‘If I hadn’t come here… I heard he would have already left for his next inspection route several days ago. Under normal circumstances, he never would have experienced this wildfire.’
Leah bit her lip repeatedly.
‘Is this because of me?’
Leah lay there for a while, deep in thought, her expression serious, before flopping back down onto the bed.
‘Well, I changed the future the moment I returned. I knew from the beginning that everything could change.’
She rolled onto her side. Her hair must have stuck to her cheek because it tickled.
‘I thought he would keep me there until dawn, asking me all sorts of questions….’
Her position became uncomfortable, so she turned over to the other side.
‘It’s not that he didn’t ask. He probably just postponed it. He’ll definitely call me tomorrow and question me thoroughly. If he does, I won’t just sit there quietly, either. Should I tell him to take responsibility because he stole a kiss from me? I wonder what kind of expression he’ll make.’
She giggled as she imagined the bewildered expression on Karion’s face, then turned over again.
‘…He seemed uncomfortable earlier. I wonder if he’s all right? It was unexpected that he went into the forest alone to rescue a child from the village. I thought he was a cold person, but… Still, I’m glad he found the child.’
As soon as they returned to the encampment, a soldier had come running over and explained that the report about the missing child had been a misunderstanding.
Leah had been impressed that Karion hadn’t gotten irritated and had simply said, “As long as the child was found.”
‘As expected of His Majesty’s son. He has compassion for people.’
She continued tossing and turning for a long time before finally drifting off to sleep.
—Wake up.
“Hm?”
Leah’s eyes flew open.
It was the spirit’s voice.
The spirit occasionally sent a clear intention directly to her.
Most of the time, it was a warning.
The spirit’s intentions sounded similar to a human voice.
—Stop it.
‘Stop what?’
—It’s going to burst.
‘What’s going to burst?’
—Fire.
Leah shot upright and climbed out of bed.
‘Did the wildfire start growing again?’
She looked out the window.
People moving about as they cleaned up after the disaster could be seen as silhouettes in the darkness, but no one seemed to be in a hurry.
She quietly opened her bedroom door.
The hallway was silent and empty.
A breeze blew from the far end of the dark corridor.
It was showing her the way, telling her to come this way.
Following the wind, she walked down the corridor until she arrived in front of a door.
‘Whose room is this?’
The security around the residence was looser than usual.
Perhaps everyone was distracted by the commotion caused by the wildfire. She hadn’t seen a single person on her way there.
She glanced around carefully, opened the door, and quickly slipped inside.
As she looked around the dark bedroom, she heard a faint groan.
She approached the bed where the sound was coming from and froze in surprise.
“Your Highness?”
Karion was breathing heavily, his expression twisted with pain.
Not knowing what to do, Leah stood there for a moment before sitting on the edge of the bed.
After hesitating several times, she finally reached out and placed her hand against his forehead.
His hand snapped around her wrist.
Their eyes met.
After returning to the encampment, Karion received the welcome news that the wildfire was weakening because the wind had changed direction.
Normally, he would have stayed up all night directing the cleanup efforts.
But the condition of his body, which had felt refreshed until he left the forest, gradually began to deteriorate.
His body felt heavy, and his head throbbed. It seemed the aftereffects of his attack were surfacing late.
He decided it would be better to get some rest until morning and returned to his bedroom.
He was relatively fine until after his bath and lying down in bed.
As time passed, however, his temperature rose, his breath became hot, and his body grew limp, like soaked cotton.
The symptoms were clearly different from the attacks he called his ‘curse.’
If the attack felt like being thrown into a blazing fire, this felt more like being submerged in water that was gradually coming to a boil.
‘Is this some kind of fever?’
He had only ever heard about such an illness; he had never actually experienced one.
Aside from the chronic condition he called a curse, he had always been healthy enough that he had never even caught an ordinary cold.
Feeling humiliated that he had come down with something as trivial as an illness, he tried to sleep.
By the time he realized that ‘something was wrong,’ his mind was hazy and his limbs were too weak to summon anyone.
As he lay there, almost resigned to his fate, he felt an energy slowly boiling deep inside his body.
He had the vague certainty that the energy would eventually consume him and burn him away.
‘Am I going to die like this?’
He had no particular attachment to life, but this wasn’t the kind of meaningless death he had wanted.
‘The princess.’
Why was it that at a moment like this, the person who flashed across his mind was that woman with green eyes?
A breeze brushed across his face.
Was he now experiencing sensations beyond the point of hallucination?
There was no reason for there to be wind inside his bedroom….
His forehead suddenly felt cool, and strength returned to his limp body.
He grabbed the wrist of whoever was touching his forehead.
Her figure came into focus.
As his mind became clearer, he realized that he wasn’t hallucinating.
‘The princess!’
Was this what it felt like to see hope at the very end of despair?
In the darkness, she seemed to glow.
But he didn’t want hope.
It was better never to have had something than to grasp it only to lose it.
So he spoke in a cold, rigid voice.
“What are you doing in my room right now?”
The moment his hand closed around her arm, a breeze swept through the room—a breeze only she could feel.
Leah suddenly felt as though all sound had disappeared, leaving her alone in a completely empty, dazzling white space.
It was a sign that all her senses had entered some extreme realm beyond the limits of human perception.
It wasn’t something she could control with her own will. Whenever the wind spirit needed to reveal something important to her, it would sometimes lead her into this state.
She saw an illusion of fierce flames raging as though they would consume the entire world.
Then she heard Nella’s voice.
⌜You’re lucky. To awaken the spirit’s power completely…⌟
⌜What does a complete awakening mean? How do you know about it?⌟
⌜Because you’re still alive.⌟
⌜…What?⌟
Nella already knew a great deal about the ancient spirits that had been forgotten by the world.
She had said that the reason spirits had become forgotten in modern times was because the chances of awakening them were so low.
⌜If you fail to achieve a complete awakening, a human’s fragile body will be caught up in the spirit’s rampage and torn apart. It simply explodes.⌟
‘A spirit’s rampage!’
Leah met Karion’s silver-gray eyes.
“Your Highness. Answer my question honestly. How long have you been like this? Did it start when you saw the wildfire in the forest earlier?”
Karion slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again.
The reason he was holding her wrist wasn’t to push her away. It was to keep her from leaving.
Simply being in contact with her made him feel as though a small opening had appeared, allowing him to breathe.
“What state?”
“The energy running wild inside your body right now. I’m asking how long that energy has been tormenting you.”
Karion stared at Leah.
As expected, this woman knew about his curse.
And he knew the exact answer to her question.
“The autumn of the year I turned ten.”
“Ten? You’ve had it since you were that young….”
Leah swallowed the question, ‘How are you still alive?’
“Did these symptoms appear in the forest earlier as well?”
“Is the princess a mage?”
“What?”
“When the princess touches me, the curse subsides.”
“…Curse?”
“Curse.”
After saying that, Karion turned his head away.
But his hand was still holding onto her.
“That isn’t a curse, then…. How exactly does it subside?”
“I… can breathe.”
Leah’s green eyes widened as she murmured,
“So that’s why.”
‘Did he kiss me earlier because of this?’
A complete picture suddenly formed in her mind.
‘The wind energy is calming the fire energy that’s running wild because it’s incomplete.’
She didn’t know why the spirit’s power he had awakened at such a young age was running wild now.
But this had never happened in her previous life.
There was no doubt that the future had changed because she had come here and met him.
If his spirit’s rampage couldn’t be stopped, he would die.
Nella’s voice echoed in her ears.
⌜Leah. The wind spirit represents harmony and flow. It embraces other spirits that come into conflict with it. It is a gentle power.⌟
‘No.’
She couldn’t let him—the son of His Majesty—die here and now.
He should have lived for at least another ten years even if nothing changed.
For him to have his life shortened because of her… How could such a terrible thing happen?
She wouldn’t even have the face to meet His Majesty after death, and there would be no meaning in living this life again.
“Wait!”
Leah shook off the hand gripping her wrist and climbed onto the bed, settling herself over him.
“I’m sorry.”
She met his startled silver-gray eyes and immediately leaned forward, pressing her lips against his.
Karion’s body stiffened for a moment, but his hesitation was brief.
He cupped her face and responded urgently, driven by the need to calm the turmoil within him.
