The party hall was in chaos.
I was slumped on the floor next to the collapsed and wheezing Robia. I could see the blood pool underneath him.
With fumbling hands, I applied pressure to his wound. Even I knew that it would be dangerous if the bleeding continued.
Moments later, a doctor rushed in and quickly cleaned up the wound and began to stop the bleeding. I stepped aside and held Robia’s hand. As I did so, he opened his eyes by a sliver and saw who was clasping his hand.
Then, he let out a light laugh. I felt my anger rising at the sight, but I bit my lip without a word.
While this was happening, there was a commotion in front of the throne. Yuriel was sobbing about how, though she knew her actions had brought disgrace to the nation, she was so filled with pity for the children that she hadn’t been able to stop herself. That she hoped nothing like this would ever happen again. And how she had come here with that one desire. Her monologue seemed as though it would never end.
But her voice sounded far-off and fuzzy, like a dream. The only thing that fell on my ears was the sound of Robia’s breathing, which seemed like it could stop any moment. I tightened my grip on his hand.
For a moment, I sat there blankly, not showing any emotion or even speaking.
Soon, Robia was out of the woods. The light returned to his eyes. The doctors let out a sigh of relief and straightened their backs.
“Will he live?”
My voice was shaking.
“Yes, Your Highness. It missed his organs, so fortunately, his life should not be in any grave danger. However, as his condition is still unstable, he will need rest…”
“Your Highness.”
He was trying to sit up.
“You can’t. Stay still.”
Robia continued to flail like he hadn’t heard me. Without much choice, I pulled his head onto my lap.
“I’m sorry. Because of me… your clothes are ruined.”
Only then did I notice my blood-stained dress. I was speechless.
“Are you being serious right now?”
“…Please don’t be angry.”
He fumbled for my hand.
“What?”
“Everything will be okay.”
“…”
He tried to steady his breathing before finally sitting up. A doctor supported him. Seeing Robia like that, I put my hand on my forehead before turning my head.
“What exactly happened?”
My words weren’t gentle. Ettsen stared at me blankly then responded to the question.
“He was on the ground with a stab wound in his abdomen… I found him in that state.”
“Where?”
“Near the party hall.”
“And the person who stabbed him?”
“They were not there.”
“…Did you really not see?”
“I did not.”
“Then why did you bring him here?”
“He wanted it.”
“…You helped him?”
“Is that a problem?”
Our eyes locked.
“Your Majesty! Please listen to me.”
At that moment, Robia stood and approached the emperor. The two doctors were panicking as they followed him.
“Robia!”
I stood as well and chased after them.
The emperor looked exhausted. He rubbed his face and waved a hand, leaning back in his chair.
“Speak.”
At that moment, the old man suddenly came forward. That old man who was so full of himself from before. That was when I remembered the man’s last name was Dominat. He was Arken Dominat’s grandfather.
“Your Majesty. This man is unrelated to this matter, so I believe it is right to send him out. It will not be too late to continue the investigation after his wound is healed.”
Why was he speaking now after hiding in the crowd all this time?
It meant that, under the circumstances, he had no choice but to personally get involved. In other words, the situation was becoming unfavorable for Dominat.
“Who are you to decide that it’s unrelated?”
I said, while walking over to face Dominat. After that, Robia’s response echoed through the hall.
“I have proof.”
It was the magic phrase that stole away the people’s attention.
“Proof? What proof?”
“I speak of proof that will separate truth from lies.”
Following Robia’s appearance, the man who’d led the slaves out was visibly shaking. He was looking back and forth between me and Lord Dominat when Robia pointed at him. He froze.
“That man has been bought off by the young lord to commit perjury, and the young lord’s men attempted to silence me, the witness.”
“Choose your words wisely! Where do you think you are that you dare speak so carelessly?”
The duke raged. Even so, Robia didn’t bat an eyelash.
“They were undoubtedly the young lord’s men.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“If you keep defending him, you will be calling suspicion as to your involvement in this matter, Your Excellency… Is that alright with you?”
At a glance, Robia looked confident and overflowing with strength, but in reality, he was being supported by the doctors so that he wouldn’t fall over. He was just barely standing.
“Your Majesty. Though he is lacking, I assure you of my grandson’s good intentions in bringing Your Majesty’s flesh-and-blood here on this fine day. I beg your understanding.”
The duke who had always stood straight knelt in front of the emperor and bowed his head.
From what I knew, the emperor and the duke were quite close. Though the emperor had succeeded the throne at an early age, there was none of the expected chatter because he took the duke as his right arm. That was also how the duke had been able to reign as the real power holder in the court until now.
As a result, eliminating the duke was not only undesirable but unfeasible for the emperor.
Everything depended on how decisive Robia’s evidence was.
“His Majesty’s flesh-and-blood?”
Robia looked at me. In response, I looked at Yuriel, and Robia’s expression morphed into a scowl. He refocused his attention with some effort, and continued speaking.
“Even if that is true, it is not proof that he did not slander the princess. Rather, doesn’t it make more sense that he took this chance to act on his treasonous intentions thinking that he had support?”
“Shut your mouth before I cut off your tongue!”
“You are the one who needs to shut his mouth, my Lord! Who are you using such language against?”
The duke closed his mouth in response to my stern order, but the way he looked at Robia practically spelled trouble.
“Won’t this all be solved once he shows the evidence? Hurry and show it.”
At the emperor’s words, Robia took something out from his breast pocket and lifted it up. Just looking at it, it was hard to say how he was planning on using it as proof.
However, I must have been the only one who thought that way, because the crowd let out a low exclamation, their murmuring beginning to fill the hall.
When the object emitted light, everyone shut their mouths like they’d planned it out beforehand. The static noise from the object lowered in volume and a clear voice echoed throughout the hall.
<Do you want to die by his side?>
It was Robia’s voice.
<If you stand witness against his revolt, then you’ll be an honored subject of the empire.>
This was followed by what sounded like a tussle.
<I just did what the young lord threatened me to do…!>
<Ugh!>
A short pause.
<Did you hear that?>
<I heard it.>
Next was the solitary sound of a sword sliding out of a scabbard.
<Take him to the shade for now.>
There was a groan and the sound of something being dragged across the ground.
<Look here, do you have to go this far? No matter how off his rocker Dominat is. The princess won’t be ruined with this. Though she might receive a little damage. But if you kill a concubine, you won’t be able to escape her wrat-.>
<Don’t worry about that. The bastard who killed you will be caught and executed tomorrow.>
A low cry and the sound of hasty footsteps…
<Ah, I stuck him with my blade. This is going to be troublesome.>
Unfamiliar voices started a conversation before,
<If we’re any later, the young lord will have our heads. We have to go now!>
The shout was the end.
The duke’s eye were closed, and the young Dominat was slack-jawed and red-faced.
“This is the evidence, Your Majesty. Please punish that house who had treasonous intentions against the royal household,”
Robia requested in an unwavering and clear voice, then lifted his chin. As though that were the last of his strength, Robia collapsed limply.
“Robia!”
I hugged Robia and collapsed to the floor with him. The doctors and servants supported us. Robia was laid out flat on the floor.
In the midst of the hectic crowd, my eyes locked with Arken Dominat’s. At that instant, his eyes seemed to burn, and he charged at me like a beast.
It all happened in an instant. Arken Dominat’s anger spilled out like a roar. His dark-red face which foresaw his own future was grotesque.
I had no chance to dodge as he snatched my arm.
But immediately after, I was released from his grip.
The scream came afterward. Slumped on the floor, I touched my throbbing arm.
A familiar man was catching his breath with his back turned to me. He held a sword in his hand, and blood was flowing down the blade.
“Ack! Ahhh!”
Arken Dominat screamed at the top of his lungs. Between the man’s legs, I saw him contort his body as he lay on the floor.
Blood was spilling out. Within moments, the marble floor was soaked. One of Dominat’s arms was severed. It was the one that he’d used to grab me.
“What have you done! How dare you!”
The duke raged.
“It is the law to take summary action against treason.”
The man swung his sword once more at the young Dominat who was scrambling to put distance between them. Dominat collapsed onto the floor and covered his eyes.
“Grandfather! Please save me! Grandfather! Ack!”
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty, please give the order to cease! Your Majesty, please! He is my only grandson! At least give him a chance to defend himself, please! Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
“Sir. Put away your sword.”
The man was different from normal. It didn’t seem like he could calm down. If not that, he would never have lifted his sword again as though he hadn’t heard the emperor’s command.
“I-I’ve done nothing wrong! That girl, that girl made me do it! The drugs, the slaves, she’s the one who plotted everything! I-I-.”
“This is slander!”
Yuriel screeched.
“I was fooled by that man, too! I really didn’t know!”
Yuriel bowed at the emperor’s feet.
“Sir! Did you not hear me telling you to stop!”
The emperor grabbed his head.
“Your Majesty! Please believe me! It is true, my only crime is foolishly falling for his words, I’m really inno-.”
“Did you not hear me tell you to stop, Eclot Pacis!”
In the chaos, I called out to him,
“Eclot.”
He stopped abruptly. His shoulders were rising and falling imperceptibly. Eclot turned to face me.
“You can stop now,”
I said, while putting my hand on Robia’s forehead.
“…”
Eclot caught his breath and lowered his sword. He returned his sword to its scabbard.
“I’m sorry for being late.”
I studied Eclot anew. He wasn’t in uniform. To be exact, his outer garments were his uniform, but he was wearing black cotton pants meant to be worn at home, and his usually stiff shirt was partially untucked and full of wrinkles.
Several buttons were undone, and his hair was messy as well. More than anything, his expression was frenzied.
I checked that Robia was okay then stood up.
“It seems you got here in a hurry.”
“Pardon-.”
“I’m glad you came.”
I gave his hand wrapped around the handle of his sword a squeeze before turning to the emperor.
“Your Majesty. Please withhold your wrath. It was not disobedience. He was simply too excited to hear you.”
The emperor nodded like he didn’t want to keep arguing. I was able to breathe easy again.
The truth was, there was a more pressing problem. The continuing screams of Dominat were slowly taking over the hall.
“Your Majesty… Please show mercy and allow me to treat him,”
The duke pleaded as tears streaked down his face. However, I doubted his true intentions.
It was possible that he cared for him as his flesh-and-blood, but why wasn’t he trying to make excuses? He didn’t seem like someone who would place his grandson above his house’s safety.
Almost like he had some way to escape this situation…
At that moment, there was the metallic sound of a blade being drawn.
By the time I had turned around, the slave trader’s neck was already gushing blood like a fountain. He had died an empty death without even being able to scream. Standing over his collapsed form was an unfamiliar man holding a sword.
“Your Majesty. Everything was my doing. Out of my foolish desire to demonstrate my loyalty to my Lord, I invented a witness and slandered Her Highness.”
The soldiers formed a ring around the man. Eclot stood in front of me.
“My Lord has no involvement in this matter. Although the evidence today was fabricated by me, the fact that Her Highness has done these same things time and again over the years is something everyone knows, despite it being kept hush-hush. Therefore, my Lord was fooled by my dull-witted self. As my Lord has been falsely accused and shed blood as a result of my crimes…”
He pulled out a small bottle and downed the contents.
“I will atone for my crimes with my life! Please pardon my Lord, Your Majesty!”
It didn’t take long before he collapsed onto the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Your Majesty! Please, my grandson!”
The duke cried, right on time. In the end, the emperor flicked his eyes to the soldiers.
The soldiers supported Arken Dominat out of the hall, even picking up his separated arm. Several doctors followed them.
“Is this not the classic tying up of loose ends?”
The emperor responded disinterestedly,
“That is something to look into over time.”
“If that’s not the case, then why did he kill the merchant, the key witness?”
“Stop here for today! I do not want any more humiliation than this.”
“…”
It wouldn’t be good for me to continue pushing.
However, they had tried to kill Robia.
“However, Your Majesty. I will not be satisfied with that man’s life alone. I will investigate everyone who agreed to and was involved with this matter. They will not be able to escape, even if they are my own blood.”
Seeing which way the situation was turning, Yuriel’s shoulders flinched.
The ones responsible had escaped, and someone else had ended their life so easily for their sake. Who deserved to face the consequences for the blood pooled in this hall and the terrible smell of blood permeating my lungs?
Then, someone walked down the center of the hall dirtied by blood.
“Hess?”
It was my maid.
However, Hess said something strange.
“You are safe… this time as well. But I knew it would be like this. I already knew that woman wouldn’t be able to do it. That she’d lied to me.”
Hess glanced at Yuriel and laughed calmly. Only after seeing that face did I realize Hess had never once laughed in front of me.
As well as the answer to the question that had been bothering me on-and-off.
Where had she found such a large amount of drugs? How had she hidden them without being caught? How was she able to secretly enter the princess’s bedchamber to search?
“Then, the thought suddenly came to me. No one will help me anyway. Just like always. But what’s the point of staying here any longer.”
Hess took a step toward me. The party hall was chaotic and noisy, so no one paid attention to the maid approaching the princess.
Because it was an all-too-common, normal pairing.
She was right in front of me.
“I can just, with my own two hands…”
Hess wielded the thing that she had been hiding behind her back.
***
“Huh? That’s strange, it was definitely here.”
Sieger, who had been following behind the two young guards, glanced around. Then, he walked straight to the alleyway.
“Why are you…”
One of the guards took a step forward before the splashing sound beneath his shoe made him stop. It hadn’t rained yesterday or today. Sieger crouched down in front of him and said calmly,
“This is blood.”
“Pardon? Then…”
“Judging by the amount, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lying dead in some corner.”
“H-How can that be…”
“But how did you find this place?”
“By smell.”
Sieger took the lead this time. When the guards, who had been chasing after him, saw the building, they asked dubiously,
“Isn’t this the party hall?’
“I only followed the trail of blood.”
“Not the smell?”
One guard asked disappointedly. Sieger looked at him dumbfoundedly. That was when he discovered a horse with no rider in the yard. It looked like someone had made a last-minute entrance.
“What is with the horse? Wow, isn’t it a splendid horse?”
“Its coat is so glossy…”
“You two stay here.”
“Pardon?”
Sieger stared at them for a brief moment.
After they’d said that stuff about doing guard duty faithfully and being disappointed in him because they used to respect him, he hadn’t ever expected to see them again. But the fact that they had promptly looked for him when they needed help meant that they had no one else they could rely on. Because the only one who would listen to a commoner was another commoner.
In any case, since they still had illusions of grandeur over the incident, and seemed to be feeling a sense of accomplishment, he wanted to let them be. There was no need to show them anything bad.
“What can we do?”
“Find out who that horse’s owner is.”
“Are you talking about this horse?”
“Right. There’s no doubt it’s an important lead.”
“Ah, is that so?”
Massaging his neck, Sieger headed into the building that the firelight was pouring out from, alone. The soldiers braced their swords but lowered them once they saw him.
“You cannot enter. Moreover, while you are in possession of a weapon-.”
Sieger peeked over the soldier’s shoulder.
“It looks like you’ve already let in several. Don’t you need someone to take responsibility later?”
“…”
“You know who I am, right? Give them my name.”
“…”
The soldiers let Sieger pass by them, and he entered the building. He thought to himself that he needed to know what was going on.
The recent series of incomprehensible events, and related to that, the princess who had turned strange, all the way to the bloodshed of today.
Too much had happened over the span of a few months.
The door opened in a hurry, and a man who looked to be the son of a noble house based on his clothing was carried out with one arm severed. Sieger briefly hid himself in the shadows. Once their footsteps had receded, he stepped out.
At that moment, he saw a maid who had been hiding just like him at the end of the hall enter the main hall.
“That’s…”
The object she was hiding behind her back reflected the firelight. There was no mistaking it. It was a blade.
Though he didn’t know the circumstances, Sieger ran. The first thing that came to mind was that he had to stop that woman.
The moment he entered the party hall, the familiar scent of blood and the bright face of the princess grabbed his attention. Unaware that the maid standing in front of her was trying to wield a blade.
For a brief moment, Sieger was at war with himself. He didn’t have a reason to save that damn princess.
Despite that, Sieger launched himself forward. Even as he was repeating curses in his head. It was his nature. He couldn’t pass people by.
***
“Your Highness!”
Eclot covered me with his body as if to protect me, and in the split second that my vision was obstructed, I heard the blade clatter onto the marble floor.
“Die!”
Hess picked the dagger back up with her other hand and charged at me. But it wasn’t nearly enough. From the start, she couldn’t reach me.
“…”
A sword was held directly underneath her chin. Hess couldn’t kill me though she was less than two steps away from me.
“I wanted to go to hell with you…”
The blade angled more sharply against her skin as if warning her not to try anything funny.
The owner of the sword was Sieger.
He was the one who had made her drop the dagger in the first place as well. Sieger didn’t even look in my direction.
The soldiers quickly confiscated Hess’s weapon and made her kneel on the floor. Then, they bound her and made her bow her head. Now, not even Hess’s life was her own.
“Why?”
“…”
There was no reply. That was just like the ever reserved Hess. But her under eyes were red.
“What is going on here?”
This time, the emperor rushed down from the dais toward me. Maybe he cared for his sister after all, seeing as how he looked so surprised.
I lowered my gaze from the emperor back to Hess. There was something I needed to ask her, but it was hard to say the words out loud. It was a strange feeling. I clenched my fists tightly.
“Yuriel… what did she lie to you about?”
“…”
“Did she say she would slander and kill me for you?”
“…”
The emperor was watching as well.
“Answer the question!”
One of the soldiers threatened, growing impatient.
“Help me…”
In the end, that was the one sentence that came out of Hess’s mouth. She was looking straight at Sieger.
Sieger still hadn’t lowered his sword, and I was confused about what she wanted help with.
Hess pushed herself onto Sieger’s sword. Sieger tried to withdraw his sword, and Hess looked up at him while spitting up blood. She implored,
“Please, help me…”
The two briefly made eye contact.
“…”
Within moments, Hess fell to the floor. Sieger didn’t drop his sword until she did. It looked as though he couldn’t.
The soldiers laid her flat on the floor.
“Who’s behind you? Answer!”
They hastily tried to stop the bleeding, but Hess had lost the will to live. Blood gushed out of her wound like a waterfall.
Her bloodshot eyes staring up at the ceiling, she said her final words in response to the soldiers’ urgent cry.
“Why… aren’t you being punished even when you did wrong?”
The light in her eyes faded.
The sound of Sieger’s sword dropping on the floor filled the hall.
I quietly stared at Hess’s face in death. And then I stared at Sieger’s miserable face. As well as the blood-red hall where death had cast its shadow.