2. Crossing the Border

Opal, or Duchess Bocceli rather, was a rather famous business woman. But a vast majority of people assumed that it was all thanks to her financial advisor or her husband, Claude. Still, it was clear that she had a hefty sum of wealth under her belt, and many people with less than noble intentions often tried to approach her. However, Duke and Duchess Bocceli—most notably, Duchess Bocceli—refused to come out into the eyes of the public. As a result, her face wasn’t widely known to the public, making it all the easier for her to act while hiding her identity.

Opal enjoyed the scenery from her carriage window as her vehicle clattered through the mountainous path. Nadja had her eyes closed, as the violent rattling of the carriage only moments ago had given her motion sickness. A bit longer and there was a spot to take a rest, and the path from there wouldn’t be as rough.

“Nadja, can you hang on for just a bit longer?” Opal asked.

“Yes,” the maid croaked weakly. “I’m terribly so—”

“Don’t apologize. You can’t be to blame for this.”

While there were some ways to mitigate the shaking that carriages and trains could experience, it largely depended on a person’s constitution. Likely, one had to also get used to it over time—at first, Opal didn’t like ships rocking back and forth, but she’d gotten completely used to it now. Nadja seemed to respond better to ships, and Opal considered if it would be better for their return trip to be by sea. The duchess breathed a sigh of relief when the lodging on the mountain ridge slowly came into view. Finally, her maid could get some rest.

Opal blamed herself. She was in a rush to get to Lumeon and back, hoping to reunite with her son and husband as soon as possible, but this haste had negatively affected her maid. Opal’s primary goal this time around was to observe the princess of Lumeon, but she was also a bit eager to experience traveling through the mountains, a path that one might consider old-fashioned. But her desires had only troubled Nadja.I