FSW Chapter 5

Their eyes met—and in the same instant, his dropped again. She couldn't be sure, not with just that. But probably not wrong.

She hunted down those lash-shadowed, wandering eyes. Relentlessly. Bent her own head down to do it, no less. When their gazes crossed a second time, he flinched, visible even to her, and just turned his head clean away.

Dodge her this hard, and of course she got stubborn about it. Granted, very few people could hold a conversation with a member of the imperial family while looking them in the eye—but this wasn't that. Not about rank at all. This man kept his eyes down for anyone. She'd bet on it.

And above all, staring at the crown of some teacher's head wasn't exactly Nishina's idea of an education. As the old wisdom goes: communication is done eye-to-eye, conversation is done eye-to-eye. (Or so she'd decided, right then.)

Irritated now, Nishina moved with him, chasing the angle of his turned head, and caught his eyes again. Startled, he turned the other way. She followed. She did it persistently, as many times as it took. After several rounds of this, he seemed to realize he couldn't escape—and instead of turning his head again, simply closed his eyes.

She swallowed a sigh with considerable effort and at last opened her mouth.

"Hey—could you just look at me when we talk?"

"…Would it not make you uncomfortable?"

Woven into that low, level voice—concern. Not hard to guess why. Something as ordinary as eye contact had become a source of dread for him. Your eyes invite misfortune; keep them down at all times—she could imagine he'd been told something like that for most of his life.

The color of an eye was simply the color of its iris. That wasn't common knowledge throughout the empire, but anyone trained in physiology would know it. And yet no one had ever said as much to him.

To be persecuted simply for having an unusual iris color was unjust. If anything, a color this rare—and this beautiful on top of it—deserved to be praised, not condemned.

"Uncomfortable? Please. They're gorgeous—just like camellias."

Against the neutral silver of his hair, the saturated red was unmistakably beautiful. Was that why they called it a demon's color—because it was simply too beautiful? She was actually asking herself this. Seriously.

"Honestly, the first time I saw them, it just burst right out of me—you probably noticed."

She said it with a smile, and at that, his head finally came up. As though he'd forgotten his own habit, his eyes met hers in a blank, wondering look. She didn't let it slip—chased down every flicker of red in his unsteady eyes. It reminded her of her own camellia in the wind—and that made her a little pleased, just for a second.

Under her unhurried but relentless attention, he dropped his gaze again at last. But this time, what had pressed his head down wasn't the old resigned habit of his—it was embarrassment.

He turned away abruptly, lips pressed shut.

"…I will demonstrate first."

Like running needed a demonstration. Through the glint of his silver hair, what might have been the edge of his ear had gone reddish. She’d swear to it.

She smiled to herself and fell into step behind him, slow and easy. Anyway. Red really did suit the man.

Gravity was supposed to be proportional to mass. Was that not how it worked anymore?

Feeling like gravity itself would flatten her into the floor, Nishina collapsed onto the bed, all strength gone. Filthy, head to toe, with dirt and sweat alike. She didn’t feel like moving, either.

She knew Joy would chew her out for lying down unwashed. Knew it—and buried her face in the sheets anyway. Joy, as if she'd been lying in wait for this exact moment, launched right in.

"Your Highness! You need to wash before you lie down! Doesn't it feel disgusting?"

"Ah, Joy. Just—just one moment. The ground is currently pulling me toward it with ten times its usual force. I'll be perfectly flat if I try to stand up."

"Was training really that hard?"

"…I thought I was going to die."

She'd walked into those training grounds feeling fairly confident. That had lasted approximately one lap. She'd trailed after him easy enough, at first. Then one single lap around the training ground, and she knew: ten laps wasn't happening. Not if it killed her.

She hadn't wanted to disappoint her instructor on the first day, so she'd tried—genuinely tried—but two laps was the absolute limit. He must have finally spotted her, half-dead somewhere behind him, gasping for air like she'd forgotten how to breathe—he stopped short, startled, and cut the training off right there. But the damage to her body was already done.

Even now, past her heart still pounding fit to burst, she could swear she heard her whole body screaming.

"A warm soak will help. Come on, up you get."

"Ughhh, fine…."

Under Joy’s coaxing, she crawled more than walked to the bathroom—peeled off her sweat-stuck, clinging clothes without much care, and sank into the waiting bath. Dried rose petals floated on the surface, but she had no capacity to appreciate them.

The heavy, melting-tired warmth wrapped around her, and a groan slipped out before she could stop it. Fatigue that had felt like a ton of bricks was melting off her like ice cream left in the sun. But the muscles themselves, shocked into rebellion by the sudden exercise, were still locked up tight. At this level of knotting, it would almost certainly be sore tomorrow. Groaning the whole time, she kneaded at her calves with hands that had nothing left, then gave up. She couldn't even manage her own hands.

"Joy—could you raise the water temperature a little?"

"Won't it be too hot?"

"Mm, please."

Joy poured in the heated water at a measured pace. Instead of a massage, it was the hot water doing the work now, easing the tight muscles loose.

How many minutes did she lie there like that? The water must really have been hotter than usual—her pale skin had gone red with the heat.

Staring idly at the color, she found herself thinking of the young man who had been, himself, equally red.

The man who'd slit her throat without a moment's hesitation. No blood, no tears in him. None.

That—the cold eyes and the set mouth—had matched the original description well enough. But those eyes that couldn't hide how rattled he was, that reddened ear—nothing like the man from the pages. And at the end of the lesson, when she'd brought out the madeleine she'd prepared and held it out to him as a small thanks, he'd made a complicated expression—but he hadn't refused it.

Keep at it like this, and maybe—someday—she could win his pity? Chances were still a hundred times better that he'd kill her while feeling sorry about it than spare her out of pity. But—whatever. Either way.

Tomorrow, almond cookies. She wasn't sure how much good it would do, but her plan was to run with the "no one who gives you food can be all bad" strategy. And if she also managed to look like a diligent and capable pupil, maybe the odds would tilt a little in her favor.

That would, of course, require doing something about this wretched excuse for a body first.

She clicked her tongue at her own garbage stamina, and let out a long yawn. Her vision blurred at the edges and her thoughts went soft with it. She needed to make a more specific plan—but her brain had gone to complete mush, and thinking—any thinking at all—just wasn't happening anymore.

She let those hands lather her, careful as if handling glassware, and gave herself over to it completely. She couldn't be sure of much, but one thing was certain: tonight she was going to sleep.

'Forget the bath, warm water, all of it—should've just begged Joy for a massage.'

Swallowing a sound that was very nearly a yelp, Nishina staggered down the corridor like a foal that had only just worked out what legs were for. The Little Mermaid, she thought, must have felt something like this after trading her tail. The intensity probably wasn’t all that different. Just the range. That was the difference. If the Mermaid’s pain had been her soles ripping apart, what Nishina was tasting was her whole lower body ripping apart.

Every step drew a small, involuntary sound out of her. The court physician had told her moving would work the soreness out faster, so she'd waved off Sir Hilton's offered arm. This did not sit well with Sir Hilton—who hovered at her side, fidgeting, clearly unable to stand it—but she pushed on regardless, stubborn as ever.

Carlos, her endlessly exacting tutor in the art of kingship, hated nothing more than tardiness.

'I'm already in his bad books. The last thing I need is another mark against me.'

She arrived at the private study reserved for her lessons and shoved the door open.

One minute to the start of class.

She made it.

She took her seat with a private sense of triumph. Across the desk, Carlos's expression was one of pointed dissatisfaction.

Even his already sharp eyes had grown sharper, and his words arrived with edges.

"What an unusual occasion, Your Highness—arriving on time."

"Oh—does that mean if I'd known arriving late was fine, I could have rested a little longer? I did some exercise yesterday and everything aches—"

"Your Highness."

"I'm joking. Joking."

It was not remotely a joke, but she retracted it for Carlos's benefit, seeing as Carlos's face had gone red, then white, then red again. Belated embarrassment at having raised his voice must have caught up with him, because he let out a short, loud sound—something between a cough and a cleared throat—then straightened his book and pressed on.

"Today we will resume the lecture on sovereignty theory, where we left off last time."

"Ah…."

She'd known this was coming, but still: sovereignty theory, of all things. Among everything he taught, it was what she despised most. State economics was unpleasant, but of everything on his syllabus, this was the worst.

Carlos pressed forward despite her visible flinch.

"A ruler need not align themselves with what people consider virtuous. A strong state requires a strong ruler, and a strong ruler must sometimes act against benevolence in order to assert their dominion."

"…But among the qualities a wise ruler ought to have, surely benevolence is one of them?"

"What is needed is not benevolence itself—but the appearance of benevolence. What a ruler requires is not mercy, fairness, or restraint—but calculation, and a firm grip on reality."

At Carlos's flat, unwavering tone, Nishina's mouth pressed shut.

She held no illusions about rulers. But every time calculation was presented to her as an imperative, she was reminded of it fresh: she was, by nature, deeply unfit to ever sit a throne.

A ruler, Carlos continued, must not forgive easily, and must not dispense pity readily. All of it was impossible for her. For as long as she could remember, she had been quick to share in other people's pain and grief. No matter how hard she tried to judge coldly, the moment she understood someone, she forgave them. She pitied them.

That was why, even knowing the death Aiden would deal her in the end, she could not bring herself to hate him. Because she understood the wounds he had been given. Even if he took everything from her and had her killed—she could not resent him for it.

The same was true for the other one. If she hadn't read the original novel, she might have been calculating about how to earn his pity. But she had read it. She knew, better than anyone, how much he had suffered. So she could not help but pity him.

Even if it was his own hand that cut her throat, in the end—

Wanting Aiden, who'd give the order to kill her, and Sir Russell, who'd carry it out, to both end up happy—that wasn't what a ruler was made of. She could never be one.

Ironically, while sitting through lessons on how to become a ruler, Nishina had confirmed once again what she already knew: she was not made for it.

"Your Highness, I really think today you should rest—"

"No."

"But—"

"I'm going to training. Stop following me."

Nishina said it with finality and shoved at the back of Sir Hilton—again and again—who had been trailing behind her in a state of near-visible worry—again and again. He retreated with reluctance, glancing back every few steps until she made a firm shooing motion with her hand. Only then did he turn away, visibly deflated.

Once his back had disappeared from view, Nishina set off as well. Her destination was the training ground. The state of her was such that even getting there was an ordeal, let alone the training itself—but she couldn't simply not show up.

The only time she had to see him was one hour, every afternoon. Nowhere near enough time to grow close to him. She wasn't going to throw away a single minute of it. And if she made a poor impression on top of everything else, it would be a disaster. Showed up all of one day, and if she bailed now, they'd peg her as lazy for sure.

She moved as fast as she could, which was considerably slower than usual, and still arrived later than planned. She made her way quickly toward the silver-haired figure, standing tall and unmoving in the training ground.