Inside the palace, in Ariel's room.
Mermaid Princess Ariel waited nervously for the arrival of the victorious diviner, the Rose Kingdom sage responsible for revealing her origins.
Her slender little hands rubbed together, her heart thumping wildly. Her newly formed feet kept scraping against the floor, as though she were about to walk to the execution block.
"Ariel!" The prince shoved open the door and pulled her into his arms.
He held her so tightly that he did not dare loosen his grip for even a moment, as if she would disappear the instant he relaxed—because the prince knew that, on that nightmare night when the storm raged, she had held him just as tightly.
"My girl, I know now. I know everything, everything I should have known—Heavens, how could I have only learned it all today?!"
The prince was so excited that his words came out in a jumble. He wanted to say so much, yet did not know where to begin.
Ariel was utterly bewildered and did not understand what the prince meant at all. Only when she felt dampness on her cheeks did she realize they had been stained by his hot tears.
"My prince, what are you saying? What do you know?" Ariel was both thrilled and frightened.
The next moment, she suddenly realized that when he had entered, the prince had called out her name—"Ariel," her true name as a princess of the Sea Kingdom.
—Since they had met, this was the first time she had heard the prince call her by her name.
"Ariel, that foreign magician told me everything about you. I know your origins. I know you are a mermaid of the sea—and a princess, too! Hahaha! When I first saw you, I said you looked like a princess from a foreign