IYTTEPAAK Chapter 3

Eight imperial princesses remained in the Magnalorde imperial house. Sixty-one daughters, born in total. That was all that was left.

Most had died for offending the Mad Emperor's temper. A few had been sacrificed to court intrigue. A few more had lost their lives shielding their brothers.

The surviving princesses had all changed into dresses as saturated in color as their own many-hued hair. The Mad Emperor was a man obsessed—obsessed with permitting only beautiful things around him.

I too wore a gown built from layer upon layer of lace, cinched at the waist by a vest embroidered thick with jewels.

The platinum-blonde hair I usually kept pinned neatly up, I had let fall loose from the bottom half, arranging it into an elaborate half-updo.

Anticipating I'd be summoned during the funeral, my lady-in-waiting Hamel had spent the whole morning laboring over it.

In the audience hall, eight chairs had been arranged facing each other in two rows of four, a carpet running between them.

My sisters and I took our seats in order of succession rank and waited for the Mad Emperor.

"It was such a chore, changing in thirty minutes."

"Sasha, you really are something. You even redid your hair in that short a time?"

"Not bad, that maid of yours. Name? If Sasha dies, I suppose I'll have to take her in."

"Shumel's the youngest. Shouldn't it go to her instead?"

Conversations that sounded like they belonged to someone out of their mind were an everyday occurrence in the imperial palace. I answered my half-sisters without letting it show that anything had rattled me.

"That would be for His Majesty to decide."

Nanaën, seated beside me, clapped her hands together sharply.

"Oh my! Then it'll all go to me, the Golden Deer of the Empire. I'll make good use of every single one of Sasha's belongings, down to the last thread."

"That's so stingy. You're the older sister and you won't give Shushu—the baby—a single thing?"

"'Youngest,' 'youngest'—sick of hearing it. You die, I'm the youngest. Got it?"

"Eek!"

Nanaën and Shumel bickered back and forth. Shumel, eighteen this year, was the baby of the family.

Though she stood on the edge of adulthood, she still favored twin tails, playing up her cute looks and her position as the youngest.

"E-everyone, please, quiet—"

Orlette cut off our eldest sister's stammering with a cold command.

"Quiet."

Discipline restored itself.

"Why is everyone so frivolous with their words today, of all days."

There was no one here who didn't know the reason. We were anxious.

How would the mood of the imperial family change now that every last prince was dead? How would our father, the Mad Emperor, treat his daughters going forward?

Change was certain. The only question was how bad it would be. Given that he was a father whose madness was as varied and outlandish as it was inventive, there was no ceiling on how bad an imagining could get.

To put it in the starkest terms—there was even a possibility that every princess in this room could be slaughtered here today.

At this point, a question about the Mad Emperor is probably forming.

How, being that mad, has he held the throne without resistance from those around him?

It isn't that no one resists. It's that no one can. The reason can be found among the emperor's personal knights currently ringing the audience hall as though under siege.

There exist in this world people born with the power to command mana. Those who channel mana through spellcasting are called mages; those who channel it through a wielded weapon are called knights.

By now, mages have vanished, and the age of knights has arrived. Even the lowest-ranked, First-Tier knight boasted power sufficient to face down a thousand ordinary soldiers single-handedly. Their class was on an entirely different scale from ordinary humans.

And above the predator that is a knight exists an apex predator. The imperial bloodline of Magnalorde.

I, along with the rest of the imperial family, was born with the authority to rule over those who wield mana.

The size of that authority varies by individual—the greater one's capacity, the stronger a knight one can subjugate, or the more knights one can subjugate at once. And most unfortunately, in this respect, the Mad Emperor's authority rivaled a god's.

Even the knights who had sworn absolute loyalty to the Mad Emperor alone numbered over two hundred. Even the lowest-tier among them was said to be a one-man legion, capable of suppressing a thousand ordinary people.

With two hundred such beings at his disposal, how could anyone dream of rebellion or revolution against him?

Even poisoning him didn't work out.

Regretfully, I spent a moment mourning my dead brother once more.

"Glory eternal to the Great Emperor's reign! His Imperial Majesty, the illustrious Emperor of the Magnalorde Empire, arrives."

"We greet His Imperial Majesty."

We rose as one and offered the proper courtesies. With every long stride he took as he passed nearby, the audience hall thickened with tension and dread.

The Mad Emperor, his knights arrayed behind him like a folding screen, climbed the steps and took his seat upon the throne.

His platinum hair swept carefully back, decked out in an extravagant ceremonial regalia, the Mad Emperor—whether from all the potions and herbs he'd consumed—looked, at most, a handsome man in his mid-thirties.

Watching that shell deceive his true age, even the day of his natural death seemed impossibly far off.

A monster has come, wearing the skin of a man, claiming to be human.

I lowered my eyes and hid my contempt and revulsion within them, and waited.

"My beloved daughters—drink."

"......"

Attendants presented an ornate goblet to each princess in turn.

That he would have us raise a toast on the day his last remaining son died was so very like the Mad Emperor. I didn't need a mirror to know my own eyes must look as dead as a fish's right now.

My other sisters were in a similar state to mine. A few who weren't as skilled at controlling their emotions let their fingers tremble faintly as they lifted their glasses.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, it seemed the Mad Emperor had no interest whatsoever in his own son's death. The reason for the toast was something else entirely.

"The flag of victory has been raised."

It seemed he'd conquered yet another country in the meantime.

Which one this time? Given how sweeping his territorial expansion had become on every front, I couldn't even begin to guess.

"My loyal knight-legions have swept through the Eastern Alliance and succeeded in planting the imperial flag there."

The Eastern Alliance? Wait, that was—

"Of course, this includes the Kingdom of Rohengrin, which has resisted so tenaciously all this while."

"......"

The wine in my raised goblet trembled, faintly.

"Fifteen years. A war dragged out that long. What could be more joyous than news that Rohengrin has finally been crushed? To root out the source of the trouble, the alliance's entire royal family has been purged."

"......"

"The Rohengrin royals in particular—we made a proper example of them, since they were so insolent. So the people could get a good look, we cut off the king's and princes' heads right there in the square, ran the heads and bodies through with pikes, and strung them up high over the city gates like jester dolls."

"......"

"It seems the rumors were true, that Rohengrin's third prince was so beloved by his people. Dozens of citizens were executed just for scaling the walls at night, trying to bring the bodies down. Should've kept the prince alive—now that would've been entertaining. Such a shame."

"......"

I had to make an effort not to close my eyes. I couldn't let my eyes close. If the dark fell over my eyes, I knew the boy's face would rise up in it.

"One cannot speak of the joy of victory on an empty mouth. My beloved daughters, let me grant you the spoils of war."

The doors of the audience hall swung wide, and boxes of gold and jewels were carried in without end.

Light scattered in every direction, so bright it pricked at the eyes, until there was nowhere left to look.

"Your Majesty's grace is boundless."

"Not yet. The real gift comes now."

The curve at the corners of the Mad Emperor's mouth, arranged into a benevolent shape, unsettled me. And that instinct was never wrong.

"Bring them in."

Clank. A heavy sound rose from the floor and struck my ears.

The sound of chains?

My sisters' expressions, mine included, went faintly rigid.

What filed in were several dozen men.

Their legs—legs that must once have moved with disciplined precision—dragged shackles and chains across the floor, and bodies that should have been clad in a knight's armor were stripped bare, plainly showing the marks of brutal torture.

"Choose one apiece."

The "real gift" the Mad Emperor spoke of was a prisoner of war.

"All of you, as daughters of the imperial house, it's time you made use of your authority. Here are fifty knights captured from the Eastern Alliance. Among them are men who could stand against an entire legion, and men who could raze a small city single-handedly. Let's see whose eye for talent among my daughters is the sharpest."

"......"

"Succeed in taming one with your authority, and he is yours. Make him your knight, and let him take the blade meant for you. Make him your plaything, and let him warm your bed. Both, of course, is even better."

Some of my sisters looked pleased at this. Most kept their faces blank, forcing the feeling down.

Wasn't a knight's oath supposed to be sacred? I had always known that as a princess, I would take a knight someday—but not like this. Not through this coercive, inhuman method.

I didn't want to do it.

"Your Majesty, we, we could never deserve such a gift—"