Chapter 8
“It is not permissible.”
Nishita drew the line bluntly.
“A woman without a bracelet sending a message to a man goes against palace etiquette.”
She continued, her words sounding like advice, or perhaps a warning.
“A woman of the palace need only bloom beautifully and exude her fragrance in all seasons.”
“……”
“If His Highness Kal Lago has business with you, he will seek you out himself. Until then, you should remain quiet, as if present yet not present.”
Remain quiet and demure, as if present yet not present?
She had already waited a week; she could not do that.
This was no longer a situation for hesitation or retreat.
To retreat meant starting over from that point, and to hesitate meant missing her chance.
As long as the ground beneath her feet didn’t crumble, she had to move forward unconditionally.
She hadn’t expected this strict head maid to listen easily anyway.
Kal Lago.
If that dangerous man, rumored to be a crippled madman, had no interest in her, then she needed to set a fierce blaze to draw his interest and pull him in.
“Go to His Highness Kal Lago at once and deliver a message.”
Siara recalled the tone her father used when giving orders and issued a firm command.
“From now on, do not change a single syllable of what I say. Deliver it exactly.”
“Your Highness Kal Lago, Nishita is here.”
His aide, Run, entered the pool area soundlessly and informed him.
Kal Lago, submerged deep in the water, moved in that direction.
Using only his right arm, he pulled his body up in one motion and adeptly seated himself on the pool steps.
“I said to observe for a fortnight and then report?”
“The Kasha from the annex says she has words for Your Highness.”
Run immediately presented thick towels with both hands.
Kal Lago used the top towel to roughly wipe his wild, back-length mane and lightly dried his soaking wet, naked body.
“Since I’m not coming to her, she’s trying to summon me.”
“Nishita informed her it is a grave breach of imperial palace etiquette, but she did not seem to care.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Putting weight on his right leg, he stood and limped out of the pool. Run followed naturally.
Run was a slender young man with long white hair. Having had both eyes gouged out as a child, his eyes were always closed.
Yet, he could detect sound, presence, and scent so sensitively that he acted as if he could see everything clearly.
“It is true we were in a situation where we urgently needed a woman…”
Run spoke from behind him in a placid tone.
“But she was an ordinary figure who wouldn’t stand out anywhere in the harem.”
“A slight change in plans isn’t necessarily bad.”
“I believe ‘slight’ is an understatement.”
That was true.
The fact that she had blocked the Princes’ procession itself meant she was no ordinary woman.
“Your Highness. Kasha is not a rational choice. She will undoubtedly cause trouble in the harem. If so, Nishita will be unable to move covertly within the harem. Most importantly…”
“The Empress.”
Cutting off Run’s concern first, Run agreed.
“The Empress, who manages the harem, values etiquette and is extremely particular about refinement. If things go wrong, Kasha might be expelled from the harem immediately after entering.”
“Conversely, she might win the Empress’s favor. The Empress also needs a blade she can wield.”
“And conversely again,”
Run emphasized dryly,
“the probability of falling out of the Empress’s favor is higher. She is a woman who brazenly calls herself Kasha—’Demon’.”
“That makes her more useful.”
The corner of Kal Lago’s mouth twitched upwards for a moment before falling.
“In that situation with a blade at her throat, she dared to lie unflinchingly before a Prince.”
Run, being blind, was acutely sensitive to emotions in others’ tones. It was impossible for such a Run not to notice his master’s mood.
Run went to the clothes rack, picked up a thick fur coat, and muttered,
“It seems you’ve already taken a liking to that woman.”
“Nonsense.”
Stopping and letting his arms hang, Run helped him into the coat.
Dragging the long coat, Kal Lago crossed the dark palace and headed to the reception room.
In the cold-boned reception room, where only one brazier was lit, Nishita stood in a rigid posture.
Her face, utterly devoid of emotion, and her stiff posture were the spitting image of her son, Run.
Kal Lago dropped onto a long chair.
“How is Kasha?”
Nishita evaluated her in a tone as blunt as her expression.
“We’ve been serving her delicacies all day. At first, she was surprised and ate whatever was given, but soon began to restrain herself and does not overeat.”
She probably tasted sweets for the first time… he had thought, but… She’s restraining herself from the palace’s delicacies?
Nishita continued.
“Above all, you will be surprised when you see her.”
“Surprised… In what sense?”
“She is beautiful.”
“Her face was covered in dry mud and she was terribly starved, emaciated, but her features were alright.”
“No.”
Nishita emphasized.
“Not ‘alright’. She is perfectly beautiful. Far more beautiful than the countless beauties of the harem I have seen while serving two Empresses as Head Maid.”
Nishita never spoke nonsense, let alone joked.
But was she to that degree…? As he frowned, Nishita went on.
“The maidservants tremble and fawn over her, then openly ignore her, yet she remains unshaken. It’s not that she’s not Shurkohin; she simply doesn’t know our customs. She is clearly a young lady from a good family, well-educated by her mother.”
“Hmm.”
“Furthermore, she decides her actions with her head, not her emotions. She has backbone, but her spirit is too strong.”
“For the fastidious Nishita to praise her to this extent… If placed in the harem, she’d probably wrestle with the vixens and extract information quite well.”
“Surely you don’t… plan to use Kasha, not Nishita, to extract information from the harem?”
Run asked with a furrowed brow. Kal Lago cut him off sharply.
“If we can plant someone, it’s better to plant two than one. What about the investigation into Kasha’s family background I ordered?”
Kasha, who had appeared abruptly on the return journey, could have been a spy from one of his brothers, hence he had ordered a background check.
Upon the question, Run answered immediately.
“She is the second daughter of the Chief of the Asra, a warrior nomadic tribe scattered across the plains near the Imperial City. Being a woman, her name was not exposed to anyone outside her family.”
As expected of Run.
Unrivaled in the Empire for gathering intelligence, he had identified Kasha’s true identity in just a week.
Perhaps from the frustration of being blind and unable to know the world’s affairs, Run obsessively collected all sorts of information.
“So she was a savage girl from a tent-dwelling, wandering tribe…? Yet her bearing was quite refined?”
“Her mother is from a sacred priestly family.”
“A princess of sorts on the plains, then. And why was such a princess wandering the capital in an ascetic’s garb?”
“Twenty-eight days ago, the tent of Muwaq Asra, Chief of the Asra, was raided.”
“Raided?”
“The chief, his two brothers, and his two sons were killed on the spot. The chief’s wife and eldest daughter were taken to Shiran and Vaskahan, respectively.”
“But the plains are inviolable in winter?”
“Precisely. The entire plains is outraged by this unjust event. However, the attackers were an alliance of the three most powerful tribes on the plains…”
“Moloi, Vaskahan, Shiran.”
“Yes. As it’s an alliance of those three tribes, it seems unlikely any significant battle will occur even when the weather thaws.”
Is that so?
“Not very characteristic of the plains wolves, who fight regardless of water or fire.”
“The victim party, the Asra tribe, quickly entered negotiations with Moloi, Vaskahan, and Shiran, making it awkward for other tribes to step in.”
“They negotiated? After the family, the pride of the tribe, suffered such a tragedy?”
“Yes. According to that negotiation, Kasha’s mother has returned to the Asra tribe, and the youngest, the fifth son, who led the negotiations, is scheduled to become the new Asra chieftain.”
The story felt somewhat jarring.
Plains wolves typically retrieved what they lost by force; resolving things through negotiation was extremely rare.
Regardless, the sole surviving, beautiful second daughter, who escaped the tragedy, suddenly appeared in the city and desperately blocked a Prince’s carriage…
As the resolute face of Kasha, who held her head high even with a blade at her throat, came to mind, he thought he understood the woman’s goal.
Revenge.
And she intended to use the Imperial family’s power to crush her enemies.
A woman who stimulated his interest in many ways, truly.
Traditionally, revenge was a son’s duty.
Women were supposed to submit to fate, existences to be cared for and protected like flowers.
But Kasha, this woman, did not wish to be a flower.
Kal Lago issued an immediate order.
“Find a woman’s corpse similar in build to Kasha. One where the body, especially the face, is completely disfigured. Dress it in the clothes Kasha was wearing and leave it in the inner plains, an area frequented by beasts.”
He needed to act preemptively, to establish that the second daughter of the Asra chief was already dead in the plains.
“Your Highness.”
Run spoke again, in a tone suggesting he reconsider once more.
“Her background is complicated, and her personality carries strong elements of risk. Do you truly intend to place this woman in the harem?”
Conversely, Nishita, perhaps having taken a liking to Kasha, asked with her usual blunt face,
“Shall I begin teaching Kasha palace etiquette from today?”
“No. She’s perfect as she is now, like a wolf cub.”
Etiquette was better taught by the Empress.
If he found enjoyment in raising her, attachment would naturally follow.
“Speaking of which, Kasha had a message for me, didn’t she?”
He lifted his chin, signaling her to speak. Nishita hesitated uncharacteristically.
“Speak.”
At his repeated command, Nishita reported bluntly.
“‘Is he perchance afraid of me? Or, there is no reason for him not to come.'”
“What?”
“Those were her exact words, Your Highness.”
“Ha!”
This was quite a cute provocation.
It was so audacious and impudent that it was utterly impossible to ignore.
Kal Lago swept his wildly tangled mane back from his face and over his forehead.
His face, hidden by his hair, was revealed.
It was a face where the beauty of the mother who had been most passionately loved by the Emperor stood out in a masculine way.
And his icy, dark blue eyes—which he hated most, for being the spitting image of the Emperor—shone with interest and amusement.
The corner of Kal Lago’s mouth lifted into a full smile.
“It seems she has no fear, and intends to test my temper.”
