SPRFG 04

Chapter 4…

Prologue (4)

“Um, excuse me… the officer in the middle. What was your name again?”

“Second Lieutenant Herbert Kunsi, My Lady.”

“Lieutenant Kunsi, if you don’t take these two men and get out of my room right this second, I’m telling Duke Almadelcore… I mean, my dad. He happens to have a lot of close contacts in the Imperial Guard. I need to change, and it really wouldn’t look good for your reputation if word got out that you barged into a sleeping woman’s room to watch her comb her hair and change her clothes.”

“Ah, right… Of course…”

Juaiye—or rather, ‘Aiolia’—spoke with a sharp chill. The three men precipitously scrambled out of the room, even making sure to pull the door shut behind them. The deadbolt they had shattered dangled uselessly from the frame. To wealthy young nobles serving as promising officers in the Imperial Guard, it was probably just a cheap, flimsy piece of iron, but to Juaiye, that lock was her sole line of defense—and a hefty repair fee she’d now have to pay her landlord.

She sighed and picked up a comb from the small side table she used as both a desk and a vanity. She ran it through her hair, braided it back, threw on her only decent dress for going out, and wrapped a clumsily hand-knitted shawl around her shoulders.

Once her shoes were on, she blew out the candle and stepped out into the hallway, where the three men were waiting.

Standing in this dilapidated, mold-crusted building with cobwebs clinging to every corner, the three men in their pristine, tailored uniforms looked completely out of place—like a set of luxury furniture dumped in a junkyard. Through a window frame missing its glass, the twin moons peered down at them. With every step they took down the staircase, the wooden boards groaned in protest. From one of the rooms, a baby started crying again.

The guards grimaced, glancing around uncomfortably.

“Is this… how commoners actually live?” one of them muttered under his breath, unable to help himself.

Juaiye, who was leading the way down while holding onto the creaking handrail, chimed in, “Yep. First time visiting a place like this?”

“O-our apologies, Lady Aiolia.”

“I go by Juaiye,” she corrected him flatly.

The three men had never encountered a woman quite so bizarre. She was the daughter of Duke Almadelcore, one of the most powerful men steering the capital city of Ilgenisglar. She had inherited her mother’s striking beauty and her father’s rare, sunset-pink hair. Her older brother by a year, Lord Adriano, was notorious for pampering her to death—a trait his friends teased him about constantly. Not that he ever cared; he escorted his sister around like a chivalric knight straight out of myth protecting his grand lady.

So why on earth had that Lady Aiolia—the girl who used to laugh bright and clear while showing off her fans made of exotic bird feathers—suddenly run away from home? And of all places, to end up living in a dump like this…? On top of that, taking on a name like ‘Juaiye’—a common name with no noble surname attached, making her sound like a provincial goose-herding girl.

“Ah, yes, Lady Juaiye…”

Still, they couldn’t afford to be rude to a noble lady who had once been pegged as a top candidate for Crown Princess. Plenty of nobles had far wilder whims and eccentricities than this. The guards played along for now, but once they walked her to the carriage and climbed inside, they couldn’t hold back their curiosity any longer.

“If you don’t mind us asking… why did you run away… erm, leave home?”

“It’s a secret.”

“And the name ‘Juaiye’…?”

“It’s a great name. It means ‘joy’ or ‘delight.’ I picked it out myself. ‘Choose your own name’—that’s my personal motto,” Juaiye stated firmly.

In the Empire, people were usually named after saints or family ancestors; naming someone after a common noun was practically unheard of. Unless, of course, it was a name for a pet dog or a cat.

The guards exchanged baffled glances, but wisely decided to keep their mouths shut. Conversing recklessly with a lady from a family far more powerful than their own in the middle of the night was a quick way to ruin a career. Whether she went by Lady Aiolia or Juaiye, their promotions—and their entire futures—hung on this woman. Or more accurately, on her father.

Ilgenisglar was the capital of the continent. That wasn’t just a figure of speech; it was literal reality. Other cities used to bear the title of capital, but now only one remained. Massive construction was currently underway to reshape the city so it lived up to that glorious title: ‘The Sole Capital of the Continent.’

If it couldn’t be the exact geographical center of the land, it had to be the symbolic one. There were only two ways to fulfill the Emperor’s grand vision of having the imperial palace sit at the absolute center of the capital: either move the palace, or expand and shrink the city’s borders until the palace landed smack in the middle.

The Emperor was set on achieving that milestone during his own reign. So, teams of surveyors and architects hired by the nobility were busy shaving away at the city like peeling an apple.

When you peel an apple, you start with the skin, but it’s easy to slice too deep into the flesh. If the blade slips in inexperienced hands, good fruit gets carved out right along with the skin. People were carved out just like that—discarded like parts of an apple that were perfectly fine to eat despite a little bruise.

And just as an apple peel doesn’t yell at the knife, those discarded people simply lived where they were dumped. That was the Lepaute District, infamous as the festering appendix of Ilgenisglar. If they were pushed out from even there, they would shatter and scatter into the past and future alike, leaving behind not even a single line of history to prove they had once cowered in the shadows of this glorious empire.

Even though it was part of Ilgenisglar, the vibe here was night and day compared to the bustling downtown. The slums fell outside the Guard’s jurisdiction, so this was their first time stepping onto streets completely devoid of magical lamps or gas streetlights. Illegal shacks were piled atop one another—attic stacked on top of attic—creating towering, precarious wooden structures. Above their roofs, twin moons blinked down at the earth. For a long while, the only sound on the road was the heavy rattling of the carriage wheels.

Juaiye gazed out the carriage window. After crossing a few bridges, the scenery shifted into well-paved streets lined with antique townhouses—the heart of the capital she used to take for granted as ‘Aiolia.’

She breathed a sigh of relief, realizing the guards weren’t taking her back to the Almadelcore estate. She could never go back there. That realization brought her so much relief that she was actually willing to entertain their absurd request: talking to a murder suspect to coax out a confession.

She had traveled in a carriage like this to visit Ritorna’s manor once upon a time, but now that felt like a distant memory from another century. She closed her eyes and sifted through her thoughts.

Aiolia and Ritorna were both born into high-ranking, influential capital families, and they were the exact same age. Given those shared backgrounds, they had been practically destined to be close friends from birth. If one of them had been born a boy, marriage arrangements would have been drawn up in a heartbeat.

As teenage girls with similar interests often do, they became inseparable. Their favorite pastime was visiting each other’s estates, raiding the dressing rooms, and playing dress-up all day long. Ritorna’s wardrobe even harbored her brother’s clothes, which she had secretly scavenged. When Aiolia buttoned up a double-breasted vest with a pocket-watch chain dangling out and gave a dramatic bow, Ritorna would clap and burst into giggles.

However, as they hit their late teens and both emerged as prime candidates for Crown Princess, an inevitable rift grew between them. Normally, the Crown Prince would marry a princess from a neighboring kingdom or a woman of equivalent royal standing, but there were no other kingdoms left on the continent. Every single one had been reduced to an Imperial colony, and the lands across the ocean were far too distant. There had been brief chatter about a match between Ritorna and Aiolia’s older brother, Adriano, but he kept making excuses and dragging his feet until the idea fizzled out, inadvertently pushing Ritorna one step closer to the crown.

To a teenage girl like Ritorna, the chance to become the bride of the Crown Prince—the sole future ruler of the continent, a man so breathtakingly handsome he looked more like a mythic god than a human—was a monumental deal. It had meant just as much to Aiolia, too. At least, until she ran away.

Juaiye rested her forehead against her hand, lost in thought. If her memory served her right, Ritorna was drop-dead gorgeous. Really, really stunning. If Prince Nelchor was likened to Sir Clarinhas from the classic epics, then Ritorna was practically the goddess Nux he served.

Dazzling golden hair, deep blue eyes, porcelain skin, a slender waist, effortless poise, flawless manners, and an undeniable aura of elegance oozing from every word she spoke.

Her beauty felt like a fusion of supernatural grace and every virtue a human could possess. If this world were a novel, a girl like that would undoubtedly be the heroine. And Ritorna herself seemed to know it all too well.

So why on earth would a high-born lady like her suddenly stab her own maid to death? Neither the Imperial Guard investigating on the Emperor’s orders nor Ritorna’s own family had a clue. Juaiye certainly didn’t know either. But even so, she didn’t feel like telling the driver to stop and turn back home. Curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Why did Ritorna kill her maid?

Looking back, she had always been far too curious for her own good, even when she couldn’t handle the consequences. It had always been her flaw. And once again, that same curiosity might be dragging her a step deeper into a truth she wasn’t prepared to face.

Luckily, the Vinkitur estate looked just as grand as ever, even if it felt eerie and deserted. Feeling like a pink rabbit walking straight into a tiger’s den, Juaiye stepped through the front entrance of the manor.

She was told Ritorna had been confined to her room ever since the murder. Several servants and maids had asked for letters of recommendation and left to serve new masters, while key retainers made excuses to retreat to their rural estates. The main hall and drawing rooms, once bustling with high-society guests, sat completely vacant.

It was cold and dark. Second Lieutenant Kunsi posted the two guards at the landing to wait before leading her up the stairs. Juaiye’s pride was slightly stung, but she accepted his escort anyway. It was jarring to see corridors and staircases that used to beam with expensive magical lamps and crystal chandeliers reduced to such a bleak, shadowy shell.

“So… I just need to talk to Ritorna, right?”

“Yes, My Lady.”

“And translate… or make sense of whatever she says?”

“Precisely.”

“And get her to confess that she definitely killed the maid?”

“Or confirm her denial, if that’s the case.”

“Got it.”

The door swung open, and Juaiye hesitated for a fraction of a second before stepping inside. It was Ritorna’s private, spacious drawing room on the third floor of the east wing. A figure sitting on the sofa rose gracefully to her feet.

The two women locked eyes.