序：奇怪的公主流浪的人

Night lay over the domes of the royal palace of Losinitro like a flood of black ink. From the distant banquet hall, the strains of strings and woodwinds threaded through layers of stone walls, reaching Ioanna’s ears as faintly as the whine of mosquitoes.

She slipped quietly from the luxurious velvet bed. The instant her feet touched the cold marble floor, her toes curled and her body instinctively lowered its center of gravity.

Her eyes gleamed in the wavering amber candlelight. A small curve of freedom had already begun to form at the corners of her lips—one that no one could take from her.

At that moment, she was no princess trapped inside a gilded cage.

She was a wild falcon preparing to plunge into the night.

She crept awkwardly toward the door, pressed two fingers against the panel, and eased it open by the narrowest sliver. Leaning half her face toward the gap, she swept her gaze along the corridor in both directions.

The passage lay empty, as though time itself had abandoned it. The candle flames stood perfectly still in the windless air.

Relief loosened something inside her. The breath that had been trapped in her chest all evening escaped in silence, and her smile deepened.

“Perfect. No one’s here!”

She pushed open the door and darted soundlessly down the corridor to the left, her skirts billowing behind her, her steps as light as a cat’s paws brushing over snow.

After some fifty paces, she stopped sharply at a corner. Momentum nearly sent her stumbling forward.

She instinctively twisted sideways into a recess in the wall—and caught sight of the marble bust beside her, slowly tipping over after her sleeve had brushed against it.

Her heart seized.

Her pupils widened, and both hands shot out like arrows loosed from a bow. She caught the sculpture before it fell, holding it steady as the cold stone numbed her palms.

Clapping one hand over her mouth, she forced back the cry that nearly escaped between her lips. Her heartbeat pounded through her chest like a roll of war drums, and a thin sheen of sweat broke across her back.

That was close. I would have been dead.

And yet, beneath the fear, a spark of exhilaration flickered in her eyes.

At the far end of the corridor, servants moved back and forth carrying elaborate trays. The clear clink of soldiers’ armor rang through the air.

Ioanna held her breath and pressed herself as flat against the wall as she could, like a ginkgo leaf trapped between the pages of a heavy book, waiting for the noisy procession to move away.

Her eyes tracked every shifting figure with the precision of a hunter. She calculated the rhythm of their footsteps, lips pressed together, her expression almost unnervingly calm.

There was nothing about her that resembled an ordinary sheltered noblewoman.

The moment the last soldier turned his back, she sprang from hiding.

The hem of her skirt cut an arc through the air. One breath before the soldier glanced behind him, she had already vanished into the darkness where the corridors met.

As though I’d ever waste my night at that dreadful state banquet.

She climbed onto the windowsill in one fluid motion, without the slightest hesitation.

This escape route had long since been carved into her body’s memory. Every foothold, every shift of weight, every place where she could catch herself had become instinct through countless rehearsals.

She leapt.

The wind rushed past her ears, and her skirts spread like the wings of a dark butterfly. She landed precisely on the narrow ledge below, caught the outer rim with both hands, and used the strength in her arms to lower herself slowly along the wall.

When the tips of her boots finally touched the ground, they made no sound at all—as quiet as a single drop of water falling into a still lake.

She ran along the edge of the castle wall. The night wind lifted her long hair behind her, making it stream like a black banner.

Ahead, the crooked silhouette of an old, neglected tower stood silently beneath the moon.

The instant she saw it, her gaze softened without her realizing.

There was a tenderness in her eyes that belonged only to secrets, like that of a traveler catching sight of the lights of home from far away.

She hurried up the stone steps, every footfall firm and certain, until she reached the top of the tower and left the clamor of the banquet far behind her.

“Finally…”

She leaned over the parapet, folded her hands beneath her chin, and gazed beyond the castle walls into the endless darkness.

Something burned silently in the depths of her eyes.

This was the most forgotten corner of the entire palace. Weeds grew between the stones, and the walls were mottled and cracked like the wrinkled face of an old man.

Yet this ruined place was the world she treasured most.

It was because the tower was broken that everyone ignored it.

And because everyone ignored it, she was allowed, for a little while, to breathe as herself.

“One day, I’m going to leave this place.”

Her voice was no louder than an insect’s hum, but each word was as heavy as stone.

The promise fell into the night wind.

Then it settled into the deepest part of her heart.

As she lay against the parapet and stared absently at the moon, she noticed a rider in the distance, heading toward the castle.

At first, the figure was no larger than an ant. Gradually, it grew clearer as it approached.

She found herself watching, fascinated, imagining what sort of adventures might belong to someone who traveled alone beneath the night sky.

The wind moved through the trees, carrying the faint music of revelry from somewhere far away.

Jeffrey Grant rode at an unhurried pace along the outer walls of Losinitro Castle, like a man who had reached some private agreement with time.

He had no destination.

Or rather, every destination he had ever chosen had been given to him by his dreams.

A figure whose face he could never see.

A pair of eyes whose color he could never name.

Ever since the great fire when he was fourteen, that figure had returned to him year after year, like a slender thread pulling him from one city to the next.

He drew back on the reins.

The black horse gave a soft snort.

By chance, Jeffrey’s gaze fell upon the old, crumbling tower. His amber eyes narrowed slightly.

There was someone at the top.

Not a guard.

Not a maid.

The figure lay against the parapet with her chin resting upon her folded hands, staring into the distance like a bird that had not yet realized it was trapped inside a cage.

Jeffrey did not speak at once.

He dismounted in silence, tied the reins to a tree beside the road, and sat down against the castle wall.

Then he looked up at her for a long time.

He remained silent long enough for the wind to change direction more than once.

At last, he spoke in a low, warm voice. There was no intrusion in it. It sounded almost as though he were speaking only to himself.

“At this hour, the city ought to be at its liveliest.”

He did not look directly at her. He simply tilted his head toward the same sky she had been watching.

The old scar on the left side of his forehead showed pale beneath the moonlight. A trace of a smile touched his lips, as if he were merely stating a fact—and that fact happened to concern the person at the top of the tower.

The figure above him went still.

Anna’s chin had still been resting upon her hands. At the sound of his voice, her lashes stirred, and she slowly drew her gaze back from the horizon.

Then she looked down.

A man was sitting at the foot of the castle wall.

He was not one of the guards, and his armor did not resemble anything worn by the palace soldiers.

She blinked, making certain that he was real and not some illusion brought on by staring into the night for too long.

“Were you… talking to me?”

Her voice drifted down from the tower, carried by the wind. It held a little confusion, a little curiosity, and a touch of surprise she had not managed to hide.

Only then did Jeffrey raise his head and meet her gaze.

His amber eyes were as still as a shallow lake. There was no impropriety in them, nor any excessive familiarity—only a quiet acknowledgment of what he had seen.

“There’s a banquet inside. The music is coming from that direction—”

He paused, his gaze resting steadily on her face.

“Yet you’re the only one out here.”

When he finished, he fell silent.

He did not question her.

He did not explain himself.

He simply continued looking up at her, as though his words had only opened a door, and whether anything else passed through it was entirely her decision.

His fingers rested loosely upon one knee. A strand of his dark brown curls had been blown out of place, but he made no effort to fix it.

The old scar on his forehead remained exposed beneath the moonlight.

There was something easy and steady about him. He looked like a man who had been waiting for a very long time—and also like a man who cared about nothing at all.

But only he knew that from the moment he had seen the figure at the top of the tower, his heart had gone strangely still.

As still as the moment when the eyes from his dreams had finally found a face.

Anna hesitated after hearing him.

Then she decided that since they were strangers, there could be little harm in speaking with him.

“My name is Ioanna.”

She folded her hands upon the parapet and stretched her neck forward slightly so that she could speak to Jeffrey below.

“I simply didn’t want to attend the banquet, so I came here for some air.”

She sighed.

“You probably wouldn’t understand, but royal banquets are unbearably dull…”

When Jeffrey heard the name, he did not answer at once.

He lowered his head and repeated it softly, the sound almost carried away by the wind.

“Ioanna.”

It was as though he were confirming something.

Or placing the name somewhere only he knew existed.

His fingers went still.

Something shifted quietly within his amber eyes, but he quickly concealed it. His expression remained calm and untroubled, though one corner of his mouth moved as if he were restraining something.

After a brief silence, he spoke again.

“Anna.”

He did not ask whether she minded.

He simply called her by that name as naturally as though it had always belonged to her.

He looked up again. His gaze fell first upon her folded hands, then returned to her face.

“A royal banquet,” he repeated softly, as if considering the information rather than expressing surprise.

“So you slipped out of the palace and came all the way up to this neglected old tower to stand in the wind.”

It was a statement, not a question.

After a pause, he continued.

“I’ve never attended a royal banquet myself.”

His tone remained as measured as before. Then he added, almost casually:

“But places like that are always filled with people hiding different intentions. To find such a place boring, you must first believe you’re safe there.”

He said nothing more.

Nor did he look to see how she reacted.

He merely turned his gaze back toward the moon, allowing the words to remain suspended in the space between them.

At the sound of him calling her Anna, her body gave a slight jolt.

“No one has ever called me that before.”

A mischievous smile appeared upon her face.

“As for this tower…”

She glanced around at the crumbling stonework.

“I do come here whenever I’ve had enough of everything. Because… for now, no one pays any attention to this place.”

She pointed toward one section of the wall.

“Look. No one ever even comes to repair it.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“And… the banquet really is just as you said. Everyone spends the entire evening pretending to be someone they’re not.”

At that, Jeffrey let out a soft laugh.

It was not mocking. It was simply the unguarded reaction of someone hearing another person say something exactly right.

His gaze followed the direction of her hand.

The corner she had indicated had clearly been abandoned. Nameless weeds grew between the stones, and part of the parapet had collapsed entirely.

His brow furrowed faintly.

He said nothing, but silently committed the damage to memory.

Then he looked back at her.

She was leaning over the stone wall, her hair disordered by the wind. With that playful smile on her face, she looked nothing like what anyone would imagine when they heard the word princess.

She looked more like a small creature that had finally found a burrow where no one else could reach it.

Jeffrey watched her for a moment.

Something slowly settled in the depths of his eyes, like a stone sinking beneath the surface of water.

“No one has ever called you that before,” he repeated quietly.

“Then I’ll keep calling you that.”

He said it so naturally that it sounded less like a suggestion than a decision that had already been made.

The wind shifted again.

He turned his face slightly, and his dark brown curls were blown across his forehead once more. This time, he raised a hand and brushed them back, briefly revealing the old scar on the left side of his forehead.

He did not ask about the tower again.

He did not return to the subject of the banquet.

He simply remained beneath the moonlight with her in silence, as though he had always belonged there.

Or as though he belonged nowhere at all.

For a wanderer, there was very little difference between the two.

No sooner had Jeffrey finished speaking than Anna began glancing around the tower, apparently checking something.

“Oh no. I have to go.”

She pushed the windblown hair away from her face.

There was no time for another word. She turned and disappeared from the tower.

Jeffrey watched her vanish beyond the edge of the parapet.

He did not call after her.

He remained where he was, staring for a while at the empty place she had left behind.

Moonlight lay upon the stone.

There was nothing there now, as if she had never appeared at all.

Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the hand resting upon his knee. His fingers moved once, then became still.

He sat in silence until he seemed almost like another part of the castle wall.

After a while, he rose.

He moved without haste.

Like everything he did, there was no urgency in it.

He brushed the grass from his clothes and walked toward the black horse tied beneath the tree.

Hearing his footsteps, the horse flicked its tail.

Jeffrey ran a hand along its neck but did not mount immediately. Instead, he stood beside it and looked once more toward the old tower.

The top was empty.

The wind had scattered every trace of her.

Only the moon remained where it had always been.

His amber eyes shone quietly in the darkness, like a flame that had burned for a long time and learned to burn without revealing its heat.

His throat shifted slightly.

In the end, he said nothing.

He mounted the horse.

With the reins in his hand, he guided it over the fallen leaves.

He did not ride far.

He stopped in the depths of the trees, with his back turned toward the castle—or perhaps not entirely turned away.

“Anna.”

He spoke the name softly into the darkness.

No one heard him.

No one needed to.

The name lingered for a moment upon his tongue, as though he were confirming something.

Or making a promise to himself.

He would return tomorrow.