Rise of the Unfavored Princess

Chapter 137: [Bonus chapter]Ch. 136: Wild Goose Chase

Wolfgang was being strangled. But rather than an assassin wrapping rope around his neck, which he had actually experienced before, the tight collar of his formal uniform threatened to cut off his airway. His friend was giving a longwinded speech full of fancy words that sounded much more impressive than they actually were and all Wolfgang wanted was a proper stiff drink.

The wine before him was not the kind of drink that would get him through the long, dull night of meaningless conversation that loomed before him. Especially as an unmarried key figure within the throne room, Wolfgang could all but guarantee that more than half the people in the room would attempt to bribe, seduce, or simply talk his ear off before the night was over.

People began to applaud, the speech was finally over. Wolfgang took the chance to throw back the full glass of wine like it was cold water on a hot summer day. But even water had more of a kick than whatever overpriced swill was in his delicate glass that he could probably snap with half a thought.

“Helio, give me strength,” he muttered under his breath as the first wide-eyed sap seated beside him began to engage in chatter about the recent prosperity of the Erudian Empire.

He didn’t believe in any of the Holy Church’s nonsense, but such phrases had pervaded common vernacular to the point that they slipped out as easily as breathing. It was no wonder Empress Duvernay could sit around so comfortably in her seat as her daughter was under fire in court and under house arrest in her quarters. If Wolfgang hailed from a powerful House that held significant sway over the main religion in the empire, a religion so popular that if every believer turned into a soldier they would’ve won the Sarsavalian War in half a day, he too would not be stressed by such matters.

Besides, he thought to himself, if he were to look at the Empress’ current situation from the cruel angle most nobles would, it was just a daughter who couldn’t even serve her intended purpose of becoming the promised child. It had been an open secret amongst the nobility after all, the purpose of Julia’s timely birth and the Holy Church’s prophecy.

Julian was but a second son and the son of a woman the emperor clearly did not care for in the slightest. Even if he were a stellar candidate and had House Duvernay’s full support, it would be hard to sway the court from the long-standing tradition of naming the eldest legitimate son as crown prince. And Julian didn’t have the same hunger for power that Emperor Helio had when he was little. Wolfgang could see that every time he sparred with the young man.

.....

Julian was not hungry for a throne, that much was clear as day. But the way one fights paints a picture of who they are.

Emperor Helio’s strokes were unpredictable but vicious, a chess game where he slowly beat you down mentally and physically until you had no choice but to surrender. This matched his methods in real life, because even as his closest friend, Wolfgang did not understand a majority of the political decisions his friend made until they ripened into fruition.

For Julian, he was still hungry for power in a way. He fought with a thin blade that suited his wiry frame and could swiftly change its direction without warning. He also did not immediately go for the kill like Augustus was wont to do, drawing out his matches so they felt more like a game until he sent an unexpected jab for the throat or swept the blade across one’s ankle tendons to incapacitate them instantly. No matter how well Julian played the part of an innocent, happy-go-lucky prince, his fighting told another story. So then, what did Julian want?

Wolfgang’s eyes wandered to the second son who presented as an enigma, wrapped in a smile that was always a little too fake. Even when he was young, the boy smiled like those market charlatans whose tongue could convince a poor man to give them the clothes off his back. Julian was chuckling as he whispered something to Winter, who clearly could see through the market charlatan act as well as Wolfgang could. The siblings seem to briefly get in a spat before Julian proceeded to “accidentally” spill his soup on Winter.

It was typical sibling behavior, Wolfgang had engaged in such shenanigans when he was a youth. But such an act would have been far more commonplace a few years ago when Winter and Julian were much closer to one another. Now it just seemed out of place, compounded by the expression that fell upon Julian as Winter turned and exited the banquet.

The mask fell off, the one that every child of high birth learns to wear as soon as they can talk, and beneath it was desolation and loneliness. A landscape devoid of cheer. It was not the face you typically see on a young man coming into adulthood. But before he could observe further, the gold eyes that Wolfgang had been long familiar with snapped towards him; Julian had detected his stare. Wolfgang raised his glass towards him and Julian raised his cup back. The smile that accompanied the cheers was a tad less bright than usual.

Wolfgang’s eyes flicked towards the door that Winter had left through. He had a feeling inching down his spine, the kind of feeling that had kept him alive on the battlefield and made his body move out of the path of an arrow he couldn’t detect. The kind that made him follow up on a girl he’d briefly seen in a doctor’s office, hence discovering the emperor’s youngest daughter.

More often than not, it was not feeling he typically liked to have.

Wolfgang took note of the room and everyone’s location within seconds, but no one looked out of place. The empress looked as calm as ever, Julian was eating his soup as if nothing had happened. There was no obvious threat, but he’d lived for far too long to dismiss his feeling as a fluke.

“Bloody hell,” he sighed, resigning to his instincts. His chair scraped against the floor as he stood and stalked towards the door the princess had disappeared through. Perhaps it was just his pity for the girl rearing its head.

The hallway was a bit cooler and Wolfgang took the chance to loosen his collar to give his neck a brief respite. It had been a while since he’d navigated the auxiliary halls outside the throne room, but he detected the lady’s room closest to the banquet soon enough.

“You. Girl,” he barked at a passing servant girl. “Go inside and check if the princess is alright.”

She quivered upon seeing him, nearly dropping the basket of table clothes she was carrying. Knowing that his voice had a tendency to be frightful to the fairer sex, Wolfgang cleared his throat and tried again.

“If you do your task properly, I will see to it that you are rewarded.”

“Yes, my Lord,” she said obediently, disappearing into the lady’s room. Wolfgang did not have to wait too long. The girl appeared quickly with a wide-eyed look of surprise.

“My Lord, are you certain the princess is in here? I did not encounter Her Highness in the lady’s room. There was but one occupant, Countess-”

“Who seeks my presence?” someone thundered out, the double doors banging open so quickly Wolfgang had to pull the servant girl out of the way to prevent her from getting hit. “Oh, ’tis you, Lord Amarelius?”

Wolfgang recognized the woman instantly, a sour taste filling his mouth at his bad luck. At the same time, he wondered where Princess Winter was if she was not in this lady’s room. It was a touch unusual, which was enough cause for his concern to be warranted.

Still, he pulled on his familiar, rakish grin, just in time too, as Countess Koberg, formerly the expelled maid, Janice, laid her eyes on him and a stunning smile bloomed on her face. She obviously still had the temper he’d heard she possessed, but she was now skilled at reigning it in.

She has learned the game, Wolfgang thought to himself. He distinctly felt like it was not a good thing for a conniving, irritation of a former maid to learn such tricks. She was married, yet she still carried that seductive smile all women were taught when they entered the trade of flesh and pleasure.

The Countess, whose hands that had shoved open the doors with more strength than Wolfgang would’ve thought possible for a woman of her stature, must have realized how she had come across just now.

“My apologies. That maid was rather rude in her inquiries and it startled me. I had feared it was someone seeking to cause me undue harm.” Countess Koberg sang her lies in a honey-soft tone, placing a jewel-laden hand upon her full breast in a deliberate attempt to draw his eyes to her more than generous decolletage.

She took a step nearer to Wolfgang, peeking up at him with spidery long lashes as she crossed the barrier between friendly conversation and ambiguous situations. The servant girl beside him drew in an abrupt breath, he could practically taste the sharp tang of her fear. It was not an unfounded fear. How many maids met their untimely ends for witnessing the wrong thing at the wrong time?

“You jest,” Wolfgang said dryly, taking a step back.

“I have never been fond of jokes,” the countess countered.

He did not like the way lust had danced through her eyes, nor did he care for the languid, suggestive motions she managed to perform with every movement. She did not approach him further, but the countess leaned against the door frame, the full skirts emphasizing her tiny waist that she practically taped against the carved oak.

“I shall carry on with my task,” the servant girl interrupted, clearly fearful as forfeited the monetary compensation Wolfgang had promised and rushed to her basket. Venom slid through the countess’ eyes, memories of her past no doubt returning to her as she looked at the quivering girl.

Seeing the sight of that venom calmed down Wolfgang, allowed him to think with his usual savvy. Someone who held such obvious disdain for her past could not serve as much opposition to him. Even with such an alluring appearance, like a flower at full bloom.

“It was most intriguing,” the countess said as her eyes trailed after the servant girl into the dark halls like a hunter marking its prey, “that the girl had called for Princess Winter. Why would she do such a thing?”

“Because I told her to,” Wolfgang answered curtly. “I shall take my leave. Good day.”

“There are three other lady’s rooms close to the throne room. I shall accompany you so that you do not need to find another servant girl to do such a minor task. Do not turn me down. I am a little bored and in need of air,” Janice said, taking the initiative to walk beside him towards the other lady’s rooms before he could politely refuse.

Even her speech had changed, Wolfgang marveled. The crass, rude Janice was truly a fixture of the past, except for that temper. Little did he know that if he had seen Janice when she had first arrived at the palace, he would swear up and down that some witchcraft had to have been performed for her to transform as much as she did. But Janice had been a servant back then and people tend not to notice servants. That was the way the world worked. You had to fight to be seen.

Helio understood this down to his bones. But Wolfgang, due to his privileged upbringing, did not fully understand yet.

Despite marching through the halls with the woman Wolfgang had personally ordered to be tossed into the lowliest of brothels, the lord captain of the royal guard did not feel the slightest inkling of guilt. Instead he felt concern. For a disgraced maid to climb from the lowliest of brothels into nobility, that took the kind of hunger that Wolfgang had only seen in Emperor Helio.

“Hmmm... no one in this one,” she sighed in a low voice after taking her time in the first lady’s room. There was a pleasing aroma about her, the kind he’d smelled before when he’d found comfort in the sheets of a woman at a Red House once in a while. But it was even headier, stirring buried feelings and sending irritation through Wolfgang as he faced an invisible opponent he couldn’t battle with a sword.

“Then on to the next. Quickly. Do not tarry, Countess,” Wolfgang barked as if he were speaking to his soldiers. He struggled to hold his breath, but Janice stuck to his side like a bed sore from sleeping on the ground too many days in a row.

Janice pouted, her red lips puckering. Wolfgang wagered she’d won many things from the Count just by flashing such a pout. “That is not my name. I am Janice. Say it.”

“That would be impolite,” Wolfgang said without giving it a thought of consideration. “Make haste, Countess.”

Countess Koberg continued to linger too long in the rooms, her full lips smiling demurely as if she held a secret behind them. It was then Wolfgang began to consider that perhaps this was all part of a plot. Only he happened to be the lucky one who’d stepped into the trap. If anyone had sent an ordinary servant to search for Princess Winter instead of himself, he’d wager that this process would take even longer.

Janice’s arm brushed against his jacket and it felt like Wolfgang had been struck by electricity. Automatically, he looked down at Janice, only to find her gazing up at him with faintly hooded eyes. His chest felt stuffy, it was as if he would have to undo even more buttons on his ornate formal jacket. A rational, intelligent part of him was screaming that what he was feeling right now was not normal, while the dimwitted idiot inside him settled his eyes upon her breasts in an indecent manner. It filled him with rage, to lose control over the heart he had never given anyone and would never give anyone.

Desire, what a pesky, carnal emotion. The closest emotion that mirrored the sensation of killing, was fucking, to put it bluntly. Wolfgang had enjoyed his fair share of both. But now was not the time to indulge in either.

It was a movement so swift that even the most talented of fighters would struggle to follow it, and yet as Wolfgang closed the distance between them in a flash and slammed the flailing, smaller woman against the wall, he could just tell. Janice was not surprised in the slightest. Her eyes seemed to follow him as he made his sudden move, the corner of her lips curling with amusement as she almost stood in place and waited. This meant that the former maid had senses sharper than any man he had faced across the battlefield. Almost as sharp as the sovereign he’d sworn his sword to.

A hand traced against the forearm Wolfgang had pressed against her neck, as if she couldn’t recognize the threatening position she was in. “Oh! My Lord! How forward of you,” the countess cooed. In her eyes, triumph glittered as if she had already conquered him.

“What are you plotting, Janice?” Wolfgang asked softly as if he had pinned a hardened criminal to the walls rather than a beauty who could stir the heart of any red blooded man with eyes. His quiet voice was a bad sign that would send any member of the royal guard falling to their knees and begging for forgiveness if they had heard him speak just now.

A quiet Wolfgang was an angry Wolfgang. And an angry Wolfgang was dangerous for those on the opposite end.