“The Crown Princess’s dance was extraordinary, and Lord Valgis’s performance was superb in its own right — but this was something altogether different.”
His words carried the ring of a decision already made. A silence fell over the tables.
The color in Jasmine’s cheek flickered — just slightly.
She had poured everything into that performance, including her pride. To have it upended by a simple, unadorned song must have been, by any measure, maddening.
Kasha shook her head quickly.
“You’re far too generous, Your Highness.”
But Nigel’s smile only widened.
“Not at all. Truly impressive. Was that a northern folk melody?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. I’m always grateful for the steadfast service Viscount Rüschino provides, keeping the empire’s northern borders safe.”
The unexpected mention of her adoptive father caught Kasha off guard. She was quiet for a brief moment before answering, stiff and precise:
“…It is our family’s honor.”
Anyone could hear the formality in it. But Nigel laughed as though she had said something delightful.
“Ha. Lady Rüschino, you are endlessly interesting. Now — you make magical devices yourself, I’m told?”
“…Yes.”
Magical devices. This, too, was a direction she hadn’t anticipated. Kasha felt a fresh knot of tension pull tight inside her.
“Truly a remarkable gift,” Nigel murmured, as if to himself.
Without quite meaning to, Kasha looked up.
And something strange happened. The moment her eyes met Nigel’s, a sensation crept over her entire body — crawling, revolting, like something cold and many-legged moving under her skin.
She looked away quickly and made her face blank.
The blue spirit-stone light made it difficult to be certain, but she could have sworn the skin around Nigel’s eyes had been slightly flushed just now.
And his gaze — in that very brief instant, she had seen something pass through his eyes. An open, unmistakable hunger.
At that moment, Leon — who always noticed her shifts the moment they happened — turned to look at her. His gaze, which had never left her, moved slowly from her face toward Nigel.
But Nigel was no longer looking at Kasha. He had turned, with apparent randomness, to address Daryl instead.
“Viscount Rüschino, you bear a great deal. With the Viscount away guarding the border year-round, you’re managing the duties in the capital while looking after your sister as well — it must leave you little time to breathe.”
Daryl was clearly caught off guard, but responded with a fair amount of composure.
“It is simply what is required of a servant of His Majesty.”
“Not at all, not at all. The loyalty of House Rüschino is well known to all — it’s only right that I take special care to look after you. Don’t you think?”
“There’s really no need for that—”
Daryl and Kasha had both started to demur in unison when Nigel’s voice moved on.
“Ah, yes. I said I would give a prize to the table that earned the most applause. So I did. A prince’s word cannot be taken back.”
Kasha felt a ripple of unease.
She had never stood up hoping for any reward. But given Nigel’s manner — his pleasure at this entire situation — she suspected he would not let her simply decline.
If anything, he looked as though he had been waiting for exactly this moment.
“What do you think of this — as it happens, I’ve been searching for someone to oversee a research project I’m sponsoring at the Mage Tower. I’d like to offer that position to Lady Rüschino.”
The announcement sent a stir through the guests.
“That important a post — to someone barely twenty years old?”
“He must be quite taken with Lady Rüschino.”
The offer sounded, on its surface, almost irresistible. To be appointed the official overseer of an imperially sponsored initiative was a distinction beyond measure. And as a maker of magical devices, the chance to establish ties with the famously insular Mage Tower was not something any sensible person would refuse — or so everyone assumed.
But the blood drained from Kasha’s face the moment she heard it.
If Nigel was the mastermind, as she suspected, then he was trying to bind Kasha formally to the imperial court. The strategy through Simon had failed. Now he intended to use imperial authority to claim her abilities outright.
But before Kasha could begin to frame a refusal, a sharp voice cut in from beside the Crown Prince.
“The research at the Mage Tower is a project jointly sponsored by Kazim — surely something of this importance warrants a discussion with me first, Your Highness?”
Jasmine’s expression was petulant as she said it.
Nigel turned toward her slowly. When he spoke, his voice had dropped by precisely one degree.
“…That remark, just now, sounds rather as though my lady is speaking on behalf of Kazim. Surely my wife has not forgotten that she is no longer a princess of Kazim — but the Crown Princess of this empire.”
“What? No, Your Highness, that isn’t what I—”
“And whatever my lady’s opinion may be — what is your purpose in raising it here, in front of everyone? Are you suggesting I should retract what I just said, in full view of all these guests?”
The unexpected sharpness of the response left Jasmine visibly shaken. Nigel, who had shown her nothing but warmth in public settings, was looking at her in a way she had not seen before. She fell silent immediately, the shock too sudden to process. The nobles at the table began to glance around, reading the air.
Then a voice entered the space between them — unhurried and carrying its own quiet weight.
“If it is the right course of action, Your Highness, then it should be done.”
Nigel turned with a look that said what now — and found Leon’s composed face, and allowed the corner of his mouth to twist slightly.
“Sir Leon. What did you just—”
“I said that if the circumstances suggest a decision was unwise, then reconsidering it in good time is also the quality of a wise ruler.”
Nigel’s eyebrow twitched.
“Unwise… What exactly are you implying.”
The Crown Prince sputtered, unable to finish the thought, and Leon continued in an even tone:
“Lady Rüschino is already engaged in collaborative ventures with several families through the magical devices she has developed. She is also working alongside the temple on devices that incorporate holy power, and has already produced some results.”
“…”
“Your Highness’s proposal is, of course, a great honor. But before that — would it not be wiser to support Lady Rüschino in seeing her current projects through to completion?”
The smile that spread across Nigel’s face as he listened was something different from his usual expression — slow, cold, and not quite a smile at all. The guests at the table went very still.
“Wise counsel. You really do have a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing in exactly the most irritating way possible, Leon.”
A sharp intake of breath ran through the assembled nobles. But Leon did not blink.
“I am not here to please Your Highness. I am here to serve Your Highness by pointing toward what is right.”
Two pairs of violet eyes — similar in shade, entirely different in nature — locked against each other.
No one around them dared breathe.
In the hush, broken only by the sound of insects, the sudden pounding of hooves on the riverbank path shattered the silence.
The Crown Prince’s picnic had a full perimeter of guards posted; no one should have been able to approach at speed without being stopped. Unease flickered across every face.
Then a cavalry rider, moving at a pace that should have been impossible, reached the edge of the gathering and practically rolled from his horse to prostrate himself before the Crown Prince.
“Your Highness! Your Highness the Crown Prince!”
“What is it?”
Nigel’s posture shifted — commanding, imperial — in a way that was entirely different from how he had just been looking at Leon.
Everyone held their breath. The soldier gasped, his voice pitched high with urgency:
“His Majesty has received an urgent dispatch from Viscount Rüschino and commands Your Highness’s immediate return to the palace!”
At the name Rüschino, Daryl and Kasha both came to their feet in the same instant.
“An urgent dispatch? Tell me clearly — what has happened?”
Nigel’s voice was serious, measured — but to Kasha’s ear, it carried an ease that felt profoundly wrong for the moment.
As if he had already known.
The soldier’s halting account was this:
There had been a sudden, violent proliferation of demon beasts near the territory of Viscount Rüschino. The casualties were severe. The Viscount had mobilized every available fighting force, but reinforcements were desperately needed. The beasts’ numbers were still growing. Every moment counted.
Kasha’s hands curled closed of their own accord.
A proliferation of demon beasts.
Near the Rüschino territories. This was the event that would eventually grow into the Great Demon Beast War — a catastrophe that would engulf the entire continent. The war in which Leon had lost his arm.
She had known it was coming. It had always been coming.
But the timing is months earlier than it was before I returned.
Her heart began to beat in hard, fast strokes. This fate had arrived ahead of schedule, without leaving her time to prepare. How was she supposed to meet it?
“Demon beasts. What a dreadful thing.”
Nigel tilted his head and stroked his chin — the perfect picture of a concerned Crown Prince weighing the safety of the continent.
Then his gaze lifted and landed squarely on Leon. He looked, somehow, considerably more cheerful than he had moments ago.
“Leon. I understand your loyalty and your desire to keep me on the right path. As it happens, it seems a proper opportunity has arrived for you to prove that loyalty.”
Leon met Nigel’s eyes without expression. His mind must have been in turmoil from the moment the words demon beast proliferation had entered his ears — but the stillness on his face was absolute.
Nigel held that stillness in his gaze for a moment, then declared in a loud, carrying voice:
“Leon Miloyonif Aranias. Report to the Holy Knight Order at once. Begin forming a support unit for immediate deployment to the northern territories.”
“…I receive Your Highness’s command.”
Leon’s voice was clear and unwavering. As though a war deployment order, arriving like a bolt from a clear sky, could not touch whatever he had anchored himself to.
But the calm did not survive what came next.
“As for the matter of what prize to give Lady Rüschino — we shall revisit that question once this business is concluded.”
