YMPDKMA Chapter 13

Strictly speaking, it was Rupert who'd tried to steal them. Injustice surged, but I widened my eyes as though I had no idea what he meant. I'd always been terrible at lying, but crisis makes the impossible possible. I played innocent with shocking naturalness, gazing up at the half-reclined Rupert.

"Forgive me, I don't understand what you mean."

Rupert laughed hollowly at my persistent denial. He didn't look like he believed me, but he changed the subject.

"Did you enter the palace on Count Bellua's orders?"

"No. I came of my own will."

"Of your own will to the palace—to me?"

Small and thin, Rupert was buried in the enormous bed, only his voice audible. I held my breath and focused on his muffled words coming through the bedding.

"Why?"

The expected question. Rupert was currently this palace's nuisance. A legitimate princess who couldn't inherit. Born to an empress with insufficient support.

I cleared my throat and gave my prepared answer.

"Father spoke well of Your Highness often. Growing up hearing such things, I gradually came to wish to serve Her Imperial Highness."

"...Count Bellua talked about me?"

Apparently this was very unexpected. He lifted his head from the pillow. Between the rumpled white bedding, his sun-bright gold hair emerged. He looked somewhat bewildered.

For the first time, I saw him make a childlike expression. Children don't normally display such murderous fury, but for an instant he looked Rehan's age. I felt my fear ease slightly and smiled.

"Yes, Your Highness. Father praised you as exceedingly beautiful and intelligent, with such remarkable qualities it was regrettable you weren't a prince."

Of course, Father had never praised—never even mentioned—Princess Lapherte. But I spun that lie without hesitation. I needed to plant the idea that Father favored him.

Rupert said nothing for a moment, then disappeared back under the covers. His thin voice seeped from beneath the mound of fabric.

"I don't remember meeting Count Bellua."

"Your Highness not knowing Father doesn't mean Father doesn't know Your Highness."

"No, I know your father. I just didn't know he was insane."

The words were rude, but I didn't object. If he called Father mad, then to me Father was mad. If he called Father admirable, I'd agree Father was admirable.

I stood quietly without even breathing, careful not to displease Rupert. I could see the child's hand poking from the bed. Growth stunted, perhaps—his frame smaller than mine, his hand also small. A pale, soft child's hand. I couldn't believe the hand that destroyed Bellua had once been that tiny.

In a way it made sense, but it struck me as strange. Had the cruel murderer originally possessed such hands? Such small, pretty hands—was this all you could do with them?

Recognizing he was currently just a child, anger rose beneath my fear. If I rushed over now, wrapped my own small hands around that thin neck, pressed that white face into the pillow—I could kill him. For an instant I truly wanted to.

But I was shocked by my own violence and shook my head. If I killed Rupert now, Bellua would fall for different reasons. Regicide equaled treason. Even if this particular royal was spurned by the palace.

"Hey."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Utterly unaware I'd been entertaining such brutal fantasies about him—stopped not by moral restraint but practical reality—Rupert called me. Still invisible under the bedding, I stared at the expanse of white fabric and answered.

"You helped Tori, I heard."

I tilted my head momentarily. When had I helped Tori? Then I remembered Marianne Vincent. I didn't know if my humiliation of her had helped Tori. But Rupert's voice sounded slightly warmer when mentioning Tori's name, so I answered shamelessly:

"I wouldn't call it help, but I have met Miss Tori Fassbender."

"That'll do."

"What do you mean?"

"The dumpling debt. I'm letting it go."

'That's not yours to forgive, you dumpling thief.'

I swallowed the sullen sound rising in my throat and bowed my head as if overwhelmed with gratitude. At this time in his life, the Emperor had cherished Tori, it seemed. Remarkably so. Unexpectedly so. That he had known how to cherish anyone at all.

"I don't know what you mean, but thank you."

Rupert laughed shortly at my persistent ignorance, as if I amused him.

"You know you're only temporary anyway. I'm saying I'll tolerate you until then."

'We'll see about that.'

I thought it privately while bowing again before him—my spine had bent before him so many times already.

When I left the bedchamber, the head chamberlain waited for me. He pulled me away for brief instruction. Simple warnings, really—nothing I needed to be told. The 'education' young noble girls received overlapped considerably with palace etiquette.

Still, he marveled at how I spoke the court language and knew protocol with ease, though I was young for it. He encouraged me, saying I'd need little further training.

"Perfect. You'd be suitable even as an attendant. Serve Her Imperial Highness Princess Lapherte for half a year, and I'll arrange for you to serve Her Imperial Highness Princess Naichelle when a position opens."

He said this as he guided me to my room. As I'd suspected, women seeking entry to the palace often served Rupert temporarily while waiting for positions near Princess Naichelle or Prince Arnulf. My target was Rupert, not Princess Naichelle, but I let him misunderstand rather than invite suspicion by correcting him.

I sat on the bed, surveying the worn but elegant room. The olive-green wooden walls reminded me of the penitence chamber where I'd shivered and trembled, but I no longer feared that cramped attic where I'd been locked away for punishment. The truly terrifying things were not old, dim garret rooms.

A palace maid. The change was dizzying even to me, who had chosen it. Being assigned a room in the palace meant formal enrollment—Father would have no way to intervene. I stretched toward my bundle, planning how I'd respond when Father or Mother came searching for me at the palace.

As I organized the few clothes I'd brought, my eyes caught on the imperial pass I'd tossed carelessly beside the bundle. Engraved with the snake that symbolized the imperial house, it was an entry pass only high-ranking maids or servants received.

Not something given so easily to someone who'd been here less than half a day, but they must have been desperately short of maids—I'd received an assignment assisting Rupert without even a probationary period. Assisting a young princess was menial work despite its grand title, but considering its value outside the palace walls, this was remarkably swift promotion.

I stroked the pass. Someone knocked at the door. I hastily hid the diary I'd been holding under the bed. I'd written it in ancient script to prevent prying eyes, but some parts were too specific to dismiss as the absurd fantasies of a twelve-year-old.

"Yes, come in."

The door opened with a timid sound. An odd way to describe a door's sound, but there was no other word for it. It truly opened timidly.

Creak, squeak. Even the manner of opening was cautious. Soon a head of rough platinum hair, sticking up in all directions, poked through the gap.

"Tori."

I recognized her and smiled. Tori looked considerably better than at my birthday party. Her hair remained coarse, her skin still rough, but at least she wore proper clothing. She held a garment similar to her own neat black maid's uniform.

"Greetings, no, hello, Countess Bellua's daughter."

She remained clumsy with court language. Tori shuffled into the room at my gesture, flinching and hopping toward me like a frightened rabbit.

I wondered about her relationship with Rupert. At the birthday party, Tori had said she'd been serving him for a week. But a large gap might exist between 'beginning service' and 'first meeting.' I didn't believe Rupert would overlook my 'mistake'—however generous that word felt—for the sake of a maid he'd kept for less than a week.

"You can call me Lariette."

Whatever the circumstances, winning Tori's favor could only help. I smiled gently and pulled her down to sit beside me.

"Is this uniform mine?"

"Yes, there's no one of appropriate rank currently serving Her Highness who could properly assist her, so we're fortunate you've come, my lady—I mean, Lariette."

"Thank you for bringing it."

"Oh, no."

When I inclined my head slightly, she waved her hands frantically, overwhelmed. She seemed burdened by having someone of higher station bow to her. I knew how laborers, merchants, and commoners viewed nobility. Though they harbored enormous resentment at how they—the many—fed us—the few—they also envied us.

So unfair as it was, nobles born to advantageous heights could win their favor with the smallest kindness or consideration. Kindness from someone with no need to give it struck deep precisely because of its needlessness. All the more so in a world where most nobles never felt such need at all.

I understood this well. Winning Tori's favor would be easier than her winning mine. No point debating whether this structure was rational or not. The world was unfair to everyone anyway.

Even I—born lucky as the eldest daughter of a count's house, one of only five such families in the continent's most populous empire—had died unjustly without properly resisting the Emperor. Even after dying so miserably, the present me could think of no way to preserve my life except winning his favor.

I felt no anger at my own abjection, so I felt no hesitation about using Tori. I knew her bleak future. I would watch her walk unknowingly toward it, then exploit her as suited my purposes.

I couldn't say my conscience was entirely clear, but it couldn't be helped. I'd forgotten the life where I believed process mattered more than results. Now I valued results above all. If I could prevent Bellua's destruction, I could easily turn a blind eye to the tragedy of a mayfly empress whose face I'd never known.

Thinking such wicked thoughts, I unfolded the uniform Tori had brought. Seamless fabric falling smooth as water, entirely black except for white lace embroidering the sleeves and collar. Clothing that suited Rupert's gloomy palace. When I gestured to Tori that I'd change immediately, she shook her head and opened the door.

"Wear it starting tomorrow. Her Highness is asking for you."

'Ah, inconvenient.'

I tugged at Riche's ill-fitting clothes and forced myself to stand. I didn't want to work in these garments, but if Rupert summoned me, I had no choice.

Unlike Princess Naichelle with her many attendants, serving maids generally stayed in their master's palace. My room was on the same floor as Rupert's bedchamber—opposite ends, somewhat distant, but only minutes away if I ran. The Belnerny imperial family emphasized ingrained courtesy, so I'd never have occasion to run through the palace.