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I didn't know what that expression meant. What was certain, however, was that he wasn't just looking out of idle curiosity.
'He couldn't be mocking me for having such small, insignificant hands, could he?'
I'm thirteen; it would be weirder if they were any larger. Feeling as though I would lose twice over if I withdrew my hand now, I asked, pretending to be nonchalant.
"What is it?"
Valentin slowly lifted his head. Then, he lowered his gaze back to my hand.
"Princess Larisa."
The sensation of cold leather touched my fingertips very slowly.
He touched my hand with a cautious movement. He lightly gripped and pulled my index finger, then returned it to its original place with a mysterious expression. It was a delicate, ticklish action, like a watchmaker inspecting a flaw in an old timepiece.
"Seeing you like this, you really have grown a lot."
What is he talking about? Is he saying I've grown since a month ago? Or did he happen to see a portrait I drew when I was five? Regardless of the answer, it was an utterly random observation.
"Did you raise me, Valentin?"
He let out a small, hollow laugh.
"I have been feeling that way lately."
"You're sarcasming me for being short, aren't you? Just you wait. Looking at my mother and Tatyana, I'm bound to grow quite a bit."
"Considering the Novarov bloodline, that confidence isn't unfounded. Prince Vasily and Princess Tatyana will likely grow another half-span as well."
He spoke as if he had personally verified it from the future. Well, he is a prophet, so perhaps he isn't wrong.
I almost asked, 'Then how much more will Ivan and I grow?' but after some thought, I kept my mouth shut. Both before and now, there was a feeling that Ivan and I were excluded from the futures Valentin mentioned. While I was intensely curious about the reason, I felt as though I were attaching unnecessary meaning to something trivial, so I couldn't bring myself to ask.
While my thoughts raced back and forth, Valentin remained in his seated position, silently staring at my hand. Without even blinking.
"Valentin. Are you perhaps dozing off while sitting up?"
"……It has been decades since I started living with that feeling."
"You're only seventeen, stop exaggerating."
"It feels strange to hear that from someone who is only thirteen."
It feels strange for me too because you keep looking at my hand. To make a point, I waved my fingers up and down vigorously. Valentin, who looked away with a gaze that said 'typical of you,' rummaged through the inside of his coat and asked.
"Do you like Miss Emma Tolstoy?"
"She dotes on me, unlike some people. There's no reason not to like her."
"Yes, looking at your cute hair, it seems so."
What was that? I'm cute!
"You don't need to worry much about her. I have no intention of doing something irresponsible and leaving."
Did that mean he intended to have a wedding before leaving for his studies abroad? Why was he explaining his personal affairs to a thirteen-year-old brat? Out of consideration for Emma? Or in the hope that I would stop taking an interest in their situation?
The object Valentin pulled from his inner coat pocket was a white handkerchief. I reflexively took the handkerchief he handed me. When I looked at him with bewildered eyes, he gave a light nod toward my arm. A drop of water had splashed onto my left sleeve. It seemed to be water that had dripped from Valentin's shoulder.
Something like this could just be brushed off with a hand. As I pressed the white handkerchief against it, the transparent droplet melted away and was absorbed into the soft fabric.
I looked back and forth between my sleeve, now spotless, and the white cloth where the trace of the water remained like a tiny gray speck, before returning the handkerchief to Valentin. The moment the cool temperature of the leather touched my fingertips, I felt as if something inside my chest slid right out, following the sensation of the contact.
Valentin left after drinking exactly half of the black tea Emma had prepared. Even after he left, I let Emma play with my hair for a good thirty minutes. For some reason, I couldn't forget that sensation that had lingered at my fingertips.
Three days later.
Mother returned home.
It was a reunion after a full month. Every two years, Mother leaves for the Imperial Palace villa in Chelyubinsk and returns after spending exactly one month there. She departs for Chelyubinsk right after spending the New Year with our family and the courtiers of Makhachkala, and returns just before the social season begins.
The lakes of Chelyubinsk, transparent as mirrors, are clear and pure as if the eternal snows have melted, and the south of the lake is surrounded by vast meadows perfect for horses to run in. The reason Mother leaves for Chelyubinsk every year at the beginning of the year was to capture that scenery on canvas.
Thanks to this, a modest exhibition consisting of works Mother has painted over the past dozen years is set up in the second-floor hall of the Chelyubinsk villa 365 days a year. Mother burns her artistic soul there for a month or two a year, and around the time the first spring rain falls, she returns as Olga Yepifmovna Novarov, the Sovereign of Ohalla and our mother.
Among the many breathtaking sights scattered across Ohalla, there was only one reason Mother stayed in Chelyubinsk every time. It was because all four of us siblings, including Vasily, were born in Chelyubinsk, not Makhachkala.
To my parents, Chelyubinsk was the source of life and a sanctuary of health. Since Father, who couldn't travel with her this year, had even fallen from his horse at the Imperial Palace, I believe Mother's such belief must have grown even firmer.
I was told that Mother arrived at dawn.
As soon as I woke up and heard the news, I finished getting ready and went to find her. However, in the cozy drawing room, only Tatyana was sitting there blankly, reading a book.
"Where is Mother?"
"The first interview always belongs to Vasily."
"Ivan isn't here either?"
"The second interview, as always, belonged to Ivan."
Then I'm next.
Whenever Mother returns after being away from the Imperial Palace for a long time, she begins individual interviews in sequence starting that afternoon. Since we were young, the first one always belonged to Vasily. The order had nothing to do with age or the weight of the responsibility on one's shoulders. We had tacitly named this order the 'Problem Child Sequence.'
The order in which Mother judged that she needed to worry most and show continuous interest and affection. The top priority always had to be Vasily, and that didn't change even after he became an adult.
'Mother sees me as almost an infant; I wonder if the day will ever come when that changes.'
Vasily also had the role of being interviewed the longest among us siblings, though that time had been gradually decreasing over the past seven years. In the beginning, Vasily had a private audience with Mother all day, so compared to today, where they have a conversation for about three hours at most, it could be called tremendous progress.
"Come here and wait your turn quietly, Lara. Did you sneak some food again last night? Our little kitten's face has become round like a balloon."
An hour passed while I surrendered my body to Tatyana's hands, which were busy pinching my cheeks. Even so, an hour was too long. The door leading to the inner chamber remained firmly shut, showing no sign of opening. After pacing around the area for a while, I finally couldn't take it anymore and flung the door wide open.
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