“All right, that’s enough. I understand your intentions,” I said once he finally ran out of steam, standing to cut the meeting short.
I was busy. No. More precisely, I would be busy: I’d have to tear his ridiculous scheme to shreds and crush, utterly and completely, anyone who tried to take my wife from me.
“You understand?! I knew you would. You’re on my side, after all!” he cried, smiling like a man who’d already won something.
I kept a smile pasted to my face for show while my thoughts remained icily still.
“I have other matters to attend to. Excuse me.”
Turning my back on the still-half-eager prince, I left the room.
“—Hii!”
My guards, waiting outside, flinched and sucked in a breath when they saw my expression. Even though the smile hadn’t slipped from my lips, those who knew me well could read the truth of it instantly.
“Come on, move. We have no business here now.”
Before Ramtak could try to follow, Zeno stepped forward and shut the door as if to bar him from pursuing. I heard the knob rattle uselessly; Zeno had rendered the handle temporarily immovable. With his power, that was a simple trick.
“Prince Cecil, please, do something about that look before you return to Lady Bertia,” Zeno said, his tone tight and his lips drawn as if he were holding back a reaction.
I tilted my head as if to ask what he meant. He let out a long, weary sigh.
“Your face is terrible. Someone unfamiliar with you might mistake it for a smile, but anyone who knows you would see it at a glance. It’s like that old smile you used to wear when no feeling lived inside you. No, worse. It’s the kind of smile that makes you think someone might hum a tune and drown the place in blood.”
Zeno’s voice was grave, every word measured as if he were naming a danger. When I swept my gaze across the corridor, my guards nodded in agreement.
I lifted a hand and ran it over my face. It felt strange; although my mouth was curved, there was a hollow disconnect. My outward expression and whatever roiled inside me were not the same. The sensation crept through me like a chill.
When I was a child, this would have been ordinary. Back then, my face and my feelings rarely matched because feelings hardly ever came at all.
I had learned to fit my expression to the situation—laugh when it was time to laugh, look solemn when it was required. Even if a massacre unfolded before me, I could have smiled without feeling the least jolt. I did not smile because I understood that some moments demanded restraint, not because the feeling existed.
Why, then, did this particular smile feel so wrong now?
Ah. Because something powerful and opposing is thrashing inside me.
Anger.
It was anger so fierce it crowded out everything else. To hide it, I had done the only thing I knew how to do: I’d excised the feeling, pushed it away from my mind until there was nothing for the exterior to echo.
“I’m sorry,” I said, voice low. “It was infuriating. I suppose I suppressed my emotions to keep the anger from surfacing.”
I bowed my head for a moment, placing both hands on my face as if peeling off a mask. The deliberate motion stripped away the smile I’d worn to smother the rage.
Zeno watched me for a long beat, then continued, voice softer now but still steady.
“Your Highness, there are already many in this country who know your real smile.” His voice was earnest, though his expression betrayed both exasperation and a strange delight. “Those who don’t know you might see nothing wrong, but for those of us who do, that smile of yours just now was nothing but wrong. If you walk around with that murderous grin, everyone will think you’re about to do something irreversible.”
He was serious enough in content, but his tiny, muttered “He actually apologized!” halfway through, followed by a self-satisfied grin, completely ruined the solemnity.
Zeno really was impossible sometimes.
“It’s honestly better when you just look angry,” he continued. “A straightforward, angry face is less terrifying than that smile. A person who looks like he could kill while humming is too much, even for us. Please, spare us that.”
It was a harsh assessment, but not an inaccurate one, apparently.
Still, the moment I stripped the false smile away, I felt a quiet relief. The tension that had been locked behind my teeth loosened.
Warmth seeped back into me. The warmth Bertia had given me.
Yes, the gift she placed in me still lives, even now.
“I see,” I murmured. “It seems my face has recovered a little. Still, I shouldn’t go back to my lovely wife looking furious. I’ll stay in my office until I’ve cooled down. In the meantime, quietly call for the guard captain, Miss Cynthia, Milma, and Kulgan. There are a few things I need to discuss with them.”
Behind us, the sound of the door handle had ceased completely. Not even a whisper came from the room where Ramtak remained.
Zeno had likely sealed off sound altogether, ensuring that nothing of our conversation would leak back to the prince. That kind of subtle protection was exactly why I trusted him. Because he was there, I could speak this freely even in enemy territory.
“As you command,” he said softly, bowing before slipping away.
I began to walk, gaze fixed straight ahead, cutting through the quiet corridor like a blade.
Steady but hesitant footsteps followed closely.
“Your Highness,” the captain of my guard ventured at last, his tone a careful mixture of concern and restraint.
I wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible, so I didn’t pause. I fixed my gaze straight ahead and spoke without slowing my stride.
“That so-called ‘thousand-lover’ wasn’t aiming for me at all. He was aiming for my beloved wife.”
The air among the guards snapped tight as a drawn bowstring.
“He had the gall to tell me to hand her over.”
“Hand over the Crown Princess?” the captain breathed, his voice rough as if something had been scraped from his throat. A sharp tension instantly spread through the line behind him. I flicked a glance backward. Every face I could see was carved with anger.
“You refused, of course?” the captain demanded.
“No. For now, I’ll let him swim a while longer.”
“What?!”
The captain’s eyes widened. He started to protest, but my glance cut him off. I let a small, cold smile crease my mouth.
If we’re going to break something, it’s better to break it utterly.
A hush followed, then a stifled swallow. One of the guards behind him muttered, “Prince Ramtak is finished.”
“We’re moving into a public area. Stop this here,” I said, lowering my voice so it didn’t carry beyond us. “What I told you just now and what happened earlier stays between us. No one interferes with my hunt.”
I narrowed my eyes in question. They nodded frantically, faces tense with resolve. I’d put a mark on the matter; men who could boil with anger at the thought of Bertia being targeted would not make careless moves that compromised me.
With that settled, I left for my office without another word.