Her eyes widened in disbelief, then her jaw snapped shut, her teeth audibly grinding under the strain. Rage ignited behind her gaze; it was clear she had eyes only for me, despite the presence of my husband and his most trusted friend.
“Y-You saved me?! How dare you!” she cried out, her voice escalating into hysteria. “I’d rather die than find myself indebted to you!” She clawed at her hair, her movements wild and frenzied. “Of course... You weren’t content with just killing Mother, were you? No, you weren’t done until you robbed me of the chance to see her again.” Her shrill accusations rang out into the quiet room. “You think yourself noble, Carolina?! You think yourself selfless?! Well you’re not! You’re a selfish disgrace—a monster who denied me the death I deserved!”
No one else said a word. It was just Flora, ranting on about her disdain for me and her rage at being denied the release of death. Behind me, the faint sound of skin tightening against skin reached my ears—a fist clenching with the intent to strike.
Despite trying to convince myself that Ed wouldn’t lash out with such minimal provocation, I wasn’t eager to test the limits of his restraint at that moment. I stole a glance back at him. His expression wasn’t one of anger, but rather a chilling void of emotion as he regarded Flora with icy detachment. This was bad. Desperate to calm him, I looked pleadingly at Teodore. To my dismay, he simply observed the scene—in fact, was he nodding in approval ever so slightly? When our eyes met, he conveyed a silent message of tacit endorsement, a dreadful unspoken promise to overlook any imminent violence. My face paled.
This was really, truly alarming. Flora, please stop, I silently implored, but she was oblivious to my desperation, ranting on and on about her “mother’s murderer.” That was the last straw. Ed rose from his chair, his self-control evaporating...!
Bang! The door to the infirmary burst open. My hand shot out reflexively to grab Ed’s arm, my pulse thundering in my ears. He instantly placed his hands on mine, his touch gentle, fingers running through my hair to soothe my frazzled nerves. This gesture of affection accomplished, he resumed his seat with an eerie calm, the anger that had darkened his features dissipating as if it had never existed in the first place.
Oh. Right. I supposed I could have reached out to stop him at any time, couldn’t I? In the heat of the moment, I had completely forgotten how straightforwardly suggestible of a creature he was.
Teodore, meanwhile, shrugged a shoulder in a gesture that seemed to convey a suspicious air of disappointment, then looked past us to the door. “Ah, Duke Sanchez, your hasty arrival has been noted. Please, Your Grace, do take a moment to regain your composure.”
Both Flora and I flinched and slowly turned our heads to regard the door behind us. There he stood, our father, his hair disheveled and his clothes in disarray, as if he had dropped everything to rush to his collapsed daughter’s side, which is clearly what he had done. While I supposed that the urgency of the situation certainly warranted it, to abandon all decorum and barge in like this? Just what could have driven my ever-composed father to such an extreme?
Before my swirling doubts could settle, Father took a moment to catch his breath, then bowed deeply. “Your Highnesses, Prince Edward and Princess Carolina, I implore your forgiveness for my unannounced and rather abrupt intrusion. Hearing my daughter’s agitated voice through the door, I regrettably lost my temper.”
He heard everything? Flora’s uninhibited ranting towards me in its entirety? That would certainly explain his hasty entrance...
My father looked pained beyond belief, and a frown crept over my own features. He was the last person in the world whom I would have wanted to know about everything that had just been revealed. I sneaked a sidelong glance at Flora, who had fallen conspicuously silent. Her gaze was awkwardly fixed on her knees, the suddenness of our father’s entrance evidently snapping her back to her senses. But it was too little, too late. Her true feelings had been laid bare, and there was nothing she could say to take back or ameliorate her words. She sat there quietly, biting her lip, the weight of her exposed hatred hanging heavily in the room.
Father dropped down to one knee and bowed his head low. “My daughter’s conduct cannot be excused. The insolence she displayed towards Her Imperial Highness is...beyond forgiveness. I humbly place myself at your mercy, Your Imperial Highnesses. What is your punishment?”
He deemed the situation so grave that even asking for an apology felt presumptuous, leaping straight to accepting royal retribution. I couldn’t fault his response; it was the proper reaction for a high-ranking dignitary—but not for a father. Some part of me rebelled against the notion that this was his only option. Though I was a foreign princess, I was also his daughter. He could have invoked our family bond, pleaded for leniency as a father, but instead, he adhered strictly to his official role, acting solely as a prime minister, a dignitary of another nation.
I knew this was the type of rigidly principled man he was, never allowing personal matters to encroach upon his public duties. Still, it hurt. It felt as though he didn’t—couldn’t—rely on me to fight my own battles.
“Duke Sanchez, I charge you with the task of guiding your eldest daughter. Ensure she does not repeat these transgressions,” I declared.
This barely qualified as a punishment. It was a thinly veiled reprieve masquerading as a sentence, and my father, the wise statesman that he was, immediately understood, his eyes widening with realization. As the sole target of my sister’s disrespect, and with the witnesses to her tirade confined to my closest confidants in this room, I held the power to dictate a far more lenient consequence than what imperial justice might have otherwise demanded. This was my family; despite their foibles, I did not wish for them to suffer unduly.
Father looked on the verge of speaking, but perhaps realizing that nothing good would come from pursuing the issue further, he quietly bowed his head once more. “Yes, Your Imperial Highness. I am humbled by your graciousness.”
With that, Ed and I rose from our seats. With Flora awake and her guardian present, we no longer had any reason to linger. We prepared to depart, but not before I addressed my sister one last time. “Flora, permit me this final remark,” I said with all the sternness I could muster, locking eyes with her as I tightened my expression. I delivered my subsequent words with all the confidence and dignity befitting a princess of my status. “I am no longer the Sanchez family disgrace. I am now the Saint—and you are not. Remember that well.”
Giving voice to this so brazenly might have made me seem petty, but I held no regrets. I needed to assert that truth. If not for Flora’s sake, then for mine—so I could finally shed that awful epithet that had haunted me for sixteen long years.
Flora quaked with suppressed emotion. After one final, parting glance, that was it. Ed and I led the rest of our party from the room, leaving Father and Flora to themselves. Though I had finally put my sister in her place, I was startled to find no feeling of fulfillment or satisfaction that welled up within me.
“Are you sure that was for the best?” Ed said, peering down at me as we returned the way we had come. “You could’ve had her arrested and tried for lèse-majesté,” he added, suggesting that I had perhaps been too lenient.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I responded firmly. “I can’t imagine a worse punishment for her.”
Ed tilted his head, puzzled. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. In contrast, Teodore and Marisa instantly grasped my meaning, murmuring their understanding from behind us.
“What my sister hates more than anything, Ed, is being beholden to me, her sworn nemesis,” I explained patiently to my husband. “This way, I’ve saved not only her life but also her reputation. I doubt Flora will ever come to terms with this. So yes, that was indeed for the best.”
Ed finally got it, nodding his head in understanding and, thankfully, without judgment. Despite hearing, for perhaps the first time, a decidedly less than noble insight into my feelings, he showed no signs of disapproval.
“I think you’ve been hanging around Teo too long, Lina,” he observed. “Not that I’m complaining. You are lovely, even with a shade of darkness.”
An even darker presence crept up beside us.
“Pardon me, Your Highness? Would you care to explain what you mean by that?” Teodore asked sweetly, his smile ghoulish and his aura even more ominous.
“Um, I was just...” Ed stammered.
Clasping my hands together, I silently sent up a prayer for my graceless husband. Stay strong, Ed.