After one night, many Emerald City residents awoke to find the streets and alleys unnaturally silent. They sensed the indescribable tension and desolation among the patrol guards, heard their neighbors and friends whispering furtively and hesitantly, and only then learned in shock and panic:
Emerald City had changed hands.
It was said that the duke's cousin, burdened by accusations, had returned from the Selection Tournament on the brink of death. Alone with a single sword, he had fought his way into the top eight, all so he could cry out before the entire audience and plead for justice for his father, the long-deceased Viscount Sona;
It was said that Federico had revealed an appalling truth in public: Duke Jenn had murdered his father and usurped his position years ago, then wrongfully killed his own uncle. Now he had killed again to cover up the truth, and even intended to repeat the same trick by pinning those murders on the visiting Prince Tales;
It was said that the upright and impartial North Star had unleashed thunderous heavenly wrath the moment he took action. With a casual word and gesture, he had sent the powerful but indefensible Duke of South Bank into a bottomless prison of sin. The Southbank nobles present had been as silent as cicadas in winter, daring not utter a word, while the city's officers and soldiers had cowered helplessly, unable to stop him;
Yet behind these rumors, only Tales and his subordinates knew how awkward their situation was and how difficult the matters before them would be.
First was the problem of what to do with Jenn and Federico.
Although the prince had ordered them imprisoned pending trial, the action was nominally a noble arbitration rather than a genuine law-enforcement case. Nor was it an ordinary arrest and