Hearing this question Scroll’s hand paused for a moment, the stories in the book were not stories of a real people, instead it was a collection of stories she had heard within her ten years in the Sea Breeze Region. They were stories told to her by the sailors. But Scroll had specifically put this kind of stories together, and every story where the Prince wouldn’t marry the Princess didn’t have a happy ending. These kinds of stories were put together in one book and which she then gave to Anna to read.
Always knowing that after reading Anna would ask her exactly this question, but now that she really had to answer the question, she hesitated.
“Most of the time this is the case, of course, some princes will also marry the daughter of a Grand Duke or a Duke, for example, Graycastle’s King Wimbledon III, his wife was the daughter of the Duke of Silvercity.”
Answering the question like this, Scroll suddenly felt very sad. Wendy and Scroll herself had already talked about Nightingale’s situation but compared to the mature and calm Shadow Killer, she was more worried about the possibility that the Prince and Anna would develop deeper feeling and become closer.
Anna was a woman who was very important to His Royal Highness, and everyone could clearly see this. When Anna and Roland were in the same room, his eyes would always fall on her. Anna’s life was several times busier than that of any other sisters. Even more important than that was that even Nightingale had to share her room with Wendy, but His Royal Highness didn’t change Anna’s room into a double, making her the only one was allowed to have a room all to herself. The reason for this was that when Nana came over to sleep in the castle she could share the room with Anna – he seemed to not realize that he was the owner of this place and that there was no reason that he had to explain himself.
And for Anna it was the same case, when she was together with the other witches she was a person of few words, she was even for most of the time just a quiet listener. But when Roland was by her side she would immediately become active. If there was anything which was able to let her forget about her books, Scroll thought that only the Prince was able to achieve this.
Unfortunately, Roland was the 4th son of the former King of Graycastle, the future King who will support the witches, and Anna was only a witch.
Since Roland was a Prince, Scroll was unable to order him, so she had no other choice than to influence Anna in the direction she thought would be correct. She didn’t want those two to be estranged from each other, but she also didn’t want to see it ending in the only possible result, a tragedy.
“Why?” asked Anna shaking her head, as if to try to get the memories of her destroyed dreams out of her head. “Does he have to do this, even though he doesn’t like the princess or any other woman of the nobility?”
“Uh…” Scroll hadn’t thought that she would continue questioning, “Even then he had still has to marry them.”
Because the Prince would most likely become the new king and the king’s marriage can’t be his own personal decision. She tried to recall some of the knowledge from the books that would help her,
“In order to stabilize the powers within his own country. In order to appease the neighboring countries. In order to achieve a good deal, these are all important reason for marrying a princess. But the most important matter is that the King has to have heirs.”
Hearing all this, Anna did not ask any further, which in return made Scroll a little relieved. This kind of thing was something only slowly achieved, not something she could force. But she believed that one day Anna would understand her thoughts.
When the trimming came to its end, Scroll scratched the fringes on Anna’s shoulder away, “Now, you’re looking great.”
“Thank you,” said Anna and bowed thankfully.
“Well, for today’s book…” Scroll thought for a moment, then she decided to tell her about the Wolfsheart Kingdom’s history, trying to reinforce the impression she had installed today, “her own selection of the royal family biography.”
When Scroll was finally ready to leave, Anna suddenly began to speak, still holding the book of illusion within her hands, “I think Roland isn’t one of those Princes from your stories.” Her voice was very steady and powerful, nothing as if she was only speaking to convince herself, “He will do whatever he wants to do. His decision won’t be influenced by anything else.”
“…” For a long time Scroll was startled, and in the end, she could only merely ask, “Why?”
“If he were one of those princes, he would never have saved me.”