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48: FRENEMY😈

'You were summoned too?' she said in fright. Her aide nodded at her.

'I fear so.'

'Fuck!' she cursed.

'The seven were called upon alongside their aides. Be rest assured that you were not singled out on this My Lady.'

'We will stick with the alibi we made up right?' her aide nodded. 'If you are asked a difficult question, the phrase "I cannot remember it" is the best of answer, better even than the 'I do not know" phrase, you hear?' she adviced her in a shaky voice.

'Yes My Lady, I get it.'

'Do not let the Emperor goad you into loosening up and becoming less vigilant you hear?' she continued. 'He is actually a very cunny man. The moment he succeeds, you will begin to implicate yourself without even knowing I swear.'

'I will beware of him My Lady. I shall be alert at all times.'

'Let me get ready. Go and get me the assisting maids of my quarters,' she ordered her.

'Yes My Lady. I shall return very quickly,' she assured her. And then, she turned and left. A few minutes later, three maids, the ones assigned to her alongside her aide trooped into her bedroom after a knock and a go ahead from her. They helped her with dressing up and getting ready. Soon, she was ready to leave.

'You may leave,' she told them when they were done. She turned to her aide when they were long gone. 'Do well to remember what I said,' she warned again. 'If it gets worse, you can feign one of your fainting spells you know?'

'Yes My Lady. I will do well remember everything that we agreed upon.'

'That is very good,' she commended her aide. 'Let us go,' she said.

'Yes My Lady.' They walked towards the door and left the bedroom, her aide shutting the door behind her. They left the reclining area and stepped outside. Her aide locked the door securely and they quickly left for the investigation grounds to go and answer the Emperor's summon.

When they got there, the others had already arrived except for one, the one who had fallen from high grace, the Princess of the Draco Kingdom. She did not dwell on that. And when it was her turn, the emperor questioned her. She held her head up high and answered every question confidently, sticking to the alibi that she and her aide had made up. The emperor did not actually bother her much. And she congratulated herself for scaling through the sessions without faltering even once. She sashayed out of the questioning from when she was done to go and welter in her victory. She nearly collided into another empress candidate as she turned a corner.

'Watch it!' the lady had snapped at her angrily. She had apologized because the Lady's clan was above hers and nothing else.

'I am sorry. I did not see you there, or rather I did not expect to see you there,' she corrected.

'It is fine,' she said after a moment. 'I should not have yelled. I am just queasy and that is why.'

'It is not a problem. After all,' she told her, 'everyone is really upset at the moment. We are all being accused because of that wench.'

'Oh how I wish that it was I who had cut the saddles of her horse,' the other lady mused. 'I would have made sure that her death was imminent. And what a fulfilling thing that would have been. I do not think she is recovered yet since we are yet to see her up and about as always. But, it ain't critical either. Still, it infuriates me because someone did a rather poor job of trying to eliminate her and also trying to cover their tracks it seems to me.'

'I guess so,' was her reply as her heart beat with glee at having someone else wish the same thing as her.

'If were to have been me, she would have been long dead. She would have died on the spot.'