The Princess Dangling From a Cliff

Varkan stood at the very spot where the princess had fallen only moments ago, all the color drained from his face.

The cliff dropped away into an abyss too deep to see the bottom of. His voice careened between the rock walls, echoing back to him over and over.

Then—

"Huh? Your Grace?"

A voice rose from directly beneath the cliff, so languid it bordered on impertinent, bright and cheerful.

Varkan leaned further over the edge, and his gaze locked precisely with the blue eyes of the princess, who was pressed flat against the rock face looking up at him.

"……."

"……."

Whooooosh—. A savage north wind swept through the silence stretched between the two of them.

The princess had not fallen.

She was hanging on for dear life — barely a hand-span below the cliff's edge — one hand gripping a jutting rock with practiced ease, dangling there by her fingertips.

And with her free hand, she was prying an unknown herb's roots out of a crevice in the cliff wall as she asked:

"What brings Your Grace all the way out here?"

Hah. A short breath escaped Varkan's lips. This was a moment that called for relief, yet somehow his stomach only twisted tighter.

Perhaps it was because the sight of the princess vanishing below the cliff's edge kept overlapping with a memory from his childhood — one he had tried his best to forget.

Varkan clenched his jaw.

It had been like this for days now. Ever since that princess appeared in his peacefully uneventful life, his insides knotted themselves up a dozen times a day without warning.

Even when the Emperor had tossed him an enemy nation's princess as a bride, it had never been this bad.

And today alone, that woman had managed to startle him and infuriate him how many times over?

Varkan's jaw worked as he ground his teeth, but at last he forced himself to be patient and extended his hand down toward the princess below.

"First things first — take my hand."

What on earth is going on here?

And why is the Grand Duke here of all places?!

"First things first — take my hand."

"……."

His enormous hand reached toward me. For all his talk of grabbing on, there was something eerily suppressed in Varkan's voice. His jaw was set like stone, and his eyes glittered with undisguised irritation.

Somehow, for some reason, the Grand Duke appeared to be angry.

Did he find out I've been tearing up all that poisonous greenery?

I eyed the hand he offered me with open wariness.

What if I took his hand, put my weight in his grasp — and he simply let go?

Whiiiiiish—. I stole a glance at the churning winds raging below the cliff.

Truth be told…

It would be an excellent spot to dispose of a nuisance.

Besides, I'd much rather climb up under my own power than be hauled up while dangling helplessly from someone else's grip.

After weighing all of this, I did not take his hand.

A beat of silence passed. Then Varkan, his jaw clenched tight, spoke again.

"Princess, it's dangerous, so just come up for now—"

Yikes, there he goes getting angry again.

I swiftly tucked the herb roots I'd yanked from the crevice into the inner pocket of my cloak, hiding them away.

Then, wedging my toes into the cracks of the cliff face, I began to scale the rock with practiced, efficient movements.

"Hup!"

With a light grunt of effort, I hurled myself over the edge of the cliff, landing on top, and brushed the snow and dirt from my cloak.

Varkan withdrew the arm he'd been holding out and stood there, staring at me.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

At the strangled edge in his voice, my eyes widened in mild surprise.

No, seriously — why is he angry?

Looking at him with an expression of pure bewilderment, I asked:

"Die? Who? Me?"

I shrugged.

"Not a chance. I'm currently doing everything in my power to scrape out as long a life as I possibly can, you know…?"

"And someone like that leaps off a cliff?!"

Varkan demanded, his temper simmering dangerously.

Oh — wait. Did he think I jumped off the cliff to kill myself?

How awkward. I had only scrambled a little way down because a new species of plant growing on the cliff face had made me lose my mind completely.

Right. I hadn't leapt off anything — I had calmly and methodically stepped down the rocks for about a hand-span's worth of distance. That was all.

A little indignant now, I lifted my chin as I looked up at Varkan.

"No, I didn't leap — I climbed down briefly. And I didn't die, did I? As you can plainly see, I've come back up in perfect health."

I spread my arms wide to emphasize just how very alive I was.

Even so, Varkan's anger showed no sign of subsiding. He stared at me as if I were completely beyond comprehension, grinding the words out through his teeth.

"It seems Delmar teaches its royalty even the art of cliff climbing."

I gave a scoffing laugh at that.

"Sure, why not. Call it one of my little hobbies!"

"A hobby? Digging holes and scaling cliffs?"

At his incredulous expression, I flashed him a grin and stepped closer.

"Yes. A hobby."

"……."

"Everyone has one, don't they? Just as seriously as Your Grace pursues your hobby of monster-hunting — to the point of leaving an enemy princess abandoned at your estate."

At my pointed provocation, Varkan's eyes narrowed further.

A brief silence followed.

Hoo. Varkan swept his hair back from his forehead and steadied his breathing.

He closed his eyes for a moment — trying to rein in his emotions, perhaps — before opening them again.

Then he bent his enormous frame toward me and spoke in a low voice.

"Princess."

"Wh-what…?"

The shadow cast by his overwhelming bulk fell over me, swallowing me whole.

Varkan's voice rumbled like a growling beast in his throat.

"Do not test my patience. Whether you leap off a cliff or hurl yourself into a river is none of my concern — but I will not tolerate finding your corpse on my land."

"……No, that's not — I wasn't trying to die in the first place—!"

The very instant my indignant mouth opened to fire back—

WHOOOONG—!

A low, heavy rush of wind rose from the deep interior of the mountain range. In the same breath, the snowfall thickened, then began whipping down in a driving diagonal sheet.

Wh-what is that?!

Startled by the sudden shift in the weather, I glanced around wildly.

The falling snow grew denser and denser, pouring down like a curtain until it swallowed the view entirely.

Hunching my shoulders up to my ears, I looked at Varkan.

"Wh-where did this blizzard come from?! It was clear just a minute ago!"

Varkan surveyed our surroundings, speaking with the unbothered calm of a man long accustomed to such storms.

"…The Veil of the Gods."

"The Veil of the Gods?"

"That's why the Pedrica Mountain Range has so few monsters."

Varkan added that the range was periodically ravaged by irregular, lethally violent blizzards — storms known as the Veil of the Gods.

"Excuse me?!"

The moment my eyes went wide at this news to me, Varkan tilted his head and replied offhandedly:

"That's exactly what I meant when I said it was dangerous."

"N-no! I thought you were just telling me to watch out for the cold! That's why I came so thoroughly prepared for the weather!"

He'd barely mentioned monsters at all, and even if one did show up, I'd assumed the knights who'd ridden ahead would handle it just fine.

Worst case, I could always have scrambled back down below the cliff to take shelter.

"But no one said a word about blizzards like this! I figured as long as I kept warm, I'd be perfectly safe…"

"There is no safe place anywhere in the northern mountains."

"That's not the point I was making…"

Ugh. I pressed a hand to my forehead and sighed. Then, lifting my head, I gazed at the path ahead, blurred into a white haze by the storm.

"Th-then the knights who rode ahead — how will we f-find them? They're okay, right?"

When I looked up at Varkan with worried eyes, he turned his head away, scanning our surroundings — eyes darting between the ground and the sky.

"The Grand Duchy's knights are well versed in the Pedrica range's capricious conditions. They're thoroughly trained, and contingencies are in place all over the mountains."

"Well, that's a relief, but — but… I'm not one of them, am I!"

I said it with a face on the verge of tears.

"You said you wouldn't let me die inside the duchy! You said no one would find my corpse here!"

In this savage blizzard I couldn't see a single step ahead! So what good were contingency plans if you couldn't move forward in the first place?

Ah, woe is me and my miserable fate.

Looks like I'm going to die on a mountain again! Why is my life so cursed?! I mumbled to myself, fighting back tears.

At that, Varkan took a single step toward me. Gazing down at me with pitch-black eyes like fathomless abysses, he spoke slowly.

"…Which is exactly why I came."