Chapter 184: A Sudden Engagement [4]

"Excuse me, Miss Liselotte... but what exactly are we doing here?"

"Hm? Dinner. I’ve always wanted to explore the cuisine in a place like this."

"Uh...?"

"...."

Ilya looked at Anastasiya.

The two siblings stared at each other, equally dumbfounded by the Princess’s current proposal, because instead of bringing them to one of the expensive restaurants within the capital, Liselotte had led them straight to the entrance of a carnival park.

"Your Highness," Anastasiya began, "when you said you wanted to have dinner with us, I assumed you meant at a restaurant."

"Yes. But that sounds boring."

"...."

"...."

The answer came so naturally that neither sibling immediately knew how to respond.

Liselotte looked past the entrance with obvious interest, her eyes moving from one stall to another as though she had already forgotten that the two people accompanying her were still standing behind her.

There were skewered meats being grilled over open flames, fried pastries covered in sugar, roasted nuts, sausages, sweets, and several other things Ilya couldn’t immediately identify from this distance.

"I’ve eaten at restaurants plenty of times," Liselotte continued. "But I’ve never been able to properly enjoy a place like this. Whenever my family attends a public festival, everything is prepared beforehand, the route is decided for us, and there are always people following us around. That’s hardly the same thing."

Ilya glanced around.

"People are still going to recognize you."

"Then I’ll deal with it when they do."

"...."

Ilya looked at Anastasiya again.

"...."

Anastasiya looked back. The two of them seemed to reach exactly the same conclusion without needing to exchange a single word.

There was no point arguing with her.

"Besides," Liselotte continued, turning toward them with a bright smile, "I heard they sell food here that you’re supposed to eat while walking."

Anastasiya blinked. "Yes?"

"And they put meat on sticks."

"...Yes."

"And potatoes too."

"Yes."

Liselotte looked genuinely fascinated.

Ilya slowly brought a hand to his face.

"...She’s a tourist."

"In her own capital..." Anastasiya added.

Fortunately, Liselotte either didn’t hear them or simply decided to ignore the comment, because the moment they passed through the entrance, almost all of her attention shifted toward the carnival itself.

The place was far more crowded than it had appeared from outside, with families and groups of students filling the wide pathways between attractions.

For Ilya, there wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about it.

He hadn’t exactly spent his childhood wandering through carnivals, but he had seen enough festivals and marketplaces throughout his life that stalls selling cheap food and games promising prizes didn’t hold much novelty for him.

Anastasiya appeared even less impressed, walking beside him with her usual composed expression as they followed Liselotte deeper into the park.

Liselotte, on the other hand, stopped at practically everything.

Their supposed dinner began with a skewer of grilled meat that she had spotted before they even entered.

From there, she moved on to a spiral-cut potato fried on a stick, then a small paper tray filled with some kind of fried cheese, followed by a sweet pastry that had been covered in enough powdered sugar to leave the tips of her fingers completely white.

She never bought much from any individual stall, apparently having realized very quickly that trying everything would become impossible if she filled herself at the first few places.

What amused Ilya more was how carefully she examined everything before eating it.

Liselotte had probably eaten dishes prepared by some of the finest chefs in the Empire for most of her life, yet she regarded a piece of fried potato worth a handful of copper coins with the same seriousness one might give an unfamiliar delicacy.

"Is it good, Your Highness?" Anastasiya eventually asked.

Liselotte took another bite before nodding enthusiastically. "Very."

Anastasiya looked at the potato, then at Ilya.

He shrugged.

Neither of them understood what was so extraordinary about it.

Still, they continued following her.

It wasn’t long before the food stopped being the only thing catching Liselotte’s attention.

Whenever they passed a game stall, her pace would noticeably slow, especially when she saw the shelves of stuffed animals and other prizes displayed behind the attendants.

She became particularly interested in one booth where visitors threw small rings toward rows of bottles, watching several people fail before her attention shifted toward the prizes hanging behind the attendant. There were stuffed animals of every shape and size lining the shelves, and after staring at them for several seconds, Liselotte turned toward Ilya.

"Ilya."

"Hm?"

"I want that one."

She pointed toward a particularly large stuffed rabbit sitting near the top of the display.

Ilya followed her finger and looked at it for a moment before glancing at the rings being handed out by the attendant.

"Then go win it."

"Hehe. Watch and learn."

Liselotte smiled immediately.

As it turned out, winning it was considerably easier said than done.

The game looked simple enough from a distance, but the rings were barely wider than the bottles they were supposed to land around, and Liselotte’s first attempt bounced uselessly off the glass.

Her second didn’t fare much better, and by the third, the cheerful excitement on her face had slowly transformed into an expression of absolute concentration.

Ilya found the sight more amusing than he probably should have. The youngest princess of the Empire was standing in the middle of a carnival with a fried potato still in one hand, glaring at a row of bottles as though they had personally insulted the dignity of the Imperial Family.

Anastasiya eventually stepped forward beside her.

"Let me try, Your Highness."

What began as Liselotte wanting a stuffed rabbit soon became a matter of pride for both of them.

The first few rings missed completely, which Anastasiya took as a personal insult.

By the time she finally landed one around the neck of a bottle, the attendant looked more relieved than she did, while Liselotte happily accepted the small stuffed wolf Anastasiya selected from the available prizes.

Ilya had expected the evening to be awkward.

Liselotte and Anastasiya had never properly met before, and one was his fiancée while the other was his older sister, which had given him plenty of reasons to expect that he would spend most of dinner trapped between the two of them.

But for some reason, he gradually found himself being pushed to the side.

Liselotte asked Anastasiya about the Knight Department, then about the North, then about places she had visited outside the capital.

Anastasiya was initially formal in her responses, still clearly conscious of the fact that she was speaking with an Imperial Princess, but that stiffness slowly faded as Liselotte continued talking to her like an ordinary girl rather than the heir to a Grand Duchy.

By the time they reached another row of food stalls, the two were already walking slightly ahead of him.

Ilya followed several steps behind them with his hands in his pockets, watching Liselotte show Anastasiya the stuffed wolf she had won as though Anastasiya hadn’t been standing beside her when she received it.

At that moment, Anastasiya glanced back and met Ilya’s eyes before turning her attention to Liselotte.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any to ask, but I’ve never been informed of such an arrangement before, Your Highness. Is it true that you’re engaged to my younger brother?"

"Hm? Of course."

At Liselotte’s answer, Anastasiya’s expression only grew more complicated. She had initially assumed that there was something she had simply missed while away from the North, yet the more she thought about it, the stranger the situation became.

As the heir of House Belozersky, an engagement between her younger brother and an Imperial Princess wasn’t something that should have escaped her attention so completely.

Her gaze shifted toward Ilya again.

"Does Father know?"

"Yes."

"...Is that so?"

That answer clearly did little to satisfy her, but before Anastasiya could continue questioning him, Liselotte hugged the stuffed wolf closer to herself and casually provided the explanation he had neglected to give.

"The arrangement hasn’t been formally announced yet," she said. "His Imperial Majesty and His Grace discussed the matter between themselves, and since there was no immediate reason to make it public, it was kept between the people directly involved for the time being."

That at least explained why Anastasiya hadn’t heard anything through the usual channels, although it didn’t entirely erase the disbelief from her face.

She was the future head of House Belozersky, yet apparently her father had managed to arrange an Imperial engagement involving her own younger brother without mentioning a single word of it to her.

Anastasiya looked at Ilya again.

Ilya could already tell where this was going.

"Don’t blame me... I didn’t arrange it."

"You could have told me."

"...We weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the time."

"Hmph."

Anastasiya stared at him as though he had just said something profoundly stupid before turning forward again.

Ilya shrugged.

Liselotte covered her mouth, failing to completely hide her amusement at the exchange.

The revelation itself clearly bothered Anastasiya less than the fact that their father had somehow neglected to tell her about it, and Ilya suspected Valentin would eventually receive a less pleasant version of the conversation he was having now.

After several steps, Anastasiya glanced toward Liselotte once more.

"If you don’t mind me asking, Your Highness... are you happy with the arrangement?"

That finally made Ilya pay closer attention.

Unlike her earlier questions, there was no irritation in Anastasiya’s voice this time.

Liselotte slowed slightly before looking back at Ilya. Their eyes met for only a moment.

"To be honest, I don’t know Lord Ilya very well. But from what I know, he was a very close friend of my brother."

Anastasiya turned around again, prompting Ilya.

"Is that true?"

"...Something like that."