“Your Highness!” came a loud voice. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”
The bearded commander and the rest of the troops had caught up to Richard. Some of them were splashed with blood and covered from head to toe with scratches, but their numbers didn’t seem much fewer than before.
“I’m only unhurt because of this brave soldier,” Sara explained. “Is everyone okay?”
“A few people were wounded, so I ordered them to retreat to the hilltop at once. But there were no fatalities on our side, so you can rest easy.”
“Right…”
Sara only just stopped the grimace threatening her mouth by clamping her back molars together.
The commanding officer said there were no fatalities—on their side. He didn’t say whether there were any on the other side…the Saleilles knights.
And judging from how much blood they were covered in…
No! I’ve already decided that I’ll see this through to the end!
After shaking her head, Sara pointed toward the throne room.
“The throne room is over there, and his office is almost directly above it. He might very well be in one of those places, but I also think there’s a possibility he’s trying to make his escape as we speak.”
“Understood. We drove the enemy out from the front entrance, but we have no idea when the next wave will appear. Let’s find the king at once,” said the commanding officer, nodding and then giving his troops instructions.
Sara headed to the throne room with Richard and some Ferrier soldiers. Along the way, she looked down and realized her right hand was stained red.
Because I touched Richard’s fur…
Sara closed the hand into a fist and looked forward.
They were fighting to prevent any further bloodshed—from either kingdom.
They charged into the throne room and then the office in turn, but the only people there were aristocrats who had been left behind or servants trying to escape—the king was nowhere to be found.
These people were clearly not fighters. They took one look at the massive beast covered in blood and fell to the floor, begging, “Forgive me!” or “Please spare me!”
Among them, there were faces Sara recognized… Naturally, she couldn’t get personally involved to help them escape, so she only told them, “Get out of here—quickly,” and then went with the others to check the other rooms one by one.
“Prince, Princess! Look over there!” said the bearded commander.
Sara and the others stopped so abruptly, the momentum nearly pitched them forward.
The commander pointed toward the back gardens of the castle, where a pillar of familiar white smoke shot upward into the air.
“A smoke signal…? The king escaped all the way to the back gardens?!”
“You two go on ahead! We’ll be right behind you!”
Sara parted temporarily with the bearded commander and wrapped both arms around the young soldier who could fly. It was probably improper of her to be clinging to a man other than her husband, but the young man needed both arms free to hold Richard in his beast form, so she didn’t really have a choice.
Richard’s beast form looked quite heavy, but the young man kicked off with the same weightlessness as before, jumping into the air and clearing several of the castle buildings as he headed straight for the back gardens.
Behind the back gardens, there was a small villa where princes and princesses lived when they were very little and where queens would prepare to give birth. Sara had been there several times before with Hermine, and she vaguely remembered one of the chamberlain chaperones telling her, “There are many escape routes in this villa.”
That’s right… It’s the best place to escape in secret…
It would be one thing if King Saleilles were some sort of prisoner on the run, but how could a king abandon his own castle in the middle of battle?
Sara controlled her urge to sigh. They all landed on the second-floor terrace of the villa. Sara adjusted her skirt and walked through the rather dramatically shattered glass door Richard had just pulverized as he crashed inside.
The advance party must have set off the smoke signal after finding out the king’s exact whereabouts, because by the time Sara and the others rushed into the small parlor, the king was already lying on the floor, both hands bound.
All the knights who had presumably been guarding King Saleilles were piled high in a corner of the room. Sara started for a moment, but then felt relieved when a Ferrier soldier whispered, “They’re all alive.”
“Prince. Princess,” said one of the soldiers.
“Great work, everyone,” Sara said, since Richard was in beast form. “Excellent job tracking him down here.”
“The prime minister surrendered very quickly. He tried negotiating for his life by saying he would tell us where the king was planning to escape to, so we arrested him.”
“I see… Right, then.”
The prime minister had served the king for many years, but he must have valued his own life too much in the end.
Sara sighed and walked up to the middle-aged man on the floor.
This is the person who violated the treaty with Ferrier.
This is the person who made me stand in for his daughter.
This is the person who sent an assassin to kill me as Hermine.
And this person was…
“How do you do, Your Majesty?”
Sara had meant to greet him in the most cheerful and ladylike manner she could, but both her voice and her clenched fist trembled like her whole body was spasming.
It was then that the king, who had been lying facedown, seemed to notice for the first time that Sara was right in front of him. Rolling around, he looked up at Sara with wide eyes, and then his face distorted into a disgusted scowl.
“What have you come to do now, you wicked woman?! You sold out your own kingdom!”
“I do not agree. If I am a wicked woman, then what are you? You who violated the peace treaty with Ferrier, sent me to Ferrier in place of Hermine, and then tried to have me killed? A wretched demon?” Sara spat out.
Color drained from the king’s face.
King Saleilles had chosen all of this—going to war, sending Sara as a substitute—but when the truth was presented to him, he was at a loss for words. It was unbelievable that everyone born and raised in Saleilles followed this pathetic old man without any say otherwise…
Just then, there was a rustling noise from the entrance. Sara looked back and saw Richard, who had reverted to his human form and had been putting clothes on during that time, standing there with his arms crossed and his expression grim.
With how quickly Richard had gotten dressed, his shirt was open at the chest and his cloak was roughly thrown on, but he looked much more dignified and worthy of a royal title than the old man groveling at Sara’s feet.
“So you are the king of Saleilles… I’ve heard much about you from Sara.”
“…Prince Richard!” the king cowered.
“Why do you look at me with so much hatred? Edouard told you to send over Princess Hermine, did he not? And yet, you deceived us and sent someone else in her place. We will not forgive you for such an act. Moreover, you refused my final call for a peaceful surrender… So, I think you know what comes next.”
After this, Richard took a paper offered to him by a soldier and flipped it open. It was an official letter written by King Edouard that laid out all the charges against the Saleilles royal family.
“Even setting aside the issue of the peace treaty, you tried to murder my wife. When you learned that the poisoning was unsuccessful, you ordered an attack at King Edouard’s party, making it look as if someone from Ferrier had attempted a premeditated murder against Sara, did you not?”
“Th-That’s n—”
“Stop with the excuses,” said Sara. “It would do you well not to disrespect the mercy of King Edouard and Prince Richard any more than you already have.”
King Saleilles, who had been perfectly meek toward Richard, glared at Sara and snarled at her with such spiteful vigor that spit almost flew from his mouth.
“Sh-Shut up, you wench! I took you in, raised you, and you dare to repay my kindness with such ingratitude?! Who do you think gave you your education and raised you until you were eighteen years—”
“You dare say that to me?” Sara asked, sounding more menacing than she ever had in her life.
The king and everyone around him let out quiet squeaks of fear as Sara marched straight up to him, her boots clapping against the floor with every step.
She wanted to laugh at him.
She wanted to sneer as she told him, “You’re finished.”
But…she couldn’t.
Just as she tried to laugh, the corners of her eyes started to burn and her lips twitched downward.
She wanted to mock him by saying, “Serves you right!” but her entire body started to tremble.
Unable to stop the tears rushing down her face in rivers, Sara clutched desperately at her chest and ripped the words out of her heart.
“The—the person who killed my father and mother…was you!” she screamed.
“Wha—?”
“You—you kept tabs on my appearance since I was a child! Because I was Hermine’s second cousin! Because our facial features looked similar, you thought I could be your daughter’s body double… You hatched up that plan a long time ago, didn’t you?!”
The queen mother had uncovered this truth.
The corsage, the keepsake from Sara’s mother, remembered the carriage accident from six years ago.