YMPDKMA Chapter 17

I waited for an answer, drawing pictures with my finger. Snow pressed satisfyingly under each touch—I kept reaching for it. He glanced at the raccoon I was sketching on the ground and let out a sighing sort of sound.

"You don't know?"

"I wouldn't ask if I knew."

Rupert fell silent. Choosing his words, perhaps, or searching for them—he answered very slowly.

"Don't be nice to Tori. She goes on and on about how the noble young lady has such a kind heart."

"Is that wrong?"

"I know how people like you see her. Stop pretending."

But he'd said he'd count helping her as payment for dumplings.

If I looked down on Tori simply for being a merchant's daughter, then as imperial blood, he should see her as less than an insect. Yet he kept her close while calling my kindness to her false.

My treatment of her wasn't entirely pure, so "false" wasn't wholly wrong—but I didn't dislike Tori, with all her vague inadequacy and timidity.

I stuck out my lower lip, slightly rebellious. Rupert watched my jutting mouth and continued.

"And stop following me around like a dog."

"I'm your attendant. If I don't follow you, who should I follow?"

"You'll go to Naichelle or Arnulf soon enough anyway. No need to butter me up."

"But I'm not going."

At my prim answer, Rupert turned his head fully toward me. His face twisted with incomprehension—the same expression I wore during lessons with Madam Chrissie. I smiled without meaning to.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you want to stay with me? Unless you really are as stupid as you look."

I frowned at his harsh words.

"I told you. My father spoke well of you since I was young, so I wanted to serve you."

"You expect me to believe the count said good things about me?"

"You don't have to believe it. I'll keep serving Your Highness either way."

"Why, though?"

The conversation circled back to the start. I felt like I was talking to a wall. I sighed and stood.

The raccoon, startled by my sudden movement, bristled and hissed. Rupert soothed the creature with practiced ease. The gentle gesture shocked me, honestly—shocking enough I might faint. An emperor caring for a raccoon.

Every time I discovered something about Rupert I hadn't known—hadn't imagined—it left me rattled. His prideful posturing about piano playing. His affection for a raccoon as a pet. The way he looked after Tori with care while bristling with thorns around me. All of it.

He was still a child, so childish behavior made sense—yet even that felt unreal. I couldn't call him an ordinary child, but Rupert seemed ordinary sometimes. Especially when he was comfortable with Tori.

And I hated those moments. Hated them so much that "hate" felt too gentle a word—it was horrifying. The emperor should have been a cold monster from birth. I didn't want to discover the monster's human side.

Setting aside my subjective hatred of him, he was just a child with an unusually foul temper and indifference to others. Arrogant as befitted royalty. Sensitive because his own survival was precarious. The gap between the emperor I knew and this Rupert now made my teeth clench.

He was barely fourteen. The inhuman purge—that massacre disguised as cleansing—had happened when he was only eighteen. What tremendous event could have turned him into that mad killer? Why had he so brutally abandoned Tori, whom he now kept close?

Even as I wondered, I hated that I felt compelled to justify his cruelty. It would be easier to hate and use a born monster than to despise a child made monstrous by tragedy. Whether he was born a monster or became one through suffering, my fundamental fear and hatred wouldn't fade. So if I was going to hate him anyway, I wanted to hate him comfortably—the selfishness of a victim.

I avoided his crooked gaze and answered.

"I want Your Highness to find me useful. Even if you don't like me—too valuable to kill."

"You talk like I've been plotting to kill you."

Not yet. But soon, perhaps. I brushed snow from my feet and cleared my throat. I didn't know what words would make him accept me as his own.

"You just threatened to kill me, though."

"That was—"

At my retort, Rupert's mouth snapped shut. I knew his threat was currently empty bluster. Princess Lapherte couldn't touch Bellua. But the emperor could.

"Bellua has nothing to do with my serving you. I just want to serve you. Isn't that answer enough? How can everything in life have a rational reason? Some things simply don't have answers."

I smiled as vaguely as my ambiguous answer. Should I take lessons in lying somewhere? With this poor eloquence, I'd fool neither Rupert nor even Tori.

"That's your reason?"

"Yes."

Because you terrify me and I despise you. Yet I must make you think I'm on your side.

Rupert narrowed his eyes as if trying to peer inside my skull, but he couldn't read what I'd buried deepest.

He said nothing on the walk back to the palace. I had nothing to say to Rupert either, so I kept silent. The person who shattered our uncomfortable quiet wasn't Tori, the chamberlain, or any servant from his palace.

I looked up, startled, recognizing the figure blocking our path from garden to palace. A long-overdue encounter. In reality, just over three years. By current reckoning—four months since entering the palace—half a year.

Prince Arnulf was exactly as handsome as I remembered. "It's been a while," almost slipped out, but I closed my mouth and offered a proper greeting. His leisurely gaze settled on the crown of my head.

"It's been a while, Lariette."

I nearly grimaced at his familiar greeting. He and I weren't close enough for such casual address. Of course, given our status difference, I couldn't complain about his friendliness—but Arnulf wasn't desperate enough to pretend familiarity with me instead of Rehan. So he wasn't smiling to win my favor.

I could read his purpose. His soft eyes held contempt as they turned toward Rupert. Yet he offered no greeting. Rupert wasn't even looking at him, so I had no choice but to answer.

"Yes, Your Highness. Have you been well?"

"I didn't know Lariette would enter the palace as an attendant. If you'd told me or Naichelle, we could have arranged for you to come straight to our palace."

Absurd. Arnulf placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, as if flaunting his connection to me before Rupert. Even the attendant at your side is only there to eventually come to me—such petty showing off.

Arnulf was the emperor's eldest son, ten years my senior. Twenty-three, then. A mature age to be mocking a fourteen-year-old half-sister. I felt somewhat displeased, but this wasn't a situation where I could speak freely—I just shook my head respectfully.

"No, it's fine."

"Naichelle will be quite hurt. My sister is rather fond of Bellua."

Arnulf brushed back his reddish-gold hair near his shoulder and smiled seductively. It gave me chills—making such coquettish expressions at a thirteen-year-old child. This was quite different from the Arnulf I'd known. Seeing this hidden side left me troubled. The Prince Arnulf in my memory had been consistently arrogant, but not this snake-like.

I needed to solidify my position with Rupert, and Arnulf made me uneasy—so I opened my mouth somewhat impulsively.

"I'm sorry to Princess Naichelle, but I intend to continue serving Princess Lapherte."

Rupert's head whipped around—he'd been staring into space. I smiled like a sigh at his widened green eyes. He hadn't believed me despite my saying it until my mouth wore out.

"What?"

The question came from Arnulf. I met his distorted face and continued.

"I wish to continue serving Princess Lapherte."

"Is that Bellua's will? Was the count that foolish?"

"Your Highness, I'm only thirteen. How could someone like me represent Bellua's will?"

My position forced him to interpret everything politically. I lowered my gaze, avoiding Arnulf's sharp eyes. I might have needlessly provoked the imperial consort's faction, which had been favorable toward me—toward Bellua, precisely. But Father wasn't me—they wouldn't focus too much on my actions. I wasn't a son like Rehan who could inherit a title.

I steadied myself with that thought, though fear lingered. My future was uncertain, and my future was Bellua's future. Taking responsibility for my family's fate—something I'd always pushed entirely onto Father—frightened me more than a little. I hid my trembling hands. Then Rupert grabbed my shaking wrist.

I jerked my head up, startled. Rupert had already stepped forward, standing as if to shield me from Arnulf. Before me, his round crown—and in that moment, I felt the reality of four months I'd thought wasted.

The child who'd been half a hand-span shorter than me had grown at terrifying speed, nearly my height now. His voice was roughening too—he couldn't easily hide being a boy much longer. That was likely one reason Rupert stayed secluded in his palace.

"What is it?"

At Rupert's question, Arnulf withdrew his perfunctory smile. The siblings wore similar blank expressions on wholly dissimilar faces. Arnulf's face twisted first, turning vicious.

"You ignored every message I sent, so I had no choice but to come myself."

"I read all the letters. Don't meet with His Majesty privately. I remember."

"If you remember, why don't you obey?"

"Because His Majesty's command came first."

Rupert's words suddenly shortened. He scratched his neck as if annoyed with Arnulf and tightened his grip on my wrist. Arnulf let out a hollow laugh of disbelief, then raised his large hand and brought it down—no time to stop him.

Crack.

Rupert's small face swelled. Natural enough—a twenty-three-year-old man had struck a child across the cheek. Even after committing such merciless violence against a face smaller than his own hand, pale and delicate, Arnulf looked entirely untroubled. The victim, Rupert, remained expressionless. Not the first time, then.

"You've gotten quite unruly. I thought you'd been behaving lately."

"I didn't want to see him in the first place."

"What did you bewitch His Majesty with? That pretty face of yours?"