Deltrack Empire (2): Unfair
Unfair.
“There’s no one here.” No one stood at her side. Ever since she had entered the imperial palace, she had been completely cut off from the world.
She realized just how badly the situation had turned against her the moment she learned that ugly rumors were spreading about her and her sister. She had found it strange that Prince Loras was rushing back to the Deltrack Empire, but she had not thought it worth guarding against. I assumed he was returning to clean up the mess after failing the subjugation.
Yet Prince Loras had returned to the palace and gone far beyond cleaning up any mess—he was committing outright fraud. The back of her head tingled; she was utterly stunned. She never imagined it was possible to disguise failure as success so perfectly.
It must be possible. That bastard has a powerful backer, after all.
Something neither she nor her sister possessed. A mother. In the lonely life of the imperial palace, the difference between having a reliable ally and having none was as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.
Her sister had filled that role for her, but thanks to Prince Loras’s schemes, the situation had reversed. Now she was the one who had to protect her sister.
When they had first emerged from the labyrinth, she had dared to hope that she could finally crush that bastard’s arrogance. Yet…
With several witnesses, how could he commit such an outrageous act?
She investigated Prince Loras’s deeds more thoroughly and discovered that he had artfully woven lies and truth together to create an entire novel of deception.
If he purchased every item on that list with his own funds, there would surely be traces left behind.
A successful labyrinth subjugation should have produced corresponding spoils. He must have secretly bought a great many artifacts to fabricate his victory.
If only I had my own people, I could have ordered them to look into it…
Isolated within the palace, such a thing was impossible.
That son of a bitch. To think he would use such a method to keep me trapped here.
Prince Loras was boldly boasting of his achievements to anyone who would listen, claiming he had succeeded in the labyrinth subjugation. To inflate his own merits, he had launched an attack on her sister Canaby, who had vanished from sight.
Vicious, baseless rumors about Princess Canaby now swirled wildly through the palace. There were even filthy tales claiming she had abandoned her station after falling for a slave and running away with him. It was undoubtedly that bastard’s handiwork.
And she herself had not been spared.
Covering the sky with the palm of his hand! What a cowardly, despicable wretch…
She did not know how he had manipulated His Majesty. She could only guess that it had been offered as payment for the supposed success of the subjugation.
My marriage, of all things… when my sister has not even married yet!
She had naturally refused. In response, His Majesty had ordered that she not leave the palace, lest she attempt to flee.
I should have pretended to accept. I was far too emotional.
The memory of Prince Loras watching her outburst and sneering made rage surge through her like fire. He had probably anticipated her resistance. And His Majesty had seized the chance to confine her.
“This is infuriating!”
She hurled the book on her desk to the floor. This was no time to be reading such nonsense, yet she had no way to reach the outside world.
If she remained passive like this, she might truly end up married off, unable to enter the labyrinth, and waste what little precious time her sister had left.
That must never happen.
Somehow she had to persuade His Majesty to cancel the marriage arrangement, expose Prince Loras’s false victory, and shatter the undeserved fame he had built.
I cannot act directly…
If only someone willing to help would fall from the sky. The only candidates were her childhood friends, but she shook her head and pushed them from her mind.
I cannot burden them.
Simply entering the labyrinth with her at her request had already placed a heavy load on their shoulders. Prince Loras would never leave them in peace.
Hadn’t her friends—who had once burned with anger and sworn to testify to his failure—suddenly stopped visiting the palace?
Surely he isn’t harming them?
They were not the sort to betray her over mere external pressure. The lack of contact most likely meant their families had forbidden them from meeting her.
How powerless I am. My hands and feet are completely bound.
This was the imperial palace where she had been born and lived her entire life. Only now, left utterly alone, did she feel for the first time how cold and lonely it truly was.
She realized how luxuriously she had lived beneath her sister’s protection.
“So this is what my sister endured all by herself.”
She had believed she could fill the void her sister had left. Having owed her so much, she had thought it was finally her turn to repay the debt.
Yet the moment she was truly left on her own, all her determination turned to dust. She missed her sister with an ache that bordered on desperation.
The most lethal problem… is probably those girls.
The court ladies who attended her at close range. They had served her for a long time, yet she had begun to notice suspicious behavior whenever her back was turned—as though something had changed while she was away.
What could it have been?
Money? Power? Her sister’s absence had undoubtedly influenced their decision. It was clear she could not hold them with her own strength alone.
I wish they would stop while I am still pretending not to notice.
Even if she purged her surroundings now, the new faces that replaced them would hardly be clean. They would almost certainly be Prince Loras’s spies, which was why she had left them untouched.
It is so stifling.
The frustration of being unable to send even a simple message made her chest feel tight, as if something were lodged inside her throat.
“Your Highness.”
“…?”
She had been about to retire after yet another meaningless day. As usual, she had lain down to sleep when a court lady knocked very cautiously on the door.
The sound was so faint she missed it at first. Only after sensing the presence did she rise and open the door.
“What is it?”
It was unusual for a court lady to appear at this hour, so she kept one hand inside her robe. Though it was a familiar face, she could not let down her guard. She never knew when or where betrayal might strike.
“The senior maids were not around, so I wanted to deliver this to you personally.”
“…Deliver what?”
“This.”
The court lady produced a letter from her bosom and held it out.
“Someone asked me to deliver it without fail. They said they had come at the request of Priest Arthur.”
“!!”
The moment she heard the name Priest Arthur, every suspicion toward the court lady evaporated. She took the letter at once.
“And? Was there any other message?”
“Um… they asked me to tell you they would be waiting. Since there is no way to enter the palace, they are waiting outside. If you have any words for them, please tell me.”
“You would deliver the message?”
“Yes!”
“…Instead, I need you to help me with something else.”
“Something else?”
She could not be certain this girl was truly on her side. But the fact that she had brought the letter at all suggested she was not working for Prince Loras.
“You will have to act as me for a while.”
Tonight, she would leave the imperial palace.
After instructing the court lady to lie in her bed and pretend to sleep, she donned the girl’s uniform and slipped out of the palace. Thanks to the knights who did not restrict the movement of court ladies, the escape was surprisingly simple. They barely glanced at the face of the woman leaving.
Was it always this easy?
With a little cooperation, she could come and go freely—yet she had spent days suffocating behind locked doors. The realization was almost comical.
She hurried toward the lodging of the woman who had delivered Priest Arthur’s letter. If that woman had truly been sent by him, there was a high chance she would help.
At the very least, she should not be under Prince Loras’s influence.
Once outside the palace walls, her heart felt lighter. She would no longer be toyed with by that bastard. Proceeding with a marriage when the person in question was absent was absurd; the arrangement would surely collapse.
Is this the place?
She knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately.
“You’ve co… Who are you?”
“I had my court lady run the errand. How impertinent. Making a court lady act as a messenger without even asking her master’s permission.”
She had been utterly dumbfounded when she read the letter’s contents. The court lady had admitted she was being paid to deliver it, yet the sender—apparently unwilling to trust her completely—had not included an actual letter written by Priest Arthur.
“The contents were ridiculous. I was told it was a letter from Priest Arthur, yet it was clearly written by someone else.”
“If you are the master… could you possibly be Her Highness the Princess?”
She had kept her robe’s hood pulled low to avoid attention. When she lowered it and revealed her face, the woman still did not seem to recognize her at first.
“Yes. I am Princess Reciel.”
The woman dropped to her knees at once.
“I beg your pardon! There was no safe way to contact you, so I made discreet inquiries and asked that person for help. If I caused offense, I am truly sorry. As for the letter, I could not fully trust the intermediary, so that was the best method available to me.”
Indeed, even if the woman had come at Priest Arthur’s request, arranging a meeting would have been nearly impossible. She must have been quite flustered. The fact that she had refused to give up and had found a way to summon her here was, in truth, worthy of praise.
“Thanks to that letter I was able to come out here, so I will overlook your arbitrary use of my court lady.”
“Thank you.”
“What matters now is Priest Arthur’s letter. Do you have it with you?”
She had never expected Priest Arthur to send someone all the way to her with a message. The one person she had least anticipated had offered her hope. Joy, relief, and embarrassment tangled together inside her. At the same time, she felt uncomfortable about burdening him once again.
“Yes, I have it. I will bring it right away.”
What could he have written? She could not tell whether he had sent the letter because he knew of her situation or simply because her silence had seemed strange.
She had escaped the palace for now, but the real problems were only beginning. The most urgent task was to hide from the soldiers who would soon come searching for her.