Ding! Ding! Ding!
Tension, huh? But honestly, ding-dong, tension is just an optional feature that comes with the time and place, and once you pass it, it often feels like nothing at all!
Walking to the Imperial Palace while being scrutinized for meeting the ‘Crown Princess’ and ‘Crown Princess’ of the Empire, passing through those big doors and finally facing a familiar face, all that tension just poofed away!
Claire felt the same.
“Un—”
Claire was about to say “Sister,” but quickly glanced around. There were no knights or soldiers in sight. It looked surprisingly empty for an ‘audience room.’ I mean, can you imagine receiving a foreign envoy in a place like this and thinking, wow, is the Empire unexpectedly poor?
“The Emperor uses this audience room personally. It’s a place to meet important people officially, but the discussions should be unofficial. There’s really no reason for anyone but the Emperor to come in here, hence no decorations.”
“Oh, is that so?”
Claire instinctively asked, but honestly, it was her first time here too. Given that the next Emperor, Alice, was here, what else could she think?
And, if you put it that way, Sylvia was next to Alice as her bodyguard. She looked properly armed, but given the lack of any killing intent emitting from her, it seemed she was just armed in name. If you think about it, even Sylvia, the current only princess, should have her own guards. After all, she had the second highest claim to the throne after Alice.
“What about the Gryphon?”
“Outside.”
The moment the Gryphon was mentioned, a frown appeared on Sylvia’s forehead.
Honestly, it was tough to get news about how the Gryphon was doing outside the palace. It’s ‘the symbol of the Empire’ and the only one that follows humans. The nobles were super cautious just seeing the Gryphon’s form.
Sure, there were people muttering about it being just a luxurious beast, but there were also murmurs about the myths surrounding it. Because the Gryphon was treated more as a mythical creature than a mere beast, people often wondered, “Isn’t the Gryphon choosing the royal family instead?”
Alice decided to leave those rumors alone.
“… It ate a knight’s pet yesterday, so for a while, it’s banned from entering the palace.”
Seeing Sylvia’s reaction, Alice frowned in the same way.
“Is it causing trouble a lot?”
“More like it’s just eating too much. Pure carnivore at that.”
Alice let out a sigh.
“If I don’t supply enough things like pigs or cows every day, it hunts down nearby animals without hesitation. Luckily, it hasn’t attacked a person yet, but it’s true that the knights around the palace are easy targets… I’m even considering creating a pig pen inside the palace.”
As Alice threw a glance at Sylvia, the latter dodged her gaze.
“… Isn’t it just a lump of meat?”
“What can I do? It’s refusing to go out. And all expensive animals are basically lumps of meat anyway. There were even Emperors before who raised elephants or rhinos as pets, so consider this an extension… Oh, and don’t call it a pet in front of the Gryphon. It gets angry.”
“…”
Claire lost her words at that.
“Well, it did save our lives.”
Leo chimed in, as if it was regrettable, and Alice just shrugged.
Even though they were calling it a mere lump of meat, there was no trace of resentment on their faces. Maintaining a supply of animals for the Gryphon wasn’t particularly hard by imperial standards. It wasn’t that the Gryphon asked for anything outrageously difficult either. Considering the symbolism of the Gryphon and the benefits it brought because of that, it was a reasonable trade-off… unless the Gryphon threw a fit and made it difficult.
“Alright, enough about the Gryphon for now.”
Alice lightly eased her shoulders.
Though she was sitting confidently in the battered seat of the Emperor, it was made for the already large royal figure, causing Alice to feel a bit overstuffed. Leaning on the armrest, her shoulders just hunched up in tension.
In the end, all Alice or Sylvia could do was to sit with their hands neatly placed on their laps.
“I believe you came here to pass along a message.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
At Alice’s words, Claire took out a letter envelope from her dress.
It was a rather luxurious envelope she had seen before. The moment Sylvia saw the envelope, her shoulder twitched.
Everyone here knew why. With all three pairs of eyes on her, Sylvia looked around, her eyes darting around. It was a face she never used to show before losing her power.
Now, they all understood how much time Sylvia spent spinning around to maintain that ‘expressionless’ look every time she was flustered.
“It’s a letter from our parents. It says they want to invite the other ‘daughter’ home.”
Claire directed her words to Sylvia instead of Alice. This was indeed accurate. There was no chance the high-and-mighty Emperor would read a letter personally, obviously. Of course, Claire handing the letter personally to Sylvia had another reason behind it.
“It’s because every time the letter got delivered to you, you were absent, so we brought it ourselves this time, hoping you’d accept it.”
At Claire’s words, Sylvia let out a small sigh.
It was true. The Grace couple had sent letters to Sylvia multiple times before. And every single time, for some odd reason, Sylvia would go hunting with the Gryphon, and the letters would come back undelivered. Surely, there were many ways to keep the letters rather than returning them.
Moreover, strangely enough, every time the letter was sent, Sylvia had been away before it arrived. Since her time-rewinding powers were now gone, it would be pretty reasonable to think someone was doing those errands for her. Sylvia had been ducking out of the way as much as possible.
“…”
Without saying anything, Sylvia stepped forward and took the letter envelope from Claire’s hand.
“Now that you’ve received it, read it here.”
“Pardon?”
When Sylvia tried to store the letter in her dress, Claire quickly interjected.
“Because Mother said so. She wants to confirm that you read the letter yourself.”
“…”
At Claire’s words, Sylvia’s eyes tightly shut. Then she took a deep breath, whoo, and exhaled.
After repeating this deep breathing a few more times, her expression returned to her usual neutral face.
“… Understood.”
Seemingly realizing there was nowhere left to run, Sylvia cautiously pulled the letter out of the envelope.
Although it was a letter in an envelope, it wasn’t sealed. It was written in a way that assumed Sylvia would definitely open it as Claire had said, so there was no reason to close it. That said, it wasn’t like Claire or Leo would read anything problematic either.
Sylvia silently pulled the letter from the envelope. Unfolding the cream-colored premium paper, she read the letter slowly.
Her eyes slowly moved from left to right, from top to bottom, as she read the letter.
Her expression didn’t change at all while reading.
But Claire could easily see the tension gradually tightening around Sylvia’s mouth.
“What does it say?”
Once Sylvia raised her gaze from the letter, Claire quietly asked.
“It says, let’s have tea at home sometime.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
Sylvia said that as she folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then tucked it into the pocket of her coat.
“So?”
Claire asked once more.
“Will you go to our house? Sister?”
Sporting a bright smile, Claire asked, and Sylvia stared at her for quite a while.
Then, she averted her gaze towards Alice.
“Well, I’m just an outsider, so I won’t bother you. Feel free to go.”
When Sylvia glanced at Alice, the latter waved her hands playfully, teasing Sylvia.
“What does that mean?”
That answer was promptly denied by Sylvia.
“The letter also states that the Crown Princess is to come along.”
“… Huh?”
At Sylvia’s words, Claire turned her gaze away.
“Right. If you think of me as your ‘sister,’ it means we’re pretty much sisters, right? Isn’t that so?”
“… Huh?”
The surprised tone from Alice was surprisingly more out of place than Sylvia making a surprised expression.
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