The Dress War

Noah's report was brief. Apparently the men who had made off with other people's money were quick on their feet as well, because they had bolted before he even arrived.

I didn't need to check the coordinates to know where they'd gone. Haute Forest. If they had hidden themselves in a forest that swallowed half the Belois territory, finding them was bound to be difficult.

Which meant this news amounted to a postponement of his return. Noah had moved at once, and his judgment was sound. Matters like this only become irreversible the longer they are left to fester.

And yet.

I need your advice, Noah.

The problem was that my own situation was hardly any easier. It had been two days today since I went to break things off with Damon and came back with nothing to show for it.

"Where shall I put this dress, Your Grace?"

"Just toss it somewhere."

And Damon really had sent a dress. One so laden with jewels that I doubted I could so much as move in it.

It was far beyond anything Damon's finances could have purchased. No one less than my own father, after all, had already made off with next year's embezzled crown funds as well.

"Handle it carefully. Not a single scratch, mind you."

"Yes, Your Grace."

So that dress had plainly been taken from the imperial vault, and I lived in dread of being made to pay for it if anything went wrong. I truly did. That single gown would easily exceed half a year of the House of Belois's budget, if not the whole year's.

I had no intention of stripping my stores bare the moment I inherited the title, all over a gift I had never asked for. Glaring at the box holding the dress, I added,

"And take extra care with its storage."

"Understood."

Visibly tense, the maid carried the box away and disappeared with it.

There was no chance he'd taken something like that without permission, which meant the Emperor had sanctioned it. It wasn't hard to guess what he'd said to win His Majesty over.

He's found Sasha too, so no doubt he announced it was time to marry. One of the reasons the Emperor looked askance at Damon was his womanizing; if Damon had declared he meant to settle down, the Emperor would surely have welcomed him with open arms.

Knowing Damon's personality, he didn't buy a new dress. He pulled one straight out of the imperial vault.

For a moment I wondered whether Damon knew about the embezzled crown funds. Then it occurred to me that if he did, he would never have stayed silent this long.

He made promises, so he had to send something, and with nothing prepared he must have simply grabbed whatever was on hand. Either way, Damon clearly intended to milk this opportunity for all it was worth. Since Sasha had entered the palace, he hadn't so much as set foot near his courtesans, busying himself instead with polishing his image.

Which meant I had to end things quickly. A day sooner, if I could manage it. Tomorrow's banquet was my last chance. Steadying my resolve, I picked up today's Troubleup.

The front page bore a sketch of a handsome man seen from behind, the sort of face that made anyone assume he lived and died by the sword. The paper's artist drew nothing but satirical caricatures, so I had assumed he lacked the skill for anything finer. Apparently I had been wrong.

The rest of the spread was crammed with interviews from the empire's most celebrated designers. Was there truly nothing in the empire worth wondering about besides what Sasha and I would wear? Or was the empire simply that peaceful?

Either way, one thing was certain.

"It really is beautiful."

Unlike mine, the dress Sasha must have received had been made for her and her alone.

Beneath the interview with the designer who had called it the honor of a lifetime to sell a gown to Rihard sat a drawing of that very dress. One was a perfectly ordinary gown, the kind you could see anywhere, and...

"Where on earth did he find a design like this?"

...the other was a gown of what looked like hundreds of feathers, poised to take flight at the slightest breeze.

Described in words, it would have sounded like far too much; in the drawing, it was simply beautiful. The designer had said it was modeled on the feather-flower, and I found myself nodding along.

Maybe. Maybe you still remembered what we once had, too. Maybe even as you resented and despised me, you had kept some small fragment of it tucked away in a corner of your heart.

I knew it couldn't be true, and still my fingers kept drifting over the drawing, unable to shake the foolish hope that if I touched it long enough, I might feel something soft as down beneath them.

And then, the next day.

Unsurprisingly, Damon stood me up. The urgent dispatch that had flown in at dawn made a mockery of the word urgent.

Summarized, its long-winded pages amounted to this:

"After all that fuss, he's really not coming? Unbelievable."

And so I was carted off in a carriage, wearing a dress so heavy with jewels that merely looking at it made my shoulders ache.

Gritting my teeth, I did my best to find a comfortable position inside the carriage. Even with the palace nearly in sight, the dress remained unbearable, which suggested that sitting comfortably in it had never been possible to begin with.

"They say old habits die hard, and clearly for good reason."

And there went another chance. The plan had been to end things in the carriage with Damon on the ride to the palace. At best, he would have told me not to bother showing up to the banquet at all; at worst, I would have spent a few dances with a sulking Damon stepping on my feet, and that would have been that.

The problem was that you cannot break up with a man who isn't there. Perhaps I should pull him out onto a terrace somewhere and have it out with him. Wherever we did it, he had better not make a scene. I could only pray Damon remembered that the two of us had never truly been lovers.

When and how should I raise it so the parting would go smoothly? While I was wrestling with a dilemma I had never once faced in my life, the carriage jolted to a stop.

Without so much as a knock, the door burst open, and there, exactly as I had expected, stood Damon.

"There you are at last, Bella."

It had to be my imagination that the man who had tossed aside his escort duties over some "urgent business" was scolding me for lateness.

"I arrived precisely on time."

"Do make more of an effort to be prompt from now on. A person of rank, after all, ought to set an example."

Not that he was wrong, but since when was that yours to say? I was too dumbfounded to respond. Then I understood why Damon had said it loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Directly behind him, a short distance away, stood a carriage bearing an unfamiliar seal: three roses in full bloom. The crest of House Winston, only just raised to the ranks of the central nobility as counts.

Everyone around was pretending not to notice while their attention strained toward it, and I could hardly blame them. The man standing with his back to that carriage drew every eye with his silhouette alone. Among nobles who wore swords as ornaments, here was a man hailed as a hero on the strength of his blade alone, and now a noble besides. His very presence set him apart.

Ah. In that instant, Rihard turned, and our eyes met across the air. A flicker of irritation passed through his dark crimson eyes. The old habit was still there, too, the way the corners of his eyes tilted up whenever something displeased him.

What had gotten under his skin this time? I glanced around, and it dawned on me. Me.

Rihard did not appear to be making even the pretense of hiding that he was looking at me. Today was, for all intents and purposes, Sasha's debut into high society. Running into an ex-lover on a day that important was reason enough to be in a foul mood.

Rihard soon whipped his head away and bent toward Sasha. There was nothing awkward in the way he inclined himself for her, mindful of their difference in height.

On cue, the attendants came swarming out with lanterns raised. In the light spilling down the carriage's path, Sasha's excited face glowed. In that moment, everyone present must have thought the same thing: how perfectly those two suited each other.

A hero always needs his princess, after all.

Damon must have felt it too; I heard his teeth grind. In profile, glaring at the pair with naked hostility, he was ugly to behold. Princesses always fall for their heroes, and there is always some petty, narrow-minded villain seething with jealousy over it. The trouble was that, this time, the villain happened to be Damon. However he had read my gaze, he twisted his lips and jerked his chin toward the pair behind us.

"You saw that? The world is full of thieves who appear out of nowhere and try to snatch what's ours, Bella."

"Sasha didn't strike me as the least bit interested in the throne."

"Sasha? Honestly, Bella. There's no need to pretend you're close with Her Highness even when it's just the two of us. You've seen her face exactly once."

I'd wager I'm closer to her than you are.

Without waiting for my answer, Damon seized my hand. I didn't refuse it. Truthfully, I doubted I could stand on my own in that dress. Damon, who had been moving to escort me with practiced ease, frowned.

"What is this? Bella, have you gained weight?"

This bastard.

"...The dress Your Highness sent must be made of very precious materials indeed. It's rather heavy."

"This is the dress's weight?"

Whose weight did he think it was, then? Damon looked me over from head to toe with suspicion.

The dress was beautiful. The moment I stepped down from the carriage, every gaze nearby had swung toward me, if only for a breath. Honestly, if a gown could not manage to be pretty after being bludgeoned with that many jewels, the imperial family would never have bothered keeping it all these years. The problem was that the damn things had been sewn on so densely that I glittered all by myself even at midnight, to say nothing of the weight.

"Did you not try it on even once before sending it over?"

"Why would I try it on? I had a servant do it."

How very admirable of you.

But Damon apparently gave up suspecting me of gaining weight. Even to his eyes, the sheer quantity of jewels on the dress must have been obvious. He clicked his tongue in displeasure and said,

"And you expect to dance in that?"

"The first dance, perhaps."

If he had planned to make me dance number after number in this absurd contraption, he truly had no conscience at all. Damon studied me as though taking my measure, then clicked his tongue again, low.

"Tsk. That won't do."

And you're one to talk?

Every fiber of me wanted to hurl the dress at his feet and tell him to get lost, but I held back. Patience. There were too many eyes here. If I wanted to end things today without sparking any strange rumors, I needed to be careful.

Having barely smothered the impulse surging up in me, I offered a gentle smile.

"Shall I go change into a different dress?"

"No need. Even if you don't dance, you're to wear that dress. No exceptions."

"...Is there a particular reason why?"

"There is. But never mind that. Keep smiling just like that. Perfect."

Damon drew close against my side and swept past Rihard and Sasha with all the triumph he could muster, even favoring them with a smile, the graciousness of a victor toward the vanquished.

To a casual observer he looked the picture of composure, but anyone who knew Damon would have sensed the storm underneath. Then as now, he had no talent whatsoever for managing his expressions.

And right up until the banquet began, Damon never told me why I had to wear that dress, the one that was nothing but heavy.