Summer always arrived late in Münster.
Sunlight fell like expensive gold leaf, generously scattered by the sky across the domes of Schönbrunn Palace.
Flags bearing the Black Sun emblem snapped sharply in the wind.
Tulips bloomed in full glory—red, yellow, purple—like an overturned paint palette, spreading without restraint across the entire garden.
The air was thick with floral fragrance, so cloyingly sweet it felt almost false.
Just like everything inside this palace.
Seven-year-old Flora sat on a bench by the fountain, toying with a freshly picked tulip in her hands.
She had a head of beautiful golden hair that glowed softly in the sunlight.
In the stories of storybooks, a princess with such looks should have been innocent and carefree, her greatest daily worry nothing more than whether the afternoon pastries were sweet enough.
But Flora was not.
She sat there like a small beast that had wandered into a flowerbed by mistake—alert and distant.
Sunlight fell on her body, yet it could not reach her eyes.
Seven years old was an age when most children only needed to decide what to play that day.
But royal children had no such privilege.
Or rather, royal children had never possessed childhood at all.
Her father the Emperor was a good man.
Kind, generous, indecisive—like a pebble that had been worn smooth by flowing water for far too long, rounded until every sharp edge was gone.
He loved his subjects, loved his wife, loved his daughters, yet that love was lukewarm, as if filtered through a layer of gauze.
Her mother the Empress was the exact opposite.
Her Majesty knew every family crest, every territory, every marriage alliance, and every dirty secret within three generations.
Before her, every smile, every bow, every flattering word from the courtiers would be dissected, analyzed, and filed away.
Sometimes Flora felt that the way her mother looked at her was like looking at a chess piece whose purpose had not yet been decided.
As for her elder sister Phine… the Crown Princess was no longer here.
On the day she turned sixteen, Phine had put on steam armor and ridden off to the battlefield without looking back.
Now she was the youngest Steam Knight in the Empire, piloting a three-meter-tall steel behemoth and charging through smoke and gunfire.
Flora had heard the legends about her sister.
She was invincible on the battlefield.
Her talent had astonished the entire Southern Continent.
She was the brightest star beneath the Black Sun.
Flora wanted to become someone like that as well.
But she was not.
When Phine was seven, she could already vault lightly over the palace walls and defeat guards a full cycle older than her with a wooden sword.
When Flora was seven, she could only sit in the garden and toy with a tulip.
Sometimes she wondered whether her sister had taken the talent that should have belonged to her.
Like a cup that could only hold so much water—her sister had simply claimed her half first.
But whenever that thought surfaced, she would feel deep shame.
How could she think such a thing?
How could she envy her own sister?
How could she be so base?
Flora lifted the tulip to her eyes and looked at the sky through the petals.
Sunlight leaked through the gaps and cast fine speckles of light across her face.
Every summer the imperial family came to Münster to escape the heat.
People said it was because summers in the Southern Continent were too stifling, but Flora believed the real reason was that the air inside the court was even more suffocating than the southern heat.
Last summer, while wandering aimlessly through this palace, she had discovered a secret.
In a corner of the palace wall there was a hole.
Not large—just big enough for a seven-year-old child to squeeze through.
That was the first time she had seen the outside world.
Sunlight, grass, a distant village, and children running through the fields.
Their laughter was so loud, so unrestrained, as if they had never known the meaning of “etiquette” or “rules.”
Flora had stood at that hole for a long time—so long that the sun was nearly setting.
In the end she still did not step outside.
Because she was a princess.
A princess could not run away.
A princess could not be willful.
A princess could not make her family worry.
A princess had to study etiquette, memorize family crests, smile at banquets, and remain silent at diplomatic occasions.
A princess had to be an obedient chess piece.
But that hole had remained in her memory ever since, like a door leading to another world, glittering in the depths of the night.
This summer she had come again.
She sat on the bench and looked at the familiar palace wall not far away.
The hole was still there, half-hidden by weeds, like a secret that belonged only to her.
Then she heard laughter.
The sound came from beyond the wall, clear as the ring of a glass being struck.
It was a girl’s laughter, filled with sunlight and wind.
Flora’s heart suddenly beat faster.
She stood up and walked toward the wall.
With every step her heart raced a little harder.
She could hear her own breathing—rapid and uneven.
No.
What if she was discovered?
What if Mother found out?
What if…
But her feet did not stop.
Perhaps the laughter was simply too beautiful.
Perhaps this summer was simply too long.
Perhaps she was simply tired of toying with tulips alone in the garden.
Or perhaps she only wanted a friend.
When she leaned halfway through the hole, sunlight slanted across her face and gilded her golden hair with a soft radiance.
Her eyes narrowed like a kitten that had just opened its eyes.
“Hi!”
A voice rang out right in front of her, startling her so badly she almost pulled back.
Flora saw a girl.
She wore a plain linen dress; her shoes were caked with mud; her hair shone in the sunlight with the exact same golden luster as Flora’s own.
But she was smiling.
It was the most radiant smile Flora had ever seen—so radiant it was almost dazzling.
Her eyes curved into twin crescents; the corners of her mouth lifted to reveal a row of even white teeth.
There was not a single impurity in that smile.
It was like the first ray of morning sunlight.
It was like the first handful of spring water from the mountains.
Flora suddenly felt a wave of panic.
Would she realize I am a princess?
Would she dislike me?
What should I say?
What if I say the wrong thing?
Her palms began to sweat; her heart pounded as if it might leap from her throat.
She instinctively clenched the hem of her dress, knuckles whitening from the force.
The girl, however, seemed completely unaware of her tension.
“My name is Claire! Who are you? Why are you here?”
Her voice was full of curiosity and not a trace of hostility, as if she were simply asking a cat she had happened to meet.
Flora drew a deep breath.
“I am… Flora.”
She forced the words out; her voice was as small as a mosquito’s buzz. “I’m… a child from the palace.”
It was not a lie.
But neither was it the whole truth.
Claire’s eyes widened instantly; her expression turned to pure delight, as if she had discovered the most interesting thing in the world.
“Wow!” She leaned closer and studied Flora’s face carefully. “You look exactly like me!”
Flora froze for a moment, then looked at Claire in turn.
The same golden hair, the same blue eyes, the same face shape, the same nose.
If they swapped clothes, even their own parents might not be able to tell them apart.
“This… this is really amazing,” Flora said softly.
“Can I touch your hair?” Claire reached out, then stopped halfway. “It looks so soft.”
Flora nodded.
She was not used to such closeness, yet for some reason she did not dislike it.
Claire carefully stroked her hair, then broke into a satisfied smile. “It’s really just like mine! We must be fated!”
Flora found herself infected by that joy.
She had never known that happiness could be contagious.
“Claire, how did you find this place?” Flora gathered her courage to ask. “This… this is imperial territory.”
Claire blinked and put on a mysterious expression. “I found it by accident too. It’s quiet here. I can think by myself.”
Flora looked at her, and a strange feeling welled up in her chest.
She felt there was an inexplicable connection between herself and this girl, as if they should have known each other long, long ago.
“Flora, will you be my friend?”
The question came too suddenly.
Flora froze; her mouth opened, but she did not know what to say.
Friend.
It was a word both familiar and strange to her.
The noble young ladies at court all claimed to be her friends, yet their eyes held only flattery and calculation.
But Claire was different.
Her eyes held nothing, and at the same time seemed to hold everything.
“Actually,” Flora lowered her gaze, “I’m a very boring person.”
This was the first time she had spoken her true feelings to anyone.
She did not know what kind of childhood Claire must have lived through to be able to smile so brilliantly.
And herself?
An absent father, a cold mother, a sister who had gone far away, and all those courtiers whose faces were full of smiles while their eyes remained ice-cold.
Did she even have the right to have a friend?
Claire laughed.
That smile was like a breeze on a summer afternoon, gently scattering the gloom that had settled over Flora’s heart.
“You’re not boring at all!” she said. “Look—you’re a noble child of the palace, and I’m just an ordinary farmer’s daughter. We’re completely different, yet we met here, and we look so much alike—this must be fate!”
Fate.
Flora lifted her head and looked into Claire’s bright eyes.
They reflected the summer sunlight, and also her own face.
Two girls who looked exactly alike smiled at each other beside a broken palace wall.
Around them, the tulips bloomed in full glory.