then… could you please send someone to explain that to Lady Natiaveda?” Leif said anxiously. “Lady Natiaveda’s nerves are unexpectedly delicate, and her heart is surprisingly fragile. She’s easily frightened. Even though I’ve told her over and over that you’re not such a cruel person, she still dreams every night that you’re executing her… These past few days she’s lost her appetite, hasn’t been able to sleep from fear, and she looks so haggard…”
Sophie frowned slightly. The woman Leif was describing—was that really the same person she remembered?
She was about to retort when a chill ran down her back. She turned her head and, through the crack of the door, caught sight of a corner of white robes outside.
—Right now, she only wanted to leave. The sooner the better.
As she brushed past the smiling lady steward at the doorway, Sophie suddenly felt very worried about the somewhat simple-minded shepherd girl.
All she could do was silently pray for the Temple’s protection—that Leif wouldn’t end up eaten clean down to the bones and still be left in the dark about it.
