I should’ve executed my plan last night when I first thought of it instead of waiting…! It turns out acting while hyped up on late-night brainstorming was the correct choice! Is that even a thing?
No, no, no, pull yourself together, Octavia—
“And to where was he relocated?”
Holding his polite bow, the guard shook his head. “We were not informed of the location.”
“Then do you know the reason for his sudden relocation?”
“No, my lady… The others who were arrested yesterday are still in their cells.”
I’m getting a lot of headshaking from this guy. Hmmm… Aha!
“You said my father gave the order, yes?”
I definitely remembered him saying so before I repeated my question.
“Yes, Princess!”
This time, I got a yes.
So, to recap.
According to this guard, my father—the king of Esfia—gave an order in the middle of the night. He had decided to relocate Hugh from this dungeon. Only Hugh.
But why my father? Like, really? And why in the middle of the night? That’s totally a weird thing to do.
Something stinks. I smell a fishy scheme afoot!
What reeked most of all was the relocation. Why was it done? And why was the location a mystery?
If I could just get a clue… My kingdom for a clue! Did Hugh leave anything behind in his cell? Like, a secret message?
But once the thought struck me, I swatted it away.
Based on how Hugh was acting yesterday, he was in no place mentally or emotionally to leave behind a desperate cry for help…!
My first step needed to be locating Hugh—
“—Don’t move.”
As I schemed to myself, nodding and mumbling behind Blackfeather, I was interrupted by Klifford’s deep voice.
I looked up.
And there I saw the guard I was just talking to, with an unsheathed longsword pointed at his neck by Klifforrrrrrd?!
Meanwhile, the brunette guard with the sword to his neck was frozen stiff, his hand resting over his chest.
Klifford would never put someone in check without reason…and judging by the way he stopped short of fully attacking the man—and from the position of the guard—this looks like Klifford saw the guard about to take something out of his pocket, thought it was sus, and stopped him?
Then the way to resolve the mystery was simple.
“You—empty your pockets.”
There happened to be a table at the dungeon entrance where visitors were given a pat down. Anything that could be used as a weapon was confiscated and kept there…or so I’d heard. But since royalty and their bodyguards weren’t checked as a rule, that was a clear flaw in the system.
Take me, for example. When I visited Klifford in the dungeon before, Sirius had warned me about Blackfeather…but only because he’s my brother. As a rule, guards never frisked royalty.
The brunette guard moved quickly.
“This is everything, my lady…!”
His breast pocket—was it a custom mod?—seemed to hold an awful lot of stuff. He just kept piling things on the table.
I scanned the loot. First, there was a small dagger…probably his spare weapon.
When the dagger appeared, Klifford raised his sword. As he did so, the wreven feather tassel danced at the hilt. My eyes wandered to the tassel for a bit…before returning to the table. I looked down at the guard’s spare dagger again. It was a modest weapon with a wooden handle. It was a practical piece.
Yup. This is definitely what set Klifford off.
It was probably okay for this guard to have a spare weapon—after all, I’m sure the other two guards had them—and though he had no need to draw his dagger on me, the princess, Klifford’s alarms had gone off.
Next to the dagger were…several hard candies wrapped in cloth, likely for a snack. Even eba, the Esfian confectionary beloved by all, was among the mix.
…It appears our friend here has a sweet tooth!
Was this what he was trying to take out? Like, to share with me? Not gonna lie, I’d kind of love that. I want to accept his kind gift! But even if that was his intention, I could not accept the gift so easily lest it be poisoned—oh, how cruel the world is!
And the last thing on the table was a piece of paper, folded in a square. The yellow color indicated that it was the kind of paper soldiers at the castle used for giving and receiving messages.
“I was about to give Her Highness this letter, Sir Knight!”
The guard solemnly held the folded letter in two hands and held it out to me.
“I tucked it next to my dagger so I wouldn’t lose it—I swear, it was not my intention to turn my weapon on you, my lady…!”
I’m innocent! I was trying to pull out a letter! A letter, not a dagger!…is what the guard’s wild, bloodshot eyes were saying.
“I understand… Please calm down.”
“Yes, Princess!” Still holding the letter, the guard snapped to attention.
But still…
A letter to me…? Is it maybe—from Hugh?
But would a guard really take a letter from a relocated prisoner? If it were from Hugh before his imprisonment, I could understand.
But then…who?
I gave the letter presented to me a critical looking over.
“…!”
And I immediately understood.
I reached out and took the letter. There were letters written on the surface of the yellow paper, folded in a square.
Japanese letters.
“オクタヴィアへ,” it said.
The addressee was written in Japanese. It was my name—Octavia.
Japanese was a secret language in this world known only by me. Or so I had thought…but only yesterday, I discovered somebody else could read it. And going off the specs, if he could read it, it wouldn’t be unreasonable that he could write it as well.
This applied to only one person…