“What’s the extent of the damage?”
“The buildings collapsed, and food and goods were taken. Not many deaths, but quite a few injuries.”
“Plunder?”
“Yes.”
I tapped my fingers on the table, lost in thought. Anasha stayed silent, as if not wanting to disturb me.
The Inayari typically plundered food. Grain couldn’t grow in the desert regions. They mainly took livestock or crops that could serve as a source of sustenance. The disappearance of food and goods pointed to their usual brand of raiding. But there were more than one or two things that didn’t sit right.
Risking danger to get food by attacking a guild branch inside a city? It didn’t make sense.
Raiding a city was on an entirely different level from pillaging remote villages. It was an incident that could prompt the empire to subjugate the Inayari. No matter how barbaric they were, they wouldn’t be ignorant of that fact.
“What about other places?”
“Some other guilds were hit too, but ours took the worst of it.”
“Why?”
“During the plunder, a fire broke out in the branch building. They tried to put it out, but dealing with the attackers delayed the firefighting.”
“That’s why the building collapsed.”
“Yes.”
“What was the lord’s response?”
“Well…”
Anasha made a troubled face.
“Anasha?”
“There’s no lord there.”
My brows furrowed involuntarily at her words. Aside from the emperor’s directly held territories, the entire empire fell under the management of lords. Among kingdoms, there were occasional territories without lords, managed by representatives of the citizens, but those were rare exceptions. Territories without lords typically reverted to the royal family.
The empire was even stricter in that regard. If a noble holding territory lost the ability to manage it, the imperial family immediately dispatched an administrator and converted it to direct imperial rule. There could be no imperial territory without a lord.
“Is it an imperial direct territory?”
“No.”
Anasha shook her head. She lifted her teacup to wet her throat, then met my eyes.
“By rights, it’s the territory of the Duke of Daysha.”
“Not anymore, you mean?”
“Yes. Ten years ago, by the Duke of Daysha’s order, it was handed over to the citizens for self-governance.”
“The Duke of Daysha renounced all rights to that land?”
“Yes.”
Renouncing territorial rights meant forgoing all produce and taxes from it. Why would the Duke of Daysha do such a thing?
“Do you know the reason?”
“The current representative there saved the Duke of Daysha’s life, apparently.”
‘Handing over territory to the citizens for the sake of his life-saver…’
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound of my nails striking the table echoed through the reception room.
“That means the empire won’t step in for this incident.”
Anasha nodded.
For the empire to intervene, the territory’s managing lord had to request aid from the emperor directly. Managing the territory was fundamentally the lord’s sole responsibility. Except in cases like a plague outbreak that could spread and endanger the whole nation, the state couldn’t interfere unless the lord asked for help.
The site of the guild branch was Daysha’s ducal territory. But the Duke of Daysha had used his rights to cede it to the citizens. Officially, it might still be Daysha territory, but in reality, it was land without a lord.
The empire didn’t recognize citizens’ representatives as lords. Even if they begged the emperor for aid, the empire wouldn’t budge. Unless the Duke of Daysha stepped in, the empire had no grounds to act. In other words, the Inayari had chosen their plundering target perfectly.
‘Is this a coincidence?’
It couldn’t be.
“What’s the Duke of Daysha’s response?”
“As quiet as ever.”
If my memory serves, the Duke of Daysha hadn’t stirred from his territories until he came to the capital with his daughter. Or rather, there had been no information about him at all. That meant he lived almost completely cut off from the outside world.
‘The Inayari and the Duke of Daysha…’
Objectively or subjectively, I couldn’t find any connection between the two. Yet what was this sticky unease I felt?
Perhaps I simply hadn’t known, but something identical could have happened back then, even now. It was entirely possible. The me from that time had no interest in the world around her. But even as my mind accepted that it could be so, I couldn’t shake the nagging sense of something off. No matter how I turned it over, I couldn’t pinpoint any link. I needed more information.
“That’s not all, is it?”
They wouldn’t have hidden Evan’s return from me just because the guild was raided. The Inayari’s attack must have caused significant losses, but losing one branch wasn’t a crisis for the guild as a whole.
“Yes, you’re right.”
Anasha nodded and took a deep breath.
“Sigh, Evan’s injured.”
“How badly?”
“Fortunately, his life isn’t in danger, but he’ll be bedridden for a while.”
“Let’s go.”
As I rose, Anasha, who had been sipping her remaining tea, widened her eyes.
“I need to see Evan in person.”
“Ah, no!”
Anasha urgently grabbed the hem of my skirt. She looked up at me with a pleading face.
“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you if I could help it. If you go to him now, it’s like pouring oil on the fire.”
“Then I absolutely have to go, no matter what.”
“Pardon?”
“What we’re about to do from here on is exactly that, isn’t it? Have you forgotten already?”
I flashed a bright smile at Anasha, who still looked baffled.
* * *
“Sigh, I’m not sure this is the right thing to do.”
Anasha, who had been silent the whole ride in the carriage, finally let out a sigh.
“Just thinking about how His Grace will react gives me chills.”
She shivered faintly, as if Father were right there before her eyes.
Thinking of Father, who had impressed upon me this very morning never to set foot outside the mansion, brought a sigh from me too. By now, word must have reached him in the palace.
To leave the mansion with Anasha, I’d waged a war of sorts with the butler. As Father’s trusted retainer, he absolutely refused to let me go out. He’d dramatically blocked my path, declaring I’d have to kill him first.
Father had already issued his orders. My commands held no sway—not with the butler, nor with the family knights.
In the end, I gave up on using the family carriage and boarded the one Anasha had arrived in. The butler and knights couldn’t stop me.
No one could lay hands on me, the marquis’s daughter. The butler shouted until the end that it was forbidden, but he couldn’t bring himself to restrain me by force.
The loyal butler must have contacted Father the moment I left the mansion. The Eliant estate and the palace were close. If the messenger rode at full gallop, the news would have reached Father long ago.
I pushed thoughts of Father from my mind. I’d already resolved to go through with this. No turning back now that we’d come this far.
To clear my head, I turned from Anasha and gazed out the window. The carriage left the street lined with mansions and entered Be Verdi Avenue, where shops catering to nobles stretched out in a row. Lavish storefronts began to appear.
“Wouldn’t it be better to reconsider?”
“Reconsider what?”
“You don’t have to do this yourself.”
I turned back to Anasha. Her face was etched with worry as she looked at me.
“If it’s just rumors, even if things go wrong later, we can somehow smooth it over. But if you step out into the open yourself, there’ll be no denying it.”
She wasn’t wrong. No matter how detailed the rumors, I could always deny them. Even with witnesses or evidence, as long as I didn’t show my face, no one could drag down the Eliant family’s adopted daughter.
But appearing in person was different. It wouldn’t just inflate the rumors—it would be handing them a pretext to hobble me on my own.
“On the other hand, the odds of success would rise.”
“Evan will never agree.”
She gazed at me with a desperate expression. Seeing her like that reminded me of the first time we met.
She had been waiting for me in front of the mausoleum for her grandfather’s sake. Back then, her face had been so poignant, sensual, and somehow stirring a protective instinct. She had truly worried and pitied her grandfather, who suffered from not being able to see me.
Her face now was much like that. It meant she was genuinely concerned for me. Though I had no intention of bending to her wishes, I didn’t mind her sincere worry.
“You’re not thinking of going back on your promise to help, are you?”
She let out a plaintive whine, as if wronged.
“You didn’t say anything about me stepping out myself.”
“I believe in you, Anasha.”
I gave her a soft smile. Anasha looked at me and finally wore a defeated expression.
“Sigh, I won’t escape Evan’s lecture at all. That guy’s nagging is brutal, despite how he looks.”
