The Grand Duchess's Sixth First Night — Chapter 4

The next morning, the moment breakfast was over, Laila pushed aside every appointment on her schedule and headed straight for the Grand Ducal training grounds.

She wore comfortable riding clothes, and a bow was clasped in her hand.

“Lucas, will you teach me how to shoot?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Help me.”

“Oh, come now. The whole Empire's already buzzing with the rumor that you took down a wild boar with a single arrow yesterday, my lady.”

Lucas, the head knight of House Esdelheim, drawled with a sly grin, and Laila corrected him flatly.

“That rumor is false.”

“I know. But I also know it's true that His Majesty the Emperor praised you. Honestly, is there anything the Academy doesn't teach? Of course, if you learn from a man of real battlefield experience like me, your skills will improve by leaps and bounds!”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Let's start with your stance. Take the arrow and the bow in hand first.”

Lucas had come to the Grand Ducal house as a squire in his youth and had watched the Grand Duchess grow up for many long years.

He remembered the girl Laila had been before she learned to turn back time — and so he secretly delighted in the occasional glimpses of her all-too-human side.

“Ooh, lovely stance. You really do have a talent for this. Now, release the string. The target's right over there.”

At Lucas's signal, Laila let go of the string she'd been drawing. The arrow leapt away, swift as a striking snake.

Thwack!

But it buried itself in the ground, nowhere near the target. Lucas scratched his forehead with a finger.

“My lady.”

“Yes?”

“That's not the target, you know.”

“I'm aware.”

Laila drew the bowstring again. This time the arrow sank into the ground on the opposite side of the target.

“You've got the talent, and your draw strength is fine, but…”

Lucas, looking distinctly awkward, clapped his palms together with a sharp smack and pressed on.

“All right! Talent's there, so all that's left is effort! Practice every single day for a month or two, and you'll be hitting a stationary target in no time!”

Laila smiled slyly.

“One day is plenty.”

Effort was the thing she was most confident in. And she had a great deal of time.

Until she could hit a moving target, she intended to repeat this single day, over and over, without end.

Her uncalloused fingers were already beginning to ache. It was a pain she would have to grow used to. Laila did not stop.

Apart from a brief pause at lunch, she remained at the training grounds all day long.

Even for her, endless repetition was hardly a pleasure. But if she wanted to reach 'tomorrow' as quickly as possible, she had to sharpen her skills within as few 'todays' as she could manage.

The sky had flushed red with sunset, and the shadows had deepened into dusk before Laila's maid came hurrying into the training grounds at a brisk trot.

“My lady, a letter has arrived!”

“Perfect timing. Time for a rest now, my lady!”

Lucas, who looked even more exhausted than she did, heaved a sigh, and Laila finally lowered the bow and arrow she'd been gripping.

Her fingers, raw from endless draws, had long since split open into wounds, and the muscles of her forearms — muscles she had never used before in her life — were screaming in protest.

“Who's it from?”

Laila accepted the letter with trembling hands.

It was a plain, rough envelope bearing no noble family seal. Without hesitation, she broke it open.

Coarse but boldly scrawled lines greeted her.

Laila burst into a hollow laugh.

“That's hardly a courtship letter. More like a challenge, isn't it?”

“Close enough.”

Lucas, who had been sneaking glances at her letter, asked with feigned innocence. Instead of scolding the insolent knight, Laila simply turned slightly to shield the letter from his view.

That rough letter carried Ervan's nature exactly as it was.

It was no formal invitation, and it offered no courteous greeting.

Worse, summoning a lady at dawn was an unmistakable breach of etiquette.

By aristocratic standards, the letter bordered on outright rudeness.

And yet, strangely, that rudeness made Laila smile.

“Will you accept the challenge, my lady?”

“No. Mary, put the letter in my room.”

Laila took up the bow again. Despite Lucas's anguished cries for her to stop, she drew the string once more.

Just a little — she was looking forward to tomorrow.

“All right! Talent's there, so all that's left is effort! Practice every single day for a month or two, and—”

Thwack!

The arrow rode the string and buried itself close to the center of the target. Lucas's words cut off mid-sentence.

Laila calmly picked up the next arrow.

Thwack!

As the second arrow struck even closer to center, Lucas broke his silence and muttered.

“…Maybe two months won't be necessary after all.”

Laila answered only by loosing another arrow. She kept shooting until the sky burned red with sunset and Lucas's sniffles rose into a full-throated wail.

And that night, Laila turned back time.

Again.

And again.

“All that's left is effort! Practice every single day for a month, and—”

“All that's left is effort! Practice every single day for a week, and—”

Thwack!

“…”

Thwack!

“My lady.”

The white disc flung against the crimson sunset sky split cleanly in two beneath a single arrow from Laila's bow.

Lucas, slumped on the dirt of the training grounds, rubbed his eyes again and again with the expression of a man seeing a ghost.

“Why did this talent have to go to the Grand Duchess?”

He was half in a daze, muttering that if only she hadn't been born a Grand Duchess, he would have taken her as his disciple and raised her into the finest archer on the continent.

To his hollow laugh, Laila gave a simple answer.

“I told you. One day is plenty.”

Of course, for Laila, that one day had been dozens of days — but there was no way Lucas could have known that.

Having finally set down her bow, Laila massaged her trembling wrist.

She had drawn the bowstring thousands of times in the hours that had vanished.

Each time she rewound time, her feel for the bow had sharpened and her skill had grown — but muscle did not come with it.

The medal of effort could only be earned through time.

Still, Laila was satisfied. Now, even if someone suddenly demanded she shoot a bow, she could remain the perfect Grand Duchess — the one who was good at archery too.

“Sometimes you honestly frighten me, my lady.”

At Lucas's words, Laila burst into genuine laughter for the first time that day.

Pale dawn light seeped through the window, and Laila stirred in the faint glow before waking.

'…'

There was a reason she'd slept fitfully. Ervan's letter.

Tomorrow at dawn, I will be waiting at the western entrance of Elmwood Forest.

Laila gazed at the plain envelope resting on her drawer and deliberated for a while.

'Should I go?'

Through dozens of rewinds, Laila had received that letter from Ervan dozens of times.

For him it was a single letter; for her, it had become dozens. The weight of the invitation pressed on her as heavily as the stack of letters it had become.

“Just go back to sleep.”

But Laila soon shook her head.

Slipping off to the forest to hunt from dawn hardly suited the image of the 'perfect Grand Duchess.' And if that hunt were in the company of an unmarried man?

If word spread through a salon society that loved nothing more than gossiping about others, it would surely leave a deep stain on her perfection.

She even considered meeting Ervan, spending the day with him, and then rewinding — but she abandoned the idea quickly.

'Somehow, I have a feeling that this time, too, I won't want to turn back the clock.'

Rewinding time for the sake of a private memory alone was out of the question. Laila tried to sleep again.

'I don't regret it. Truly.'

Repeating the words to herself, she drifted off.

The Emperor had kept his word from the hunting contest. He had the Princess taught archery.

Behind the Princess's Palace, a straight path had been cut through the flowerbeds that had once bloomed across the entire garden.

Fine sand had been laid over the bare soil where the flowers had been torn out by the roots, and white distance markers had been drawn across it at even intervals. At the far end stood a practice target.

'…'

Hearing only rumors through salon society, Laila was left speechless the first time she saw the transformed garden of the Princess's Palace with her own eyes.

The poor girl had every right to weep.

They said the twelve-year-old princess had cried for three days and nights over her ruined garden.

And it was to encourage her that Laila had come to the Princess's Palace today.

Looking at the garden, wrecked far more thoroughly than she'd imagined, Laila thought that perhaps consolation, not encouragement, was what the girl truly needed.

“Lady Laila!”

From a distance came a young voice calling her name.