The Imperial Prince and the Grand Duchess
Peculiar. Back when I was still the Hero Tati, I was fairly sure I'd met one of the Empire's princes — though it hadn't been the Second Prince, had it? Leo Roswell. The name stirred nothing. So the prince I remembered must have been someone else entirely.
"Lost your memory, just as I heard? Strange. I wouldn't have thought you the sort of woman to lose her wits over the shock of a broken engagement with me."
"I was attacked by bandits. When I came to, the memories were gone. That's all."
"Hm. Strange."
Strange? And what, exactly, had this man been to me?
"Strange how? Don't tell me Your Highness has some connection to those bandits."
"What are you saying?! Do you have any idea how worried His Highness has been for you, my lady?!"
These days the retainers raised more of a fuss than their masters. Looking closer, I saw it was a man this time, filling the same post Laura held beside me, huffing and bristling. Surprisingly, I thought nothing much of it. If anything, I wondered what he had to react so hard about. Was there something buried under this broken engagement?
Even if there was, that belonged to the Tatiana from before. Not to me.
Still, the nerve. Unlike the Hero, Tatiana had one of the greatest houses on the continent at her back. Not even the imperial family — rulers of the capital and little else — could afford to handle her lightly.
"Funny. All I asked was whether he was involved. Why the fit? And from a mere hanger-on, no less."
The man choked, struck speechless.
"Tatiana. That's enough. The boy's only young."
"There's barely any age between us. Young this, young that — what does it matter?"
If anything, the lackey looked the older of the two.
"Above all, drawing a blade in an etiquette class is hardly proper conduct for a young lady."
"We may be one of the Four Grand Dukes, but among the nobles in this room, how many houses truly count House Clyde as nobility?"
A handful, if that. Everyone looked at the North and saw nothing but muscle-bound barbarians, and the rest of the aristocracy, as far as I knew, was happy to lump them in with actual savages.
"And you mean to live down to a rumor like that?"
"In the North, action has always come before words. The nobles call us barbaric and worse, but there are times when strength against strength beats whining."
"Even so, drawing steel in sacred Felione will not do!"
There he went again, the moment anyone gave him an opening.
"It's been some time now since the Hero Tati surrendered the Holy Sword. The new Hero, Carn, has stepped forward, and out in the Erosion Zones the kingdom's armies and the Empire's alike are fighting the Night. On the frontiers, people too poor to flee inland live in terror of being swallowed by it."
I circled Leo and his party, sneering as I went.
"What is it you're trying to say?"
"The nobles sit planted here in comfort — proper words, pretty words, long live the aristocracy — and I'm supposed to think that sounds right?"
People were probably dying out there even now.
"You've grown considerably rougher since I last saw you."
"Since I woke, I haven't even recognized my own family. You ought to consider me a different person from the Tati you knew, Your Highness. So keep your followers in hand. If one of them loses his head to my sword, it would be awkward for us both."
I brushed the dust from Leo's shoulder. An open gamble, aimed straight at royalty.
Pitiful creatures. Nobles were nothing but trouble; if even their hangers-on scrambled to cling to whoever had power, how much worse for an imperial prince? And when the ones clinging were half-wits, the trouble only multiplied.
"Insignia or not, you seem to be abusing your authority. Push too far and you'll only earn the other nobles' resentment."
"Terribly sorry, but I haven't the slightest intention of losing to nobles who do nothing but bluster and flap their mouths."
Felione liked to call itself an institution for the elite, yet precious few of its graduates had ever left a name in history. That told you everything you needed to know.
"So this is your true face, now that the memories are gone."
Leo nodded, settling something to his own satisfaction.
What a nuisance. If only I had Tatiana's memories. At this rate I really would have to learn it all slowly, as someone who had forgotten every last piece.
"I don't yet know what sort of fool would dare lay a hand on the guardian of the North. But I mean to start looking."
I narrowed my eyes and swept them across the students of the etiquette class.
"You believe someone was behind the bandit attack?"
Not necessarily. Looking around that Felione classroom, I found myself leaning toward the notion that there was no mastermind at all. It was only a hypothesis, of course. Someone might well have staged the whole bandit affair to get at Tatiana. Which was precisely why I had no reason to take my time.
If a jilted young lady didn't want to look like a joke, she needed to plant her flag at Felione in one stroke, and for that, force was the tool. And if there truly was no one behind the bandits? Then I would make one. That would give Tatiana all the pretext she needed to run wild through Felione.
"Yes. That's what I think. I'll find out exactly who it was."
"And once you have?"
I drew a thumb across my throat.
"Deal with them, obviously. If you're going to touch someone, touch someone you can afford to touch. Do they even know whose throat they put their hands on? And besides — the engagement is broken. Are we really the sort of people who ought to be having this conversation?"
We could simply go our separate ways.
"That's... no. But if this threatens Felione's safety, I'll have no choice but to step in."
Felione, was it. Heard a certain way, it sounded like he meant to protect Felione and nothing else. The gravity on his face belonged to a man who had staked everything on the academy.
So that was it. The bastard really was gunning for the throne. All of this was about scoring points with the nobles. The sense of it came at once. They were gathered right here; he wanted me up on the stage so he could look like the greater man and skim a little favor while he was at it. I'd been dragged into kingdom politics a few times running alongside that bastard Carn. I knew at least that much.
As I understood it, the Four Grand Dukes swallowed more than half the realm between them. Did he truly covet an emperor's seat whose lands were smaller than a vassal's? Well, the legitimacy was flawless. Of course he wanted the chair. And now that he'd broken with Clyde, he might be angling for a faction set against the house. The fact that he insisted on waging this war of nerves right in front of me fit that aim perfectly.
"I imagine the soldiers holding the Erosion Zones at the border would be thrilled to hear that."
Someone snorted.
I'd said it hoping the professional socialites might get a grip on themselves, but I couldn't tell whether the laugh was for the Second Prince and his follower or for me.
"What I mean is that even that has its limits. Declaring out of nowhere that you'll hunt down a mastermind — who would dare touch the Grand Duchess of the North?"
"That'll sort itself out. More to the point, haven't you somewhere to be?"
He'd do better to remove himself before he embarrassed himself any further in front of me.
"Fine. Think of it as nothing more than advice from a former betrothed."
When I gave him nothing in return, the prince turned his back and led his followers off.
So the Second Prince meant to leave me alone after this? Or perhaps he had already seen straight through me.
"You're really going to look for them?"
"I have to. Even if there isn't anyone, I still have to find someone. That's how a jilted young lady gets her face back. We'll bury the whole mess under it."
And if a noble or two went down along the way, so much the better.
"I suppose that's true."
If I wanted even a little distance from this title of jilted lady, this was the only card I had. Take one scapegoat as the bandits' backer, and make a show of Clyde's power.
"E-excuse me. You there — Lady Clyde?"
"Who's that?"
"Ah, my lady. That gentleman is Professor Andre Chou. He teaches Etiquette and Culture."
Andre Chou? The name alone had no business near a combat faculty. He was an older man in spectacles — exactly the sort who belonged in a nobles' culture class.
"Ah. Yes, Professor."
"Th-this is an etiquette class. For a noble young lady to behave in such a..."
Andre Chou was pouring sweat as he spoke. Was it the sword in my hand that unsettled him? There was something almost pitiful in the way he jabbed a finger toward it and worked his mouth.
Right. An etiquette class was an etiquette class.
"Professor."
"Y-yes?"
"I'll be blunt. This is nothing but social hour anyway. Why not just let it go?"
That single sentence froze the room.
Young lords and young ladies alike stared at me with the strangest expressions. Even the ones who had been baring their teeth looked dumbfounded. Every face asked the same thing. And you, of all people, are saying that?
"Why are they looking at me like that?"
"Because, my lady, you were the one who always said a noble must act like a noble, and who held etiquette in such high regard."
At Laura's words, several of the nobles nodded as if they agreed — though Viola kept any of them from saying so out loud.
Hm. So that was how it was. Then I had exactly one thing to say.
"People have always minded their etiquette best with a sword in front of them."
Forget the Tatiana you've known.
Meanwhile, Leo, having withdrawn to the Felione library, found he could not avoid talking the matter through with his followers.
Of all times for Tatiana to change like that.
"You don't think Lady Clyde suspects us of being behind the bandits?"
"She might."
That look from earlier suggested as much. No — if anything, he felt he had provoked her for nothing. A few words, and she had glared at him with a viciousness that promised to swallow him whole. She might well name him the one behind the bandits. From her side of it, that might even be the better play. He was not yet the man who would inherit the throne, and if she pressed the claim that the one she'd broken with had tried to have her killed, there was no more convenient culprit alive than a former betrothed.
"Then what are we supposed to do? Us, behind the bandits? Weren't we the ones who only heard of it after the fact, from the Northern Grand Duke himself?"
"So we were. Even so, Tatiana will try to seize on anyone at all."
Losing her memory had made her terribly shrewd, and cold with it. Set against the girl he had been engaged to, he suspected he was about to get his nose bloodied. She had even thrown back in his face the very words he'd used to coax a little support from the nobles. Well, he had earned that. A prince of the military, and he had ended up sounding like a man who meant to protect Felione alone. The Tatiana of now would not let it pass.
"Then... what if there truly is no one behind it?"
"There might not be. Mad bandits who never recognized who they were charging, and simply fell on her. Or truly insane nobles who saw a northern young lady made a laughingstock by a broken engagement and decided to take their shot."
Either was possible. Either way, Tatiana would clearly sink some noble — or him — as the hand behind the bandits.
"So Lady Clyde means to catch whoever was behind them."
"She could just as easily pin it on someone else. Either way, I'm ideally suited for her to aim at."
"A false charge? What are you saying?"
He could not afford to forget what she was. Heir to the Northern Grand Duke, with the insignia in her hand. For a while yet, that would not change.
"Don't forget. She's a grand duchess. And the Northern Grand Duke shows no sign of casting Tatiana aside — that's why he gave her the insignia. With it, she can overstep her authority."
Better if she had been discarded, the way other young ladies were. House von Clyde had never been the same stock as ordinary nobility to begin with. From what he had heard separately, before coming to Felione she had ridden out at the front and personally cut down the magic beasts invading von Clyde land — proof, in effect, that she was of use to the house. Northern Grand Duke Evan von Clyde would never cast aside someone like that.
"As if we weren't already set for nothing but trouble over Prince Carn of the kingdom. Honestly."
One of the nobles groaned.
The former Hero Tati's surrender of the Holy Sword. The new Hero, Carn. And the chaos across the continent that had begun in the space between them. Tati's absence had proved larger than anyone expected.
"They say he doesn't measure up to the Hero Tati?"
"The gap in skill is severe, from what I hear. Rumor has it he's driven back every time he takes the front."
The new Hero, Carn, had gone to the front to fight the monster hosts the Abyss drove before it, and the best he managed was to hold the line. For humanity, merely holding was never good news. Setting aside even the matter of slaying the Demon King, if the Hero who followed Carn proved no better under conditions like these, the borders of human power might well begin to shrink. The Hero they had now was, frankly, no great blessing to either the kingdom or the Empire.
"And the former Hero, Tati?"