The siblings left the opera house in their royal carriage and went towards the main street leading out of the city proper. Soon, they reached a farm covered with crops tall enough to their knees. One part of it had vegetables, the other looked like it was a paddy field for rice grains. There were some random fruit trees in between.
“A farm?” Seren asked as she curiously glanced around.
“Hmm!” he replied and led her way towards a stony path.
“Why are we here?” she asked while following her brother.
“To get you your favorite thing,” Cian replied. After a while, they reached a house made of stone. There was someone outside waiting for them.
It was an old lady bent on her back. She walked towards them with the support of a wooden stick in her hand. “Greetings, Your Highness.”
Cian accepted her greetings with a slight nod.
The old lady stared at the fine young lady he brought, trying to see her appearance despite her poor eyesight. “Seems like Her Highness is personally here this time,” she said gently.
Cian nodded, but her words only puzzled Seren.
“Her eyes are prettier than what you described to me,” the old lady commented.
“They are so pretty that no words can describe them right,” Cian agreed.
With a broad grin, he looked at his sister in her eyes. Those purple eyes looking at him with confusion seemed to be even prettier under the sunlight.
‘How can anyone feel scared of these eyes?’ Cian too felt his sister’s eyes were the prettiest thing for him.
“Shall we?” Cain asked Seren, who was still staring at him at a loss.
Seren followed her brother as they passed across the small stone house and went to the wide-open field behind. She curiously looked at the different kinds of plants and trees until they reached a certain section in the center of the farm that was filled with another type of trees.
Seren tried to figure out what kind of trees these were as Cian led her way towards them. She didn’t know what they were, but upon getting closer, she noticed something on those trees. Each row of trees had different kinds of berries on them, and it looked like they were given special care like the special trees in that farm. Berries were in different shades of blue, and a few were red ones.
“These berries…” she mumbled.
“Hmm, this is the place where I bought them every time before I visit you,” he informed her.
“Oh!”
They walked further in, where the berries mostly looked ripe and juicy. The trees were not very tall, just tall enough for her to reach the bunch of berries hanging on the trees with her bare hands.
“You can pick the ones you like the most by yourself.”
She looked at the tree nearest to her and said, “I like the red ones,” only to change her mind as those red berries reminded her of a pair of mysterious red eyes. She moved closer to the blue ones. “These blue ones look better.”
One of the knights gave them a bamboo basket, and Cian held the bamboo basket for her as he followed behind her. While Seren enjoyed picking berries, the knights arranged chairs and a table for them under the shade of the largest tree. When the basket was nearly full, the two siblings sat there so that Seren could eat as much as she wanted.
Without hesitation, she started putting the fresh berries inside her mouth one after another. It took her some time to realize that her brother was just looking at her, seemingly content to watch her.
“Are you not eating?” she asked.
“If my sister offers me to,” he replied.
She immediately pushed the basket kept in the center of the table towards him.
Cain picked up the few and ate them.
“How did Brother find this place?” Seren asked.
“Though this farmland belongs to that old lady, Father is the one to provide her everything so that she can take care of this farm, and in return, she had to plant these berries. This started long back when we were just kids. No one is allowed to? tend to these trees other than this old lady.”
“Why would His Majesty do it?” Seren asked.
“You guess,” Cian countered.
“I don’t know.” From her eyes, Cian could see she wanted to avoid guessing it.
Cian explained, “The first time that Father discovered you liked berries back when we were young, he immediately passed down an order. His daughter, the Third Princess of Abetha, can’t eat berries from some random trees. She needs to get only the best, and he made it happen that these berries were especially meant only for her.”
Seren turned silent for a while and then asked, “How did you know it?”
“I think it was after my third or maybe fourth visit where I brought you berries. Father brought me here and showed me this place. He instructed me to get you berries only from here. During annual harvests, he had sent them to you through Martha. He was the one to pick them for you personally, and this has been happening for years.”
“I…I thought Martha bought them for me,” Seren mumbled.
Cian stayed quiet as he knew it was surprising for her, but he was glad to show her their father’s other side, his side that cared for her secretly.
After she ate the berries to her heart’s content, the two left the farm and returned to the stone house. The old woman stepped out to see them off.
She looked at Seren and said, “From now onwards, what you have gone through will come to an end.”
“Huh?”
Seren didn’t understand what she meant, but Cian casually waved it off. “She has a habit of saying some random things.”
“Random things?” The old woman scoffed. “Though I see a powerful future king in you, you lack the trust in the things that you don’t want to believe instead of trying to get to know them first… Ignorant young man.” She sighed as if hating that he was not living up to his potential.
Seren looked at the old woman carefully. The more she looked, the more she found that this old woman was different. The old woman even dropped the honorifics in her talk while talking to her brother, the prince.
Cian said nothing to the old woman as if he was not bothered by the way she talked. It seems like he was used to her talking with him like this.
Seren and Cian then climbed back into the carriage and left the farm to return to the palace. The ride was silent, with neither of them attempting to start a conversation. When they reached the palace, the sun was about to set.
As soon as they entered the main gate of the royal palace, the happiness Seren had felt the entire day came to an end.
‘Back to the palace means back to my prison life’, she thought.
After helping her down the carriage, Cain accompanied Seren towards her chamber. “You must be tired after spending the entire day out. You should rest. I will ask the servants to send your dinner to your room.”
Seren nodded and entered her bedchamber without a word. The lady servant soon entered and prepared the bath for her. Seren was tired and she really needed to relax so that she could later execute her another running away plan after midnight.
Sitting inside the water tub, with her fingers slowly playing with the warm water, she thought about the time she spent with her brother. ‘It’s good that before leaving I could be with Brother Cian. I might never see him again after tonight.’
