346. Inquiry About The Princess

“Odd behavior…?” Alice repeated the words slowly, a bit taken aback. Tapping her fingers lightly against the wooden table, she fixed Aisha with a calculating look. “Are you implying that Her Highness is under mind control by the Cult? We already put the entire inner circle through the mandatory alcohol clearing tests, remember. No one is compromised.”

“No, no, not mind control. Just... just think back for a second,” Aisha countered, leaning closer to compel Alice to truly reflect on the past year.

Alice fell silent, her eyes drifting toward the stage where the play was continuing its suggestive performance as usual in the dinner. For a few minutes, she watched the silhouettes shift in total silence before turning back, picking up her freshly poured glass of wine. “You know, if you actually tell me exactly what this inquiry is about, it might make this conversation a lot more productive.”

Aisha hummed softly, glancing at the bottle. “Don’t you have to go back on duty at the castle later? Is it really alright for you to be drinking like this?”

“I am taking the second half of the day off,” Alice chuckled, adjusting the frame of her spectacles with two fingers. “I figured you wouldn’t have randomly asked me to hang out if it wasn’t something of genuine substance, after all.”

Aisha took a deep breath, finally letting down her guard. “We went into the ancient ruins that opened up beneath the Herptian Church. It contains a massive subterranean city from the era of Emperor Aurelius’s mistake.”

For the next few minutes, Aisha detailed the happenings in the underground city while Alice listened intently, her skepticism gradually melting into deep focus.

“And then we reached the center,” Aisha whispered, her tone dropping to a gravelly pitch. “There was an ancient altar built by Herptian and Umbra. His Holiness Finn activated it, and when Her Highness stood upon it, the mechanism projected the shape of her soul. It showed a woman dressed in rather otherworldly clothing... design principles remarkably similar to the strange blueprints Her Highness drew up for the factories months ago, the ones she ended up canceling because the island's hot climate wouldn't permit them. That specific imagery got me thinking...”

“That something is deeply wrong,” Alice finished, downing her glass of wine as she began to trace the dark trajectory of Aisha’s thoughts.

Aisha nodded grimly. “Though it could theoretically be argued that her soul’s innate shape is just that of a foreign woman... it is incredibly abnormal that no other person tested has ever projected a complete, fully formed human figure.”

“Have you discussed this with Junior Priest Finn?” Alice asked, refilling her own glass and passing another to Aisha.

Aisha took the glass and downed it in a single, burning sip. “I did. According to the ancient scriptures they've deciphered, the shapes manifested by the altar are usually forms that represent a concentrated will. For example, my projection was a blurry purple phoenix. My noble house’s sigil has always been the phoenix. The altar reflects a combination of how you subconsciously perceive yourself and what your true origin dictates.”

“So the projection forms entirely based on what you subconsciously deem yourself to be, controlled by your specific worldview, and all of that needs to perfectly coincide with your soul’s physical origin for a clear projection...?” Alice verbalized the theory, her gaze sharpening as she processed the impossible criteria. “Which means—”

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“Which means it is practically impossible for a normal person to have such a perfectly clear, unaltered image of a completely different persona,” Aisha finished the sentence, leaning back and taking a tense bite of her food. “It shouldn't happen. But if Her Highness truly sees herself as an entirely separate woman... I thought, maybe...”

“Maybe it is someone else entirely residing inside her body. An entity that still maintains an absolute, unshakable sense of self from whatever she looked like before taking over,” Alice articulated the words, the pieces clicking together so smoothly that her face began to turn pale and dark in the dim light of the diner. “So whoever is ruling over us right now... it isn't the real Princess Ravenna Solarius. That is what you are suspecting...”

Aisha met her gaze, a matching look of absolute dread written across her features. The silence between the two friends grew heavy, suffocating against the backdrop of the cheering crowd.

“Why... why do you assume it's something that happened recently, though?” Alice gave a forced, hollow chuckle, desperately trying to fan away the sudden, suffocating unease gripping her heart. “She could have simply harbored a vivid image of a different self since childhood, right? People are complex.”

But even as she spoke the defensive words, Alice’s hand involuntarily drifted to her side, her fingers pressing through her clothes to touch the exact spot where the bizarre, apostle-like mark had manifested on her skin last night. A dark, dreadful panic began to claw at her stomach, because she knew, deep down, that the mark hadn't come from any god she had ever prayed to.

Alice started to feel as though she were trapped inside a sinking, dark hole with thousands of watchful eyes surrounding her in the abyss. Her mind raced frantically as her fingers pressed against the hidden mark. She thought back to the surreal white expanse of the Origin Domain they had entered just yesterday. She thought of the incredibly advanced, unheard-of knowledge Ravenna had suddenly begun to display out of seemingly nowhere, using it to build up the entire island and aggressively force it to advance.

Alice...

Alice...

“Alice...!”

Aisha’s voice cut through the fog of her panic. “Breathe!” she commanded, striking Alice’s back with a strong, firm hit.

Alice choked a bit, the sudden impact shocking her system. She began taking sharp, ragged gulps of air, instantly reaching for her glass to down some water. She had been drowning so deeply in her own thoughts of pure dread that she had entirely stopped breathing for a few minutes, and only now did the oxygen start to rush back into her lungs.

“Ahem...! Huu...” Alice tried desperately to compose herself between deep breaths, but her trembling hands made it incredibly difficult to maintain her usual poise.

Aisha kept patting her back firmly for a few more minutes, her expression softening with deep concern until Alice finally managed to steady her voice.

“She did...” Alice choked out, her spectacles slipping slightly down her nose. “She did act oddly for a while right after her exile. It was... it was as if she was forcing herself to act like her usual haughty, arrogant self, but then, slowly, she stabilized and went back to being herself, not feeling like it was an act..”

“Alice...” Aisha muttered, gently rubbing her back.

But as Alice’s breath finally caught up with her, she didn't relax. Instead, she lunged forward and clutched Aisha’s arm so tightly that the pressure of her fingers began to form a visible mark on the knight's skin.

“It... it must have been a natural reaction, right?” Alice whispered frantically, her eyes wide behind her lenses as she stared into Aisha's face. “After all, she was publicly accused of murdering her own mother. She was stripped of everything, exiled to this barren rock, and had to completely dismantle her harem... she had to force all of her lovers to flee into hiding. Absolutely anyone would be broken after going through that, right? It was just extreme emotional distress! That’s all it was, right?”

It was painfully clear that Alice wasn't actually asking Aisha for her input. It was as if she were desperately spinning justifications aloud, trying to force her own racing heart to calm down rather than face the terrifying alternative.

Aisha swallowed hard, a heavy lump forming in her throat. Seeing her brilliant, usually unshakeable friend completely unraveling before her eyes made her gulp. She simply nodded nervously, trying to soothe the panic.

“Yes... yes,” Aisha whispered softly, placing her hand over Alice’s trembling fingers. “That must be it. It was just the trauma.”