If You Take the Enemy Prince as Your Knight Chapter 152

When Sasha entrusted Ciel to Nanaen, she had explicitly instructed her to use a well-calibrated mix of threats and persuasion to ensure that when he woke up, he wouldn’t go seeking out Shumel for revenge. Judging by the way Nanaen’s words trailed off awkwardly, it seemed Sasha’s instructions had not been carried out very well.

 

Fidgeting with the brush in her hand, Nanaen offered an excuse. “I did as you asked, but his reaction was different from what I expected…”

 

“You mean you couldn’t resolve it properly?”

 

“It feels like it was only half-resolved. In the end, I feel like the two of them will have to sort it out themselves.”

 

“What happened?” Sasha decided she would hear firsthand what had happened on the day Ciel opened his eyes and judge for herself.

 

✦

The boy’s eyes flew open. It was hard to believe that until just moments ago he had been lying there like a corpse. Having regained consciousness, he breathed heavily. His chest heaved like someone who had just been pulled from the water. His body was showing a fierce will to live.

 

Once his breathing had calmed, Ciel looked around. This was not the ceiling he had grown accustomed to seeing. He tried to sit up abruptly, but for some reason his body would not obey him. Only after struggling with all his might through the pain of his muscles twisting did he finally manage to do what he intended.

 

His hand clutching the blanket was tightly wrapped in bandages, yet he could tell that it had become gaunt. It seemed he had been unable to receive proper nourishment for at least a week. Then he sensed someone approaching from the entrance.

 

“You’re awake.”

 

“Your… Highness?”

 

It was the princess. But she wasn’t his princess. Princess Golden Deer, Nanaen, approached the bed together with Kilieon, her personal knight.

 

Ciel’s vocal cords had stiffened from having gone unused for so long, and his voice came out rough. He accepted the large cup Kilieon handed him and gulped it down desperately. He had thought it was water, but it was actually an extremely thin soup. Only after moistening his throat was he able to produce a voice that could be heard.

 

“That, Princess Amber…”

 

Before he could even finish his sentence, Nanaen reacted sharply. “That’s the first question you ask as soon as you wake up? Why are you looking for Shushu?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“What are you going to do after finding her?”

 

“That’s…”

 

Ciel wondered why she was asking something so obvious. She was his personal knight, wasn’t she? What was wrong with a personal knight looking for his own princess?

 

At that moment, the memories from just before he lost consciousness came flooding back into Ciel’s mind. Everything that had happened at the martial arts tournament flashed through his mind all at once.

 

“Do not forget. I am the daughter of the emperor!”

 

“So go ahead, try killing Ciel!”

 

The princess’s threat, made with tens of thousands of spectators as witnesses.

 

“I forfeit.”

 

The disgrace that had befallen him when all of the imperial knights forfeited.

 

“Your Highness, most noble Imperial Princess, do you think this is what I wanted?”

 

“I will resent you, Your Highness. I will resent you for not even allowing me to die like a knight.”

 

“I said I’ll resent you!”

 

The violent emotions had swallowed him in an instant. All of it awakened at once, violently.

 

“…!”

 

It was as though his time had returned to that tournament arena. Ciel breathed heavily. The hand gripping the blanket trembled violently. Princess Shumel. He gritted his teeth.

 

Shumel had dragged his honor through the mud. His beloved princess had broken his will first and trampled on his honor, so he thought he, too, ought to steel his heart against her. And so he tried to become as cold as the fist he had clenched until the blood could no longer circulate through it. Even so, his desire to see the princess first remained unchanged. He was her knight, after all. So he naturally believed he would be able to meet her. But Nanaen denied the very basis of his assumption.

 

“Sir Ciel, you’re no longer a personal knight.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Have you not felt it yet? The domination has been broken.”

 

“…!”

 

Only then did Ciel realize that the force binding his mind from within had vanished, striking him with absolute shock. Why? Why is the domination gone? His blue eyes trembled wildly with confusion. Instead of his stiffened lips, his pitiful eyes sought an answer from Nanaen.

 

Nanaen answered him in a cold voice. “You really don’t know anything, do you? The covenant Shushu made to save your life was an ‘evil vow’. Because of it, Shushu incurred the goddess’s wrath and lost all her dominion.”

 

“That can’t be…!”

 

At the price Shumel had paid, Ciel felt as though the breath was being choked right out of him.

 

Without any consideration for Ciel, whose face was growing pale, Nanaen delivered her cruel verdict. “Now you’re nothing to Shushu.”

 

“…”

 

“Use your wish right to claim your freedom and leave. Go live your life. And don’t forget that this is the last gift Shushu is giving you.”

 

“…”

 

Ciel’s eyes went blank. He was no longer her personal knight? He was nothing of hers? Then, could he no longer see the princess? Until when? Could it be forever?

 

At this moment, Ciel felt a greater sense of loss than liberation. He had no time to be surprised by his own emotional reaction. He grew desperate. “Your Highness, where is Princess Amber? I must see Her Highness.”

 

“Did you even hear a word I just said? What are you going to do seeing Shushu when you aren’t even her personal knight anymore? Seek revenge?”

 

Ciel was horrified. “What are you talking about?! Why would I—!”

 

“You said you resented her.”

 

“…!”

 

“I’ll resent you. I said I’ll resent you!”

 

The innocence he had been about to insist upon was destroyed by his own words. There was no denying that he had said it. He had even shouted it at the top of his lungs in the tournament arena. The tens of thousands of spectators who had been there that day were all witnesses, in a sense.

 

Ciel opened his mouth in a pitiful attempt to explain. “That was because, my honor—”

 

“You think you’re the only one with honor? We’re princesses too!”

 

As Ciel flinched, Nanaen twisted her beautiful lips.

 

“Ah, right. In Shushu’s case, I should say she was a princess.”

 

What did that mean? Ciel looked up at Nanaen with anxious eyes.

 

“Because she lost her dominion, she can no longer take in a personal knight. The competition is conducted through proxy battles using personal knights, so what do you think happened when she couldn’t have one?”

 

“Don’t tell me…”

 

“She lost her position as a princess for losing her eligibility to participate. She was sold at an auction recently. Ah, her wedding is the day after tomorrow.”

 

“…!”

 

By this point, it was difficult for him to remain in his right mind. Lie. It must be a lie. That his princess had stood on an auction stage. And she was sold off to a man he didn’t even know and forced to marry him.

 

His chest was heaving violently, yet it felt as though he could not breathe at all. Ciel even felt as if every drop of blood had drained from his entire body. His hands and shoulders trembled uncontrollably.

 

Meanwhile, Nanaen was equally swept away by her emotions. With tears welling in her eyes, she shouted as though screaming at the top of her lungs. “Shushu saved you even knowing that this would happen to her! Even if it meant losing everything, she did it just to save you!”

 

“…”

 

“And yet, what on earth did you say to our Shushu? What? That you resented her? That you resented her for not letting you die like a knight should?”

 

“…”

 

“Did you really have to say it like that?! Did you have to dig into Shushu’s wounds with those words just to satisfy—!”

 

“Nana.”

 

As Nanaen grew increasingly agitated, Kilieon gently took hold of her shoulders from behind to calm her. Her shoulders, which had been heaving violently, finally became still.

 

“…”

 

Ciel looked as though his soul had left his body. He turned Nanaen’s words over in his mind, one by one. There was nothing wrong with what she had said as Shumel’s representative.

 

Honor wasn’t something that belonged solely to him. The princess had it too. Ciel clearly remembered that even though the princess had had the opportunity to change her personal knight, she had not abandoned him, saying that she had already resolved herself to going to the monastery.

 

There was no way that standing on an auction stage and standing at a wedding ceremony could be anything but a disgrace for the princess. But Shumel had accepted all of that to save Ciel. Someone who was terribly shy had hurled threats that did not suit her at all in front of tens of thousands of spectators. She proclaimed that she was the daughter of the emperor, the very man she hated and loathed so much.

 

Shumel had not thrown Ciel down to the bottom. She had fallen to the bottom alongside him.