Chapter 24: Live To Sienna Pt.24
When Sienna failed to answer, Carl said, grinning, “You already know who I am. I’m not sure I can trust you because I’m struggling here, but I’m still the crown prince of this country. If you want anything, tell me.”
“I didn’t exactly do this to receive anything.”
“Whether you did this in order to receive something or not, I can’t let it go unrewarded. What do you want?”
“Will you listen to any request of mine then?”
“Yes. Anything.”
Sienna had one thing that had come to mind, but she couldn’t tell Carl now. When he heard about it, he would ask for the reason…
“It’s so sudden, I can’t think of anything at the moment. The crown prince himself said that he could fulfill any request of mine, so I can’t simply ask away freely like the blowing wind. Give me a little more time to think about it.”
“Then, I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”
When Carl tried to go out, Sienna caught him with urgency.
“Everything’s good and all… but are you really going to leave like that?”
There was nothing on Carl’s upper body, which had been done to make replacing the bandages easier and also enabled his injuries to be checked more quickly. That was why he had asked for his clothes as soon as he got up, but to try to leave in that state, half-naked, made Sienna smiled, and she said, “I won’t stop you, but…”
Carl’s face turned red. Sienna had never seen him blush, even up to his ears. He said with a cough, “Uh-hum! I was going to get dressed… There should be some clothes for me to wear…”
Sienna kept laughing at his embarrassed excuse and said, “Yes, I’m sure there are. Or would Sir Carl really rather go like that?”
Sienna took a shirt and a coat out of the drawer and handed them to him. Carl’s face was still dyed red, so he dressed hastily in the clothes he had received from her.
“You’re doing that again…”
“What? Doing what again?”
Carl tried to say, “You called me Carl again,” but he shut his mouth when he saw her smiling. Apparently, he thought that if he had said that, she would return to calling him ‘Crown Prince’ and not ‘Sir Carl.’ He didn’t point it out because he didn’t dislike it when she called him by name.
As Carl approached the window, Sienna pointed to the door and said, “Sir Carl, the door’s over there…”
He turned around and, with a pale face, he smiled at her and said, “I’m going out quietly so that nobody finds out that I was here.”
Then, he jumped out of the window, and Sienna burst into laughter at the sight.
It was cool to see him jump from a three-story building without any qualms, but he looked like a bumbling adolescent boy when she saw him strike a pose before jumping out.
It was amazing for her how attracted to Carl’s beauty and strength she had been in the past. She thought that person back then had been very young, but even now, when counting her experiences before dying, she was only twenty-two. To stand at the pinnacle of the empire at that age, she was certainly too young.
‘You were very young too.’
The weight of that seat would have been too heavy for anyone to bear. As high-ranking as aristocrats might be, every little action or statement that came from the Imperial Family had huge repercussions. Though they were young, the responsibility of it all was certainly not for the young.
‘What would it feel like to live with that weight for the rest of my life?’
*
Since Roy had not awoken yet, Sienna, as usual, spent time with the children at the temple. He hadn’t regained consciousness for nearly fifteen days. Although he said he would be asleep for a long time, Kelly, Jane and she were all concerned that fifteen days had already passed with no change.
Even though they had called a doctor to examine him, the only thing the doctor had said was that he was merely sleeping. All Sienna could do was wait patiently while she cared for the temple until the day he woke up.
“There’s a huge commotion coming from out there.”
Outside, she heard drums beating, so Sienna said mostly to herself, “They are celebrating the Summer Solstice Festival.”
“The Descendant of the Sun? Oh, come to think of it, the National Day Festival is just around the corner.”
At every national holiday event, Laifsden held a big festival.
The Day of the Sun was an important national holiday in Laifsden. On national holidays, part of the Imperial Palace was opened, and a market was set up. Also, knights and military bands marched across the city, and the citizens followed them to listen to the music and dance.
There were national holidays when the Imperial Family and the nobles participated in parades, but on the Day of the Sun, there were no parades. Instead, what they did on that day was light lanterns and send them off to the sky.
The Lantern Festival symbolized the last battle in the war that brought the Kingdom of Laifsden back into the Empire. At that time, Emperor Rhyoli flew numerous lanterns into enemy territory to commemorate the victory achieved in the night battle.
The Laifsden calendar used that day to denote a new year, so because they counted age from the change in the calendar, the children would all become one year older that day as well.
“Robin!” Sienna called.
“Yes, Miss Sienna.”
“We are closing the temple tomorrow.”
“Yes. You are doing that because of the Solstice Festival, right?”
Robin understood it immediately, so Sienna held out a pocketful of coins to him.
“What is this…?”
“The kids are all becoming older tomorrow, which is why I’m giving you this.”
On the Day of the Sun, adults usually went around giving celebratory gifts to the children that were essentially becoming older.
“I can’t just accept this much money.”
While patting Robin on the back, Sienna said, “I know what you’re worried about, but children should have a day they can have fond memories of when they become adults. I hope this year’s Day of the Sun remains a good memory for the children. And it won’t last long if you share it with the other kids. Just tell them to buy street food and try buying trinkets for once that day because you’ve all had been through a lot.”
“But still…”
“If you’re really worried, when you all become adults later and find children who are hungry, you should become the kind of adults who can buy them some bread. Well, it’s not for me to say what you should do. You’re already doing very well.”
“Thank you.”
Robin ended up receiving the stash of coins, but Sienna was rather sorry that she could do nothing more than that.
At first, she had started out with the idea of taking care of the temple on Roy’s behalf and doing what she could, but while taking care of the children, Sienna had become attached to them.
In her heart, she wanted to provide them homes, protection, and education so that they could stand on their own feet as adults, but that was not the case since the temple was not her own, and the monthly pay she gave the children came from the allowance she received from her father and Aunt Kelly. She couldn’t help the children the way she wanted when she was beholden to others.
‘They’re obviously good kids who can grow up to be cool, well-rounded adults…’
But on the day of the festival, Sienna, who had given the children pocket money to enjoy the Day of the Sun, could not get out of the mansion. That was because it was too dangerous. Jane had said that people from other parts of the country flocked to fill the capital on that day, causing a huge number of people to die each year, trampled by the crowds.
After hearing that, Sienna got scared and decided to stay in the mansion like they told her to. She was afraid that the children, who had gone to the festival, might get hurt.
Kelly and Jane, who had frightened Sienna into staying home by saying that the festival would be dangerous, went to the store early in the morning for work. Most of the people who worked in the mansion were given the day off, so the mansion was deserted.