IYTTEPAAK Chapter 24

I studied the second-floor landing where the Mad Emperor stood by the grand staircase. Domynick, in attendance beside him, was leaning in to murmur something in the Emperor's ear.

Whatever he'd said was probably much the same report I'd just heard from Regen, but the Mad Emperor only smiled. He made no move to stop anything.

Regen said, "It seems the Emperor intends to look the other way."

"Even so, we shouldn't rush to copy it. If the same thing happens again, he'll punish it out of boredom alone."

My eyes brightened.

"But I've learned something useful instead. Currying favor apparently permits a certain amount of staged chaos, or outright performance."

"I've realized something as well."

"What is it?"

"There's no need to curry favor at all. All you need is to dodge the punishment. Stir up spiteful talk about the rivals—make three losers, and you're done."

I hadn't expected Regen to say aloud the very thing I'd only ever thought inside my own head.

I looked at him, steady, and he flinched, then added, as if trying to recover himself:

"Don't misunderstand. I only mention it because someone's already begun."

"Who......."

Just then, our eyes happened to meet.

A viciously beautiful woman with dark green hair was glaring at me while whispering something to someone at her side.

The way she'd occasionally furrow her brow or snicker to herself made her look exactly like a petty schemer plotting mischief.

"It seems Sister Cehera is running a smear campaign against us."

"There's a high probability the bottom two spots will go to the youngest princess and the Crescent Moon Princess. All that remains is confirming one more."

Cehera had already moved on somewhere else. She seemed to be busily working the floor, spreading slander about me to whatever noble would listen.

I was genuinely impressed.

"Didn't know Sister Cehera had that kind of smarts in her, coming to an understanding like that."

"Her Highness of Early Summer was only thinking and acting the way she usually does."

Which was to say—instinct, not intelligence. Then again—if she were really clever, she wouldn't have picked me to smear in the first place.

"What will you do, Your Highness?"

The longer I stood still, the further the bad rumors about me would spread—like a plague, carried by everyone who loved to talk.

Nominally, this was a popularity vote about the bound knights, but in practice, a bound knight and his princess share one body. Whether it's favor or ill will, the two of them carry the same weight.

At this rate, I might end up dead last. But I have not the slightest intention of watching Regen suffer through whatever extreme punishment lay behind that word.

Now. Time to move.

I ran my thumb over the ring on my finger and let my gaze drop. Shards of the broken statue were still scattered across the ballroom floor here and there.

"Sir Regen. If you're at my side, I won't ever be in any danger, will I?"

"Of course not."

"Now that's inconvenient."

"......What do you mean?"

I lifted my head and caught his eyes without warning.

"Sir Regen. From this moment on—trust me, and don't protect me."

"......."

"That's an order."

The power collided with his own will, and his body seized as though something had slammed the brakes on it, freezing in place. Before any word of reproach could escape him, I was already crossing to Nanaën.

Sharp-eyed as ever, Nanaën spotted me and chose her path across the room accordingly, drifting into proximity. She and I managed to make quiet contact in a dim corner.

"What is it, sister?"

"Help me."

From where I stood, her face reflected faintly in a nearby pane of glass. Her eyes, which had widened for a moment in surprise, curved into something lovely.

"Well, if it isn't a day I'd thought I'd never see. Ask me anything."

Thirty minutes wasn't long, but no one could move without a plan—not with the contest's end drawing close. The mood in the ballroom had climbed to a fever pitch.

The nobles, since none of this concerned them personally, watched in comfort. Some were even placing quiet bets on the outcome.

"First place is obviously going to the Golden Deer Princess. Let's guess at last."

"Which will you put your money on—the Crescent Moon Princess or the Silver Bird Princess?"

The two leading candidates for last place were Gwendolyn, unpopular from the start, and Rosasia, who had failed to defend herself against the rumor campaign.

Elsewhere, other nobles traded speculation about what punishments awaited the bottom three.

"Surely it'll be something close to a death sentence."

"Though His Majesty does love his daughters. Maybe not as brutal as what he did to the princes."

"That's why the knight dies in her place, isn't it?"

Still others traded crude jokes.

"Sir Heinz, Sir Regen—such a waste to let them go without... a taste first, don't you think."

"Wonder if the princesses got a taste, at least."

"Seems the Silver Bird Princess has given up. Just standing there, doing nothing, and time's almost out."

"Apparently she took her knight in and stayed locked in her bedroom for a whole week. Already tasted Sir Regen, I hear. Nothing left to wish for, I guess."

I stood quietly by myself, sipping wine. My bound knight, Regen, had been left standing against a wall some considerable distance away, for reasons no one else seemed to understand.

As the contest drew toward its end, the outcome seemed to be settling into place as well. No one likes keeping company with a loser, and so almost no nobles bothered speaking to me at all.

Then a small stir rippled through the crowd. Someone entirely unexpected had approached me.

"Sister, drinking too much isn't good for you."

"Nanaën."

Every light, dainty step she took seemed to drag half the room's attention along with it, until the two princesses standing together had become the center of the entire ballroom.

Watching me trace the rim of my empty glass with a fingertip, Nanaën offered a show of concern.

"Your throat must be parched, hm?"

"......."

"I suppose I'd feel the same, in your position. You told Father you'd show him a contest with a real twist—and now look how it's turned out."

"Did you come all this way just to make small talk? Or did you come to win my favor, instead of the nobles'?"

"I've gathered plenty already—enough that I don't need to bother anymore."

By now the ballroom had gone quiet enough that it was almost impossible to believe hundreds of people stood within it. Both princesses could feel the room's eyes settle fully on them.

Beside them stood a decorative display of wine glasses stacked into a pyramid. Nanaën drew out the topmost glass and held it out to me.

"Care for this? Think of it as a comfort-drink, from me to you."

"......."

"No one thinks of you like I do, sister. Isn't that so?"

"......You want me to drink this?"

"Is that a no? How embarrassing for me. Fine, then. I suppose I'll drink it myself."

Nanaën drew the glass toward her lips as if to kiss it.

Chrring.

The sound tore through the room's suppressed hush, jarring and much too loud. The whole hall began to ripple.

"Good heavens, the Silver Bird Princess just——!"

"How could she do such a thing to the Golden Deer Princess!"

Broken glass and spilled wine on the floor. Nanaën clutching her hand, startled. The witnesses' voices, working themselves into a fuss.

Evidence and witnesses were in overabundant supply that Sasha had struck Nanaën's hand and shattered the glass on the floor.

"How— how could you! I only offered you a drink, sister!"

"......."

In contrast to Nanaën's mournful, near-tearful performance, Sasha kept her silence.

Saying nothing, showing nothing, standing exactly where she was—none of it made for the picture of a sympathetic offender. The nobles' murmurs turned to open censure.

"I'd heard the Silver Bird Princess was high-strung, but seeing this today, her temper really is quite twisted."

"No matter how cornered she felt, that's an ugly display. Where's the imperial dignity in that."

"Maybe the Princess of Early Summer was right after all—I heard the Silver Bird Princess actually suffers from some kind of split personality, some nervous condition......."

The voices of those stirring the pot were harder to bear than almost anything else in the room.

Unbothered, Sasha reached for a single white rose from the centerpiece with perfect composure and crushed the bloom in her hand. The white petals fell onto the broken wine-glass wreckage below and soaked through, red.

At a glance, it was a violent gesture, and one that made no sense. It gave the onlookers all the more reason to paint Sasha as something monstrous.

"What was that about? What is she doing?"

"Is that supposed to be some declaration—that she'll crush the Golden Deer Princess the same way she crushed that rose?"

Meanwhile, there was someone whose eyes lit up at Sasha's crisis.

'There she goes, digging her own grave. Rosasia.'

Not content merely to escape the punishment—a woman gunning for first place itself. Princess Lilliana.