The servant girl ran after Elara, almost stepping on her own skirt.
"Princess, please think again," she said. "This is not right."
Elara stopped and turned to look at her.
"I just sent two knights out of 'my' palace," she said in a quiet, flat voice. "They were rude. I removed them. Why is that a problem?"
The servant stared at her like her head might burst.
"B‑but, Your Highness…" she dragged out the words, "those knights belong to the Eldest Princess."
Elara paused.
"…What did you say?"
She pointed at the floor under their feet.
"This is my palace, correct?"
"Yes, Princess. This is your palace," the girl said softly.
"So this is my palace," Elara said, "but the knights here follow my sister, not me."
She frowned slightly. "That does not make sense."
The servant opened and closed her mouth. No sound came out.
Under Elara's tired, sharp gaze, she finally gave up.
"I… I will tell you everything, Princess," she whispered.
It took twenty minutes.
When the girl finished, Elara sat very still. She did not panic. She simply updated her "data" in her head.
'The emperor has seventeen children,' she thought. 'Seven princesses and the rest are princes.'
In this world, royal blood means magic. The girls have the strongest power, and the boys are a bit weaker. So the ones really fighting for the top are the princesses, not the princes. They all want the position of Crown Princess, the one who will stand closest to the emperor and maybe rule after him.
The emperor himself is the only man in the family with magic as strong as the old stories say. He is cold and ruthless. He fought hard to get the throne. Now his daughters are fighting the same way for power.
Out of the seven princesses, four are the most dangerous:
The First Princess, who holds most of the power now.
The Third Princess, quiet but deadly.
And fifth prince : The one they call the Beauty of the Empire.
And the Fourth Princess—the body Elara was now inside.
On paper, the Fourth Princess should be amazing. Her magic is strong. Her bloodline is rare. Her mother was famous.
In real life, this princess did nothing. She never fought for power. She never built her own people. She hid in her rooms, playing with experiments and strange tools. To others, she looked like a harmless fool.
Her mother's story was strange too.
She had been a commoner, but the best magician in the empire after the royal family. Some people said her magic was almost as strong as the emperor's. She refused his proposal many times. In the end, he used his power to force her into the palace as his consort.
Inside the palace, she did not play politics. She worked on magic experiments and charity, making things for normal people, not for the throne. She gave birth to a daughter—the Fourth Princess. For two years, while the old empress still lived, mother and child were loved.
Then the mother died. Some said it was poison. Some said their magic did not match. No one knew for sure.
After that, the emperor slowly lost interest in his quiet daughter who did not care about power.
No mother.
No strong backing.
No wish to fight for the throne.
People in the palace saw her as unfavored, silly, and safe to ignore.
Elara let out a slow breath.
'In my first life,' she thought, 'I was used as a weapon by my mentor. In this life, I've woken up in a body everyone thinks is useless.'
She looked toward the doorway where the knights had stood.
"Fine," she said calmly. "If this is my palace, then from today, it will actually belong to me."
She looked at the servant.
"Call those knights back. And bring the steward. I want to know exactly who in this place listens to me—and who listens to my sister."
Elara had just given the order.
The servant girl bowed and reached for the door.
SLAM.
The door crashed into something solid. The girl bounced back and almost fell. A gloved hand caught the edge of the door and pushed it slowly, easily, as if it hadn't just taken a full hit.
A tall knight filled the doorway. His armor was darker than the other guards', the metal worked with faint beast patterns along the shoulders and throat. Under his helmet, gold eyes watched the room like a hunting animal.
The Beast Knight.
The servant's face went white. Her knees almost gave out. She dropped into a clumsy curtsey so fast she nearly hit the floor.
But even he moved aside.
He stepped back one pace and lowered his head, clearing the way without a word.
Soft shoes crossed the threshold.
A woman stepped in, not even glancing at the servant still kneeling by the door. Blond hair, smooth and bright as silk, was pinned up with a single jade hairpin. Her gown was simple in design but made of cloth so fine it caught the light with each step.
Behind her, two rows of knights dropped to one knee in perfect sync, fists to their chests. No one had to shout an order. They just moved the moment she entered.
The air in the room changed.
Voices in the corridor cut off.
Even the Beast Knight lowered his head a fraction more.
No one said her title. They didn't need to.
The woman let her gaze slide over the servant still kneeling by the door. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't frown. She only looked.
The girl's shoulders started to shake.
"Out," the woman said.
Just one word.
The servant scrambled away on her hands, nearly tripping over her own skirt as she fled the room.
Elara watched all of this from her bed, her face calm. Her eyes moved from the Beast Knight's careful posture to the kneeling line of armored men, to the way the woman walked straight in without knocking, as if this was her room, her palace, her world.