Arsinoeus is Priene’s most esteemed heir, and also its most useless.
He is pale, always cold, and coughs up blood. Three times a year, the physicians tell him he will not live to see the next rainy season.
He is spoiled, demanding, and used to getting his way. No one in the household dares say the word “death” in front of him, not because they fear his temper, but because they cannot bear to see those blue eyes fill with tears.
When he was seventeen, a lady came to visit him and brought a box of Eastern treasures. She casually remarked that the spices from that region had an unusual fragrance.
After she left, the spoiled heir sent a maid to get him some.
The man who delivered the spices was a tall sea slave. When the door opened, the scent arrived first: the man’s scorching warmth, the smell of salt, and sweat.
The spices spilled all over the floor. He did not let the man leave.
Before dawn, the slave left, and he burned the underclothes the man had touched.
He thought he had bought a laborer so poor he would not even give his name.
The man thought he had been bought by some sickly young master who was out of favor in the household.
So they both kept their secret identities as they fell in love, neither knowing who the other really was. He brought him Eastern sweets and scented balm, while the other taught him to imagine the wind and tides.
Later, their secret identities were exposed.
The blindfolded, impoverished sea slave was the lord of a harbor who had opened the Eastern sea route, and whom even the magistrate was searching for.
And the sickly young master who bought him night after night was Priene’s heir.
Later, the man returned with a fleet, knelt before the throne, and called him Your Majesty.
Arsinoeus gained an entire sea, but could not hold on to one man’s freedom.
【Little Scene】
“Put on the blindfold.”
“…Why?”
“Because you’re a slave.”
“…A slave…”
Theme: Keep waiting, and the clouds will part to reveal the moon.
