The Performance

The day after Sienna was summoned, an armistice between the Great Forest and the Empire was signed at the city hall of Antrim, the frontier city on the border.

The Empire's representative was the Emperor. The elves' was Marcella.

They called it an armistice. In substance, it was the elves' declaration of surrender. The terms leaned wholly toward the Empire. They had been spared the humiliation of becoming a vassal state, yet the practical blow was, if anything, heavier than that.

Half the Great Forest had fallen into imperial hands. Two wounded on their side—both already fully recovered—and half an enemy realm occupied. Nor was that the end of it. An embassy would be planted on the outskirts of Medellin, and a garrison would be stationed there to guard it. All the elves had managed to extract in return was a ban on the taking of slaves, and a prohibition on any approach whatsoever to the World Tree.

Marcella's face remained sour through the entire reading of the text.

"Archon of the elves. Thanks to your decision, a long conflict has been brought to an end."

The Emperor offered her words that were, in their way, friendly. It made no difference.

"I cannot tell whether it has truly ended. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I still cannot trust the Empire."

"I know. To pull down the hatred stacked layer upon layer, I mean to hold a modest banquet. If it is acceptable to you, I would have the leaders of Medellin attend as well."

"That, I must decline."

She refused the banquet. The handshake the Emperor asked for, she did not. Marcella took his hand, if only for form's sake, and shook it once up and down. Having already consented to an armistice, she knew that standing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on pride would get her nowhere. Even so, the knights watching her were rigid with tension.

In any case, the signing concluded without incident.

Immediately afterward, the last person Marcella sought out was me.

"You'll be receiving a great reward. Allan Madoff."

She said it and left, and there was no hostility in her face. She hadn't forgiven me merely for helping her kin break their habit. She simply couldn't spare even the time it would take to vent her anger on me. From now on she had to rule the elves as the leader who had handed half the Great Forest over to humans.

A reward.

I had, in fact, already been promised one. Commercial rights in the concession. A title of earl at the least. And the chance to become a member of the imperial house.

The treaty is signed, so now they'll publish my merits. For winning over an ambitious elf, inducing a coup, and bringing down their leadership. …And after that, the betrothal.

The Emperor's plan, however, was not going to be carried out.

Right after the ceremony, once the elves had been sent off, a small private banquet among the Emperor and a handful of others.

"Her Highness the Second Princess has come to pay her res— ah."

"Move."

Sienna appeared.

"Sienna. What brings you all the way out here?"

The Emperor put on a stern face and scolded her for bursting in.

Shocked, are you. As if you didn't already know.

There was no chance the Emperor was unaware that Sienna had entered the Great Forest. She had browbeaten the officials of the Foreign Ministry and the Military Ministry nearly to the point of tyranny in order to use a teleportation circle. Sienna ignored his summons and came slowly toward me. Then, wearing a sorrowful smile that did not suit her at all, she spoke.

I drew the words out—"Your Highness…"—and gave her a reproachful look. I had made myself perfectly clear. Why had she come all the way here? At that, as if she could endure it no longer, Sienna slipped into my arms. I held her, feigning surprise. A faint trace of rosemary perfume. A height perhaps a hand shorter than mine. A body gone soft from a life spent well clear of any labor that used it.

"Sienna…?"

The Emperor's face, watching us, twisted into something wretched.

Allan really was shameless.

Sienna barely held down the laughter that kept trying to force its way out.

"…Your Highness. You mustn't do this."

Allan's voice, flustered, as he tried to restrain himself. His hands hovered and flailed, as if he meant to pull her away at once and yet could not bring himself to lay a finger on her royal person. To look at him, the sudden contact had genuinely shocked him.

Of course, every bit of it was an act. A performance they had agreed upon, staged for the father who had tried to snare Allan while keeping it hidden from her.

And it was working beautifully. Nestled against Allan's chest, she stole a glance sideways. The faces of those watching were a spectacle. The Emperor's most of all.

"Sienna…?"

He was staring this way as if his soul had left him.

A stern face, closer to a soldier's than a ruler's. In his youth he had cut down more than a few of his own brothers and sisters to take the throne, and among the small nations whose will the Empire bent to its own he was known as a ruthless sovereign. Now he was nothing but a father stunned by his daughter's outrageous behavior. A face gone bloodless. A fist clenched tight. And still, lips pressed shut. He clearly had a great deal he wanted to say, and with the ministers looking on he was forcing himself to swallow it.

Sienna had already turned her father's stomach inside out more than once. That face alone told her exactly how furiously he was boiling.

It works. Of course it does.

A way to stop the betrothal between Allan and Anais. The fastest of them was for Allan to be joined, first, to another princess. What could be more stupid than stealing the beloved of a perfectly sound princess of the direct line in order to save a daughter already deposed and shut away in a monastery?

The Empress had surely anticipated at least this much—a situation in which Sienna herself, or her elder sister Victoria, stepped in and took Allan first. Victoria only thought of Allan as a loyal subject, but the people around her would know what he was worth.

Yes. Breaking the betrothal itself had been comparatively easy.

Then what is it that woman actually wants?

Sienna sank into the question, nuzzling her face against Allan's chest. Just then his hand carefully stroked her hair. They had been embracing too long. He was telling her to let go. She drew slowly out of his arms, pretending she was reluctant to.

Playing out a scene in front of her father the Emperor was amusing, but this was not the moment to lose herself in the performance.

"Your Highness."

"I know, Allan. I shouldn't be doing this."

She did not forget, though, to clutch the hem of his uniform and look up at him with aching eyes. A poignant finish. She even drew his hand to her and guided it until it was stroking her face.

This part, at least, had not been agreed upon beforehand. She had done it on impulse, and the flicker of startled surprise that crossed Allan's face was rather entertaining. But this man was no ordinary person either. The fluster lasted only a moment. Then he was looking at her as if the sight of her hurt him, and he began to soothe her soft cheeks and her chin with a gentle stroke, for all the world as if they had already shared this much intimacy many times over.

Up to there, it was fine. And then—

This… feels better than I thought.

The sensation of being stroked by that large, rough hand, callused all over, was unexpectedly not unpleasant. Why? Why did it feel good? Fortunately, she understood almost at once. That hand of Allan's was no ordinary hand. It was the hand that had made morphine, heroin, and ephedrine. In a sense, a man with greater power to kill than any master on the continent—no, greater than all those masters put together. And that hand was caressing her face at precisely the right strength. A series of touches: tickling beneath her chin as if he were toying with some small, fragile animal, wiping away tears that had never even formed, even stroking her hair. It was nothing. And yet, the whole time he touched her, a strange feeling welled up. It hardly suited the moment. A ticklish sort of feeling, if she had to name it.

Even so, she had too much left to do, and she gave it up at a reasonable point. If this went on, her father might truly explode.

"…I'm sorry for putting you in a difficult position, Allan."

"Not at all. The fault is largely mine, for failing to conduct myself as I should. His Majesty has merely rendered a decision that is entirely proper, and entirely reasonable."

"You keep blaming yourself like that… haah."

Sienna stepped away from Allan. Immediately afterward she shot a resentful glare at her father, Edmund III. She was not truly pouring resentment over him. Sienna's real opponent was not the Emperor. It was a certain fair-faced lady waiting in the Imperial Capital.

"How could you—"

"Father. I'll speak first."

"…Speak."

"I heard that once Sir Allan returns to the capital, you mean to commend his service and even grant him a title. But in light of our relations with Medellin, with whom we have only just concluded an agreement, I wonder whether it might be wiser to delay a little. …Only my opinion, of course."

"That is not what matters right now."

"Then what does?"

Father and daughter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠faced each other for a long moment. Sienna did not so much as entertain the possibility of a refusal. Nor did she intend to ease the questions and the anxiety that must have been filling her father's chest. Better to leave him in confusion than to dress it up as revenge for the way he had deceived his daughter.

"I'll trust that you'll grant it."

At Sienna's announcement, the Emperor's pupils shook violently. A pitiful sight. She did not feel particularly sorry. If she had meant to spare her father's feelings, she would never have stepped forward in the first place.

In the end, the Emperor yielded to the pressure.

Half out of his mind, the Emperor postponed the honors due to Allan. She had succeeded in getting him back. Sienna did not let it show. She went on playing the part of a woman sunk in gloom.

This is no time to be pleased. Not even a little.

Empress Yeonhwa. Now it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was time to go and see her.

Snatching Allan and wrecking the betrothal was, in itself, a simple thing. But once she had realized the Empress was aiming at something else, that alone would not be enough. The woman had dared to try her tricks on the retainer Sienna cherished most. Whatever the Empress wanted, Sienna had no intention of giving her a thing.

Of course, that would be the end of their cozy little game of mother and daughter. She would no longer get to hear the Empress play—the seven-stringed zither, the pipa, the slender flute—music strange enough to be worth listening to. Even so, she felt no regret.

Because she had Allan.

If she could keep that man at her side, a bond with the Empress meant nothing at all to Sienna.