Chapter 94 – Are You Happy, Princess? (4)
Day Two: Systemic Collapse
Olivia didn't sleep.
She lay in the guest room bed, staring at the ceiling, watching shadows shift and reform as the mana lamp's steady glow painted the darkness in shades of amber and grey.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them.
The child with ribs showing through torn cloth.
The woman holding the dead baby.
The man with one leg and three copper coins.
Hundreds of faces. Thousands. All blurring together into a chorus of suffering she'd never known existed.
How did I not know?
The question circled her mind like a vulture.
She was a princess. She sat in council meetings. She read reports. She signed documents. She had access to more information than almost anyone in the Empire.
And yet.
She hadn't known.
Or—worse—she'd known and hadn't understood.
"Elevated poverty levels." "Acceptable mortality rates." "Within manageable parameters."
The words felt like ash in her mouth now.
She'd read those reports and nodded. Agreed. Moved on to the next issue.
Because it was easier.
Because the numbers didn't have faces.
Until today.
She rolled onto her side, pulling her knees to her chest.
Why didn't the nobility help?
They had the resources. The wealth. The power. They could have—
But they didn't.
Why?
Why doesn't the Church help?
Vastriel's temples were everywhere. The priests preached compassion, mercy, the duty of the strong to protect the weak.
But she'd seen no priests in those slums.
No healers.
No aid.
Just... prayers once a month, Erynd had said. And then they left before sunset.
Why?
The questions multiplied, breeding in the dark, until her head throbbed and her chest ached and she wanted to scream just to make it stop.
She must have fallen asleep eventually.
Because she dreamed.
***
In the dream, she was back in the palace gardens.
She was young—maybe ten. Erynd was there too, the same age, climbing a tree he had no business climbing.
"Come on!" he called down to her. "You can see the whole city from up here!"
"I'll fall!" she shouted back.
"I won't let you fall!" he promised.
She believed him.
She always believed him.
She started climbing.
But halfway up, she looked down—
And he was gone.
Not just down from the tree.
Gone.
The garden was empty. The palace was empty. She was alone, clinging to branches that suddenly felt too thin, too weak, bending under her weight.
"Erynd?" she called.
No answer.
"ERYND!"
The branch snapped.
She fell—
And woke with a gasp, heart hammering, sheets tangled around her legs.
The mana lamp still glowed.
Dawn light crept around the edges of the shutters.
She sat up, pressing her palms to her eyes.
He left you behind, whispered something cruel in the back of her mind. He grew up and left and you stayed exactly where you were.
She shoved the thought away.
Got out of bed.
Dressed mechanically.
She had four more days.
She could survive four more days.
She had to.
***
When she entered the dining hall, Erynd was already there.
But he wasn't alone.
Lyra sat beside him, and in her grip—held with surprising strength for someone so slender—was a man.
Olivia stopped in the doorway.
The man was middle-aged, well-dressed in a way that screamed minor nobility. His face was pale, slick with sweat. His hands were bound in front of him.
He was shaking.
"Good morning, Olivia," Erynd said. His voice was calm. Pleasant, even.
As if there wasn't a bound man sitting three feet away.
"What—" Olivia started.
"Sit," Erynd said. "Breakfast is ready. We'll eat first."
She didn't move.
"Erynd, what is this—"
"Sit," he repeated. "Please."
Something in his tone made her obey.
She sat.
A servant—one she didn't recognize—brought food. Eggs. Bread. Fruit.
Her stomach turned just looking at it.
The bound man whimpered softly.
"Who is he?" Olivia asked quietly.
"Baron Aldric Venn," Erynd said, taking a bite of bread as if this were a normal breakfast conversation. "Minor noble. Holds land about forty miles north of here. Technically one of my neighbors, though he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo about the new management."
Lyra's grip on the man's shoulder tightened.
He winced.
"Why is he here?" Olivia asked.
"Because he's one of the corrupt ones," Erynd said simply. "And I thought you should meet him."
Olivia's blood went cold.
"Erynd—"
"You asked questions last night," he interrupted. "In your head, probably. Maybe out loud. I don't know. But I can guess what they were. 'Why doesn't the nobility help? Why doesn't the Church help? Why is it like this?'"
He set down his fork.
"I'm going to show you why," he said. "But first, you need to eat. You're going to need your strength."
She stared at her plate.
Picked up a piece of bread.
Chewed mechanically.
It tasted like nothing.
***
When breakfast was cleared away, Erynd stood.
"Noelle," he said.
The door opened, and Noelle entered.
She looked... tired. Pale. Her hands were clasped in front of her, knuckles white.
But when she met Olivia's gaze, her eyes were steady.
"Your Highness," she said softly.
"Noelle," Olivia replied, uncertain.
Erynd gestured to the bound man.
"Baron Venn here is going to tell us a story," he said. "And Noelle is going to make sure he doesn't lie."
Noelle's hands began to glow—soft, golden light, warm and pure.
Divine magic.
Truth magic.
Olivia had seen it before. The Church used it for trials, for oaths, for moments when absolute honesty was required.
"Wait—" the Baron gasped. "Please, I'll pay you, I'll give you anything, just—"
"Too late," Lyra said cheerfully. "You should have thought of that before you did... well. Everything."
The golden light settled over the Baron like a net.
He shuddered.
Erynd crouched in front of him, eye level.
"Tell her," he said quietly. "Everything. What you did. Why you did it. Don't leave anything out."
The Baron's mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
And then—compelled by magic, by truth, by the inevitability of confession—he spoke.
***
"I took taxes," he said. His voice was flat. Mechanical. "More than I was supposed to. The serfs on my land—they owed forty percent. I took sixty. Sometimes seventy."
Olivia's hands clenched in her lap.
"The surplus went into your coffers?" Erynd prompted.
"Yes," the Baron said. "And I sold it. Grain, mostly. Sold it to merchants in the capital at markup. Made... made a lot of money."
"And your people?" Erynd asked.
"Starved," the Baron said. The word came out like a sob. "Some of them. Not all. Just... the weak ones. The old. The sick. The ones who couldn't work as hard."
Olivia felt bile rise in her throat.
"How many?" Erynd asked.
"I don't know," the Baron said. "I didn't count. Maybe... maybe two hundred? Over the last decade?"
Two hundred.
Two hundred people.
Dead because this man wanted more money.
"And the children?" Erynd continued, relentless. "The ones who survived. What happened to them?"
The Baron's face crumpled.
"I sold some," he whispered. "The pretty ones. The healthy ones. To... to houses. In the capital. Brothels. Labor camps. Wherever they'd pay."
Olivia stood abruptly, chair scraping.
"No," she said. "No, that's—that's illegal, that's—"
"It's extremely illegal," Erynd agreed. "And extremely common. Isn't that right, Baron?"
"Yes," the Baron choked out. "Half the nobles in the eastern territories do it. We just... don't talk about it. The Crown looks the other way as long as we pay our taxes on time."
The room spun.
Olivia gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling.
"Keep going," Erynd said.
"There was a girl," the Baron said. His voice broke. "Twelve years old. Pretty. Her parents couldn't pay their taxes. I took her instead. Kept her in my house for... for six months. Then I got bored and sold her to a merchant caravan heading south."
Olivia's stomach heaved.
She turned and vomited onto the floor.
No one moved to help her.
When she straightened, wiping her mouth with shaking hands, Erynd was watching her.
His expression was unreadable.
"There's more," he said quietly. "Do you want to hear it?"
"No," she gasped.
"Then I'll summarize," he said. "Rape. Extortion. Murder, when people tried to resist. He once had a man executed because the man's wife refused his advances. He burned down a village that was three weeks late on taxes. He—"
"STOP," Olivia shouted.
Her voice cracked.
Erynd stopped.
Silence filled the room.
The Baron was crying now, great heaving sobs, snot running down his face.
Erynd stood and turned to the servants standing by the door.
One of them—an older man with scarred hands and eyes like flint—stepped forward.
He was holding a knife.
He walked over to Olivia.
And held it out to her.
"Your Highness," he said. His voice was rough. Raw. "My daughter was one of the children he sold. She was nine. I haven't seen her in six years. I don't know if she's alive."
He pressed the knife into her hand.
"Please," he said. "Let me watch him bleed."
Olivia stared at the knife.
At the Baron, sobbing on the floor.
At Erynd, watching her with those terrible, patient eyes.
"I can't," she whispered.
"You can," the servant said. "Just... just put it in his throat. Or his chest. Anywhere. He deserves it."
"I can't!" she screamed.
The knife clattered to the floor.
She backed away, shaking her head.
The servant looked at her for a long moment.
Then he picked up the knife.
"Then I will," he said.
"No," Erynd said quietly. "Not here. Take him outside. Lyra, Zoe—help him."
Two women stepped forward.
Lyra, familiar.
And another—masked, with black hair and a sleek tail that marked her as demonkin.
They hauled the Baron to his feet.
He was still sobbing, still begging.
"Please, please, I'm sorry, I'll change, I'll—"
"You'll die," Zoe said flatly. "Quietly or loudly. Your choice."
They dragged him out.
The door closed.
Olivia stood frozen, staring at the spot where the Baron had been.
"He's going to kill him," she said numbly.
"Yes," Erynd said.
"That's... that's murder."
"It's justice," Erynd corrected. "The Empire won't give it to him. So I will."
She looked at him.
Really looked.
At the boy she'd grown up with.
The boy who used to steal pastries and climb trees and laugh at stupid jokes.
He was gone.
In his place was... this.
Someone who could orchestrate a man's execution over breakfast and call it necessary.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you show me this?"
He stepped closer.
"Because you asked why the nobility doesn't help," he said. "This is why. Because half of them are like him—corrupt, cruel, squeezing their people dry for profit. And the other half are too weak, too comfortable, or too complicit to stop it."
"It can't all be like this," she said desperately. "There have to be good nobles, people who—"
"There are," he agreed. "A few. Maybe ten percent. Maybe less. And they're either too isolated to matter or too afraid to act because the system will crush them if they try."
He circled her slowly, like a teacher delivering a lesson.
"You want to fix it?" he asked. "You want to wave a magic wand and make the nobility care? You can't. Because this isn't a bug in the system, Olivia. It's a feature. The Empire is built on exploitation. On nobles extracting wealth from commoners and kicking a percentage up to the Crown. As long as the taxes flow and the revolts stay manageable, no one cares how many people die in the process."
"That's not—Father wouldn't—"
"Your father is a good man," Erynd interrupted. "I believe that. But he's one man trying to hold together a rotting structure. And he's too afraid of collapse to tear it down and rebuild."
He stopped directly behind her.
She could feel his presence—solid, looming, inescapable.
"I'm showing you this," he said quietly, "for my Queen's own good."
The words sent a shiver down her spine.
"Your... Queen?" she echoed.
"You're the heir," he said. "One day, you'll sit on that throne. And when you do, you'll have to decide: Do you prop up this system and let it keep grinding people into dust? Or do you burn it down and build something better?"
His hand settled on her shoulder.
Not threatening.
Just... there.
"Your father treated the sole heir too kindly," he murmured. "He sheltered you. Protected you. Kept you clean and safe and ignorant. He thought he was being a good father. Maybe he was. But he failed to prepare you for what ruling actually means."
She turned to face him.
"And you're preparing me?" she asked, voice shaking. "By breaking me?"
"By waking you," he corrected. "You can't rule what you don't understand. And you can't fix what you won't see."
She wanted to scream at him.
Wanted to hit him.
Wanted to run back to the palace and pretend none of this was real.
But she couldn't.
Because it was real.
The Baron was real. The slums were real. The dead children were real.
And she—
She'd been complicit.
"The Church," she said suddenly. "What about the Church? Vastriel teaches compassion, mercy, aid to the suffering. Why don't they—"
"Do you really want to know?" Erynd asked.
"Yes," she said.
He sighed.
"The Church of Vastriel is the second-largest landowner in the Empire," he said. "Right after the Crown. They own farms, mills, mines, entire villages. And they operate them the same way the nobles do—extracting wealth, paying minimal wages, keeping people just barely alive enough to work."
Olivia shook her head.
"No. No, the Church would never—"
"The Church is an institution," Erynd said. "And institutions care about power, not principles. The priests at the top live in luxury. They dine with nobles. They own estates. They're part of the same corrupt system as everyone else."
"But the lower priests—" she tried. "The ones who actually serve—"
"Are underfunded, overworked, and told to offer prayers instead of aid because aid costs money," Erynd finished. "Some of them try. Some of them care. But the institution they serve won't back them up. Won't give them resources. Won't risk alienating the nobles who donate to the temples."
He leaned in closer.
"You want to know why the Church doesn't help?" he asked. "Because helping the poor doesn't pay. And the Church, like everyone else, follows the money."
Olivia's legs gave out.
She sank to the floor, hands pressed to her face.
Everything—
Everything—
Was wrong.
The nobility. The Church. The Empire itself.
All of it built on suffering. On exploitation. On people like the Baron, and systems that let him thrive.
And she—
She was part of it.
She'd sat in the palace, comfortable and clean, while people died.
She'd read reports and nodded and moved on.
She'd let it happen.
"I didn't know," she sobbed. "I didn't know, I didn't—"
"You do now," Erynd said.
He crouched beside her, hand gentle on her back.
"And now you have to decide," he continued. "Do you go back to the palace and pretend you didn't see? Do you file this away under 'tragic but unsolvable' and move on with your life? Or do you stay here, in the filth, in the truth, and help me burn it all down?"
She looked up at him through tears.
"I don't know how," she whispered.
"I'll teach you," he said.
His hand moved to cup her face, thumb brushing away a tear.
"Four more days," he said softly. "And then you choose."
She couldn't speak.
Couldn't think.
Her mind was shattered, scattered, broken into pieces she didn't know how to put back together.
All she could do was nod.
He stood, pulling her up with him.
"Go rest," he said. "Tomorrow will be harder."
"Harder?" she echoed numbly.
"Yes," he said. "Tomorrow I show you what we're building to replace it."
He turned and walked away.
Noelle moved to her side, hand gentle on her elbow.
"Come on," she said softly. "I'll walk you back."
Olivia let herself be led.
Behind them, Lyra and Zoe returned.
Their hands were clean.
The Baron was gone.
Olivia didn't ask where.
She didn't want to know.
***
That night, she didn't even try to sleep.
She sat by the window, staring out at the estate—at the lights, at the movement, at the life happening below.
Her mind replayed everything.
The Baron's confession. The servant's grief. The knife in her hand.
Erynd's voice: For my Queen's own good.
She was being corrupted.
She knew that.
She wasn't stupid.
He was breaking her down, piece by piece, showing her horrors until she had nothing left to cling to except him.
Except his truth.
Except his vision of what the world could be.
And the worst part—
The absolute worst part—
Was that it was working.
Because she couldn't unsee what she'd seen.
Couldn't unhear what she'd heard.
Couldn't go back to who she'd been two days ago.
That version of herself—naive, comfortable, complicit—was dead.
And in her place—
In her place was someone raw and bleeding and angry and awake.
Someone who couldn't stop asking:
Are you happy, Princess?
The answer was no.
No, she wasn't happy.
She was furious.
And that fury—
That white-hot, burning rage—
Was exactly what Erynd had been aiming for all along.
She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and let the tears come.
Not for herself.
For everyone she'd failed to see.
For everyone she'd failed to save.
For the version of herself she'd lost.
And for the version she was becoming.
Outside, the half-moon watched.
Cold.
Distant.
Uncaring.
Just like the gods.