Elara stood perfectly still, listening to her sisters’ taunts with the sa expression she might use to observe interesting bacteria under glass.
The original owner of this body had hated these gatherings with visceral intensity. The diaries made that clear—pages of anguished writing about the humiliation, the casual cruelty, the way her sisters treated their knights like property while mocking her for refusing to participate. That princess would have been crying by now, or shouting, or fleeing the pavilion in sha.
But Elara wasn’t that princess.
She reached for her tea cup with deliberate calm, took a asured sip, and set it down with porcelain precision. Then she looked at Sera with the faintest smile.
"You’re right," she said quietly. "They are quite impressive."
Sera’s triumph lasted exactly two seconds.
"But really, Sister," Elara continued, still smiling that small, sad smile, "do you need to brag so much about warriors who can’t even last the night?"
The pavilion went dead silent.
Sera’s face drained of color. "What did you just—"
"Five hours sounds impressive until you realize that ans he ’stopped’ after five hours," Elara said, tone remaining conversational. "Which suggests limitations, not stamina. If your bond is as perfect as you claim, why isn’t he capable of more?"
She turned to look at Eleana. "And here I thought you’d have sothing genuinely interesting to share. But this?" She gestured vaguely at the gathered princesses. "Aren’t you bored, Elder Sister? The sa tired comparisons every year. The sa predictable displays. It’s repetitive."
Eleana’s expression had gone very cold. "Well, perhaps you find it boring because you don’t have a bonded knight. It’s quite common for people to mock what they can’t have. Running away from the conversation is easier than admitting inadequacy."
" having a knight or not—why does that matter?" Elara set down her tea cup with careful precision. Her eyes, when they t Eleana’s, were dark and utterly empty. "I have a household with twenty-four beast knights currently assigned to my service. If I wanted companionship—for any purpose—why would I limit myself to just one?"
The implication landed like a stone in still water.
"You could have all of them," Elara continued, voice flat and factual, "at any mont. No bond required. No permanent contract. No magical compulsion necessary. Just authority and availability. So tell , Elder Sister—why do you need a bond to achieve what I could accomplish with a simple command?"
Eleana stood slowly, wine glass trembling slightly in her hand. "You wouldn’t dare. That would be—"
"What? Treating them like the property you already consider them?" Elara tilted her head slightly. "At least I’m honest about the power dynamic. You dress it up as partnership and romance, but we both know what it really is. The only difference is I don’t pretend otherwise."
Robin’s expression had gone very still, though whether from offense or sothing else was impossible to read.
"You’re disgusting," Sera said, voice shaking.
"I’m logical," Elara corrected. "You’re the ones who spent the last hour discussing your knights’ sexual performance in explicit detail while they stood there and listened. I’m just pointing out that the emperor gives every princess access to an entire household of warriors. The question isn’t whether we ’can’ use them for companionship. The question is whether we need magical slavery to make it happen."
She stood, smoothing her dress. "But I can see I’ve made everyone uncomfortable by saying the quiet part out loud. So I’ll take my leave. Thank you for the invitation, Elder Sister. It’s been... educational."
As she walked toward the pavilion exit, Eleana’s voice rang out behind her. "You’ll regret this, Fourth Sister. When the succession trials begin, when you need a bonded knight’s power, you’ll realize how badly you miscalculated. And by then, every knight in this palace will know exactly what you think of them. None of them will serve you willingly."
Elara paused at the doorway without turning around.
"Willing or unwilling doesn’t matter if you have authority, Elder Sister. That’s the entire system you’ve built. I’m just the only one honest enough to acknowledge it."
She left.
The silence she left behind was absolute and suffocating. Even the servants had stopped moving.
Finally, Lydia—young, inexperienced Lydia—spoke in a small, horrified voice. "Did she just... did she just admit she could command any knight in her household to her bed without bonding them?"
"Yes," Sera said grimly.
"And that we’re all doing essentially the sa thing, just with prettier language?"
No one answered that.
Because the answer was yes, and everyone in the pavilion knew it, and Elara had just stripped away every comfortable lie they’d been telling themselves about the nature of personal knight bonds.
Eleana drained her wine glass in one long swallow and slamd it onto the table hard enough to crack the stem.
.
.
.
# # The Morning After
Elara woke to find her office door barricaded from the outside.
Not locked—barricaded. Soone had stacked furniture against it during the night. When she pushed, wood scraped against stone, and the door barely moved an inch.
She assessed the situation with clinical detachnt. This was retaliation for last night, obviously. Petty, imdiate, and designed to make her morning difficult.
She walked to her bedroom window instead, opened it, and called down to the fox knight who’d been standing guard in the courtyard below.
"Clear the furniture from my office door. Then bring breakfast and summon my staff."
He bowed and moved imdiately.
Twenty minutes later, Elara sat at her desk eating rice porridge while Mira delivered the overnight report with barely concealed anxiety.
"Your Highness, there have been... developnts."
"List them."
"Three of your household servants requested imdiate transfers this morning. Two succeeded—approved by the Empress’s office before dawn. The third is still pending."
Expected. Eleana would try to strip her household staff as punishnt.
"The kitchen delivered spoiled food with your breakfast order. I had it sent back and procured this from the rchant district instead."
Hence the porridge from an outside vendor rather than palace kitchens. Predictable sabotage.
"And there are rumors circulating that you..." Mira hesitated.
"That I what?"
"That you keep all twenty-four beast knights in your household for... personal entertainnt. The phrasing is less diplomatic in the actual rumors."
Elara took another bite of porridge. "Also expected. What else?"
"The Second Princess sent a formal complaint to the Emperor about your ’inappropriate comnts regarding the sacred institution of knight bonding.’ She’s requesting disciplinary action."
"Will she get it?"
Mira looked uncertain. "I don’t know, Your Highness. It depends on whether the Emperor heard what actually happened or just Sera’s version."
"Noted. Continue."
"Your scheduled eting with the textile rchants was cancelled. They sent a note saying ’circumstances have changed’ and they’re no longer interested in partnerships with your household."
That one made Elara pause. The textile rchants were separate from the food preservation contracts—a secondary revenue stream she’d been cultivating. Soone had gotten to them, warned them off, possibly threatened them.
"Eleana’s moving faster than I expected," Elara said quietly. "She’s trying to isolate economically before the rchant guild results co back."
"Will it work?"
"Only if the guild masters decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth." Elara set down her bowl. "What’s the status on the test anchors?"
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