IYTTEPAAK Chapter 10

I understood their dumbstruck reaction. I'd been shocked myself, the first time I saw Regen.

That didn't mean I'd let him become their eye-candy. To block him from their sightline, I deliberately stepped in close beside him.

"Rosasia offers her greetings to Lilliana and Cehera."

"Goodness, you startled me. Would you mind stepping back a little? You're crowding me."

"I was just so glad to see you. Are you on your way back from the main palace?"

"We were out for a walk."

Behind Lilliana and Cehera stood two knights at attention.

They'd apparently been wandering the palace grounds, eager to show off the knights they'd each just been given for the first time.

I was, if not quite as eager as my sisters clearly were about Regen, at least a little curious about theirs. Our interests, for once, happened to align.

"Shall I introduce my knight?"

"Go ahead, if you must."

Regen stepped forward himself.

"I am Regen. I greet Their Highnesses, mistresses of the Room of Dusk-and-Dawn and the Room of Early Summer."

A princess's chamber-name functioned much like a formal title. It was a flawless greeting. Hamel must have already seen to it that he'd learned the palace's protocol and the roster of names.

Lilliana spoke in a tone that anyone could have told was working to salvage her pride.

"Hm. Cleaned up and dressed properly, I suppose he's passable enough to look at."

"You couldn't take your eyes off him."

At my words, the tear-mole beneath Lilliana's left eye twitched.

"I only looked because it's excessive for a knight's face! Don't get so pleased with yourself. A face like that only makes a man look weaker, if anything. Now, a knight's looks—Sir Julis here is exactly the right measure of perfect."

The knight her chin gestured toward stepped forward.

"I greet Her Highness the Silver Bird Princess. I am Julis."

The man, his sky-blue hair cut short and brushing precariously at his shoulders, wore no expression on his face at all.

His feelings weren't just quiet. They'd been cut out. It felt wrong.

Not a living thing. A thing.

As I studied his indifferent eyes, he in turn regarded me steadily with his own violet ones.

In that moment, I gauged Julis's mana. A powerful knight, at least third-tier.

If he set his mind to it, he could level the entire section of the palace we currently stood in without much trouble—assuming, of course, no opposing knight stood against him.

Lilliana looked smug.

"See. You can't stop looking at him either. Want him?"

"That's quite the misunderstanding."

"Well, if you begged me nicely enough, I might consider a trade. Not permanently, of course—two or three days, perhaps?"

"......"

In the palace, the more irritated one felt, the more one had to smile like a flower. This time, though—it was hard.

Just then Cehera, apparently wanting to insert herself into the conversation, cleared her throat pointedly to shift the mood.

"Jerome. You greet them too."

"I greet Her Highness the Silver Bird Princess. I am Jerome."

A man with ash-gray hair bound long, tied back like a horse's tail. His voice was heavy, and brimmed with confidence.

Standing near him, I felt an unpleasantly prickling mana.

Ah. Cheap little power play.

This man Jerome was engaged in a contest of nerve against Regen. With Regen's mana core shattered and his mana barely perceptible, Jerome was clearly making a show of menace precisely because of it.

The type who needs to puff up in front of the weak. Not my type.

"Sister Heira's eye for talent really is something."

"Everyone says so. You should have chosen a little better yourself. Jerome here didn't need any treatment at all—I suppose Sir Regen's healing isn't going so well?"

Cehera came right up in front of Regen and clicked her tongue at the eyepatch.

"Doesn't seem like he can really do a knight's job."

"......"

"Isn't that fatal, for a knight? Missing an eye. Half an eye, half a knight, wouldn't you say. Still. Lucky he's handsome. There's other work for a face like that. Can't he?"

"......"

"Hm? Is Sir Regen deaf as well, by any chance? He's not responding at all."

That was when I felt whatever Lilliana had loosened get snapped clean through by Cehera.

"Oh my! Look at Sasha, smiling only with her mouth. How frightening. Why are your eyes like that? Sister only said it because she was worried about you—you're not actually angry, are you?"

Ah. So that's what this was. I was angry.

I shut my eyes, opened them, and smiled again.

"Sister Heira, you just crossed a line."

"What?"

"Once you knew I was angry, you should have quietly backed off. Not dug it up further."

If a princess showed her feelings, someone was owed a price for it.

"Sir Jerome."

A heavy vibration rode through my voice. A resonance that went beyond the merely physical, and the owner of that name responded to it.

"Uh—!"

A stupid, strangled noise. One knee buckled, halfway down. He tried to straighten back up, but his trembling legs wouldn't hold.

If the gap in dominion between two people was wide enough, one could seize the other's knight outright. Jerome, right now, was a breath away from submitting—not to Cehera, but to me.

"Wh-what—what is this. Sir Jerome! What's wrong with you?"

"......"

"Sasha! What is this? What are you doing?"

As you can see, I was in the middle of humiliating a man by stripping his knight out from under him through sheer power.

I'll show you which half is which.

Jerome wasn't even half. Something like him—I could rule over a hundred, easy.

That was when it happened.

"What's all this noise again?"

Sister Orlette had arrived.

"Sister Rete."

"Ah, Sister."

"......Rosasia offers her greetings to Sister Orlette."

Damn it. Come earlier or come later—why now.

Reluctantly, I gathered the power back and let Jerome go free.

Lilliana and Cehera welcomed Orlette's arrival with open relief. Orlette normally stood in open opposition to me, so they took her presence as reinforcement to their own side.

Whatever scene played out next would likely satisfy their expectations too.

"Sasha, you cause an uproar wherever you go."

"I was only trying to lodge a protest, since my knight was being insulted."

"Is some knight really more important than your own sisters?"

"A knight's honor is more important than sisterly squabbling. Or does Sister Rete's standard of judgment differ from what's normal?"

Lilliana and Cehera, delighted, egged her on.

"Do you hear that? Talking back so shamelessly even to an elder sister. We're one thing, but even to Sister Rete—"

"Sticking up for her own knight like she's got a right to it......"

I would have liked it if this could wrap up around here.

Just then Orlette narrowed her eyes and drew a slow breath. Her habit, right before she said something harsh.

"Have you enjoyed yourself this past week?"

I couldn't answer back. I had no idea what the context of that was even supposed to be.

"You must be disappointed to have to come out at all. I'm sure you'd rather crawl right back into your room."

"Seeing you does make me want to go back, actually."

"Ah, is that so. I suppose it must have been satisfying, then. Looking at your knight's face, I can see why."

Since my continued failure to follow along had blunted my own fighting spirit, the two princesses beside me, thoroughly pleased with themselves, offered the hint I was missing.

"There's a rumor going around that you shut yourself away for a week to keep your knight all to yourself."

"Takes after His Majesty. Quite the stamina, don't you."

......Was everyone here insane.

I couldn't bring myself to turn and look at Regen's face.

"There's nothing improper between my knight and myself."

"Let's leave it at that, then."

Somehow, I came out of it feeling like I'd lost.

As Lilliana and Cehera left, thoroughly satisfied with themselves, a new figure filled the space they left behind. The Empire's Golden Deer.

Nanaën, her honey-gold hair braided thick and full, came drifting up beside me, the braid's tail swaying behind her like a wagging tail.

"Oh, hello, sisters. I feel like I missed something fun—what a shame. What were you all talking about?"

"We were discussing the rumor that Sasha spent a week and its nights with her knight."

"I was curious about that myself, actually—is it true?"

"We've agreed it isn't."

That was an uncomfortable subject to keep discussing with Regen standing right there. I needed to shift the conversation's focus.

"The audience is gone—why are you all still picking fights? Sister Rete, don't tell me you've been touching your own personal knight?"

"Are you out of your mind."

"You don't stop him kneeling at your bedside, though."

"That's different. That's just rank forcing him to."

"How rare, to find a properly upright sense of morals in this palace."

I could only hope Lilliana and Cehera might learn something from that, even a little.

Having finished speaking, Orlette and I turned to look at Nanaën at the same moment.

Having read the unspoken "And you?" in our eyes, the Empire's Golden Deer lifted her chin with brazen confidence.