Once all the guests had made their entrances, the master of the hall and the true centerpiece of the evening made his appearance last: Emperor Heliones. Dressed in a formal uniform of crisp white adorned with elaborate gold embroidery, Heliones was, as I had said so many times before, beautiful to a degree that made him seem not quite of this world.

Heliones entered with an ease that made the unpleasant incident seem never to have existed at all, and met the greetings of those bowing to him with the confident gaze of a ruler.

My turn came. Heliones responded to me the same way he had to everyone else, with nothing more than a light nod of acknowledgment. I felt relief at his natural manner, and at the same time, a small pang of something in a corner of my heart.

What am I feeling hurt about? This is how it should be. Who do I think I am?

I pushed down the feeling that was climbing up out of its place and turned my gaze away from him.

The music began, and the time came for the Emperor to request the first dance. With Delmir absent, everyone watched his every move with anticipation, eager to see whom he would choose.

Heliones surveyed the ballroom for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind. He wore a slightly reluctant smile and had just begun to take a step forward when it happened.

“Allow me to recommend a partner for the first dance.”

A noblewoman who had walked into the center of the hall without any announcement lightly placed her hand on Heliones’s shoulder and smiled her characteristic languid smile.

The noblewoman was someone I knew well. His younger sister Helena, who had married abroad a year before my marriage to Heliones, gave a satisfied nod, looking as though she was enjoying the attention now directed at her.

Since Helena had already left for her husband’s country by the time I wed Heliones, I had met her only three times in total. At my wedding and on two summer holidays. Helena had always timed her returns to coincide with the Summer Night Ball, and it appeared this visit was no different.

But Heliones looked nothing like someone who had expected her visit. He sharpened his keen eyes into something severe and fixed his gaze on his sister. Helena, who still had much of the look of a girl about her rather than a full noblewoman, paid no mind to her brother’s glare and said what she had come to say.

I was caught off guard by my sister-in-law’s unexpected appearance, but I quickly gathered myself. She was not an easy person to deal with, but at most she would be gone within a fortnight. And since we were no longer living in the same residence, there would be little occasion to cross paths.

While I was busy managing my expression, someone stepped out from behind Helena.

“This is Nelia, a friend I made while abroad. I was rather sad when Nelia returned home and we had to part, but when I came back this time, here she was, staying right here.”

Nelia stepped forward lightly and offered an elegant curtsy with a lift of her skirt, but Heliones did not return the greeting and kept his eyes fixed on Helena alone.

“My, how frightening. Anyone watching would think I’d come somewhere I wasn’t welcome. Have you forgotten? This is my home too. I noticed my room is still exactly as I left it.”

The deeper the furrow in Heliones’s brow grew, the more Helena seemed to delight in it, brightening her smile and acting even more familiar.

“When are you going back?”

Heliones asked with a pointed turn of his gaze, and Helena followed that gaze just as pointedly, whispering in a light voice that seemed designed to provoke.

“I’m not going back. I got divorced.”

The bombshell from the sole imperial princess of the Frianc Empire threw the ballroom into an uproar in an instant. No one openly expressed shock or voiced their questions, but watching everyone murmur their reactions, it was clear that the news was just as new to them as it was to me.

“I divorced quietly. I did send word ahead to my brother, or rather to His Imperial Majesty, but I suppose you were quite busy ascending to the throne? Considering there was no reply even when I wrote to say your only nephew had died?”

Who died? A sharp breath nearly escaped me before I could stop it, and in forcing it back down I let out a hiccup instead. But Heliones seemed unable to swallow even a breath, and the hard shell that rarely cracked for anything broke open as he cried out.

“What?”

* * *

Helena had always been a jealous child, forever hungry for affection. Having grown up under a mother whose every thought was fixed on winning the father’s favor, and a father who would not allow her to set foot in the imperial palace, it was not entirely incomprehensible that she had turned out that way. Heliones felt sorry for her and had always indulged her whims.

The more he did, the more his sister clung to him, and even after she was formally recognized as an imperial princess, that attachment never faded. She caused him no small amount of trouble at social events.

Their mother, who had spent over a decade treated as though she did not exist before finally becoming Empress, harbored deep resentment toward the sons of the former Empress, who seemed drawn from a painting. She demanded of her children, newly arrived at the imperial palace, the same level of decorum as those who had spent their entire lives there.

Heliones, who had been composed since childhood, managed well enough to meet his mother’s expectations, but the youngest, Helena, who had grown up in relative freedom outside the palace, had no intention of meeting her mother’s demands, nor any interest in understanding them.

A daughter who kept causing scenes at social events was nothing but a burden to a mother who had finally achieved her long-coveted position as Empress. She married Helena off before the girl had even turned seventeen, as a second wife to a foreign prince fourteen years her senior.

Having entered a loveless marriage at a young age and struggling to adapt to a foreign culture, Helena wrote to her brother without fail, day after day. Heliones, feeling sorry for his sister fighting alone in a foreign land, answered every letter and tried his best to soothe her heart. Separated by great distance, the two siblings grew fonder of each other through their longing.

That was, until Heliones took Lucian as his bride.

“What, now that every last obstacle is gone, were you so excited at the thought of marrying that wretched murderer’s daughter that you couldn’t even bring yourself to open a letter announcing your nephew’s death?”

Helena fixed Heliones, still reeling in shock, with a warm smile and murmured in a voice low enough for only him to hear. Her smile was so seamless that at a glance, the two could have passed for siblings whispering affectionately to each other.

“It won’t go the way you want. I don’t know what you said to threaten Mother, but it won’t work on me. I will tear that woman away from your side, no matter what.”

Having declared war on Heliones, Helena widened her eyes, looking for all the world as though she had only just noticed Lucian, and began to move toward her. Heliones reached out to stop his sister, but Helena knocked his hand aside in one motion and extended her own hand toward Lucian.

The two had been equals when they last met, but now Helena was an imperial princess and Lucian was a commoner. Even so, not a single noble had yet openly demanded commoner’s courtesy from Lucian, but Helena, fresh back in society, boldly set the precedent and smiled the smile of a victor.

Lucian, who kept her own circumstances firmly in mind without needing Helena to make a point of it, bowed her head without resistance and carefully took Helena’s hand. She was just about to press her lips to it in a humble gesture when a large hand appeared from somewhere and snatched Helena’s hand away.

“A pleasure to see you, Your Highness. It has been quite some time.”

Roned appeared from nowhere, pressed his lips to Helena’s hand in Lucian’s place, and offered a polite bow. Helena, who had been smiling the whole time, looked at Roned with an expression of pure surprise, the way someone might react upon spotting a column of ants on the move, then turned to Lucian and asked.

“When did you rope in Lord Roned? Quite the talent you have. Or is it shamelessness? Then again, I suppose you’d have to be that shameless to keep clinging to His Majesty’s side when your own blood killed our father and brothers.”

Before Heliones could shake off the shock of hearing of his nephew’s death and cut his sister off, Helena’s lips opened again.

“Ah, but then His Imperial Majesty also killed your father, your brothers, your half-brother, and your stepmother, didn’t he? I suppose that makes you even? Politics really is a fascinating thing. To think that enemies who couldn’t even share a table could become political partners.”

This was why. This was exactly why Heliones had stopped replying to Helena’s letters and eventually come to dread opening them at all.

No matter how many times he tried to persuade her that the war had nothing to do with Lucian, that Lucian was just as much a victim of political marriage as she was, Helena’s anger always pointed straight at Lucian. She blamed Lucian not only for the war but for her own unhappy marriage as well, and sent letters of more than ten pages packed with curses directed at Lucian.

The two had met only a handful of times, but every time they happened to cross paths, Helena’s conduct left Heliones mortified. His mother, who despised Lucian even more than Helena did, at least maintained decorum at formal events, but Helena poured out vicious words with the abandon of a colt with no bridle.

This time too, after the torrent of *buse, Heliones checked Lucian’s expression. Lucian showed little sign of surprise, whether from resignation or from having seen it coming. If anything, she seemed more aware of Roned, who had stepped in front of her, than of Helena.

What’s up with him?

Heliones’s expression soured in an instant, the way it might after biting into an unripe persimmon. It was always supposed to be him coming to Lucian’s rescue. So why was that man inserting himself again?