Walking by Lake Bishti as the sun went down was Asha’s second favorite thing to do here. Her first favorite was making stew with her parents.
“Our princess.”
Asha, who was taking a quiet walk by herself, turned to the sound behind her back. There was Yuriev with a knit blanket with blackberry patterns, smiling at her.
“Daddy!”
“Our princess, you’re going to catch a cold.”
Yuriev bent down in front of Asha and meticulously wrapped the blanket around her shoulder.
“The preparations for making stew are all done. Ilya and Dimitri… worked very hard.”
Yuriev and Irina were very happy to see their nephews for the first time. Although the two nephews had extremely different personalities, they were equally shy in front of Yuriev and Irina.
“If it were the usual, Arten would have joined too.”
Today Arten kept playing the harp outside.
“He was probably surprised that so many people came all of a sudden.”
“I guess he is so good at playing the harp because he is so attentive.”
Yuriev chuckled low. Asha walked by the lake holding hands with Yuriev, looking back at the lake where several forgetful fireflies rose and shone. Yuriev, who noticed the gaze, looked rather triumphant.
“Hm. I don’t think there are such beautiful fireflies in the Imperial Palace.”
Yuriev, who had been ecstatic when he heard that the emperor had meticulously created a lake for Asha in the imperial palace, had leaped joyfully. Of course, he didn’t reveal a hint of that to his daughter. When he received a letter from Asha, he noticed that the emperor was gloating as if he had won.
“Of course! This place is the best.”
“Of course, of course. Since our princess chose it.”
Yuriev, who loved drawing landscapes, had filled one room in the mansion with landscape paintings drawn by him with all his heart.
“What are Natalya and Lyudmila doing?”
“They started betting on a game of Kerum. I guess Lyudmila is a bit more strict with etiquette.”
In other words, Nataliya was making a fuss, and Lyudmila couldn’t bear to watch her do so in front of the prince and his wife, so they decided to play a billiards game. That’s how their conversation and Kerum began.
“The game is tighter than I thought. But I think Natalya will win.”
“Nataliya is good at anything involving balls. Well then, let’s prepare for dinner quickly. Mom and the knights might be hungry.”
Since the first time Asha came to visit Yuriev and Irina, several knights had accompanied her for protection and training during her journey.
Feeding the knights who were violently beaten by Irina was one of the joys of Asha, which can only be enjoyed at Lake Bishti.
“This dad will do his best, too, although your mother is much better at using a knife…”
Tomato sauce, meat stew boiled with plenty of bacon, celery, carrots, onions, and tomatoes, freshly baked bread with a crispy crust, and just-peeled fluffy potatoes.
The table setting was simple but plentiful. Among the spaces between the seats, bottles of grape wine were placed. The meal started with lively conversation but fell silent when everyone began enjoying the stew and bread. For a while, only the sound of utensils clattering was heard.
And as soon as everyone was moderately full, everyone burst into admiration for the food as if a basket of grains was falling over. The meat in the stew, which was still boiling in the cast iron pot, melted gently when you put it in your mouth, and when the sauce of the stew was put on the bread, the sweet, savory, and overflowing flavor of the oily stew sauce that could only be felt on plain bread burst like firecrackers. The potatoes were creamy as they poured stew sauce on the crumbled boiled potatoes.
While everyone enjoyed their food and drink, Asha took two cups of mint tea and a few pre-made salted caramels and headed outside the mansion.
The chilly autumn breeze brushed past her cheeks. The soil by the lake was close to gravel, making a crunching sound every time Asha moved. There were guests by the lake. Today, the Bishti lakefront was popular.
“Dimitri, what are you doing here?”
Dimitri, who was sitting by the lake half-absentmindedly, was startled and stood up. He hadn’t even noticed Asha’s footsteps.
“W, what, silly Asha.”
“Now, drink this. It’s warm.”
“I’m not cold.”
“Among us, who do you think knows the most about colds?”
Dimitri had a grim look on his face, but obediently took the mug in his hand.
“…How did you know I was here?”
“You went out in the middle. There’s nowhere else near this mansion to go.”
“…Hmm.”
Dimitri turned his head. Asha sat next to the spot where Dimitri sat and looked at him.
“Dimitri, what were you looking at here?”
Today Dimitri was somehow quieter than usual. It had caught Asha’s attention, and she had noticed him coming out to the lakeshore alone.
“The sunset…”
What a strange thing to say when the sun had already set. Asha smiled inwardly. When Asha gave him the caramel, Dimitri peeled off the wrapper and mumbled.
Dimitri, who had vehemently refused to eat the strange thing that was salt sprinkled on sweet caramel, but had forcibly taken a bite to avoid vomiting due to Natalya’s insistence, hadn’t done so for a long time.
The savory, rustic sweetness, and the salty taste passing by, magically amplified the sweetness and harmonized. Dimitri, after tasting Asha’s snack, felt it was delicious, but he was so embarrassed that he didn’t say anything for a while.
“Hmm, well. I’ve heard a story that aunt used to be a knight, but I never knew she was such a strong woman.”
He seemed to change the subject, but Asha decided to accept it without making fun of him anymore.
“Right? Isn’t it amazing?”
It was usual for people to be amazed when they saw her mom, who lined up knights and beat them.
“So, I actually thought aunt’s personality would be similar to my mother’s.”
Asha swallowed a smile for a moment. Dimitri’s mother was sick and rarely left the house, but her temper was the fiercest of the three. Dimitri’s active volcanic personality was almost inherited from his mother.
“Mom sometimes says she wants to see her…”
“Oh, who? My mom?”
“Uh-huh…”
Asha nodded while hugging her knee. Considering Dimitri’s mother’s personality, she and Irina would have gotten along well.
“I think Dimitri should go back and tell her the story.”
“I would have done that even if you didn’t tell me!”
Dimitri shouted, almost overturning the tea in the mug, but he quickly recovered. A brief silence passed between the two cousins. The waves at the night lakeshore murmured gently. Fireflies or some kind of light crystals hovered around Asha. Dimitri looked at the cluster of lights and buried his face between his knees.
“Dimitri?”
“When I was young… I actually hated my father.”
Whether it was the magic of the night lakeshore, Dimitri unexpectedly brought up an honest story. Asha was surprised by the sudden story but didn’t show it.
“Uncle Maxim? Why didn’t you like him?”
“Father has no passion, no dreams, and no ambition…”
The first son who died, the fourth son who escaped, and the second son who only had overwhelming ambition. Then the third son, Maxim.
“Although he made a contract with the Spirit of Discernment, he did nothing. At the age of five, he handed everything over to Alexei, and we were kicked out of the Imperial Palace…”
Dimitri spoke with an unjust voice, then grabbed the gravel and sand on the ground and threw it into the lake.
“That’s why I once fought with my father.”
“You fought?”
“‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Even Uncle Valery is trying to do something.”
“So, what did your father say?”
“…It was my father who made a contract with the Spirit of Discernment, but it was Uncle Yuri who told me which one was right and wrong… No, but what does it matter?”
Even when Dimitri heard that, he couldn’t immediately accept it. Rather, it felt absurd. What good can an uncle who ran away tell you? What does it matter!
As time passed, and they heard about Prince Yuri’s daughter being the only one left in the imperial palace, Dimitri’s head felt like it was about to explode.
The shame of not achieving anything, the embarrassment that his father probably already knew about this fact, and resentment towards his parents and grandfather who determined his limits…
“But…”
Dimitri picked up the gravel and sand again and threw it to the lake. This time, it was a somewhat weak gesture. Dimitri seemed to be struggling with complicated feelings after meeting Yuriev, the person who was the direct cause of his father giving up everything.
Asha followed Dimitri’s lead and tossed a small pebble into the lake. A splash and ripples spread.
“Then, Dimitri, did you want to become the crown prince?”
“Are you crazy?”
Dimitri looked around in surprise and screamed. Asha shrugged.
“If you wanted to stay in the palace and show something, then you wanted to be crown prince, didn’t you?”
“No! Of course not! Well, I might have thought about it when I was very young.”
“We’re still children, aren’t we?”
“I’m a teenager. You’re still a child.”
“We’re the same age…”
“You should be quiet.”
“I can’t believe Dimitri told me to be quiet.”
Dimitri pretended not to hear Asha’s grumbling.
“Crown prince or whatever… It’s not something I wanted.”
“Then, what do you want, Dimitri?”
“What, do you think people have something they want to do like you?”
Asha poked her lips.
“Then, do you want to bake a snack with me?”
“I don’t want to.”
Dimitri refused with a snap.
“I really don’t understand. Why doesn’t everyone try baking snacks? It’s really fun.”
“It might be fun for you.”
“Mean…”
Asha was about to say something else when her attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere. A strange sensation, as if dry and arid air was rapidly being sucked into somewhere, the smell of ashes and fire…
Asha jumped up from her seat without replying to Dimitri’s words. Dimitri, who was lost in thought while looking at the sunset, mentioned something about it.
The hillside on the other side of the lake seemed to be pulsating with a reddish aura from far away. Added to the rising smoke, it looked like a bonfire of death.
Asha’s spirit, Phoebe, which was on her shoulder, lightly took off and landed on Asha’s shoulder again.
<…It’s a fire. From below the hill. It seems too late to suppress it quickly.>
Before Phoebe’s words could finish, a crimson flame burst out rapidly. The barley fields below the hill swayed in the strong wind, unaware of the imminent wildfire.
Dimitri, with a worried expression, raised his eyebrows as he looked at the unfolding scene.
“Asha? What’s wrong? Uh, that is…”
Dimitri then realized that what he had seen wasn’t the late sunset when he saw Asha’s face turning pale.
