Saddle Up, Knightly (1)
"Hahaha!"
Seated in her office, the Second Princess threw her head back and laughed until her throat was bared.
She had just finished reading the regular report sent up from the Special Operations Academy — a tidy account of general status, budget operations, ongoing business, and proposals, all set down in neat, orderly handwriting.
Whatever else one might say about that dark elf principal, her penmanship was genuinely superb.
This particular report, however, contained something a little out of the ordinary: a complete overhaul of the Combat Department's curriculum. Practical exercises that Kirlin had scaled back in her effort to keep her head down were to be expanded dramatically. Everything would be run to field standards, and the conditions to support that shift were already being put in place.
Kirlin had taken the Second Princess's warning not to neglect combat courses as a trap laid to have her dismissed. The Emperor, for his part, had pressed the princess not to fire her. A problem that had sat stagnant for years since the academy's founding had been overturned in a single month by a man named Dian — and the princess could not help but laugh.
She drafted a reply on the spot.
All proposals submitted by the Academy are hereby accepted.
The suggestion regarding the shopping district, in particular, is excellent. Support shall be provided without reservation upon request.
He takes care of things on his own without even needing the principal to order him. Excellent. As expected of Sir Linus's friend.
"You seem to be in high spirits, Your Highness."
The Adjutant, waiting outside, bowed as she left her office.
"Something came up."
"Will you be going straight to His Majesty's office?"
"I will."
The Adjutant fell in behind the Second Princess as she walked the corridor with a document folder tucked under her arm, and chose his next words with care.
"Do you intend, by any chance, to recommend the dismissal of the Special Operations Academy's principal again today?"
"We'll see."
"This would be the fifth time. Rejection is a given — my concern is that His Majesty will fly into a rage."
"His Majesty will have no cause to be angry over that today."
The Adjutant's eyes widened.
"Have you given up on recommending Principal Kirlin's dismissal, then?"
"Not given up. Deferred. For the time being."
A cool smile touched the princess's lips, and the Adjutant asked,
"Does this have something to do with the man who was received alongside Sir Linus the other day?"
"It does. For as long as that man is there, I have decided not to touch Principal Kirlin."
"Your Highness — who is that man, exactly?"
"Wait here. I'll go in alone."
She gave the Adjutant no answer, and stepped into the Emperor's office.
The Emperor and the First Prince, who had been in the middle of a conversation, both looked up at once.
"It is I. Ah — and Elder Brother happens to be here as well."
The Emperor's gaze fell on the folder in her hand, and his voice came out thick with anger.
"If you've come to spout more nonsense about throwing out the academy principal, get out this instant! A man does not speak with two mouths, and an Emperor's promise is worth more than a thousand gold—"
"It is nothing of the kind. This concerns current business of the National Security Office."
The Second Princess lifted the folder with an easy smile, and the First Prince bowed to the Emperor.
"Then I shall take my leave, Your Majesty."
"Elder Brother. What was it you were discussing so closely with His Majesty?"
"It has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Stay out of it."
The First Prince answered coldly, shooting her a sidelong glare as he passed. But the moment his eyes met those of the Second Princess — half her face a map of scars, one eyelid crushed — his shoulders hunched of their own accord.
Perhaps because of that, the First Prince standing beside her looked remarkably slight for a man. Like the Emperor seated before them, he was a gaunt frame with a furtive cast to his features — a far cry from the Second Princess, who was tall and well-built. She looked down at him and offered a one-eyed smile.
"I see. Then I wish you a good day, Elder Brother."
Once the First Prince had closed the door behind him, the Emperor crooked a finger. The Second Princess opened the folder on the desk and began her report.
It was a mid-course briefing on the current business being advanced by the Imperial National Security Office under her charge, and there was nothing particularly remarkable in it. The Emperor received it in silence and answered with a nod, then took up an ornate ink pen and scrawled a grandiose signature.
"You have my thanks. I shall continue to pursue the matter with due substance."
The Emperor turned a displeased look on her, his heavily lined eyes narrowing.
"Mirellis."
"I am listening."
"I have been hearing a great deal about you of late. I am told you have been replacing every key post in the National Security Office and its subordinate organizations with officers from the corps you once commanded."
"I did not particularly sort them by origin. I simply selected the capable, and it so happened they shared a common background. There is no special meaning in it."
The Emperor raised a thin, trembling finger and pointed it at her.
"The nail that sticks out is the one that takes the chisel."
"Your words are most just."
"I acknowledge the merit you earned in the war. That does not mean it is a pardon for everything you do. Remember that. You are not the only one in this palace."
"How could it be otherwise?"
"You will not be forgiven for overstepping in an effort to make up for a birth more lowly than your brothers and sisters."
"I shall bear it in mind. And bear it in mind again."
The Second Princess dipped her head slightly, a smile of abundant ease on her face. That the smile did not sit well with the Emperor went without saying.
"And — I will say this once more, if only out of an old man's caution. Do not touch the principal of the Special Operations Academy. Nemara is the savior of my life, and the principal is that savior's daughter. Do you understand?"
"Of course. Then I shall take my leave."
Mirellis had just turned to go when the Emperor spoke again.
"And that man Dian — how is he getting on?"
"Quietly, and well. He seems quite content in his post."
"When in the world is he coming to the Imperial Palace? I will not rest easy until I have him where my eyes can reach him."
"I believe I explained this last time as well."
The Second Princess answered with a faint smile.
"He left the palace because being treated as a hero sat poorly with him. If Your Majesty were to summon him here, who is to say he would not simply vanish, as he did ten years ago?"
The Emperor's face went ashen.
For the past ten years, the Emperor had not once slept a sound night through. The reason was none other than Dian, the member of the Demon King Assassination Special Task Force who had vanished without warning.
The Emperor had convinced himself that Dian had abandoned everything and disappeared because he harbored a grievance against the Empire — and that he would one day come back to kill him. It was, on its face, a delusion without a shred of sense. But this was an Emperor whose paranoia had already been driven to extremes after dark elves had reached his very bedchamber in an assassination attempt during the Four-Year War.
And so he had hounded the National Security Office and the intelligence bureau to find Dian, and at the same time appointed Linus Commander of the Imperial Guard. The logic was simple: as a member of the task force that had slain the Demon King, Linus was the only person in the world who could stop Dian if he ever broke in. And that much, at least, was true.
Linus, however, was far too capable to remain a mere Guard Commander. After years of effort, the Second Princess had finally succeeded in replacing him — at which point the Emperor had gone so far as to talk of bringing the Nemara dark elf clan, the very people who had once saved his life, into the Imperial Palace. It was the talk of a man unhinged.
Then, by a miracle, Linus had located the missing task force member and brought him back to the Empire.
At first, the Second Princess had intended to tell no one of Dian's existence. She wanted to keep the factions hungry for his record from making a play for him, and to keep the man entirely under her own control. There were those who had crossed paths with him in a limited way during his three years of military service, of course — but the number of people who knew he had been a member of the Demon King Assassination Special Task Force could be counted on one hand.
When the Emperor actually began the process of bringing the Nemara clan into the palace, however, she had reported the matter to him after all, if only to stop that. Dark elves walking the grounds of the Imperial Palace was an absurdity, and it would have met with enormous opposition — but the Emperor already had a precedent, having seated the dark elf Kirlin as principal of the Special Operations Academy. This time, with his own life supposedly at stake, he would have pushed all the harder. Left alone, she would have found herself watching turncoat dark elves strolling through the palace gardens. And that would have reduced years of her planning to nothing.
In reporting that she had secured Dian and brought him to the academy, the Second Princess had added a little seasoning of her own. Dian had gone into seclusion because the attention had been a burden, she said, and they had only been able to bring him in on the condition that his identity remain a secret. If His Majesty hoped the man would not vanish a second time, the first priority was to leave him be and let him live in peace — not to poke at him and set him off.
And so far, the atmosphere had taken shape exactly as the Second Princess wanted it.
"So set your mind at ease, Your Majesty. I will take full responsibility for managing him."
The Second Princess bowed her head to the Emperor, who was smiling and sweating cold at the same time.
When the Second Princess left the Emperor's office, the waiting Adjutant came forward.
"I trust the report went well. I saw the First Prince come out — I hope there was no unpleasantness."
"There was. Not on my side. Elder Brother finds running into me utterly unbearable."
The First Prince and the rest of her siblings disliked the Second Princess, and envied her besides. Here was the child of a concubine, silver hair aside, built and featured nothing like their own wretched selves — a woman who had swept the battlefield with bold resolve and a courage that did not fear death, and piled up glittering merit in the doing. Backed by the Post-War Power Faction of commoner-born officers who had served with her, the Second Princess had, despite no claim to the absolute bloodline, vaulted over the order of succession in a single bound and risen as a power in the Imperial Palace. The remaining heirs could hardly have looked on Mirellis with anything but a sour eye.
"His Majesty was raising his voice, though. Did something else happen?"
"A trifle. Pay it no mind."
"I cannot help but worry. His Majesty's caprice and suspicion toward Your Highness grow worse by the day."
The Adjutant lowered his voice.
"His trust in that unpleasant Nemara dark elf clan, as well… It may be that His Majesty, too, has suffered something similar to what Your Highness's lady mother—"
"One raises a suspicion only when one can bear the cost of it."
"Ah — forgive me…"
The Second Princess smiled at the flustered Adjutant and asked,
"The Corps Ground Special Forces completion ceremony is today, is it not?"
"It is. Once Your Highness has prepared, we will proceed by carriage. You will dine with the Special Forces commander, and this evening you will preside over a meeting of Inspectorate department heads."
"Understood. While I am getting ready, deliver an order to the commander of Unit 5439. Effective today, surveillance on the First Prince's residence is to be strengthened."
"To the commander of Unit 5439: strengthen surveillance on the First Prince's residence. Confirmed."
The Adjutant received the order and vanished down the corridor like a shadow.
Left alone, the Second Princess turned her steps not toward her own office but elsewhere, turning the Adjutant's words over in her mind.
It was not a groundless remark. Between the unrelenting delusions and the decision to trust a pack of dark elves over the palace's own ministers, the Emperor had been growing stranger and stranger since the war. Some among the ministers suspected that the aged Emperor, under four years of strain and the shock of the assassination attempt, had slipped into madness or dementia — and he had scarcely slept properly in ten years besides. Of course, no one with a death wish had said as much out loud. But that the Emperor's present condition was not normal was, in any case, beyond dispute.
Turning such thoughts over as she walked, the Second Princess arrived at her destination before she knew it.
It was the Secluded Spire, tucked away in a neglected corner of the Imperial Palace. A spiral stair wound up and up, and at the top lay a small bedchamber. In the light of the sunset pouring through the window, a beautiful woman of wasted features sat on the bed with a doll clutched in her arms, staring out at the sky.
"Mother."
At Mirellis's call, the woman flinched and looked around.
"Don't come near me!"
The woman saw the great scar across the Second Princess's face and the crushed eyelid, and clutched the doll tighter as she screamed.
"I will never give Mirellis up!"
"I have not come to take Mirellis. I only wished to see that you were well—"
The woman snatched a water glass from the side table and hurled it. Mirellis caught it in front of her face, but the water still spilled, soaking her hair through.
"Get out! Get out this instant! No! Not this child — never!"
Mirellis looked into her mother's eyes, bright with madness, and smiled a sad little smile.
"Then… I shall come to see you again. Please take care of your health."
She bowed, and was on her way out of the Secluded Spire when she stopped.
"Look after my mother well."
Only after pressing a few gold coins into the hand of the servant charged with the tower's care did Mirellis turn toward her own office.
Mirellis's mother had drunk, in her daughter's place, a cup of poison prepared by a certain faction that had feared Mirellis growing any stronger — and it had driven her mad. Even now, years later, she had not recovered. She still believed the doll was her daughter, and had not set a single foot outside the Secluded Spire.
And Mirellis knew exactly who that certain faction was.
You would do well to look forward to it. One day I will bring every last one of you to ruin, and I will sit the throne myself.
And for that, she would need to keep the man named Dian under her and put him to good use. By now he had likely taken the measure of the board in his own rough way, and was turning it over busily in his head. She had seen him last time — the man had nerve, and he did not talk like anyone ordinary.
The Imperial Palace was a vast nest of vipers, a place where snakes hid their fangs and watched for the chance to tear one another apart. To survive in such a place as the mad child of a concubine, the Second Princess meant to use Dian as her own most potent fang.
Meanwhile, at the Special Operations Academy, in the detached faculty house where Dian was staying—
"What the hell, Olicia? Didn't we say we were having gambas today?"
"I was too busy to buy the ingredients. This is tasty too, so just eat it!"
"I was looking forward to dipping bread in the gambas oil… What a shame."
"Don't tell me you pick at your food like this even when you're dining with important people?"
"What am I, a kid?"
"Your palate sure is."
"Hey now!"
"Whatever you do, don't act like this outside."
Olicia held up a finger.
"You really shouldn't do anything they can find fault with. All those high-and-mighty people keep poison in their teeth, you know. If you want to climb any higher than this…"
"I don't care, you little brat. Let them bite or not. And I'm not climbing any higher. Anyway — tomorrow it's gambas. Got it?!"
"Ugh, honestly…"
Contrary to the Second Princess's expectation that he would be busy with political calculations, Dian was bickering with his young maid Olicia because she had not made the dish he had been craving.