The Prince on a White Sheep

Florentia Inraku. That was my name.

My hair—a shade of gold so pale it was almost silver, a true white-blonde—trailed long over my dress as I sat inside the carriage. I felt a heavy, suffocating dread as I contemplated the path ahead of me.

I was royalty, technically. I had always known that my life wasn't my own; I was a bargaining chip destined to be bartered off in a political marriage to some foreign prince or distant nobleman.

It didn't help that I was the child of a second wife. My Right of Succession was abysmal, and I possessed no remarkable talents to speak of. If I had to name a single redeeming quality, it was my music. My skill with the fife—a simple transverse flute—was said to be the finest in the kingdom.

Even now, as I was being shipped off to a husband I’d never met, I took a small, bitter comfort in the fact that I’d been allowed to bring my own instrument. I clutched the bag against my chest, feeling the solid weight of the highest-quality fife nestled inside, carved from the branch of a Spirit Tree.

“Lord Yuri Lousouth…” I whispered the name to the empty carriage. What kind of man is he, truly?

The gossip among the kingdom’s nobility was a chaotic mess of contradictions. Some nobles sneered that he was a mere "failure" of the Lousouth House, a man with a silver tongue and nothing else.

Others spoke in hushed, terrified tones, claiming he had been hiding his true potential all along. They said he had defeated the Empire's First—the man heralded as the Empire’s Strongest—with nothing more than a flick of his pinky.

Then there were the darker rumors. Some claimed he was a man of insatiable lust who made a hobby of "collecting" princesses like trophies.

The stories were wretched, yet the facts were undeniable. He had taken Al, a stretch of Barren Land in the furthest reaches of the Frontier Region—a place with zero strategic value that the kingdom had long ago abandoned—and transformed it into a metropolis so formidable that the crown had been forced to recognize its Independence.

The Huge Beast Kingdom had been the first to notice his rise. They had sent their own princess, Elu, to be his fiancée. Unlike our kingdom, which had let the land rot, the Beast Kingdom had been keeping a sharp eye on the borders of Al. They had witnessed Lord Yuri’s staggering brilliance firsthand and moved to secure a tie before anyone else could.

I’d heard whispers that they originally intended to swallow his territory whole, but a skirmish between the Beast Kingdom and the Dragunov Empire had derailed those plans. Rumor had it that Yuri Lousouth was the one who resolved the conflict.

He supposedly possessed the power to single-handedly dismantle the Empire’s Single Digits: the First Rank ‘First’, the third rank ‘Puppeteer’, the Fifth Rank ‘Alchemist’, the Sixth Rank ‘Swordless’, and the ninth rank ‘Knight’.

If that was true, no nation could afford to ignore him. If you couldn't conquer him, you had to court him. It was only natural to seek a connection in hopes that he might lend his strength when a national crisis inevitably struck.

The Empire was clearly the most desperate. Not only had they sent Luna Dragunov—the Emperor’s Grandson and the third of the Single Digits—to be his fiancée, but they had even assigned the First Rank, the very Empire’s Sword, to serve as their guard.

On paper, one might think the Empire had weakened its own defenses by doing so. In reality, the Three-Country Alliance between the Empire, the Beast Kingdom, and Yuri was a terrifying juggernaut. People were already saying that this alliance alone could dominate the entire continent. Even the Holy Principality of Ames had recently folded into their ranks.

The only power that remained silent was the Trismalis Demon Kingdom. Their Demon Lord was an absolute monarch said to surpass even the Empire's First. Perhaps she could stand against this alliance. But the Demon Race lived for destruction and whim; they were incapable of the cooperation required for diplomacy.

Since Yuri Lousouth was already moving toward Independence, the Kingdom of Inraku had decided that supporting him was a better bet than opposing him. They wanted a seat at the table of this new alliance. And just like every other nation, the price of admission was a Princess.

I was the obvious choice. My sisters already had influential fiancés, and the kingdom would lose nothing by throwing me away.

But to be sent to such a dangerous, lawless place…

A wave of sorrow washed over me. I remembered the fairy tales I used to read in the castle archives—stories of a "Prince on a White Horse" who would appear to save a princess in her darkest hour. I had spent my childhood dreaming that such a man would one day come for me.

As the years passed, I’d forced myself to accept that those stories were lies. I understood the world now. Yet, despite my pragmatism, I couldn't fully kill that lingering spark of hope.

If only there were someone like that in the real world…

Suddenly, the carriage jolted violently.

“Kyaaah?!”

The world tilted sharply, throwing me across the cabin. There was a sickening crunch of wood as the carriage overturned.

“W-what happened?” I gasped, head spinning.

“What happened? We’ve been dragged out to this godforsaken wasteland for pathetic pay, that’s what happened,” a voice spat.

The soldiers my father had assigned as my guards were standing outside the wreckage, their swords drawn. Their eyes were bloodshot, fixed on me with a terrifying hunger.

“I… I can speak to my father! I’ll negotiate a bonus for you—!”

“Why bother? There’s a fortune in engagement gifts in the back of this heap,” one of them sneered. “We’ll take the loot and tell the King that the Princess was mauled by Monsters before she ever reached the frontier.”

“You… you’ll never get away with this! You won’t be able to live in this country!”

“Who says we’re staying? There are plenty of other kingdoms. We’ll just cross the sea and—”

I was powerless. I had no magic, no combat skills, and no way to hold back multiple armed men. We were on a desolate road where no one ever traveled. There would be no witnesses.

Is this where it ends? Before I’ve even taken the first step toward my new life?

“But hey, we’ve got time,” one of the soldiers said, his gaze drifting to the skin exposed by my torn dress. “Might as well enjoy ourselves before the end, right?”

I felt a surge of pure loathing, but I could only crawl backward, trembling. “H-help…”

“Ahaha! You think someone’s coming to save you out here?”

The soldiers’ laughter echoed in the clearing. I felt the same crushing certainty they did. I was going to be toyed with and then discarded like trash.

No! Please, no!

I squeezed my eyes shut, screaming for help in the silence of my mind.

“Is this another of my father’s conspiracies?” a new voice cut through the air. It sounded bored, almost annoyed. “It’s incredibly amateurish. I can’t imagine he expects this to actually work. Or is he counting on me being the one to save her?”

“W-who the hell are you—ugh?!”

“I don't make a habit of giving my name to Thieves,” the voice replied.

I heard the sound of heavy impacts and the thud of bodies hitting the dirt. What was happening?

Slowly, I opened my eyes. The soldiers who had been closing in on me were all sprawled on the ground, unconscious or dead. And there, standing before me, was a scene straight out of my dreams.

I rubbed my eyes, sure I was hallucinating.

A young man dressed in noble finery sat atop a magnificent white creature. He looked exactly like the savior from the books in the archives—a prince who had appeared out of nowhere to rescue me.

But as my vision cleared, I realized something was different. The creature he was riding wasn't a horse.

It was a massive, fluffy sheep.

He wasn't the Prince on a White Horse. He was the Prince on a White Sheep.