How to Unsettle the Enemy's Lady Knight
The day after I met Mother at the villa, Father's reply arrived within a single day.
Bella, who had delivered the letter, withdrew quietly to give me time to read it alone. Left by myself in my dormitory room, I slowly broke the seal.
Taking in Father's distinctive hand—heavy, yet so fastidiously neat it bordered on obsessive—I began to read.
Caelus, the plan you submitted is little short of madness. And yet, if we are to hold the North, it seems our reality is that we must stake the North's very fate on that reckless gamble.
I will mobilize every ounce of the house head's authority and administrative power to ensure this gamble proceeds under airtight security. If you require resources from the territory, send word through Bella at any time.
Every sentence seemed steeped in the same cool, weighty voice I had listened to for the past three years. That much I had expected. But the moment I read the next line, my breath caught in my throat.
I will be honest with you, Caelus. I always believed your eldest brother, Cassius, ought to be the heir. Even when he died a wretched death and you took his place, I was far from pleased. In my memory you were never more than a frail child hiding in your brother's shadow. Everything you have done until now, I dismissed as a child's petulance and tantrums.
The original Caelus. Even after he had grown through his brother's death, even after he had risen to the seat of Grand Duke, he had never once been truly acknowledged by his father as the rightful heir.
And yet.
As of today, I have decided to abandon that thought completely. The little boy who lived only under his brothers' protection exists now only in old memory. You are the true heir of Hatelion, the one who has drawn his sword to save the North. I am proud of you, Caelus. Win. Guard the throne of the North against every enemy.
How hard I had worked to step out from the deep shadow of the original, frail Caelus. In this struggle I had begun in order to protect the North and the people I loved, I had at last wrung recognition from that exacting father of mine.
I slowly pressed the letter to my chest and looked out the window at the Academy spread below—the people I loved, and the enemies I had to bring to justice, all tangled together in that single place.
The resolve in my eyes burned hotter and fiercer than any midnight sun of the white nights.
A knock sounded at the door.
"...Young Lord."
Bella, who had entered with the knock, now looked at me with a reverence that had not been there before.
"...You foresaw all of this from the beginning. Not merely slipping free of the South's grain hostage play, but laying a board that would even draw in Berlien's magitech weapons... I failed to grasp the scale of what you intended."
She laid a hand over her heart and bowed her head deeply.
"I will never again doubt your will. Wherever the point of your sword is aimed from this day forward, I, Bella Esnion, will devote every ounce of my strength to serving you."
Receiving Bella's oath, I let my gaze drift back toward the window.
"Very well, Bella. So that your loyalty is not wasted, I too will give everything I have to protect Hatelion."
I was about to look away from the window when a familiar figure caught my eye outside.
"...She's already come crawling."
"...So Elysia sent you."
I had assumed Elysia would come with her. I hadn't expected her to send only her escort knight. Then again, after being tossed aside so disgracefully two days ago, perhaps she was too afraid to show her face.
The woman standing ramrod-straight before me was Sienna Lamantia, the escort knight who had protected Elysia for the past year—and who had appeared in the original story as well.
"Yes, Young Lord. This is the letter the young lady commanded me to deliver to you."
Sienna bowed her head and held out Elysia's letter. I skimmed it, and could not help a dry laugh.
Lord Caelus, I am deeply reflecting on what happened two days ago. With my sincere apology, and with a prayer for your safety, I am sending you Sienna, the knight I cherish most. Please keep her at your side in my inadequate stead, and let your anger cool.
The kind of harebrained scheme that could only hatch in a young lady whose head was a flowerbed. Had she gone sniveling to that Cyan and gotten no real advice at all? Or perhaps he had simply stood by, hoping I would lose my temper over Elysia's stupidity.
She claimed to be praying for my safety and groveling at my feet, but anyone could see she had sent a spy to watch me. Whether I was going around beating people, whether I was hiding letters from other young ladies in a drawer—the childish surveillance was obvious.
And this was the woman who had foamed at the mouth just because I had draped a coat over Yuriel's shoulders at the banquet. The reason she had sent Sienna specifically, instead of any other knight, was equally plain. She was trying to keep her filthy relationship with Zenon from being exposed any further.
If I so much as touched Sienna, she would pull that shameless reversal: You kept another woman at your side too, so let us respect each other's private lives. Groundwork so she could occupy the Grand Duchess's seat while freely enjoying secret trysts with other men. Refuse her outright here, and she would well up with tears and paint me as the villain who had spurned her sincerity.
Fine. I'll take her gladly.
They had tried a clumsy trick, so paying it back twice over suited my nature. Elysia had probably meant to skate through this, keep an eye on me, and reclaim her knight at a convenient time. Once she was in my hands, Sienna would never return to House Florence as its knight.
Her contract should be running out soon anyway.
Sienna Lamantia. Born the third daughter of the Lamantia family and driven by a reality in which only the eldest son inherited the fief, she had walked the path of a stipendiary knight from early on. Unlike traditional knights granted land, she was little better than a mercenary, renewing a wage contract every year.
In other words, the moment the contract ends, I can take her completely.
I looked up from Elysia's letter and met Sienna's golden eyes.
"...So, Sienna. What exactly have you been doing at House Florence all this time?"
At my languid question she stiffened with tension, yet clung to a knight's pride and lifted her chin.
"...My duty was to escort the young lady, and to safeguard the honor of House Florence."
At the faintly wavering pupils and the defensive tone, I shrugged on purpose and answered at my leisure.
"Escort? Safeguarding the house's honor?"
I circled her slowly, the question dripping with mockery, and Sienna's brow twitched.
"The way you protect Lady Florence's so-called honor is fascinating. Lurking in a corner of the banquet hall to eavesdrop on other young ladies' gossip, or watching which family's daughter I speak with—I didn't realize those were the noble duties of an 'honorable' knight."
As I recited, one after another, the things from the original story and the absurd orders Elysia had given over the past year, Sienna's lips trembled with shame.
"...Please stop, Young Lord..."
"Stop? When Elysia was having her little trysts with a mage nobody like Zenon, you were the one standing lookout so they wouldn't get caught."
Watching Sienna's shoulders lock up, I clicked my tongue and laughed low.
"You left your house to become a noble knight, and all you do is help a betrothed young lady cheat. That would eat at you, wouldn't it?"
"What... are you saying..."
Sienna bit her lip and clenched her fists, but I gave a light scoff and kept going.
"And that's not all, is it? You had to pick fights and glare at any poor young lady who fell out of Elysia's favor. And when Elysia overdid her luxury, you even played the maid, smuggling goods in so the old count wouldn't notice... We locked eyes that time, didn't we?"
I winked, and Sienna seemed to realize what I meant. Her face flushed crimson with shame, then went deathly pale.
"Last autumn, was it? You tried to sneak in a limited-edition dress through a hole in the wall and got stuck..."
"S-stop...!"
Watching Sienna tremble, fists shaking, the blood gone from her face, I thought that if I hadn't been Elysia's fiancé she would have hit me at least once.
"You can't even argue. So not a single word of it was wrong, I take it."
I dropped the mockery, my voice sinking low.
"And there's one more thing I can't help wondering."
I stopped my slow circling and looked her straight in the eye.
"In that short a time, did the head of House Florence or the elders formally approve your assignment?"
Sienna's pupils shook visibly.
"...That is..."
"Right. Of course they didn't. Without any official procedure or permission from the house, Elysia shoved you onto me out of sheer stubbornness. Am I wrong?"
Her golden eyes wavered with shame—and because of that, the resentment she had been holding down surged up instead.
"...Then what about you?"
Sienna caught her breath and looked straight up into my eyes.
"You keep speaking of Lady Florence that way. How, then, does the North treat its knights, that you can afford to be this arrogant?"
Even through the relentless mockery of her liege, the last of her pride as a knight refused to break. Sienna's eyes burned bright.
"Curious?"
I laughed low, tapping her rigid shoulder lightly.