IYTTEPAAK Chapter 28

"Sir Regen, I know why you're upset. That's why I came—I wanted to apologize."

"You know, do you."

"For using my power to give an order that disregarded your own will—I'm truly sorry."

I laid a hand over my heart and bowed my head slightly. And yet, it seemed I'd misidentified the problem from the start.

"I'm grateful you've shown me such courtesy. But that isn't the issue. A knight exists, by nature, to be given orders."

"Then...... why are you so angry?"

Do you truly not know? his eyes asked. And truly, I didn't. Our gazes tangled there. Regen let out a breath as though swallowing back a sigh, and said,

"When the one woman I must protect is enduring humiliation while shielding me—what knight would rejoice at that?"

"You know it was the best option. It was the best I could do."

"The best."

The repeated word held a disgust he was swallowing down. For one moment, I caught a small glimpse of the darkness in him.

Feeling crept into Regen's voice.

"That 'best' belongs to Your Highness. My best is different. Rather than watch you humiliated in front of so many people, I would have taken the punishment myself."

"...... Do you mean that?"

"Yes."

Two feelings rose in me at once, pulling in opposite directions.

Resentment—that instead of thanks, he'd treated my effort as meaningless. And gladness—at the resolve in him, furious on my behalf, ready to throw himself away for it.

The first, I felt as his liege. The second, as a woman.

But before I am a woman, I am a princess.

"Sir Regen."

I would have to draw a line here, even if the words hurt. Not aimed at him—aimed at myself.

"You know this already, but that feeling isn't wholly your own. It isn't 'your true feeling.'"

All of it, because of the binding.

Whatever he felt toward me came corrected, adjusted, by the compulsion's force.

That noble loyalty, that tender devotion—however much of it he offered up to me, none of it was truly mine to claim.

And forever after, whatever he felt toward me could never be anything but flawed.

But the answer that came back was not what I expected.

"It makes no difference to me."

He rose from the chair. Bracing one hand on the bed beside where I sat, he leaned in close. Gold eyes held me.

"Princess Rosasia."

"......"

"In a past I cannot tell you of, I have spent my whole life protecting someone. Before I weigh a greater cause, or vengeance—protecting someone is very nearly the reason I exist at all. And now, the one person I have left to protect—the one I have come to want to protect—is you."

"......"

"Which means that failing to protect someone like you is not a simple mistake to me. Not a simple failure. It is a different order of problem entirely."

My heart trembled.

It sounded, almost, like a fervent confession—that my very existence was what kept him living, here and now.

He kissed the back of my hand and made his plea.

"Please. I ask that you show me mercy, and consider a knight's circumstances."

"......"

Mercy.

Watching him lower himself like that ached in a way that made the flutter from a moment ago feel almost cheap.

I want to respect his will. I don't want ours to be a bond where only one side grants favor from on high.

Isn't it only natural, to want to stand as equals with someone you love?

"I understand what you're saying. You mean that protecting me should come before protecting yourself. Is that right?"

"That is correct."

"All right. I'll do that."

"Truly?"

"I swear it on my name."

"...... As ever, I'm grateful for your consideration."

At the readiness of my promise, Regen's expression eased, seemingly satisfied. And so I swallowed the rest of what I might have said.

Protecting you will, in the end, mean protecting myself too.

I know this palace. I know the Mad Emperor. I know the contest. Regen would come to see soon enough that I'd been right.

Thanks to the wisdom of swallowing that last part, the mood between us eased.

"Has your anger passed, then?"

"...... I wasn't angry with you. I was angry with myself."

"I understand. You worked hard today, Sir Regen."

"As did you, Sasha."

He'd finally called me by name again, and filled my glass.

The wine he poured didn't taste like wine at all. Sweeter than any fruit drink I could think of.

After that, we spent the time in ordinary conversation, glasses filled again and again.

The banquet. The princesses. That grubby little chick he so hated even to mention.

None of it was conversation with any real weight or meaning, and yet it was necessary—it was the time we spent confirming, to each other, that the anger had passed.

Two people, careful with one another.

The road ahead would surely be full of storms and firestorms yet to come; perhaps ours was, even now, a precarious bond.

But it made no difference. I would not let go of him.

The idle, sociable chatter that had passed back and forth between them for its own sake had long since run its course.

Where the princess's voice—pleasant to hear, like a clear tap against crystal—had trailed off, a peaceful, even breathing had taken its place.

Sasha, who had drunk what Regen poured her as happily as if it were some heavenly nectar, had at some point begun to nod, then lost consciousness entirely.

Had he not risen from his chair the instant her body began to tip, catching her face and shoulder and easing her down, she would have gone down hard, with a soft, ugly thump.

She was drinking so well, I thought she must simply hold her liquor well.

Not remotely true. Regen resolved to count and remember exactly how many glasses she'd emptied.

"......"

Looking at the princess laid out on the bed sheets, her platinum-blonde hair spilled loose, Regen's feelings were complicated, difficult to untangle.

Everything he now owned had come from her—but nominally, at least, this was his bed. And he had never once, in his life, laid another woman in it.

Worse still was the princess herself, fallen fast asleep with no notion of the world around her. A woman who seemed to miss nothing sometimes let her guard down completely, without warning. And just now—this was too far.

Of course, he knew the reason. Because he resembled her dead brother. Because she saw him only as that.

Likely it was the same reason she'd let herself be drenched in wine at the banquet today, shielding him—because in her eyes, he and her brother had blurred into one.

"Of all the things in this world."

Regen took up a handful of her platinum hair. It slipped, soft, between his fingers, tickling as it went.

"As if any brother acts like this."

A princess this precious could hardly be left to sleep in a man's bed.

He'd known for some time now that he ought to move her back to her own chamber, and yet he'd let the time slip by, his duty left undone.

Was this loyalty, unwilling to disturb her deep sleep? Or was it something else?

"Regen......"

The princess, oblivious, murmured something in her sleep. The name that rolled off the tip of her lovely tongue—it was unclear whether it belonged to him, or to her dead brother.

The latter, surely.

The instant he concluded it, something in him soured.

For a while, he looked down at the lips the name had slipped from.

He kept waiting, half-hoping that from that small parting of her lips—the word "Sir." "Sir Regen." That it might come out.

Unfortunately, the princess, fast asleep, gave no further sound.

Enough time had passed that he ought to have given up entirely, and yet Regen still hadn't moved. Her lips, full and softly curved, held his gaze and would not let it go.

Regen reached his hand toward her face. His long, well-formed thumb traced, carefully, along the princess's lower lip.

In that instant, Regen felt something entirely unfamiliar rise in him for the first time.

'What would it be like, to kiss her.'

"......"

He flinched and crammed his lungs full of air. As though trying to draw in every last measure of air in the room, the impulse subsided, mercifully.

With the breath emptied and refilled, the ordinary feelings of loyalty and devotion settled back into place inside him.

'It must be the binding's doing.'

He reached for the excuse readily and let it reassure him. He told himself it had only been the barest instant, a stray impulse steered by the compulsion, nothing more, and defended himself to himself on those terms.

Deciding he could not remain like this any longer, Regen gathered the princess up carefully in his arms and rose. As if pushing her out of his own heart, he carried her away, out of his own space.