By the next morning, rumors spread through the palace like wildfire.
It was said that an explosion had occurred in the Fourth Princess's residence.
Not a small disturbance. Not a misunderstanding.
A blast.
The entire palace wing had been torn upside down—walls cracked, furniture shattered, documents scattered as if a storm had passed through stone itself. By imperial order, every servant assigned to the Fourth Princess—maids, stewards, butlers, even the Beast Knight, whose status was considered lower than that of a slave—was forced to stand outside Princess Ellara's chamber from dawn.
No one was allowed to leave.
Not even to breathe freely.
And that wasn't all.
That very morning, Princess Ellara—yes, Ellara—summoned the Royal Record Keeper. Before noon arrived, the records of the empire were rewritten.
Her name was officially changed.
No longer Yu Liang.
From that day onward, the Fourth Princess was recorded as:
Princess Ellara Blackwood.
The process was swift. Clean. Absolute.
So sudden that no one had time to interfere.
Even the Emperor was caught off guard.
Now—
Ellara sat inside what was now being called her "office."
In truth, it had never belonged to her.
It was Mr. Steward's office—larger than the princess's original study, grander, lined with shelves of carefully categorized documents. The irony was not lost on her.
She sat behind the wide desk, a mountain of files spread before her, posture relaxed yet unmistakably dominant. One by one, she examined the people standing in front of her.
Her gaze stopped first on Steward.
This man.
By all expectations, a head steward should have been older. Heavy. Slow. Perhaps balding, with a permanent look of self-importance.
But Steward was none of that.
He was in his thirties, tall, well-built, impeccably groomed. His uniform fit him perfectly, his hair neatly styled, his expression calm—almost handsome. He placed one hand over his chest and bowed deeply.
"My lady."
Ellara did not tell him to stand.
Instead, she turned her head.
Her eyes landed on the Beast Knight.
"You," she said, pointing directly at the fox-eared knight. "Greet me."
A faint ripple of surprise passed through the room.
But the knight did not hesitate.
He stepped forward, dropped to one knee with a heavy thud, lowered his head, and spoke clearly and without fear.
"I greet the Fourth Princess—Your Highness, Princess Ellara Blackwood."
Ellara nodded once.
"Good."
Then she pointed back at Steward.
"Slap him," she said calmly. "Twenty times. Use strength."
The room froze.
A murmur rippled through the servants standing at the edges. Steward's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What—Your Highness, what did you just—"
The Beast Knight did not wait.
He rose immediately, crossed the room in three long strides, and struck.
Crack.
The sound echoed down the corridor.
Another slap.
And another.
Each strike landed with brutal precision, sharp enough to be heard outside the chamber. Steward staggered by the third hit, blood blooming at the corner of his mouth.
By the fourth slap, he tried to shout.
By the fifth, his words dissolved into hoarse groans.
On the sixth, a tooth hit the floor.
Ellara watched in silence, chin resting lightly against her fingers, eyes empty of emotion—not cruel, not satisfied, simply observant.
This was not punishment.
This was correction.
Elara turned her attention to the steward slumped against the wall, his face a mottled mess of swelling and split skin.
"What do you call me now," she said.
The steward's jaw worked. His mouth looked like he'd bitten through stone. "Yourr... 'ighness," he managed, the words coming out slurred and wet through broken lips.
"Noted," Elara said.
She looked at the other servants lined against the wall. Every one of them trembled. Some had tear tracks. Others just stared at the floor like it might open and save them.
Elara flipped open the ledger on the desk and skimmed the columns with the same expression she'd use to check email[1]. "Interesting numbers here. You've been skimming quite a lot."
No one answered.
She closed the book and turned toward the beast knight standing at attention near the door—the fox-eared one from earlier. "How many beast knights are currently assigned to this palace wing."
He bowed immediately. "Twenty-five, Your Highness."
"Call all of them here," Elara said. "One minute."
The knight's eyes flicked up for a fraction of a second—surprise, maybe confirmation—then he nodded sharply and moved. His boots hit the corridor at a run, and within seconds the sound multiplied: doors slamming, boots pounding stone, voices snapping orders in clipped bursts.
Elara counted silently. Lisa had told her the beast knights followed orders without question, that they moved faster than human soldiers because hesitation got you punished. One minute to mobilize two dozen soldiers scattered across a palace wing was aggressive. If they made it, she'd know their discipline was real[3][4].
At fifty-three seconds, the first group rounded the corner into view. At fifty-eight, the last knight slid into formation outside her chamber. Twenty-five soldiers, some breathing hard, all standing in perfect rows with fists pressed to their chests and heads bowed.
"Your Highness," they said in unison.
Elara walked to the doorway and looked them over. Men and women, horns and ears and tails, all wearing red and all standing like they'd been carved from the same block of stone despite having just sprinted through three corridors.
"Divide into five teams. Now."
They moved without discussion. Five groups of five, reformed in under ten seconds.
Elara pointed to the first team. The lead figure had small, curved horns jutting from his temples. "You. Name."
He bowed lower. "Liam, Your Highness."
"Liam," Elara said. "Take your team. Search every servant's quarters in this wing. Find corruption files, stolen goods, anything that doesn't belong. Bring it all back here."
"Yes, Your Highness." They were gone before the echo settled.
She turned to the second team. The leader was a woman with short-cropped hair and scars along one cheekbone. "Name."
"Lilian, Your Highness."
"Lilian. Background checks on every servant in this palace. You have two hours. Is that sufficient."
Lilian didn't hesitate. "More than sufficient, Your Highness."
"Go."
The second team vanished.
Three teams left. Elara pointed to the third. The leader had broader horns than Liam and bovine ears that twitched once when she looked at him directly. "Lock down this palace. No one enters. No one leaves. Anyone who tries, you detain them and bring them to me."
"Yes, Your Highness."
They moved out at a jog.
Two teams remained. Elara looked at the fox-eared knight—the one who'd moved first. "Treasury. Count everything. Cross-reference it against this." She pulled a folded paper from the ledger and tossed it to him. He caught it one-handed. "If the numbers don't match, I want names."
The steward made a strangled sound behind her.
The fox knight's ears flattened in what might have been satisfaction. "Yes, Your Highness."
His team left.