The reason the queen had allowed this audience was probably because she’d realized that, illegitimate son rumor or not, I was a noble who supported the crown prince. Even after learning the most damaging secrets, I still favored him.

So the queen could rest a little easier.

Her greatest enemy was supporting the crown prince.

The crack about Hilda really had been nothing more than a small, petty barb.

The queen had vaguely framed our relationship as a complicated one.

It was a kind of signal that she was extending her hand.

A temporary one, but it meant she wanted us to join forces and resist Radensdorf.

Whether Radensdorf would actually launch a civil war was still up for debate, but the queen viewed Louis and Radensdorf with extreme caution. The concept of family bound by blood didn’t even exist for her. There was only the struggle for power.

Naturally, I didn’t trust a queen who had killed so many people to bury her secrets. Especially not one who had used the Schwarz Wolves to try to eliminate Viktor.

The circumstances pointed unmistakably to her, but there was no evidence, and crucially, the identity of whoever had hired the Wolves had never been exposed. There was nothing to do beyond circulating a sketch.

Even from my current position, going after the queen to drag her down would come with all kinds of complications. Especially since the crown prince would have a hard time accepting it. My guess was that the Grand Duke was most likely to handle this himself.

He couldn’t keep such a dangerous mother by the crown prince’s side forever, after all.

I’d never seen the phrase "strange bedfellows" prove itself so completely.

The crown prince sighed and said,

"Actually, Mother told me to win you over to my side before Louis could turn you to his."

"So the idea of having to pick sides itself didn’t sit well with you."

"I never thought I’d see the day brothers had to keep each other in check. Not me and Louis."

The bitter way he said it suggested he had quietly accepted reality. He couldn’t deny it like a child forever, and that kind of denial wasn’t fit for a king. In that regard, the crown prince was still immature.

The queen was sternly whipping the soft-spoken crown prince into facing reality. But I had the feeling she wasn’t doing it for his sake. She was doing it for her own.

"There’s one thing I’d like to ask."

"Anything, so long as it isn’t a difficult question."

"Lydia is dead. Did you know?"

"..."

Ralph’s grandmother—the woman the Karlstadt palace gatekeeper had once loved.

And the head handmaid Baron Constance had trusted.

Whatever else, I had to know this much.

This was where it had all truly begun.

"Sir Streit, who is Lydia?"

"She was Baron Constance’s former head handmaid."

"And she’s dead?"

"She was brutally tortured and killed by someone."

"Tortured..."

For the baron’s former head handmaid, whose name had come up so often from the Grand Duke himself, to have died like that was deeply strange. I hoped the crown prince would understand the weight of that death.

"I knew of her, but this is the first I’m hearing that a retired head handmaid was tortured to death."

"Truly the first you’re hearing of it? The palace gatekeeper was deeply shaken."

"That explains why he was so sharp with me."

The palace gatekeeper’s behavior had apparently been odd.

The upshot was that the queen hadn’t been the one to kill her. The Scouter was confirming as much. Which left Louis as the suspect—but then why had he tortured Lydia to death?

"Regrettable as it is, it has nothing to do with me. But Louis would be another matter."

The queen’s faint smile said her only thought was to use me.

Right. Of course. But I’d be using her too.

"I am with Hoenir."

After the tense audience, on the way back I felt someone following us. The knights of my order didn’t seem to have noticed, but I stepped briefly off on my own. The presence approached me.

"You’re the attendant I saw in the garden."

"...You remembered my face?"

The Hoenir attendant looked startled.

I’d already identified him with the Scouter.

But I gave him a meaningful smile.

It was polished enough that Hoenir wouldn’t be able to treat me carelessly either. Like the queen, they were only looking to use me too.

"If you head north, my lord, the queen will absolutely make her move."

"And that means opportunity for you?"

"Part of the Grand Duke’s Guard has already moved."

That would be a movement of the Guard not sanctioned by the Grand Duke.

Karsten, the Guard commander, was the queen’s pawn.

After speaking, the Hoenir agent vanished.

His movements were every bit as covert as you’d expect from people who lived in the shadows. After returning home, I began preparing to depart for the north. I had already received the letter, along with an implicit trust that I wouldn’t open it.

Hah. Royal trust was an exhausting thing in more ways than one. The closer you got to power, the higher the danger climbed, but conversely, power also became that much easier to grasp. You had to keep your balance.

"Ralph, I haven’t been able to track down the ones who killed your family yet."

I apologized to Ralph and Stella for the lack of progress. They told me they’d never met a noble who cared this much and that they would wait and trust me. Their words lifted some of the weight from my heart.

I gave the order for everyone to pack.

The Arzt couple, formerly the Stocks, had grown close with Ralph and Stella, the future husband and wife. Bodo was in the middle of it, but he didn’t care in the least whether someone was a former executioner or a falsely accused family murderer.

He himself had been the son of a prostitute they called a Hurensohn. Hmm, somehow I’d ended up gathering talent from the absolute bottom of society.

It was only possible because I was that rare noble without prejudice about class.

I’d handed the Arzt couple over to Bodo to help them adjust. Anton, who recognized them, had stiffened up at first, but while he kept his distance, he was making an effort to avoid any discriminatory behavior.

That was because I was actively protecting and sheltering this couple.

So if anyone in Feuzen tried to ostracize them, they’d be the first to feel the lord’s wrath. That alone would keep most people from treating the couple carelessly.

"My lord, you have a discreet visitor."

A discreet visitor?

Göring cautiously informed me of the visitor, and to my surprise it was the vice commander of the Imperial Knights. After I had bested the Imperial Knights commander and his officers in the tournament, this man had served as acting commander for a time.

He had offered apologies and reparations on behalf of the Imperial Knights, and I had accepted in order to back him. He led the moderate faction within the Imperial Knights, a small group that was favorably disposed toward me.

"It’s been a while. What brings you here?"

"There’s something I felt I had to tell you, my lord, so I risked the visit."

What he told me was that the Imperial Knights commander had aligned himself with Louis. And the commander had clearly set his sights on me. He apparently saw this trip north as his chance.

The Grand Duke’s Guard, and now the Imperial Knights.

The traps seemed to be set everywhere I looked.

But in the end, those traps were going to tighten around their own necks.