Bonus Chapter: Reginald and Gina

Gina knew that the royalty of Farzia had silver hair. It wasn’t every day you saw someone with that brilliant shade. There were plenty of people with pale-blond hair up in Salekhard, but silver was a rarity. What Gina hadn’t expected was for him to be so beautiful. For a moment, she had nearly mistaken him for a statue come to life.

Too dazzled to think, it was only when he asked her to leave him alone with Kiara that Gina finally remembered: Alan, the margrave’s son, had mentioned that Kiara was very precious to this prince. Assuming there was no problem with letting the two have some privacy, Gina was about to leave the room—only to have the clay doll Horace thrust upon her on the way out.

Oh, he definitely wanted to be alone with her.

From that, Gina could tell just how attached he was to Kiara. It was hard to keep herself from grinning. Of course, she gossiped all about it with Girsch later on.

That prince was one of the people who didn’t want to let Kiara fight. Someone had told Gina that he was pretty stubborn for a man of such mild features, and she could believe it. In her experience, princes were always obstinate men deep down.

However, even though she was a total softie most of the time, Kiara never seemed to back down on her decisions, either. In spite of any attempts to negotiate with her about it, she’d sulked when she was deliberately excluded from a battle, and the incident had only left her all the more determined to fight.

During their battle on the way to Sorwen, Kiara had been very proactive about using her magic. Given how high-profile her attacks were, she’d more or less painted a target on herself, but she had managed to keep their losses to a minimum. Still, Gina worried that her behavior would only encourage the prince to further restrict her movements.

Still, Prince Reginald didn’t speak of the matter to Kiara—not even once they’d entered Sorwen. If anything, he seemed to have backed off a bit... or so Gina thought, until Kiara talked to her about it later on when they were cooling off in the breezy shade of a tree together.

“He told me he wouldn’t get angry with me.”

Gina found that to be a questionable turn of phrase, but Kiara looked quite happy about it, her expression softening.

“Maybe that means he’s finally acknowledged my strength. Though he might’ve just given in to my stubbornness rather than my actual abilities.”

That he was tolerating it at all seemed to be more than enough for her.

“That’s great news. You were worried he was going to be mad, weren’t you?” Gina remarked, and Kiara gave a shy nod.

One look at her face made it clear: more than anyone else, Kiara couldn’t stand to fall out of the prince’s good graces. It reminded Gina of the blind affection a child might have for a parent.

From that angle, Gina thought Kiara and Prince Reginald shared a very odd relationship. Kiara adored the prince like a father, yet at the same time, she realized he was a man of no actual relation to her. Thus, she didn’t hang off of him to an inappropriate degree.

The prince, on the other hand...

Once Kiara left, having spent a good long while chatting about Prince Reginald’s reaction, the very prince in question approached Gina and Girsch.

“I never got the chance to speak to you two at length,” the prince said, taking a seat nearby. He had no escort with him, perhaps because they were inside the grounds of Lord Sorwen’s manor. Although he still had a sword hanging from his waist, there was a very easygoing air about him, which threw Gina and Girsch for a loop.

After all, they were foreigners—not to mention that their homeland of Salekhard was an enemy. Alan may have hired them, but it didn’t seem like a wise idea to approach them so casually. Prince Reginald, however, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He asked the duo a handful of questions—about where in Salekhard they usually lived, and about the current state of the country.

Following that, he switched gears. “I see you get along well with Kiara.”

“Of course! We’re all girls, after all!” Girsch chimed in.

In contrast to Cain and the other knights, the prince didn’t look the least bit dismayed. He simply responded, “I see. That makes sense.”

At the very end, he asked them to look after Kiara.

“There aren’t any other women in our army, so I hope you can help Kiara through any of her troubles.”

“Of course we will.”

“I’m glad we recruited you two. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Given how quickly he rose to his feet, that may have been all the prince had come to say in the first place.

“Wow. Looks like the prince loves Kiara enough to go around asking favors for her,” Gina muttered.

“It sure does,” Girsch agreed.

Yet something about his attitude came off as hesitant. Was it because Kiara had trouble recognizing those types of feelings? Once Kiara learned to pick up on romantic love, what would happen next?

Then again, Gina got the feeling that for her part, Kiara was purposely staying oblivious to his feelings.

“Uh-oh. This is a problem.”

“What?”

“I’m really having fun in the Évrard army.”

She had plenty of freedom, and it was fun watching someone else’s love blossom. Kiara had taken to her like a sister, too.

Considering it was war that brought me here, this isn’t all too bad, Gina thought to herself.