Now that the Guardian himself had appeared and left him no room to deny it, Ramtak looked to me with pleading eyes. His gaze begged for an explanation, and, ever the considerate sort, I obliged with a pleasant smile.
“True, Tia and the Guardian were seen together,” I said. “But that was only because the Guardian was visiting Tia as Princess Consort Lysonna’s friend.”
Color drained from his face. Without the premise of Bertia being the Saintess, he no longer knew how to steer his grand romance back to shore. And a non-Saintess Bertia divorcing me in the name of true love? Vanishingly unlikely, especially with her plastered to my side and me making no move to pry her off. Even he had to have started realizing our marriage was not exactly crumbling.
Which meant the narrative had snapped into place: a prince of this realm had pined after the crown princess consort of a great power, fabricated a Saintess myth to claim her, and publicly demanded another nation’s heir give up his wife.
A public humiliation and a diplomatic provocation. Excellent work, Ramtak.
“P-Prince Cecil! This isn’t what you said would happen!” he sputtered, still pale, but angry enough to complain. He at least understood the danger now.
“I never said Tia was the Saintess,” I replied mildly.
“That’s… impossible…”
He searched his memories, eyes flicking, then froze as the truth landed. The rest of his color fled. He was paper-white now.
“And while we’re clarifying things,” I added, “you assumed my wife and I were on bad terms. We are not. I value Tia very much. She can be energetic to the point of recklessness, but I find even that endearing. Naturally, a wife’s little whims are nothing but charming to her husband.”
Ramtak stared at me as if seeing something impossible.
“And one more thing…”
I signaled to Zeno, who had been waiting along the wall. He stepped forward and placed in my hand the compiled dossier containing everything we had uncovered about Ramtak’s schemes, with evidence organized and annotated.
“I told you before,” I said pleasantly. “My wife and I wanted to enjoy this rare journey and the celebrations that came with it. You tried to spoil that. So, you’ll accept the consequences, won’t you?”
I smiled as I took the papers from Zeno. At the same time, Kulgan moved with quiet efficiency, delivering identical packets to His Majesty the King and to Crown Prince Aleis.
“Not long ago,” I continued, voice carrying cleanly, “a merchant hoarding weapons and hired thugs was caught. Another was found storing multiple banned poisons. I took an interest and investigated. Both, as it happens, are merchants connected to you.”
“T-That’s wrong! I know nothing of this!”
He flinched under my gaze, the one that said plainly, I warned you once already.
“Oh? Then what do you suppose these ledgers are?” I lifted a set of bound pages. “By the way, when Crown Prince Aleis traced the movements of your funds, they matched these payment entries perfectly.”
These were the transaction records the merchants had hidden as insurance against their royal client betraying them. Although they had been careful, my people were better. We’d found and secured them.
“And,” I added, tilting another sheet toward the light, “with the weapons came a charming note delivered to the thugs: the exact date and time His Highness Aleis would leave the castle and his route afterward, down to the turn. How curious. How could such details have leaked?”
Someone inside the palace. Without question.
Strangest of all, the most detailed itinerary among the intercepted notes, the one that mapped out Aleis’s every step, belonged to the day Ramtak had abruptly forced him out of the castle by dumping his own duties onto him.
That much precision for a plan made at the last minute? Impossible, unless someone inside had deliberately provided the information.
“So,” I said softly, “how do you explain that?”
“I…”
“Ah, don’t bother answering.” My smile didn’t waver as I turned a page. “The merchants have already testified. They said you were the one who ordered them to ambush Crown Prince Aleis.”
A strangled sound escaped him as his jaw clenched and his throat worked in mute fury.
Across the hall, nobles shifted, whispers rising like dry leaves. The evening had turned from celebration to spectacle. Some looked ill, others fascinated, their eyes gleaming with morbid curiosity. A few, I noticed, had gone pale as parchment, names I recognized from the list of co-conspirators we’d compiled.
“Also,” I continued, flipping another sheet, “poisons purchased from those same merchants were found in your private quarters. We’ve already detained a palace cook who says you asked him to slip some into Aleis’s meal. He refused, thankfully, so nothing came of it. But his testimony was quite detailed.”
I spoke casually, turning pages as if reading a grocery list.
Typical small-time villainy, I thought. Petty crimes in abundance. Embezzlement, bribery, and blackmail, with every major plot, including this assassination, botched or abandoned.
Whether that made him lucky or simply pathetic was hard to say.
“W-What is going on, Ramtak?!”
The queen’s trembling voice cut through the murmur. She pushed forward, skirts whispering over the marble, and seized her son’s sleeve. Her composure, so rigid until now, had cracked entirely.
“Tell me this isn’t true! Tell me it’s a lie!” she cried. “You wouldn’t… My son, you couldn’t…”
Ramtak said nothing.
“I won’t enumerate the rest here,” I said lightly. “What we’ve presented already makes it clear he must be judged.”
The dossier contained plans to invade Lysonna’s homeland, Umyuve, and schemes to smuggle their goods through hired merchants. Announcing that in front of Umyuve’s crown prince would only fracture relations. Lysonna had only just married into Seahealby. It would be cruel to make her first act as princess consort the witness of a diplomatic rupture. Those matters would be handled quietly but thoroughly.
“Now then,” I continued, “we were made uncomfortable tonight. But this is also a joyous occasion. Crown Princess Consort Lysonna has been chosen as Saintess. If you address this properly, we’re prepared to overlook the insult.”
I looked to the king.
He covered his eyes with a tired hand and thought for a long heartbeat. When he lowered it, the father was gone. Only the king remained.
“Your forbearance is appreciated,” he said. “From this moment, Ramtak is stripped of his right of succession. Furthermore, given the likelihood of additional crimes, he will be placed under house arrest until the investigation is complete. When his offences are fully established, a sentence will be pronounced. The punishment decided will be communicated to Crown Prince Cecil.”
As the decree rang out, Ramtak sagged where he stood and collapsed to the floor.
“W-Why is this happening? This is wrong… It’s all wrong.”
The queen’s reprimands seemed to reach no part of him. He stared past her with unfocused eyes, muttering as if to himself. The hairs on my neck prickled. Something in his voice had gone thin and warped.
“It’s because Aleis is here that everything’s ruined,” he whispered, bitterness curdling into poison. “He’s always better, always praised. If he weren’t here, everyone would revere me.”
He had not aimed his words at anyone in particular, but they made it plain he had nursed a complex about Crown Prince Aleis for a very long time. That did not justify harming others as he had tried to do, but perhaps he carried his own private misery.
“I’m not at fault. I’m not at fault. Aleis is the one who stole what should have been mine. Lysonna and my ally, Crow… Wrong. Wrong. This can’t be happening…”
At the king’s order, the knights moved to take Prince Ramtak into custody. Though stripped of succession, he was still royalty. They did not bind him. Instead, two knights seized his arms in a firm grip, lifted him to his feet, and urged him to move.
As he straightened, his vacant gaze suddenly focused on me.
“Why?” he rasped. “Why won’t you take my side? Why? Crow!”
He tried to step toward me, babbling nonsense. I met him with a cool stare.
Why would I take your side? In what world would I owe you that? I drew breath to vent the impatience I had swallowed all evening—
Smack!
Bertia slipped past me and slapped his cheek.
She had strength and stamina, but she was not used to hurting people. Even striking with resolve, she held back. The blow could not have hurt much. But the shock of being struck by Bertia left him staring, slack-jawed.
“That’s enough!” she cried. “All this time, you have done nothing but blame others! Can you not see Her Majesty the Queen’s tears? Can you not see the sorrow in His Majesty’s eyes and in Prince Izlarich’s? Even if you fell short of Crown Prince Aleis, none of them would condemn you for that. They would not lament that! They would have supported you!”
For a man who could think only of himself even now, Bertia was truly, deeply angry and grieving. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she caught the front of his coat in both hands and begged him to see, to look around him.
“What they mourn,” she said, voice shaking yet clear, “are not your shortcomings compared to another but the fact that you refused to live honestly and straightforwardly, doing what you could do. You thought only of your gain and never of others’ pain! And every one of those choices was your own! Think hard about how much you have wounded the people who care for you and repent!”
When she had said all she needed to say, Bertia released him, turning away with a sharp huff to show she remained angry.
Ramtak, still stunned by her force, glanced sideways and saw the queen, weeping. His gaze drifted, catching the king’s lined face, Izlarich’s stricken eyes, and finally Aleis. His lips tightened.
Whether Bertia’s heartfelt anger had reached him, I could not say. But after that, he spoke no more words, blaming anyone else.
The knights led him away quietly. And with that, the party came to its close.