Chapter 29
Cai floated lazily near the bed, looking far too entertained for a creature with no personal stake in disaster.
“Well,” he said, “that was productive.”
Dara turned toward him slowly. “In what universe?”
“In this one, apparently.”
She pressed both hands briefly over her face, then dropped them and resumed pacing.
The route screens still hovered in front of her, cold and bright and smug.
Dara stopped pacing and pointed at the screen. “Alright,” she said. “Route B.”
Cai crossed his tiny arms.
Dara exhaled and began pacing again.
“It’s getting harder,” she said.
The words were aimed at the system, the room, fate, and every irritating force in the universe that had decided self-destruction should require this much paperwork.
She lifted a hand and began ticking things off on her fingers. “My reputation is too high.”
Cai nodded. “You’re too liked.”
“The Crown Prince is interested.”
“Very.”
“My staff are loyal.”
“Disturbingly.”
“And apparently I’ve built enough roads and gardens and functioning civic improvements to make exile look unreasonable.”
Cai tilted his head. “That one is really on you.”
Dara stopped pacing.
Then started again immediately.
“Which means normal methods won’t work anymore.”
“Such as?”
She looked at him. “Spending.”
Cai blinked. “You’ve spent a great deal.”
“Yes, but not in the right direction.”
“You bought a mountain.”
“I bought it beautifully.”
“You also considered faking your death.”
“That was a separate strategic conversation.”
Cai’s whiskers twitched. “And yet here we are.”
Dara folded her arms, gave Route B one long look, then turned very slowly toward Cai.
“…Wait.”
Cai straightened instantly. “Oh, I know that tone.”
Dara ignored him. “If I’m being courted by the Crown Prince…”
“Yes,” Cai said. “Still horrifying.”
“…what does that actually give me?”
Cai paused.
For once, the answer did not come wrapped in mockery.
“Protection,” he said.
Dara’s eyes sharpened. “Go on.”
“Visibility,” Cai said. “Influence. Social advantage. People will hesitate before offending you. Nobles will be careful. Servants will gossip. Merchants will bow lower. Minor officials will become nervous.”
Dara stared at him. Then, slowly—very slowly—she smiled. “…So I can get away with more.”
Cai’s expression brightened in immediate alarm and delight. “Yes.”
“That,” Dara said softly, “is extremely useful.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I am very pleased.”
She turned away and resumed pacing, but her steps had changed now—slower, more deliberate, the pace of a woman whose panic had just reorganized itself into strategy.
“That’s very villainous,” she murmured.
Cai gasped. “There she is.”
Dara ignored that too.
The system still glowed before her, but she was no longer looking at the routes.
She was looking past them now. At structure. Power. Possibility.
“If I push too far socially,” she said, half to herself, “I look childish.”
“Yes.”
“If I push too little, nothing changes.”
“Also yes.”
“So I need something else.”
Cai drifted lower, hovering near the edge of her desk. “Something else?”
“Authority.”
The word settled into the room with satisfying weight.
Dara stopped pacing again.
This time she stayed still.
“Not reputation,” she said. “Not gossip. Not embarrassing myself in public like some second-rate villainess with no standards.”
Cai nodded solemnly. “Important distinction.”
“I need real authority,” Dara continued. “Visible authority. Enough authority that when I say something unpleasant, it stops being opinion and starts being a problem.”
Cai stared at her. “Oh.”
Dara looked at him. “Yes.”
He pointed at her. “You’ve gone from mildly panicked to terrifying in under three minutes.”
“I’m focused.”
“You’re predatory.”
“Safe predator,” Dara corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“There is not enough of one.”
She dismissed that with a flick of her fingers.
“If I want Route B to work, I can’t rely on social scandal.” She made a face. “That’s lazy. Overdone. Ugly. And it doesn’t suit me.”
Cai blinked. “That is the most elegant thing you’ve ever said about ruining yourself.”
“I’m not going to make myself look foolish.”
“No?”
“No. I’m going to make myself intolerable.”
That landed beautifully.
Cai looked delighted. “Oh, that’s much better.”
Dara nodded once, satisfied with the phrasing. “Yes, it is.”
She crossed to the window, then turned back. The flowers were still there, annoyingly pretty and deeply unhelpful, but no longer the center of the problem.
The center of the problem was power.
More specifically—her lack of official power.
Dara’s brow furrowed slightly. “That’s the issue.”
Cai floated after her. “What is?”
“I’m still only Lord Voss’s daughter.”
Cai tilted his head. “That is not nothing.”
“It’s not enough.”
She began ticking points off again. “I can pressure people. I can influence things. I can glare at nobles until they start sweating. But without formal authority, it still looks like interference.”
“Which it is.”
“Details.”
“It matters.”
“It matters less if I win.”
Cai was silent for a moment. “You’re really enjoying this.”
Dara looked at him. “A little.”
He looked scandalized and pleased at once.
The room went quiet again.
The governor’s seat was empty.
That fact had been sitting at the edge of her mind ever since the investigation on her father had ended, but it hadn’t fully settled until now.
No governor. No replacement yet. No one in direct control.
A power gap.
Dara slowly turned toward Cai.
He saw the change in her face and immediately looked concerned. “No.”
Dara ignored him. “The governor position is empty.”
“No.”
“There’s a power gap.”
“Absolutely not.”
“And the Crown Prince—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“—is currently courting me.”
Cai closed his eyes. “Oh no.”
Dara’s smile sharpened.
It wasn’t a happy smile.
It was much better than that.
“Can the Crown Prince make me temporary governess?”
Cai’s eyes flew open. He stared at her in genuine horror. “That,” he said, “is the worst thing you’ve said all week.”
Dara looked extremely pleased with herself. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “I think that was the funeral flowers.”
“Those were at least stylish.”
“This is stylish too.”
“This is catastrophic.”
“This,” Dara said, lifting her chin slightly, “is efficient.”
Cai floated backward as though distance might help him survive her ideas. “You want to ask the man courting you for political authority.”
“Yes.”
“So you can abuse it.”
“I prefer ‘apply it aggressively.’”
“To tax nobles.”
“Yes.”
“To pressure merchants.”
“Possibly.”
“To blackmail anyone who annoys you.”
Dara considered that. “Only if necessary.”
Cai covered his face with both tiny claws. “This is why people write cautionary ballads.”
“This is why people get results.”
The system still glowed at the edge of the room, Route B bright and waiting.
Yes.
That was still the correct route.
The proper route. The one-billion-dollar route. The route where everyone else stayed safe and comfortable while she nobly sacrificed herself to scandal, exile, and obscene wealth.
It just needed speed.
And leverage.
Dara looked once more at the floating panel, then at Cai.
“No,” she said. “We are not getting emotionally compromised any further.”
Cai peered through his claws. “That sounds ominous.”
“We speedrun Route B.”
“By asking the Crown Prince to make you temporary governess.”
“Yes.”
“So that you can become politically intolerable.”
“Yes.”
“So that the Crown eventually exiles you.”
Dara pointed at him. “Exactly.”
Cai lowered his claws very slowly. Then, with the deep weariness of a creature resigned to excellence in disaster, he said, “I hate how good that sounds.”
Dara smiled and looked once more at the glowing panel—Route B, steady and waiting.
Still the best option. Still the correct one.
It would simply require refinement. Careful planning, precise execution, and the right pressure applied in the right places.
Her gaze flicked briefly to the flowers by the window, which were still being inconveniently beautiful.
She looked away.
Irrelevant.
If she wanted exile, she would have to earn it properly.
Dara’s lips curved, just slightly. “Let’s begin our campaign.”