Rehearsal for the Emperor

I counted off the days on my fingers. It was already mid-August, so if we married right after the social season ended, that would make for a perfectly average engagement period.

"Hold on, wait. You're serious?"

"Yes. Let's see. We'll set the wedding for early winter, stipulate fidelity to each other during the engagement, skip the engagement banquet..."

"Wa-wait a moment. Ah, put that down and look at me!"

I looked up from the list of terms I'd been scribbling out, meeting Noah's urgent stare.

"You're actually going to get engaged?"

Hey. Your face is screaming are you out of your mind? Fix your expression. I outrank you, remember? Hm?

"No matter how long the courtship, the formalities have to be observed. If I say we can't marry without a proper engagement period, he'll have to accept it."

"That's not what I'm talking about! An engagement is nothing like some childish fling you can walk away from. There's no calling this off cleanly!"

"I know."

Even a Duke of Belois couldn't reverse an engagement to the imperial family on a whim. It would stain the crown's name. And humiliating Damon—the man widely expected to be the next Emperor? I understood exactly what Noah was worried about. Damon wouldn't forget this even after he took the throne. He'd be obsessed with finding any pretext to drag House Belois down.

But this engagement was necessary precisely to prevent that. There was no retreating anyway. A clean, amicable split was already off the table. Which meant I needed a usable card in my hand too.

"If Damon had help embezzling the Crown Funds, then whoever assisted him would keep their own ledger, wouldn't they?"

I smiled as I watched dismay spread across Noah's face.

"Well, yes, but... No, wait a moment. Your Grace, are you telling me you intend to get your hands on it?"

"Yes. If I don't want Damon dragging me around by the nose, I need that much leverage. With it, I can also find out where my father spent the embezzled funds."

"You don't even know if this ledger exists!"

"Ours did."

At that, Noah nodded with a look of dawning realization. In arrangements like these, ledgers were typically shared. They'd have split them like a double-edged sword—each holding a copy to keep the other in check.

"How do you plan to extract something when you don't even know where it is?"

"Well. That's what I'll have to figure out from here."

I shrugged at Noah's haggard expression. I could guess what he was thinking, but the situation wasn't quite that hopeless.

It was true I had nothing in hand at the moment. As long as Damon believed things were going his way, he wouldn't challenge House Belois's denial. He'd want to swallow us as intact as possible—he wouldn't do anything to diminish our value. Which meant that with enough time and the right opening, I could turn the tables whenever I pleased.

"I'll just have to make good use of the opportunity he's handing me."

Noah's face crumpled at my words.

"Does this ever end?"

I laughed at his pessimism.

"Don't worry. The day you and Astar start dating will come."

Noah glared at me, then shook his head. He clearly thought I was spouting whatever came to mind in a state of resigned despair.

"Whether it's romance or anything else, you'd have to actually look for it before you could do anything about it."

"So you were planning to look?"

"?"

"And here I thought you were deliberately not trying."

"You doubted my devotion?"

Hm. I shrugged. Honestly, it was fifty-fifty. Half the odds that Astar was simply too well hidden to find, half the odds that Noah was half-hearting the search.

"Love over family, after all?" If it were the latter, he'd have been sitting on his hands waiting to score points with Astar over this opportunity. Apparently not. Honestly, you never do have any luck with these things.

Noah, reading the words I'd swallowed, clicked his tongue.

"If you have time to meddle in other people's love lives, go visit the palace."

"?"

"As you said, the social season is about to begin. We still don't know how monsters ended up appearing in Haute Forest. If the Hunting Festival proceeds as scheduled, we're in trouble."

I frowned.

"Ah. No wonder something felt forgotten."

"?"

"I went to the palace before, intending to propose replacing the Hunting Festival with something else, but I came back without even raising the subject."

"Why?"

"I couldn't get an audience with Damon."

Noah nodded with a look that said of course.

"This time you'll have to barge in if you must."

"Right. We can't host a Hunting Festival where monsters pop out instead of deer. It would be quite a spectacle, though."

"Don't say such things even as a joke. In the worst case, the Crown might step in to take over management of the entire Haute Forest."

"We can't let that happen."

Haute Forest was one of the Belois territory's primary sources of income. Not because the forest itself was remarkable, but because there was a mine underneath it.

"We'll need to settle this before the debutante ball. Can you believe there are only days left until this year's social season?"

"Which is why you need to hurry."

I swallowed a sigh.

"It's a relief the title transfer was so recent."

"It gives us a solid pretext. Asking someone to host an event of that scale right after inheriting their title."

"Exactly. The timeline is far too tight for someone who just received their title to organize something as large as the Hunting Festival."

We traded lines like actors in a rehearsed play—as if practicing before we'd have to recite every reason the Hunting Festival couldn't proceed this year, standing in front of the Emperor.

"Just go and recite it exactly as written."

I nodded. It had happened before. When some issue arose in Haute Forest, or when the social season overlapped with a title succession, the year's social season was often replaced with a different event out of consideration for the territory's circumstances. After all, it was merely entertainment—as long as the young men had some occasion to show off their prowess, the specifics hardly mattered.

I came up with several alternatives without much difficulty. A boat race would do nicely. Having settled on a plan, I rolled up the paper where I'd written out the engagement terms and rose from my seat. Noah waved me off like a send-off.

"Don't forget to request an audience with His Majesty first. Don't go see Damon beforehand, get worked up, and forget all about the Hunting Festival."

That man clearly thought of me as a child.

"Think about how you're going to secure the boats."

"You're replacing it with a boat race?"

"It's the safest option. The Lom River is close by, and the weather's perfect for water activities."

"Easy for you to say, Your Grace—you're not the one who might end up in the water. Ah, you do hate getting wet."

Were you planning to participate? When I stared at him in disbelief, Noah cleared his throat awkwardly.

"While you're at it, put Damon in his place a little."

"With my fist?"

"That works too."

I smiled back at Noah's cheeky grin. Because I couldn't afford to cry again.

At that moment, Rihard had been summoned to the imperial palace.

"How is he?"

"He regained consciousness in the early hours of dawn. He is lucid enough to converse."

Rihard caught what the Imperial Chamberlain had left unsaid—the word barely.

It didn't matter. He nodded at the thought. But before he could step into the bedchamber, the door burst open.

"Sasha?"

The name left Rihard's mouth on reflex, and he corrected himself at once.

"I didn't realize Her Highness the Princess was here."

His gaze was fixed on the Imperial Chamberlain. But before the man could offer a word of excuse for the obvious lapse, Sasha came bounding toward Rihard with a bright smile.

"Richt! His Majesty really is remarkable. He said you'd be here when I came out."

"Did he."

"Yes. Listen—His Majesty has finally accepted me completely. I showed him the proof and he was convinced. If I'd known it would be this easy, I should have shown him ages ago."

"What proof did you show him?"

"Oh."

Sasha started to answer, then caught the Imperial Chamberlain's expression and shut her mouth with a pout. The answer came from behind Rihard instead.

"It concerns a secret of the imperial family, Count."

"Right. That's why. His Majesty said I must never tell anyone."

Rihard looked between the two of them, then let it go. He had no particular interest in imperial secrets worth digging for. Leaving Sasha behind, he strode into the bedchamber.

The smell of death rising thick from the curtained bed greeted him.