The Maid of the Cursed Princess

No matter how dark the night, dawn will inevitably break.

Even the most ferocious inferno, consuming all in its path, must eventually burn itself out.

“…Phew…”

With bloodstained, trembling hands, the chamberlain managed to light a crumpled cigarette.

The Königsberg assassins had proven formidable adversaries, taxing even the seasoned chief chamberlain who had weathered countless political storms. When last had he felt so battered, so drained that controlling his own body became a Herculean task?

His once-sturdy legs, which he’d believed would never falter in his lifetime, now betrayed him pitifully, refusing to bear their master’s weight. Perhaps it was a belated reckoning with his age.

“…It’s over.”

Yet, despite his wretched state, the chamberlain had survived.

Survived, repelled the enemy, and ultimately triumphed.

“Cough… Won’t you share a puff, chamberlain?”

A woman, sprawled beside him, reached out with a cheeky grin, panting.

“I must decline. These are rather expensive, you understand.”

“Oh, come now. How can the chief chamberlain of the royal family and head of the Fontaine clan be so miserly? How expensive can a cigarette be…”

Even as he demurred, he placed a cigarette between her fingers. She accepted with a smile, their banter a testament to the camaraderie forged in the crucible of their shared ordeal.

“Where did you leave one of your arms?”

“Over yonder. I suppose the prosthetic came loose in the heat of battle.”

Clopân glanced ruefully at her empty, drooping sleeve.

“It must be utterly ruined. Perhaps I should seize this opportunity to request a proper replacement…”

“How did your arm come to be in such a state?”

“I was born thus. That’s why I was abandoned at the Court of Miracles, leading to my current circumstances.”

The congenital disability that had led to her abandonment had also paved the way for her to become Clopân Trouillefou, sovereign of the Court of Miracles.

“So I empathize with Princess Sibylla. How excruciating it must have been, confined by a curse she never sought.”

Unlike herself, who had known nothing but lack from the start, Clopân sympathized with Sibylla, who had possessed everything only to lose it in an instant. The anguish of such loss, how bitter that wound must have been.

“What are your thoughts on the Princess?”

“…Well.”

Gazing skyward with a pensive expression, the chamberlain mumbled around his cigarette.

“In the past, I pitied yet feared her. As did others.”

Once, he had dreaded Sibylla, terrified of the curse consuming her. That fear had led him to unwittingly wound the young Princess, causing her to withdraw into herself.

“Now, I’ve surmounted that fear… yet I question my right to remain by her side. Perhaps none in the royal family possess that privilege.”

Orléans had scarred Sibylla. Her servants, her blood relations – all had inflicted wounds, great and small. How then could they approach her now, so shamelessly?

“…Save for one.”

Yet there existed a sole exception.

The maid who had approached her without pretense, caressing her decaying form and soothing her shattered spirit when all others had turned away.

“…It matters not now. So long as the Princess finds happiness.”

Matthieu de Fontaine vowed to lend his aid in whatever capacity he could.

* * *

“…”

The kiss was brief.

Yet to Dorothy and Sibylla, that fleeting moment stretched into eternity.

The condition for breaking the curse: a kiss between two who truly loved each other.

It couldn’t be one-sided affection, nor could it be forced.

Only a kiss shared at the precise moment when they acknowledged and accepted each other’s feelings, wholly embracing the other’s existence in their hearts.

The key to lifting the curse of the Orléans royal family was a fairytale-like kiss of love.

“How is it, my dear? Is it as beautiful as you imagined?”

Dorothy found herself at a loss for words. When she attempted to speak, her voice caught in her throat, emerging only as incomprehensible sounds before her mouth closed once more.

Beautiful. Too beautiful. The snow-white, delicate skin, the pure and fragile countenance.

Everything was exquisite, but most captivating still were the eyes – those jewel-like orbs visible even before the curse’s dissolution.

Before her stood a woman worthy of universal adoration. Even without the title of Princess of Orléans, without that noble lineage, here was a beauty capable of ensnaring the hearts of legendary heroes.

And that woman had just kissed her.

“…!!”

Dorothy’s cheeks flushed crimson. Her eyes widened, and she unconsciously covered her face with both hands.

“What’s this, my dear? So you’re capable of blushing like a young maiden after all.”

“Th-That’s because, j-just now, that was, a k-kiss.”

What was this euphoria coursing through her? Dorothy dared not contemplate it fully. Embarrassment. Joy. Delight. Desire.

“…The more I come to know you, the more enchanting you truly are.”

Gently prying Dorothy’s hands from her face, Sibylla gazed intently at her flushed visage.

“My dear, I’ve yet to hear your answer.”

“What answer… If it’s regarding your appearance…”

“No, that’s not it.”

Sibylla sought something specific from Dorothy’s lips.

“You said before. If you could say it with certainty someday…”

May I allow myself to fall for you?

Dorothy had spoken those words to Sibylla as she lay in her sickbed that day. If she could be certain of her uncertain feelings, would it be permissible to fall for her then?

“Now can you say it with certain-“

Whoosh—

“…I love you.”

The answer was a resounding yes.

“I love you. I love you. I, Dorothy, love you, Princess.”

Holding Sibylla tightly, Dorothy whispered ‘I love you’ incessantly into her ear.

“I love you more than anyone else. I love you more than anyone in the world. Truly, truly… you…”

The declaration held dual meaning. Dorothy loved Sibylla more than anyone else in the world. No one in the world loved Sibylla as profoundly as Dorothy did.

Gone was any trace of her previous rational and calm demeanor. With a voice trembling with unprecedented excitement, Dorothy poured forth her love for Sibylla.

“…Don’t call me Princess anymore.”

Gently caressing Dorothy, Sibylla spoke.

“You are no longer my servant.”

“…Does that mean…?”

At last, the collar was severed.

The collar Sibylla had placed upon Dorothy to keep her close was finally removed.

“Call my name.”

But this did not signify Dorothy’s departure from Sibylla’s side.

“Not as a servant, but as a lover.”

It heralded the rebirth of their relationship, no longer as master and servant, but as something new.

“…Sibyl..la..”

And so, at long last, Dorothy spoke Sibylla’s name.

Not Princess Sibylla Thérèse d’Orléans, but simply Sibylla, the woman she loved.

“Dorothy, my dear.”

Whether she was laughing or crying, seeing Dorothy with tears and mucus streaking her face, her cold and intelligent beauty nowhere to be seen, Sibylla chuckled.

It wasn’t a sneer of disappointment, but an affectionate laugh born of overwhelming emotion.

“I don’t wish to return to the palace.”

To this Dorothy, Sibylla confided.

“I no longer desire to be a Princess.”

Sibylla had grown weary of the curse that had tormented her for so long.

She had no intention of re-entering the cage of royalty that had confined and persecuted her for being cursed.

“I refuse to marry another under the guise of political alliance, nor do I wish to be confined within the castle walls like a cultivated flower.”

This was her will. The determination to turn her back on the royal family and discard her noble blood of her own volition.

“So to you, for the final time… No.”

Closing her eyes for a moment before reopening them, Sibylla commanded Dorothy.

“For the first time, you who shall be my partner.”

For the first time, not as a Princess, but as a beloved.

“Sibylla Thérèse commands her partner Dorothy Gale.”

The order she gave that day in the moonlit garden.

“Make me happy.”

Sibylla once again conveyed to Dorothy.

“Even if you must become a shameless royal kidnapper and traitor.”

A selfish and playful order, or perhaps a request.

“Take me away, my Prince.”

To Sibylla’s command, whispered under the moonlight as before, yet now accompanied by a smile.

“…Haha.”

Dorothy, with a smile of her own…

“As you command.”

Answered just as she had then.

* * *

When would it reach land? When would escape be possible?

The waves that had led the boy, adrift on the vast ocean in a boat bereft of oar or sail, hither and thither.

But finally, a miracle occurred. At last, the boy’s vessel touched shore.

-…Hello.

A girl stood there. On the beach, not in the sea, a girl with a familiar countenance.

-Hello, Araignée.

How should he respond? Should he simply answer, ‘Robin’?

No, Dorothy knew that wasn’t the correct response. For this girl was not Robin.

-Hello, my childhood.

It was the boy’s dream, the boy’s childhood. A star glimpsed by the desert fox, a fragment of memory, resembling Robin but not Robin.

The existence that had always regarded the boy with an unsettling, lifeless expression – that was guilt and self-portrait, that was trauma.

But not now.

-…You’re smiling.

That existence was smiling. Like Robin in his cherished memories.

With hands clasped behind her back, eyes twinkling, she beamed.

-You know the reason best, don’t you?

It signified that the boy had finally removed the shard of mirror that had frozen his heart. Like Gerda melting Kai’s heart, a girl had thawed the boy’s frozen core.

-So now, it’s time to part.

And simultaneously, it heralded their farewell. For the boy who had become an adult, she was now a precious memory to be treasured in a corner of his mind.

-I have one question. Will you answer, Dorothy Gale?

The memory no longer addressed him as Araignée or boy. Calling his new name, once fabricated but now genuine, it inquired.

-Are you happy now?

-…Yes, I’m happy.