It was no longer a chess match. Freya had the upper hand, and Yuffie couldn't keep playing against her.
This woman's background check had shown she was a commoner.
Yet she excelled at everything.
Whenever asked, she'd say she'd done it before, or that it simply felt familiar once she got started.
Terrifying.
Yuffie could only let Freya make her demands first. She had to ask for help.
Most importantly, she had always stood on the moral high ground, but now she'd abandoned that stance and embraced pragmatism instead.
But Yuffie had overlooked the most important point.
She had no idea what it was yet, and it was the very thing that left her constrained on all sides.
She was only a princess, third in line.
Even though this world wasn't feudal, you could find plenty of queens by flipping through the history books.
She was a princess, yes, and the daughter of the empress—the daughter of the emperor's most beloved wife.
But so what?
The emperor had three children, and all of them were Isa's.
They were all his children.
It was true that she was capable, but the Inheritance Law put her out of the running.
She had an army, ability, and power.
But her eldest brother had an army too, while her second brother had a merchant guild and enormous wealth.
The Goddess had all the charm in the world, the emperor's favor, and plenty of ability too.
She wasn't the First Generation, had no great prestige to her name, and was firmly constrained.
"Support, or money, or 'Mother'?" Yuffie enunciated the last word sharply. She was making it plain that she could accept Freya as her stepmother.
Freya didn't hold back. Instead, she stood up and took Yuffie's hand. "Little Yuffie, will you come with me