Krasilof's royal palace was also known as the Amber Palace. The name was best understood as a tribute to its splendor, rather than merely a reference to a palace adorned with amber.

At least until the prewar era, it had been among the most extravagant royal residences in the United Kingdoms.

"You've come."

Elizaveta stood at the palace entrance, looking haggard. She studied the bloodstains on Ivan's body before raising her eyes.

Ivan silently went down on one knee. Beside him, Pavel and Dmitry bowed low as well.

"Any injuries?"

"None."

"Thank goodness."

Her unassuming words carried unmistakable relief. Naturally so: on her orders, the man before her had fought the strongest elf until he lost consciousness, then immediately swept away the capital's subversive elements.

If he had suffered a mortal wound in the process... Elizaveta turned away, suppressing a sudden rush of vertigo.

"I will hear your detailed report later. Come yourself rather than sending Dmitry. Understood?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"I have much to say... but not today. Vanka, raise your head."

Ivan lifted his bowed head. Elizaveta bent slightly before him.

A hand settled gently against his cheek. Its warmth cupped his parched skin for a long while.

Her pale fingertips trembled faintly.

"You've endured so much. Thank you for indulging my unreasonable demands. From the moment we first met until now. Always."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Now I shall give you your last assignment for today. Rise, gentlemen."

Elizaveta turned toward the palace.

Between the Amber Palace's majestic stone pillars, she faced its corridors with cold eyes.

Royal guardsmen stood at attention with their heads bowed. All of them served as her hands and feet, and no one barred their way.

"Follow me. We shall go before the King."

Pavel went rigid at her words.

Seeing his hand twitch involuntarily toward his waist, Ivan slowly lowered his own to the haft of his axe.

Perhaps noticing their reactions, Elizaveta continued without turning.

"Do you still hate this country's sovereign?"

"... Yes, Your Highness."

Pavel spoke quietly through clenched teeth.

Even if he had sworn to pledge his loyalty to Elizaveta once more, to devote himself to this country's peace...

Even so, his feelings were not something that could be fully laid to rest. Of course they weren't. His hatred was trapped in the past.

It was a rage that could never be assuaged. Everyone he had cherished had died long ago.

And Ivan was no different. Feeling Pavel's emotions surge wildly, he slowly moved closer to Elizaveta.

So that he could stop Pavel at any moment, should the man change his mind.

"That is why I summoned you here today. I shall give you no further orders tonight. Do what you wish."

Ivan's grip on his axe haft slackened.

How could he be without such feelings? His anger remained as keen as ever. His wrath toward the reigning king, Kirill, still smoldered in his chest like lingering embers.

But he had endured it. He had suppressed it, telling himself it was worthless. He had let it pass, thinking it meaningless.

Wasn't he merely a stranger in this world, after all? He had endured it by telling himself he had no right to pass judgment.

But now Elizaveta had affirmed his feelings.

If you want revenge, take it.

Even as he entered the King's presence armed, Ivan turned the Princess's words over in his mind.

'Why now?'

Elizaveta already held the real power in this country. Ever since the Crown Prince's disappearance, she had wielded firm control, enough to shake the entire capital.

She had already carried out one successful coup. As a result, the King had been confined, all authority to grant royal sanction had passed to the Princess, and the royal house had been placed under the constitution.

But why now, of all times?

When her first coup succeeded, nothing would have prevented her from removing the King and succeeding to the throne herself.

Yet now, all of a sudden, she was saying they could kill him.

Surely it wasn't some tender sentiment a young daughter might have, an inability to kill her own father with her own hands. It couldn't be.

Ivan followed Elizaveta in silence, troubled by his thoughts.

* * *

[The Lord Watches Over You.]

Those words were emblazoned beside a vast tapestry at the entrance to the long corridor leading to the King's audience chamber.

It was the last legacy that lent the Amber Palace any majesty. The palace had already lost all the glory of its earlier days.

In the corridor, where only dusty vacant spaces remained, Elizaveta remembered the enormous ornaments and treasures of every kind that had once hung on these walls.

"Does it look shabby?"

Elizaveta asked with a smile. Wasn't it rather amusing, she said, that this old palace where the country's king himself resided contained not a single luxury, yet was still called the Amber Palace?

But Ivan gave a brief shake of his head.

"It is glorious."

"Glorious? This decline?"

"This is not decline, Your Highness. This is sacrifice."

Ivan had served in the Royal Guard. Naturally, he remembered what the Amber Palace had looked like during the war.

It had been at its most splendid early in the former King's reign, when his wars of conquest were at their height.

In those days, Ivan the Great had been known as "the Conqueror," "the Terrible," and "the Bear of Krasilof." Such epithets were never born in peaceful times.

Until the Demon King unleashed the great war, Krasilof had been the most belligerent nation in the United Kingdoms. Under its young conquering monarch, it had spread across vast theaters of war, sowing terror.

In those days, treasures taken from every region had made the Amber Palace the most splendid royal residence in the United Kingdoms. Everyone who passed through this corridor had willingly paid homage to the great king's authority.

Then the Demon King was born. Half the world went up in flames.

Until the hero appeared, war remained this country's means of preserving its existence. But unlike its previous wars against humanity, this was an endless succession of defeats.

Authority built through victory crumbled through defeat. The great king remained strong, but the royal house's authority did not. To preserve the nation in those circumstances, he had been forced to sell the royal treasures.

That was no symbol of decline.

The bare stone pillars of this corridor were a chronicle in their own right.

The marks left on the dusty pillars were not a lament for vanished treasures and past glory.

They were a chronicle of the traces left by a man who had always been great, who had let himself be brought low in his country's stead. They were a tribute to a man who had not surrendered in the face of defeat, but had taken everything he still possessed and rushed back to the front.

So, if this corridor were to be given a name, it could never be decline.

"Thank you, Vanka."

Elizaveta murmured, looking up at the ceiling with reddened eyes. Ivan followed without a word.

The long corridor came to an end. At last, they reached the audience chamber.

Through the empty, chilly chamber, they walked along a worn carpet until they finally reached the throne.

There sat an unfamiliar old man, staring vacantly down at them.

* * *

"Do not kneel."

Elizaveta spoke curtly from ahead of them. Her voice betrayed no emotion, but it was steady and unwavering.

Failing to prostrate oneself before the King was itself an act of disrespect warranting the harshest punishment. Yet everyone present stood straight, looking directly at the throne.

"No one in this country may dare make you kneel in my presence. Especially not now. So lift your heads and look straight ahead. Look at the one before you. What do you see?"

Elizaveta continued walking as she spoke evenly.

Councillor, herald, secretary, inspector, chamberlain, commander of the household guard, officer of state, master of ceremonies, chamberlain, palace steward, master of the hunt, keeper of the royal pleasures, master of ceremonies.

She passed one seat after another, each bearing the elegantly inscribed title of one of the country's high officials.

Palace Minister, Minister of Official Affairs, Minister of Public Works, Foreign Minister.

Marshal, Prime Minister.

And finally, she reached the King.

"Have you been well, Your Majesty?"

Elizaveta mounted the dais without breaking stride. No one could stop her. The guard officers present merely kept their heads bowed, as though this were routine.

The King, too, simply watched her without answering.

"Do you see? Can you see this man?"

Standing beside the throne, Elizaveta playfully nudged the crown on the King's head.

"Do you see a man who has lost speech, thought, and will alike? Do you see this majesty displayed by the master of all his people?"

"What happened?"

It was Pavel who answered her. His trembling hand clutched desperately at his waist.

Fierce rage seeped into his voice, as though he might draw his spear and hurl it at any moment.

"My brother's handiwork. Please do not ask when it began. I do not know either. But even in the days when the former King personally went to war, this man was probably no different from how he is now."

"But I remember King Kirill's coronation."

"Yes. He walked normally and spoke without difficulty, did he?"

"... Yes."

"Perhaps my brother has left this country without regret because he had already played king to his heart's content back then."

Pavel shuddered at her words.

Had the King been nothing but a puppet even then? Had he been dancing to some trick of the Crown Prince's?

Had this entire country already been in the Crown Prince's grasp?

"So calling it a struggle for the succession is laughable. This country already belonged to Alexander, and must have for well over ten years. In other words, I was fighting not to inherit the throne, but to usurp it. Pavel, you may call me your senior. I have been fighting as a rebel far longer than you."

"Why did you not tell anyone...?"

"Whom should I have told? Who ever stood at my side and fought? The military? The House of Nobles? The Royal Household? Who would fight for me upon hearing this?"

The ambitious would want to overthrow a monarchy reduced to this state, while the royal house's loyal servants would have no qualms about siding with the Crown Prince.

Whom could she tell? To have controlled the King was, in itself, no different from having controlled the entire country.

This country had belonged to Alexander in name and in fact. Her struggle had been to undo that. That was what all those years had been.

"So, Vanka. When you said you were leaving, I was both relieved and hurt. Relieved that you were finally safe, and hurt that you would leave me at the most dangerous moment."

"Your Highness."

"Isn't it fortunate that you've returned, even now? It doesn't trouble me at all."

Elizaveta turned with a gentle smile.

"So, will you do as you wish? Will you behead this country's king and assuage your rage? Will you avenge the former King and all those heroes, and raise the banner of justice once more?"

Pavel lowered his head without answering.

If every order issued in those days had ultimately come from the Crown Prince, then beheading that old man would be nothing more than venting his anger.

As she descended from the dais, Elizaveta addressed Pavel, who stood silent with his teeth clenched.

"Do you still desire revenge?"

"... Yes, Your Highness."

"So do I. I want revenge on that lawless wretch who held everything in this country in his hands alone, then cast it all aside and left. I want revenge on the man who buried all the greatest people this country ever had, only to discard as worthless the kingship he gained in exchange."

Elizaveta looked at Ivan.

"I want revenge on the man who swept everyone I loved beneath the sandy soil of a distant land, who threw everyone who loved me before the demons' jaws. Will you join me?"

Ivan looked into Elizaveta's eyes. Longing, anger, self-reproach, fear, and perhaps... attachment.

Reading the emotions passing through her eyes, he quietly bowed his head.

"Do not ask. Only command."

Before the men with their heads bowed, Elizaveta looked up at the ceiling.

Her eyes burned. The words she had scarcely been able to confide to anyone, the shame of this country's royal house, were spilling out.

No longer. Prizhenkaya had finally come under her control, and the provincial nobles throughout the country would soon follow.

Alexander's influence had been rooted out completely. Now no one would be able to disregard her authority.

Krasilof would rise again. Grander than it had ever been.

She would make it so. She would. And she would exact the price. From her brother, from that man whose whereabouts she did not know.

Without fail.

Beneath the King's silence, the royal house would bloom once more. Brilliantly, beyond anyone's power to deny.