“Daddy, you love Mother, don’t you? You love her more than anyone else in the world. Then you need to stay by her side. Mother needs you.”
When Mother eventually passed away, Dad must have wanted to follow her if he could.
‘But because he couldn’t, he fell ill as well.’
Etern reached out and tightly held Wintier’s fingers. She thought they’d be cold, but they weren’t. Instead, they were boiling hot and unyielding.
Yet he still felt hollow. It was as if he couldn’t see or hear anything.
“I’m sorry for calling you a coward. I know how much you love Mother.”
For a moment, Wintier’s dark eyes wavered.
Hoping her words would reach him, Etern sincerely pleaded again.
“Mother may be asleep, but she’s waiting for you to come to her. Even in her dreams.”
A faint light returned to the seemingly empty darkness of his eyes.
Seeing Wintier’s expression slightly soften, Etern let out a small sigh of relief, but then he let out a bitter chuckle.
“How would you know that?”
Tears still stained her face, but Etern broke into a bright smile. It was a smile strong enough to slightly dispel the deep, overwhelming darkness within Wintier.
“Because every night before I go to sleep, I wish you and Mother would appear in my dreams. And Dora too.”
“Dora?”
“Yes. Because the people I love the most in the world are the ones I want to see even in my dreams.”
Her pure, untainted voice made Wintier’s fingers twitch slightly. Slowly, he lowered his gaze to look at his daughter’s fingers that were holding onto him.
Thin, delicate fingers.
[Wintier, look at this. How can something be so small and fragile…?]
After giving birth to Etern, Meikellen had said those words countless times, pressing kisses onto the tiny fingers of the swaddled newborn.
[She’s our first child.]
Despite the pain of childbirth likely lingering, her face radiated a joy as abundant as nature itself.
However, that joy didn’t last long.
[Mei!]
Falling from her mother’s arms, Etern cried loudly, her small red mouth wide open, as if forewarning the sorrow to come.
Her tiny hand reached out clumsily beyond the swaddle, searching for her mother.
“Daddy.”
Lost in his thoughts, Wintier suddenly snapped back to reality and looked up. Once again, he turned his gaze to his daughter’s hand holding onto his.
For a moment, it felt as though Meikellen’s gentle hand overlapped with hers.
“Please visit Mother every day too, Daddy. Call out to her. Maybe that will help her wake up faster.”
“…There’s no such miracle.”
“But there might be! If you keep talking to her, maybe you’ll appear in her dreams. Then she might want to see you so badly that she’ll open her eyes!”
Please, just listen to me, Etern thought.
‘Dad needs hope.’
Even the smallest thread of hope would suffice. The expectation that there might be a way for Empress Meikellen to wake up would be enough.
That alone could prevent Dad from being consumed by anger and helplessness.
“Promise me?”
Wintier didn’t respond, and Etern, growing anxious, pressed him further. If he refused, she was ready to cry and throw a tantrum to extract his promise.
‘And if that doesn’t work, I’ll go on a hunger strike.’
“…Alright, I promise.”
Etern’s face brightened instantly, as clear as a morning glory unfurling under the sunlight. She had been thinking of various ways to threaten her Dad.
“Then it’s a promise.”
Etern extended her tiny pinky, and Wintier smiled faintly, almost imperceptibly.
He extended his own finger and tapped hers three times. It was his way of sealing the promise.
Grinning, Etern grasped Wintier’s hand tightly, determination shining in her eyes.
‘Good, good. This is a promising start. Now, if I can just keep coaxing Dad like this and find a solution quickly, everything will work out.’
***
“I don’t get it…!”
The loud voice that carried beyond her quarters startled the attendants, who peeked inside.
“What is Her Highness doing…?”
“Studying, I suppose.”
“But she’s so young; does she really have to read books like that already?”
“Of course. She’s the only princess, after all. Can you imagine how much His Majesty must expect from her?”
“Still…”
The murmuring attendants scattered as Dora cast them a sharp, scolding glance. Meanwhile, Etern sat at her desk, banging her legs in frustration as she rested her forehead on the table.
Dora, looking at her sympathetically, said,
“Your Highness, you can read books like this when you’re a little older. You don’t have to work so hard already…”
“No!”
Etern abruptly lifted her head and snatched the book Dora had been about to put away. It was so heavy she nearly dropped it.
“What even is this book? I can’t read a single word. Do you know what language this is, Your Highness?”
“This is…”
Etern began to answer but stopped herself.
‘It’s the ancient language of the Empire. If I say I can read it, she’ll be shocked.’
Etern rolled her eyes deliberately and spoke with a feigned indifference.
“I’m just reading it for fun. The letters look fascinating.”
“There aren’t any pictures, though?”
“Ugh, seriously! Dora! Are you going to keep interrupting me while I’m reading?”
When Etern flailed her short arms and legs in frustration, Dora sighed and nodded, giving in.
“Understood, Your Highness. I won’t bother you anymore. But at least tell me what snack you’d like.”
Etern’s eyes lit up.
“Orange tea with milk and honey cookies!”
“Understood. I’ll be right back.”
As Dora scurried out of the room, Etern turned her gaze back to the book. It was as if she was about to dive entirely into the enormous tome.
‘Seriously… I can read it, but I don’t understand a word!’
In her previous life, Etern had been fluent in the ancient language of the Empire and several other languages.
Now, with the additional knowledge she had gained from experiencing death and regress, she found it even easier to read much more complex texts than before.
The problem was…
‘Is this what it means to be a literate illiterate? I can read the words, but I have no idea what they’re saying. How am I supposed to figure out how to wake Mother like this?’
If it were a physical illness, she could search through medical texts. Etern pouted as she thought.
‘Mother isn’t suffering from an ordinary illness. No disease could cause symptoms like this.’
Among the knowledge Etern gained in her regress, a significant portion was medical.
Her mind was filled with an abundance of information about diseases she had previously known, as well as those that had spread in faraway lands or caused fatal outcomes.
She also knew how best to treat these illnesses, all of which now filled her young, small head.
‘If I think of this knowledge as a bonus from being reborn, it’s a tremendous gift.’
The issue was that there was no record of a disease with symptoms like her mother’s.
There were countless causes and symptoms that could lead a patient to fall into a coma.
But a condition where a person was in a state of ‘just sleeping’ without any physical changes—such a disease did not exist.
This left only one remaining possibility.
‘Magic, or a curse.’
Etern, having concluded that her mother’s condition wasn’t an illness, began poring over books about ancient magic.
The days when mages were abundant were long past, but invisible magical forces undoubtedly existed.
‘Such forces could influence the human body. If Mother was exposed to an overwhelming amount of magic, or if the magic within her was suddenly drained…’
Just as physical exhaustion leads to sleepiness, lethargy, and heavy limbs, magic similarly affects the body.
It was highly likely that Empress Meikellen couldn’t wake up because she either failed to control an overflowing magic force or suffered from a severe depletion of it.
‘That’s why I brought out every magic book I could find in the library!’
Etern read and reread the strange, incomprehensible sentences in the book, then leaned her small head back and sighed deeply.
“Your Highness! Oh my goodness, are you unwell? Is it a headache?”
Dora, who had just returned with tea and cookies, jumped in alarm at the sight of Etern.
“Please, go to bed. You need to take a nap!”
“I’m fine, Dora. It’s just that this book is difficult to understand.”
Dora stamped her feet anxiously.
“That’s why you shouldn’t pile up such complicated things around yourself.”
Etern, her lips pursed like a sparrow’s beak, avoided responding directly and quickly reached for a cookie.
As expected, sweets were the best remedy for mental fatigue. After devouring her snack in an instant, Etern clenched her fist determinedly.
“Alright, let’s try again.”
“You must be joking, Your Highness.”
“No, I’m serious. You don’t have to come back until I call.”
Seeing Etern engrossed in the book again, Dora left without a chance to nag lovingly.
‘I have no idea what’s going on. If she pushes herself too hard and falls ill, it’ll be a disaster. Are there not enough books in the room? I’ll have to bring more today…’
Dora sighed as she walked away, but then noticed a shadow falling at her feet. She absentmindedly looked up.
“Ah!”
Letting out a small scream, Dora quickly bowed deeply.
“Greetings to His Majesty, the Emperor.”
Standing before her was Emperor Wintier, his expression indifferent as he gestured lazily with his hand.
Dora straightened up, her face pale. The thought of almost colliding with the Emperor made her break into a cold sweat.
“Your Majesty, thank you for visiting despite your busy schedule.”
“You are the princess’s nanny, I presume?”
Dora responded respectfully,
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What is the princess doing?”
“She is reading a book at the moment.”
“A book, you say.”
Wintier’s gaze turned toward the sitting room, his eyes cold and impassive.
