Chương 103: 41-2.Imperial Pursuivant

Olivia did.

"From today, everything Cedric does will be measured against what happened in that hall yesterday." Her voice was steady.

"If he appears dazed, the palace will think less of him. If he distances himself too forcefully, people will read guilt into it. If he acts as though it meant nothing, others will suspect he's calculating something." She paused before adding the final line.

"Which means the most dangerous thing he can do right now isn't to act wrongly—it's to act like he's trying too carefully not to." I was quiet. Because she was entirely right. My sister gave a small nod of apparent satisfaction.

"So starting today, he stays in the house." I looked up.

"Again?"

"Did you think," she said, looking at me, "that I said that yesterday for your entertainment?" I opened my mouth. Closed it. Fine. Stay in. Don't run around. Don't think chaotically—that last one was probably impossible, but at least don't make it visible. Alvira set her cup down and spoke, unexpectedly.

"And the princess?" Several people at the table looked at her. She seemed not to notice, and added with the same flat tone:"If the palace is going to react, she won't have an easier time of it than we do." Something stirred in my chest. It sounded like pure strategic assessment. But the fact that she'd said it now, at this moment, made it difficult not to read something else into it. My sister didn't dissect the question. She simply replied:"She's back in the palace. She has her own battle to fight.

That's not something we can take on for her right now." That was clear. It was also a blade. Alvira didn't follow up. She simply picked up her fork again, as though the question had been entirely offhand. But I knew—and I wasn't the only one—that it hadn't been. Olivia knew too. Her gaze rested on Alvira's face for a fraction of a second, then withdrew. Too brief.

But it had the quality of two people who weren't going to move first, already having reached across the breakfast table to feel the handle of each other's knife. I began to seriously question whether this meal had been designed for eating, or for a slow, civilized bloodletting. In the end, my sister brought the morning to its close. She set down her napkin with the composure of someone speaking on behalf of the entire table.

"All right. Finish eating and attend to your respective tasks." She looked at me.

"You stay." My vision dimmed slightly. Jessi immediately looked at me with profound sympathy—at least half of which was undisguised delight. Lucas wiped his hands with the unhurried dignity of a man who knew nothing about anything. Alvira stood without looking at me. Olivia did look. Her glance was brief, but it carried a clear message: Don't be stupid. My silent response: Do you think I want this? And at the table, though Erina was long gone, the moment she'd left behind showed no signs of releasing anyone.

Once the room cleared, the dining hall went quiet. Not the quiet of peace. The quiet of a stage being reset. When the last door closed behind the last person, I had the distinct impression that what little warmth had remained—the kind that could still pretend to be an ordinary morning—had been ushered out along with everyone else. Leaving only me, my sister, and the half-finished breakfast that neither of us had any intention of returning to. Victoria folded her napkin with unhurried precision and set it aside.

I watched that gesture and felt my stomach tighten preemptively. This wasn't the posture of someone preparing to scold. This was the posture of someone preparing to open something up and examine what was inside.

"Sit properly," she said. I was already sitting. But at those words, I straightened my back anyway. My sister looked at me—apparently finding my survival instincts marginally acceptable—and spoke.

"What you feel about that kiss in your own heart is your business," she said.

"What I need you to think about today is what the capital will make of it." I didn't respond. I knew this was only the opening. Sure enough, the next sentence came straight in.

"First layer: the palace." She raised one finger.

"To the people inside those walls, Erina wasn't expressing gratitude, wasn't saying goodbye, and wasn't repaying the debt of someone who protected her on the road. She was a princess who, after several days outside the palace, kissed someone she shouldn't have—in front of the Commander of the Tideguards." My brow twitched. Someone she shouldn't have. Those words had a particular quality to them. She wasn't finished.

"The palace will read it two ways," she said.

"The conservative faction will treat it as a lapse in decorum—the influence of improper company during her time away. The more calculating faction will ask whether she was, during her absence, selecting a thread she had no business picking up." My throat was slightly dry.

"Do I look that much like a thread?"

"It's no longer a question of what you look like," my sister said, without expression.

"She kissed you. That's what you are now." I stopped talking. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Because she was right. Some things don't exist until someone performs them in front of witnesses. The moment they do, what didn't exist gets a shape drawn around it by everyone who watched. My sister raised a second finger.

"Second layer: the military and the throne's circle." She said.

"Gaelus saw it firsthand." My temple throbbed immediately. More than the unnamed speculation inside the palace, I found I had even less desire to think about Gaelus Eberhart's expression from yesterday.

"The Tideguards stand within seven paces of the King not only because of loyalty, but because they are the first to identify currents that shouldn't exist," my sister said.

"To Gaelus, you are no longer simply the son of the Marquis of Acros. You are the person the princess chose to mark before her departure—at the cost of her own composure."

"He probably has more important things to concern himself with," I said.

"He may not be concerned right now," my sister replied, looking at me.

"But he will not forget." That was the one that actually landed. Because I knew she was right about this. A man like Gaelus didn't react in the moment. He filed things away for future reference. Not to act on immediately—to compare against, later, when the context had developed. I was beginning to understand why my sister had looked at me last night the way you look at a piece of iron that someone has just thrown into a fire. Because from that moment, I had genuinely started being entered into people's accounts.

She raised a third finger.

"Third layer: the capital's noble circles." I exhaled first this time.

"I can probably guess half of this one."

"Then guess," she said, raising her chin slightly. Fine. Here we go again.

"Part of them will treat it as a young princess being briefly improper—the residual effect of time away from court and too much wine." I said slowly.

"Another part will start wondering whether there was something between the princess and me that's only now becoming visible. The more cynical ones will start connecting it to my father's remaining networks, the Acros borderland position, and the Blackwell family name." My sister, unusually, didn't cut in immediately. She simply added:"And marriage alliances." I looked up. Her expression was calm.

"Don't assume the people of this capital are only interested in gossip," she said.

"What actually has value is who can be married, who can be matched, who belongs beside whom, and who might be repositioned as a new piece on the board. To certain people, what Erina did yesterday was the equivalent of personally moving you from a marquis's son of marginal relevance to someone worth reassessing." The discomfort in my stomach deepened considerably. You think people are watching your heart flutter and your face turn red. Turns out they're actually reading your price tag.

My elder sister looked straight at me and said, each word deliberate and precise:"And the fourth layer is the most troublesome of all."

"There's a fourth layer?"

"There is." She paused.

"Me." I froze. She remained perfectly calm.

"You are currently living under the Blackwell roof," she said, "and yesterday's little spectacle unfolded in my drawing room. Which means that from today onward, this isn't simply a matter between you and the princess. It's also a matter of whether I've properly managed my own brother—and whether I've allowed winds that had no business being in this house to come blowing through." She let that settle for a moment. When her gaze finally dropped, it carried real weight.

"In other words," she said, "if you handle this like an idiot, it won't be your face you're throwing in the mud. It will be mine." I sat bolt upright. That line hit harder than everything she'd said before it. Because how the palace viewed me—right now that was beyond my reach. How Gales would file me away in his memory—I couldn't stop that either. How the nobles in the capital calculated my worth—there was no way I alone could wall that off. But the Blackwell family's reputation?

That was something the woman sitting in front of me would absolutely pick up and bring down on my skull. I drew a slow breath and said quietly, "I understand."

"You had better truly understand," Victoria said coldly.

"Because what comes next isn't a confession. It's a choice." Here we go. I'd survived one round of interrogation yesterday. Of course there was a second act today. My sister watched me, her tone as level as someone reading from legal statute.

"Let's start with Erina," she said.

"Going forward—what do you intend to do about her?" I fell silent for a moment. If she'd asked me this last night, I probably would have just felt annoyed. But having it laid out like this, with nowhere left to retreat—there was nowhere to run.

"Don't chase. Don't ask. Don't reach out first," I said slowly.

"If word comes from the palace, I won't go digging. If we meet, she's still the princess, same as always. That kiss yesterday—" I stopped. My sister raised an eyebrow.

"What, can't get that part out?"

"No." I kept my voice low.

"It's just—that moment was always meant to be a clean cut. If I go pushing forward anyway, I'm the one who becomes the joke." She finally gave a single nod. Very slight.

"On this count," she said, "you've just barely avoided being completely brain-dead." I twisted the corner of my mouth.

"I'm honored by your glowing assessment." She ignored me and moved straight on.

"Next. Olivia." That one actually stopped me cold. With Erina, I at least had don't chase, don't ask as a shield—four words I could hold up between myself and the problem. But Olivia was infinitely more complicated. Because she wasn't the one who had walked away. She was still in this house. Still sitting at the breakfast table. Still capable of sliding the jam across to me with perfect composure while casually scrambling my brain with a single sentence.

My sister watched me with the expression of someone thoroughly enjoying the sight of me being stuck.

"What's wrong? Run out of words?"

"You can't lump these two together," I frowned.

"Do you think the royal capital will separate them for you?" One sentence. Another door, slammed shut. I pressed my fingers to my temple and finally just said it honestly.

"…I won't use her to patch the hole the princess left behind." Something flickered in her eyes. I knew she was waiting for the rest.

"And I won't pretend I didn't see what I saw and keep treating her like a convenient tool I put away when I'm done," I said.

"If she's still willing to stand on my side—then I treat her as one of my own. Not a placeholder. Not a mood test." The words came out, and even I felt how bare they were. Not because they were false. Exactly the opposite—because they were too real. Victoria studied me for a long moment, as though verifying that what I'd just said wasn't a string of decent-sounding words I'd stitched together under pressure. Then, slowly, she said:"Not terrible." I said nothing.

Because when she said "not terrible," that was probably already the highest score available today. But she wasn't done with me yet.

"Remember this," she said quietly.

"Olivia is not your escape hatch. If the only reason you're reaching back toward her is because the princess's cut still stings—I will break your hands for her first." I let out a thin laugh.

"Are you my sister today, or hers?"

"I'm the person who can see exactly how scrambled your head is right now," she said.

"Which is precisely why I'm sealing off the roads before you can take them." …Fair enough. She moved to the third item finally.

"House Blackwell." My spine went slightly rigid. She gave me no room to breathe. The question came directly:"Going forward—whose side are you on?" It sounded like a pointless question. But I knew she wasn't asking about blood. She was asking: from this moment forward, are you willing to stay quietly within the lines I draw—not drag more chaos into my house, not pull the Blackwell name into the wreckage of your momentary confusion? I met her eyes and answered slowly:"Yours." No expression. I had to make it clearer.

"I won't go wandering. I won't pass messages I shouldn't. I won't use yesterday's incident as leverage for anything," I said.

"If someone outside tries to probe me about this, I look to you first. If you want me to play dumb, I play dumb. If you want me to bite back, I bite back." She let out a quiet, flat sound—not quite approval, not quite dismissal.

"Now that was worth something." I lowered my head and exhaled. Then she twisted the knife anyway.

"Unfortunately, worth something doesn't mean you'll actually manage it." I looked up at her. She looked back, expression perfectly still.

"So I'll ask one last time," she said.

"Cedric—what is the stupidest thing you want to do right now?" I didn't answer immediately. Because that question was deadlier than anything she'd asked before. Not because it was cruel. Because it was accurate. What was the stupidest thing I wanted to do right now? Rush to Erina and ask if that kiss really was nothing more than gratitude? Hunt down Alvira and demand to know whether that look this morning meant what I thought it meant?

Take that sentence Olivia had left standing in the doorway last night and dissect it until I had a proper explanation? I stayed silent too long. My sister answered for me.

"Excellent. Apparently there's more than one." I smiled without any warmth.

"Could you at least pretend to have a shred of sympathy for me?"

"No," she said without hesitation.

"Because sympathy is the last thing you need right now." She rose from her seat, crossed to where I was sitting, and looked down at me. The pressure wasn't crushing. But it was steady. Steady like a wall.

"What you need," she said, "is to remember three things. First—Erina's kiss was not a promise. It was a farewell. Second—Olivia is not a fallback. She is a choice. Third—House Blackwell is not a rubbish heap for cleaning up after your emotional disasters. It is the only ground you still have left to stand on." She paused. Then she tapped my shoulder once, lightly, with the spine of her fan.

"Burn those three into your skull. Then go back out and face the world." I looked up at her and, after a long moment, said quietly:"…I understand."

"Not understand," she corrected coldly.

"Do." She turned and walked toward the window, and even her retreating silhouette read unmistakably: that concludes today's proceedings—try something this stupid again, and I will dismantle you personally. I sat where I was and suddenly felt like someone who had just crawled out alive from a duel that drew no blood whatsoever. My head still ached. My chest was still a mess. But at least the lines were there now—drawn out, one by one, by her hand.

What remained was simply whether I would be foolish enough to step over them. My sister stood with her back to me and dropped one last line into the air.

"Go back." I stood, walked to the door—and couldn't stop myself. I turned around and asked:"What about you?" She didn't turn.

"What?"

"If it had been you," I said.

"If yesterday's kiss had happened to you—how would you have handled it?" A brief silence. Then, without turning her head:"I would have made them stop before they ever got close enough." I stood there for two full seconds. Then I conceded to the obvious truth. Right. Of course. There probably weren't many people in this world who could touch her before she decided to allow it. I walked out the door, and strangely, something in my chest had settled—just slightly. The discomfort was still there.

The chaos was still there. But at least now I knew which directions I wasn't allowed to let that chaos spill.