SN Chapter 18

The other bodyguard sharing the study with her had made senior knight two years before Rosaline.

Kylo of Azurelume.

He was staring at her, eyes wide.

Memory problems? Knowing nothing at all? It was the first he'd heard of any of it. Rosaline had always been a woman of few words, calm, not given to displaying her emotions. Even so—they hadn't been in the same unit, true, but they'd passed each other in corridors, exchanged greetings, for several days now. That he hadn't noticed anything strange.

Whether she was remarkable, or whether it was his own lack of perception that was remarkable. He couldn't say.

Almost before he'd decided to ask, Kylo sent her a hand signal—the kind knights used—asking if she was all right.

Rosaline looked at the signal and tilted her head. Her expression said clearly: 'I beg your pardon?'

She'd forgotten even something this basic? They were putting someone like this on an escort assignment?

His face went white.

Many people came and went from the Second Prince's Moonstone Palace. Counts, marquesses, barons, messengers, attendants bearing invitations, tacticians, strategists, scholars, knights—civilian and military alike, high and low alike, in their numbers.

The bodyguards kept their senses taut, searching for any threat among the visitors. But as the days passed without incident, their edges had begun, little by little, to go soft.

Kylo barely managed to suppress a yawn. At present there were no visitors at all; Rikardis was simply working his way through a pile of documents.

Compared to the junior knights outside running drills and patrolling the walls, the work of a senior knight had revealed itself to be something verging on monotonous. Had all that physical conditioning been for the purpose of enduring long hours of standing absolutely still? It had gone past peaceful and arrived at dull.

Rikardis's rest hour arrived. The chief secretary rang the bell when he let out a long breath after three hours of straight work. A servant entered shortly after, pushing a tray laden with black tea—Rikardis's preferred variety—and a generous selection of refreshments.

The servant, hands moving busily, poured the tea into an ornate cup. He lifted a small spoonful of the steaming tea with a silver spoon, drank it, and nodded. No irregularities.

Rikardis had loosened somewhat in the rest that had come to him at last. Sunlight poured through the windows, the room was warm, and the fragrance of tea drifted through the air. An afternoon worthy of the word.

He sat on the sofa, glanced out the window, then lifted the teacup and breathed in the aroma.

Just as his lips met the rim.

Rosaline, who had been standing as motionless as a statue, moved.

She grabbed Rikardis's wrist—the one holding the teacup—with a sharp clamp of her hand. Tea sloshed over the rim and stained his clothes.

"What is the meaning of this outrage, Dame Rosaline!"

Kylo shouted, struck white with shock. That a mere knight had dared lay hands on His Highness the Prince!

Since someone was busy flying into a fury on his behalf, Rikardis only smiled—with a particular sort of mischief.

"What is the matter, Dame Rose?"

"Do not drink that. Something appears to have been mixed into it."

The mood changed in an instant. The temperature of the room dropped.

Kylo's hand migrated to his sword hilt and stayed there; Rikardis also turned to look at the servant who had just poured the tea. Her word alone was not sufficient for complete trust, but the servant could not escape the eye of suspicion either. The man holding the teapot went ashen. He began to speak, stammering, with visible effort.

He had just tasted it himself—there was nothing like poison in it. He protested this.

"A-and besides. That poison has no effect on His Highness—everyone knows this. What would be the point in my doing such a thing?"

Rosaline opened her mouth in a tone that neither rose nor fell.

"So you mean to say that if poison did work on him, you would."

At her words, Rikardis made a soft sound of interest.

"That does follow. Unless, of course, someone has created a poison that does work."

"That is also possible."

Watching the two of them find their rhythm—a match so perfectly in tune—the servant's expression changed in an instant, and he moved. The eyes that had been full of indignant protest gleamed with intent to kill. He tore at his left wrist with his right hand. The sharp hidden blade buried beneath the skin flashed toward Rikardis.

Kylo, watching the servant, drew his sword—but Rosaline was faster.

Clang!

Rosaline's slender sword knocked the flying blade off course. She had drawn too fast for anyone to see.

The servant's eyes faltered.

Even within the Dark Moon, he was a master of hidden blades. That she had deflected something moving at the speed of wind without so much as blinking. The new bodyguard was more skilled than he'd estimated.

The mind that had faltered when his decisive strike failed quickly recovered its composure. The assassin let the failure pass and prepared his second move.

He drew the dagger hidden in the sole of his shoe and threw himself at Rikardis—not before hurling the serving tray at Rosaline to obstruct her line of sight.

But the assassin did not reach the Second Prince.

Crack-wrench.

The dagger drove itself into the ceiling. One kick from Rosaline had snapped the man's wrist completely—bent and broken. The tray that had flown at her was split in two, its pieces scattering through the air.

In that fractional instant, the assassin processed the situation with the precision of long-repeated training. Arm completely broken. Third and fourth moves abandoned. Prepare the next one, then—

Something strange appeared before his eyes.

The dark-haired bodyguard flung her blade aside with lethal calm.

Why would she—

"?!"

"?!"

"?"

Why would she discard her sword—why was she—Kylo, Itserion the chief secretary, even Rikardis—all of them were slightly thrown.

Rosaline charged the servant without a moment's concern.

The dark-haired female knight filled the assassin's entire field of vision. Behind her, the Second Prince's gleaming silver hair disappeared from sight.

Boom!

A dull thud rose—too dense to believe it came from two bodies colliding. His body flew across the room and crashed into the wall. The solid wall rang with the impact.

Bodyguards who had heard the disturbance came flooding in with drawn swords.

"……?"

The knights who had burst in with fighting intent soon found themselves grappling with the question of whether they ought to sheathe their swords again. Because every attack the assassin threw himself into—darting this way and that like a moth to a flame—was being nullified by Rosaline alone.

Clang, clang—deflected clean. Pfuhk, pfuhk—hit solid.

A moment's observation confirmed it. The gap in power was overwhelming.

Rosaline kicked the man lunging at her. The assassin flew, landing with a strangled gasp at the senior knights' feet like a pumpkin tumbled from the vine. They moved to bind him where he'd arrived, but when they saw Rosaline advancing with her full stride, they flinched and gave way.

In the midst of all the noise and chaos, Rosaline's attention was wholly on the assassin.

Every sense sharpened to an edge.

His breathing was still measured for someone who looked so badly injured. He hadn't given up. He was preparing his next move. She could tell.

Rosaline narrowed her eyes.

Light framed her, yet her eyes burned with a fierce, piercing intensity.

She grabbed the servant by the collar where he lay sprawled across the floor and raised her fist.

Pfuhk. Pfuhk. Pfuhk.

Every time her fist landed with the dull thud of a heavy hammer, the men watching flinched. Not a blade in sight, yet blood fountained from his nose and mouth. After just a handful of blows, the servant's face had taken on the quality of kneaded clay.

'Dead? Surely... he’s dead, right?'

Rikardis was frowning at the spectacle. Kylo snapped to his senses and shouted.

"Dame! Dame Rosaline, stop! You'll kill him!"

At his words, Rosaline paused briefly to examine the ragged state of the servant.

She could hear a groan. She could hear a heartbeat.

She shook her head.

"He has not died yet."

It sounded very much like an intention to continue until he did.

Kylo nearly jumped out of his skin.

Rikardis recovered his composure somewhat faster. He called to her, with a faint hesitation.

"We need to…… find out who's behind this…… Dame Rose…… no—Dame Rosaline. Hand him over. See to the rest."

"Understood."

Rosaline grabbed the servant's head and drove it into the wall. Pfuhk.

Something that resembled the sound of a watermelon splitting open was heard. The servant who had been pretending to be unconscious in her grip genuinely lost consciousness.

The knights watching through the open door flinched and accepted the unconscious man from her. He clearly had no strength left to run, but they tied him anyway and dragged him out. Where the servant had passed, blood had made a path.

The ladies who entered shortly after cleared the bloodstains with trembling hands.

Rosaline exhaled—huh—and smoothed back her slightly disheveled hair.

The fight was over.

Rosaline steadied her breathing, expressionless.

"How did you know?"

Rikardis's voice was different from its usual register. The voice that was always languid and low had risen half a tone. He appeared to find this situation genuinely interesting.

Rosaline turned the recent events over in her mind.

The man had lifted a small spoonful of tea with the silver spoon and swallowed it. But to Rosaline, the sound of the man's throat working had felt slightly artificial. She had also seen him spit the tea into his sleeve afterward, letting it absorb into the cloth—as he reached up to touch his disheveled hair as cover. It had happened so quickly that an ordinary person would not have noticed.

But Rosaline had been watching the servant before any of that.

The moment he had entered the room, she had smelled rotting blood. Not the kind of scent a living person carried. The Dark Moon assassin had peeled the real servant's face and worn it. They had treated it with chemicals, but had not managed to halt the decay entirely. She hadn't known what the smell was or where it came from. But anyone who carried such a scent could not be an ordinary person.

"He only pretended to drink."

"Sharp eyes."

"And there was the smell of blood."

"Sharp nose as well. Impressive—more than I expected."

"Thank you."

Rikardis studied her for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the table. A few drops of blood from the assassin's nose or mouth. The teapot lying on the floor.

And the tea in question—somehow not spilled through all of that, slowly cooling in its cup.