The Prince in Question Is Not Stable

Chapter 77: Quandaries of Violet

A woman with a kind of beauty that turned seasoned generals into awkward bows, was straight up looking at Marcus, her eyes didn’t waver for a moment.

However, Marcus’s gaze which should have stayed on her, in that very moment, drifted towards the left.

He just couldn’t help it.

He noticed a man standing half-hidden near on of the side pillars. Dark hair, dark eyes, wearing a simple yet well-cut black suit that lacked the ostentatious flair of true nobility.

He wasn’t staring at Violet with lust or envy or respect like most of the men and women in the hall.

Instead, he watched her with raw, aching pride. He had that look of heavy nervousness, and something deeper akin to desperation.

And Marcus’s knew better to trust his instincts.

He lifted two fingers behind his back in a quick, precise gesture only Graves would catch.

’Note that man, too.’ He said those words in his thoughts, and Graves, already positioned at the far corner, gave the faintest tilt, nodding his in acknowledgement.

Violet continued forward, and the crowd opened space for her. Every noble between Marcus and Violet seemed to hold their breath.

’Are the rumours actually true?’ that’s what they all were thinking about.

She stopped just a breath away from Marcus. Her head reached below his shoulder level, but somehow, he still felt intimidated.

"Greetin-" Marcus spoke.

"Quiet," Violet cut his words off in an oddly calm tone.

She looked at a noblewoman to her right.

"Where’s the private room?" she asked.

"...Uh?" The woman, didn’t know how to respond to that. She just gestured at the back door of the banquet, which led after a few steps of stairs above, where Marcus earlier was.

Violet gave a single calm, and satisfied nod, which quite suited her personality.

She nodded, grabbed Marcus’s collar, and dragged him into the room across the banquet hall.

Not a single person uttered a word as the door slammed closed.

All of them...were trying to process this new information.

’Being a Saintess is one thing...but Marcus is a transcendent, and she just dragged him like some husband whose about to get serious beating,’ these were the thoughts of women in the room. Men however, were even more scared.

"What in the name of the goddess did I just witness?" A noble within the silent crowd spoke.

"She just...dragged him like he owed her money," A merchant whispered.

Inside the private chamber, the door closed safely, and Violet finally released Marcus’s collar.

She turned around to face him with her arms crossed, eyes gleaming with an intensity that even mana lamps seem dim.

Marcus straightened his collar, recovering some shred of dignity.

"You know," he said. "Most people start with greetings, like how have you been...some even coerce their victims before resorting to...kidnapping,"

Violet smiled, but that smile didn’t reach her eyes. That seemed so dull, Marcus just decided to let her talk.

"Ymir," she said.

"What-is-your-problem?" she asked.

"Hmm... There are a lot actually, I might have to make a list and pres-" Marcus paused seeing the look on her face, and changed his response immediately.

"Nothing." He said. "None at all."

"First you leave with a single note, then you don’t even apologize, and then you’ve been avoiding me all this while, and there was no update. Let me repeat, not a single update from you for a whole year." She paused, and took a deep breath.

"And how do you appear after disappearing for a whole year? Fighting a ...calamity?"

"I wasn’t going to...I mean, how would I kno"

"Don’t." Violet said.

"You were about to make a joke out of it," she said.

"I was considering it," he admitted.

"A whole year, Ymir," she looked at him with eyes that had absolutely nothing to do with the Saintess and everything to do with the girl who’s been trying to know him.

"I know," Marcus replied.

"That’s all? You know? That’s all? Say something, anything...that you were busy, dying somewhere, that-that note was a mistake and you meant to write more, something that isn’t nothing?"

"It won’t happen again, look I’m not avoiding you... I just have stuff to do," he said.

"You said that last time."

"Did I?"

"You implied it,"

"That’s different thing,"

"It isn’t."

Violet sighed, and she smoothed the front of her dress and looked at the door once.

Then she looked at Marcus.

Marcus took off the black ring, as his disguise faded away, his skin turned fair and his red eyes gleamed back again.

"I may have," she began, in the tone of someone constructing a sentence very carefully.

"Made things slightly more complicated," she said.

"Slightly," Marcus replied.

"For your plans," she continued.

"Just light work, don’t worry,"

"The pollical ones. The ones you carefully elaborated, took-you-a-year ones," she gestured vaguely at the door, beyond which two hundred nobles were currently doing what two hundred nobles always did with the new information.

"Those ones," she said.

"I understood which plans you meant," Marcus replied calmly.

"You’re not angry?" she asked.

"No." he shook his head.

"I just walked into your banquet, dragged you out in front of the kingdom’s nobility, and confirmed every rumour that’s been circulating for the past...I didn’t ...I just-You were standing there and you had that face, which-"

"Pissed you off made you act on impulse," Marcus completed her words.

*Sniff*

"...?" Marcus furrowed his brows suddenly.

"I was going to say made a reasonable decision given the circumstances...but is that how you see me?" Tears began to well up in her eyes.

"Wait...no, that’s not what I meant-"

"That...is exactly how you’ve looked at me, a burden, a woman who doesn’t deserve to be your fiancé,"

"Nononono, that’s not what I said,"

"You cannot change your words, ’Your Highness,’ Why would you get along with a woman who used to be a commoner, an orphan, someone who the whole world used to despise as a child, and pity as a woman."

Marcus leaned against the wall with the particular ease of a man, and crossed his arms.

"You’re...not listening," she said looking at Marcus who was in deep thoughts.

"Tell me what you’re thinking," she said.

"You won’t like it,"

"Tell me anyway,"

Marcus sighed, and let the silence still the air of the room.

"In the past twenty minutes, two hundred nobles watched the saintess enter a royal banquet unannounced, cross a crowded hall, and remove me from it physically, they are currently deciding what it means."

"Power that follows rules is predictable. Power that breaks them becomes... interpretive. And interpretation breeds factions."

"Half of them will land on the obvious conclusion in an instant, others would believe that the saintess who moves at covenant’s schedule, who attends functions the covenant approves, and does not make unannounced appearances, made an exception which means that regardless of the nature our mild precision, acquaintance, what they saw today was the Saintess being independently of the covenant’s choreography,"

"Which isn’t bad, since someone with a position like yours should move of her own will because you’re a symbol."

"But that makes me rethink my options of finding out the man who murdered Elowen, because now the approach will be more discrete and in now way involve them because the one they’re dealing with is a transcendent with the support of the saintess, which gives two counter moves to them. If they’re as sharp as I think they are, they’ll either approach Ymir regarding the matters of rumours, or they’ll sully your name, which is extremely probable,"

"But their goal is to stir up rebellion, a saintess with sullied name will create a situation of lack of belief in the covenant, and that weak string cannot be used as weapon, so even the options I stated are just light work on the side, to weaponize the covenant they’ll need the kingdom against the people or the people against the covenant in order to make covenant the enemy of the Kingdom,"

"But this elevation of my status and rumours was a sudden event, which ensures that the moves that -that anonymous man made are already in position and active, so he’ll try to change the course of his pawns and pawns don’t like it when they get a hint of being used,"

"Because men who rely on others to move their pieces eventually lose control of the board."

"Right now, he’s also rerouting his strategy, all I need... is to see which piece moves out of line," Marcus blurted out his thoughts.

"Then there’s the Prince. The Prince does not secure power by appearing powerful,"

"Cassian’s move was not to elevate me... but to use me as an instrument of image."

"A ruler must be seen as decisive, even when he is uncertain. By declaring me a transcendent without process, he projects authority over institutions themselves. It tells the room that legitimacy flows from him."

"In the language of rule... he has chosen to be feared in judgment, rather than loved by order."

"It’s a double edged sword, right now, the people applaud him. Tomorrow, they will question the precedent. And when men begin to question precedent, they begin to look for alternatives."

"A wise prince avoids being hated, even when he must be feared. He made me useful as a symbol, and symbols when placed too prominently, attract loyalty, that is what he believes."

Marcus sighed.

"And this isn’t even half of what I have in mind," he said.

"..." Violet...just couldn’t say anything.