Chương 99: 40-1.Mental Torture

"Answer me, Cedric." My sister looked at me, her tone level in a way that bordered on cruelty.

"Do you actually understand why she did it?" I opened my mouth, but nothing came out immediately. Not because I didn't know. Because I knew too much at once, and couldn't decide which piece to say first. My sister didn't press. She simply waited. The longer she didn't push, the more sweat gathered at my temples. She'd always been like this. When she was genuinely angry, at least there was noise. When she went quiet—that was when it became lethal. I drew a breath and spoke quietly.

"... First. Gratitude." Her eyelids didn't even flicker. I kept going.

"Back at the mountain monastery, I was the one who got her out. Everything that happened after—Angel City, the pursuit, the humiliation, the near-deaths—she went through almost all of it with us." My throat felt dry.

"She's not the type to say thank you just because she should. If she genuinely wanted to express it, she'd find another way." My sister finally made a quiet sound. Not approval. More like: that wasn't completely stupid. I held onto that sliver and continued.

"Second... it was a cut." Saying that word felt like something pressing against my chest.

"She knows there's no future in it." I lowered my eyes to the table's wood grain.

"She's a princess. I'm the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Acros, currently living under your roof, dragging the Angel City mess behind me, with hands nowhere near clean enough to touch the palace threshold. The moment she goes back, every step she takes stops being her choice." My sister said nothing this time. But I knew she was listening.

"So she used that kiss to settle what needed settling and sever what needed severing." I swallowed.

"Not to leave me something to hold onto. To make sure there was nothing left to hold onto." When I finished that sentence, I went quiet. Because the clearer I made it, the more obvious it became how precise that kiss had been. If she'd left a word, or a look, or even tears—I could have twisted the meaning somewhere else. But she hadn't. She'd walked back, kissed me, and walked away. Clean enough that she hadn't even left me a retreat. My sister tapped her fan lightly against the table.

"The third?" I looked up. She looked back. The message in her eyes was clear: you'd better not tell me you only found two layers. I closed my eyes briefly.

"Third... is that it's going to be very difficult to see each other again." She finally leaned back in her chair. I knew what that meant. I'd finally reached what she was actually asking for.

"Continue." I had no choice but to keep dismantling it.

"If she'd simply left quietly today, then whatever happened to her in the palace afterward—whoever watched her, whoever she was pushed toward, whichever side she had to stand on—it would all gradually become just news to me." My voice dropped.

"But she deliberately chose the method that was least possible to pretend hadn't happened."

"Therefore?" my sister prompted.

"Therefore, she wasn't asking me to remember her. She was making sure everyone remembered—that between her and me, this happened." My throat tightened.

"Even if we can barely meet afterward, even if we do and can't say anything true, at least today's moment—no one can erase it." When I finished, the room was quiet enough that I could hear my own breathing. My palms were soaked. My sister watched me for a long moment before speaking.

"At least you're not thinking entirely with your lower half." I nearly choked.

"... Could you possibly phrase that differently?"

"No." Her expression didn't change.

"Because I needed to confirm that my brother isn't the kind of idiot who gets kissed by a princess once and throws his entire brain into the fireplace." I scrubbed my hand across my face.

"Do I look like that kind of person?" My sister considered me. Two beats of silence. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Yes."

"..." Right. My beloved sister. I'd survived this long without her blade ever missing its mark. She wasn't finished.

"The three points you gave me are correct," she said, folding the fan into her palm, her voice cooling several degrees.

"But that's only why Erina did it. Not what it means now." My brow twitched. Here it comes. She was about to take that kiss out of my head and translate it into what the capital would read. And exactly as expected, her next sentence pressed directly against my throat.

"To you, that kiss might be gratitude, severance, a mark that no one can forget." She held my gaze, each word deliberate.

"But to everyone else, it was the princess, in front of the Commander of the Tideguards, in front of House Blackwell, House Eisenberg, and House Eberhart, choosing to kiss you. Willingly. Publicly." I said nothing. Because I'd already been forced to think this through moments ago. But understanding something yourself and having someone strip it apart for you word by word—those aren't the same experience.

"Do you understand what that means?" she asked.

"It means I'm going to become very inconvenient to certain people."

"Wrong." Her voice was flat.

"Not certain people. Everyone with a functioning brain." The cold moved down my spine. She didn't pause.

"The palace will wonder what kind of person the princess spent her time with, who influenced her, and what threads she's pulled back into herself." She tapped the fan against the table.

"House Eberhart will remember that the son of the Marquis of Acros was publicly marked by the princess right under their noses. House Eisenberg, thinking further ahead, will start calculating whether this was simply a young woman's impulse, or the kind of old scar that could be leveraged later. And the truly dangerous ones—" She paused.

"They'll simply decide you've suddenly become worth watching more closely." My temples started throbbing again. The hangover hadn't been this bad.

"So what am I supposed to do?" I couldn't stop myself.

"Go kneel at the palace gates and tell everyone it was just a farewell lapse in judgment, please disregard?"

"If you try that, I'll break your legs myself," my sister said coldly.

"Then why are you asking me?"

"To see how much of your brain is still functional." She looked at me.

"What to do—I'll tell you that." I shut up. Because when she said it that way, negotiation wasn't on the table.

"First: no explanations from your mouth. To anyone. No matter who asks." She said.

"There is no explanation." I frowned.

"Doesn't that just let everyone speculate freely?"

"That's exactly what we need them to do." She held my gaze.

"The more urgently you try to distance yourself, the guiltier you look. But if you say nothing—if you simply carry yourself as though the princess was momentarily improper at her departure and I would not presume to comment—no one can move quickly to draw conclusions." That was her method exactly. Not erasure. Suspension. Let it hang until everyone's speculation collapses under its own weight.

"Second," she continued, "in the short term, you do not initiate contact with anyone connected to the palace. Not to ask after the princess. Not even to pass by accidentally."

"What do you think I am?" I said.

"A drunk chasing someone down the street?" My sister's mouth curved slightly.

"I think you're a man who was just kissed and hasn't fully recovered yet." The vein at my temple nearly surfaced. The pathetic part was that I couldn't argue. With my head in this state, if she actually let me loose, there was no guarantee I wouldn't do something catastrophically stupid in a moment of foggy judgment.

"Third," her voice quieted further, "clean up your own mind as well." That one landed harder than the first two. I stared at her.

"What does clean up mean?" She stared back.

"It means you'd better sort out what needs sorting while you still can." I was about to push back, but her next sentence pinned me to the chair.

"Erina made that cut herself," my sister said.

"If you chase after that blade, that isn't devotion. That's getting her killed." I stopped talking. That went straight between the bones. She hadn't kissed me publicly to invite pursuit, not to ask for a response. The opposite—she'd used the most irreversible method available to settle everything at once. The gratitude, the acknowledgment, the severance. If I held on anyway, I'd turn her gesture into exactly the kind of handle other people could use against her. I looked away, throat suddenly dry.

My sister wasn't going to let me escape that easily.

"One more thing," she said. Something sank in my chest.

"... How many pieces are you planning to take me apart into today?"

"Depends how stupid you turn out to be." She said it without warmth.

"Why do you think I sent Alvira out earlier?" My fingers went rigid. She saw it. Of course she saw it. There probably wasn't a single person in that hall who had escaped her notice. I pressed my jaw together.

"What are you trying to say?" She looked at me, and her voice was, impossibly, even more level than before.

"What I'm saying is that the princess has already created enough complications. If you also manage to tangle up another line—one that was already unclear and is now considerably more so—on the same day, I will personally find the sturdiest piece of timber available and nail you to it for three days to think." My eye twitched.

"I haven't done anything."

"Then make sure it stays that way." She said.

"At least until you've sorted out your own head—don't touch anyone else's feelings, and don't let anyone else try to interpret yours for you." When that sentence landed, I started sweating in earnest. Not because of the threat. Because she had just turned over the most tangled part of my mind and laid it out flat, skin and bone together. Erina's kiss was like a blade. Alvira's expression had been like a thorn. One was a cut she made herself.

The other had gotten under my skin before I'd even understood what was happening. And my sister sat across from me like a very practiced surgeon—the kind who specialized in opening up exactly the places you least wanted touched, and didn't allow you to play dead. I let out a long breath, feeling something close to exhaustion move through me.

"So what exactly do you want from me?" She relented, slightly. Not warmth—just a shift from interrogation to instruction.

"Today, you don't chase any answers," she said.

"With the princess—you know what that moment was. That's enough. With Alvira—if you've understood what you saw, then the correct response is to act like you haven't. As for the palace, House Eberhart, and whatever follows from this—leave that to me." She paused.

"The only thing you need to do right now is keep your mouth shut, stay in this house, and put your mind back somewhere it can function." I sat with that for a moment, then said quietly:"... That doesn't sound anything like a way out."

"It was never meant to be comfortable," she said.

"It was meant to keep you alive." I had nothing left to say. Because she was right. And what I hated most about today was that she was always right. She watched me for a moment, apparently confirming that something had actually gone in. Then she tucked the fan back into her sleeve and delivered the final line.

"All right. Get out of my sight. And don't let me see you do anything stupid today." I sat there without moving. Not because I didn't want to leave. Because I felt like someone who had just been pulled out of a well—bones still hollow, legs not entirely reliable. My sister looked at me, one brow lifting slightly.

"Do you need someone to carry you back to your room?"

"... No." I stood slowly. My legs were, in fact, slightly unsteady. She saw it, and didn't add anything. Just said, very quietly:"Remember, Cedric." I stopped.

"Don't turn her farewell into your own disgrace." I didn't look back. Because I knew that if I did, she would pull me back into that chair and start the whole thing over. I raised one hand to show I'd heard, and walked out. The moment the door opened, the corridor air came in. And I realized, only then, that my back was completely soaked through. My sister was right. That hadn't been a conversation. That had been a trial.