A huge turning point came shortly before Deirdre turned four. I’d prepared myself for this for a while, but it happened much earlier than I’d expected.
The root of it all was the spirits. Deirdre’s spirits were bigger than everyone else’s, so I eventually asked if she knew the reason.
“I give them mana.”
Everyone knew that spirits fed on mana. Using magic, exercising, even just going about your daily life expelled mana, and the spirits would feed on that.
“I give it to them like this,” she said as she gathered mana into her palms. “Come and eat, little guys.” When the blue and red balls of light floated down to Deirdre’s palms, the mana slowly disappeared.
“So you weren’t just feeding them with your naturally expelled mana. You were also actively giving it to them.” I copied Deirdre, bringing my palms in front of me to gather my mana and telling my spirit to come eat. The spirit practically dove for the mana and had gobbled it all up in a matter of seconds.
Had it been starving? We’d been together for so long and I’d just let it be... I felt so bad.
My spirit clung to me as if it were begging for more. This was the first time I’d seen my spirit fly around like this.
“It thinks you’ve finally acknowledged its existence now that you’ve given it food.”
As usual, this little girl would suddenly talk like an adult when you least expected. This wasn’t good. It didn’t help that right after this, she pointed out Alan’s sword spirit, which no one else had noticed, and even demonstrated that if you gave spirits mana, you could see them.
There wasn’t much time. The princes’ continued lack of spirits was becoming a huge issue in the imperial court. Considering both the size of her spirits and her understanding of the relationship between mana and spirits, it was only a matter of time before Deirdre started drawing too much attention. Even without all that, her cuteness alone would be enough to make her stand out. So I left a message with Brad saying that Deirdre didn’t need to hide her real intelligence anymore.
Apparently, that was a mistake.
“Deir’s been secretly doing things with her valets way more than us recently,” Alan complained to me.
Deir was so wary of us that even Alan had noticed.
“I told her that she doesn’t have to keep acting like a child, and that appears to have put her on guard.”
“Why? It was so obvious.”
“She likely thought she was doing a good job,” I explained. “That said, what could be the problem with us knowing?”
“You’re quite feared by the staff of the castle, so maybe her valets said something to her?” suggested Alan.
It was true that I’d chased away quite a few people by now. Those who worked here relied on their jobs to live, so they might have ended up viewing me as some selfish child who was trying to act more mature than I really was, carelessly firing anyone I didn’t like. But regardless of the image it gave, I really did not need people who didn’t put in the proper effort when carrying out their duties. The day would come when I would become the margrave. I couldn’t keep people around who might end up holding me back.
“Rex and Brad are both very good at what they do, so I trusted them to understand my intentions.”
“The only thing they’re thinking about is protecting Deir,” Alan pointed out. “You just have to let them know that you’re especially soft on her.”
“Who was it again that was sulking because he couldn’t acquire his spirit, and even went so far as to avoid Deir? And yet you can come up with nonsense like this.”
“I-I wasn’t sulking!”
Alan might have been getting big, almost taller than I was, but he was still a child at heart.
“I would assume that the staff currently view me as cunning, calculating, and ruthless,” I said.
“Isn’t that a pretty bad reputation to have as the successor? Your attitude toward those you like and those you don’t is way too different!”
“And yet the sister I cherish above all others is wary of me.”
“I wonder what reason she could have to be wary of you,” Alan pondered.
“Oh.” Did Deir want to succeed our father? She was so talented she could easily become the next margravine.
“What? Would she really be thinking about something like that?”
“If she was, I’d happily give it to her.” I shrugged.
“You can’t say that like it’s nothing!”
“There’d be plenty of work for me in the imperial palace whether I succeeded to the title or not,” I pointed out. “I could aim for chancellor or maybe even foreign minister.”
“Now hold on! Let’s talk with Deir first. You’re definitely misunderstanding each other.”
“I do think it’s important we sit down for a chat.” I doubted Deir knew just what position she was in right now. She was already the focus of many nobles’ interest all across the empire. “I managed to convince father that Deir just has a good eye and an active imagination, but if she keeps trying to march to the beat of her own drum, there’s going to come a point where I can’t cover for her anymore.”
“You aren’t going to let father know?” Alan asked.
“If he learns how talented Deir is, I think he’ll try to marry her off to one of the princes.”
“Deir would hate that.” And the only ones who knew that were Alan and I. Our parents were so busy that they weren’t able to spend as much time with Deir as we could, so they most likely just viewed her as a mischievous little girl. Most noble girls dreamed of marrying a prince and one day becoming his empress, so they must have been thinking to themselves that Deir was the same. But there was no way that Deir would be able to be herself in a place so rigid with tradition as the imperial palace.
“There’s one more thing I’m curious about.” Alan’s tone suddenly shifted. “There’s tons of stories in the library about a Spirit King bringing a princess to his land for good.”
Oh no. Is that what the Water King wants to do?!
“Let’s go talk with Deir.”
“Yeah.”
Everything was happening at a dizzying rate. If I messed up here, Deir really would start to see me as the enemy.