Rise of the Unfavored Princess

Ch. 21: Janice Pt. 2

Janice whirled around, her pride not allowing her to ignore whoever had spoken. Her lip curled when she realized a handsome gentleman in an oversized black jacket stood before her. She had the worst luck, running into a handsome man when she was looking her worst. Subconsciously, Janice started to brush a piece of hair behind her ear, before remembering that the man had been mocking her.

“Why are you bothering me? If it looks like I’m having a bad day, let me enjoy it in peace!” she snappily answered, embarrassed at how her cheeks began to warm as his smile widened, unperturbed by her outburst.

Janice had to remind herself not to get carried away, the kind of man who chased women into alleys were usually not affluent. But she could admit, this man had a certain air about him that was impossible to ignore, his glittering, hooded eyes holding her in place when she would have usually slapped someone by now.

The enigmatic man cocked his head to the left as if he were studying a specimen and Janice felt like all her flaws were under a telescope. She cursed Princess Winter once more for humiliating her to the point that her physical appeal was not as up to par as usual. His violet eyes, an unusual color she’d never before seen, looked her over carefully before he apparently was pleased with what he saw and gazed down at her seriously.

“Like what you see?” Janice asked, feeling a bit flustered.

Janice was ashamed to see how her breath and her heartbeat were much more elevated than before, and her poor heart began to beat faster as the violet-eyed stranger reached out a finger towards her face rather than answer her. As a recent arrival to the shimmering city of Radvalsk, Janice wasn’t yet accustomed to the rigorous etiquette of the capital. But she was absolutely certain that this man’s unabashed actions towards her would be considered very uncouth, even in her humble village.

Yet now, as his hand reached closer and closer for her face, Janice did not object or move away, spellbound by the man before her. A warmth pressed against the skin under her lip and Janice’s heart flip-flopped. She had forgotten her unappealing appearance, her firing, her high standards for men. He wasn’t wearing any gloves, for his fingers to be this warm.

His finger wiped slowly, the sensation rippling across her skin and throughout her body. Although Janice had relinquished her precious maidenhood in order to gain entry into the palace, the ordeal had been short, sweaty, and unpleasant. Thus, she was unaccustomed to the proper feelings that fill one’s heart when they are being seduced. And seduced she was, her breath going quicker as the handsome stranger’s gaze pinned her to the spot.

.....

Eventually, his finger lifted and Janice was shocked out of her temporary hypnosis at the sight of blood on the appendage. When he had drawn close, out of sheer nervousness the exiled maid had bitten her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Not that pretty,” he said, suddenly looking bored. The look pained Janice, who had long enjoyed being the center of any man’s attention since she had started her monthly bleedings.

“Rude!” she snapped, not willing to show how much a few simple words had hurt.

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She barely knew this man, an insult or two should not derail her. The surrounding world flew back into focus and Janice realized she was trapped in an alley with a strange man who had just wiped the blood of her stinging bottom lip.

The man appeared to be in deep thought, before nodding to himself.

“But you’ll do.”

Janice raised an incredulous brow, the enchantment from earlier well and truly gone. If she were a local to Radovalsk, the maid would have noticed that her previous fascination with this gentleman was a work of magic, but as she hailed from a humble village with one, wizened magic practitioner, she was none the wiser.

Janice scoffed dramatically. “Excuse me?” The man was carrying on as if she wasn’t in front of him.

Those violet eyes finally glanced back up at hers and in that second, Janice regretted calling for the man in such a tone because his eyes, which had been so alluring a minute before were now cold and flat. If it were a look of malice or irritation, Janice supposed she could have dealt with it, but there was a terrifying emptiness as if the man standing before wasn’t even a person at all. No matter how nicely this man was dressed, he suddenly did not feel human to the young maid.

Unconsciously, Janice took a baby step back, then another, before her back running into the wall. Never before had she seen such a lifeless stare, almost as if it were sucking the very mana out of her bones.

“What do you want?” the man asked gently, his voice alluring and sweet like honey.

Janice wished more than anything to leave, but her body did not seem to be her own in the moment. Although she had backed herself onto the wall, she did not have the strength to even scoot towards the light-filled entrance of the alley.

“I want...” Janice nearly gagged as her own mouth began to speak of her deepest desire, “to become an important woman in the Empire. A noblewoman. One who everyone will admire and envy.”

As the last word flew from her mouth, the unnatural stillness of her body broke and Janice threw her hands over her mouth in shock. A commoner lusting after a noble position could become a death sentence if the wrong person heard, she knew that much even with her limited knowledge. Who in her village did not know the fate of Sera, a brash, blonde girl who longed to become the mistress of the aging village chief?

As soon as his wife heard, a no-nonsense woman who was the neighboring village’s late chieftain’s daughter, the poor girl had been forcibly married to Pickworth, the lecherous cripple who leered at young girls when they bathed in the lake. The last Janice had seen of her, the poor girl’s once lustrous blonde hair had faded to a dull color and her stomach jutted unnaturally from her emaciated body as she carried Pickworth’s filthy spawn.

Just the thought of crossing the wrong woman and winding up in such a fate or worse sent a shiver running down Janice’s spine. For a humble chieftain, his wife was willing to go that far. Janice had desires and schemes to wind up in a powerful man’s bed, but she did not want to ruffle the wrong skirt until she had amassed enough power.

She stared at the stranger before her with wide, frightened eyes, afraid after confessing her deepest desire to him. The words had flown out of her mouth, but once out they could never go back in. If she was reported, she could be sent to the local warden’s office or worse.

“I-I didn’t mean that, sir!” Janice pleaded.

Now that she had dropped the ball so spectacularly in front of this gentleman, it was time for her legendary fawning to pull herself out of trouble. Previously, she had spoken crassly with this man without addressing him as mister or sir, but now she straightened out her language, attempting to mimic the highborn speak she had heard when she eavesdropped on a tea party that had been held in the royal palace recently.

The man chuckled quietly, clearly taking enjoyment at Janice’s sudden pandering.

“Is that truly what you want?” he asked, his bottomless eyes staring at Janice’s as tears nearly welled up in the maid’s eyes.

“No, sir! I promise you, that nonsense simply slipped out of my mouth unprovoked. Akira must have polluted me with that mindless babble. Pay it no mind, good sir!” she blurted out, falling back to her tried and true ‘the devil made me do it’ excuse. It was a popular one in the village, a place that firmly practiced the Holy Church’s doctrine. Janice was an atheist herself, but that wasn’t relevant.

His face had a feminine quality to it as this time, he laughed even harder. It only made him more attractive, perhaps in an even higher tier than the previously uncontested Sir Finn. Such a face that could attract and break a woman’s heart with one look, surely he must’ve been well known in the capital. Janice would have to listen to street gossip to ascertain who the best looking and wealthiest men were.

“I certainly have not polluted you, Janice,” the man said, a weak snicker interrupting his sentence.

Janice was confused but didn’t say anything as he seemed to be a better mood now. If this stranger suffered delusions that he was somehow the Darkness itself, that was currently not her problem.

“It is as you say, sir,” she said modestly, trying to further assuage him. Then it occurred to her that he had just called her by her name. She looked up in alarm as she hadn’t mentioned her name to him at all since he’d flagged her down.

“Wait, how do you know my name?” Janice furiously asked.

Was a stalker of hers by chance? Back in the village, an idiot named Sven had always followed her around, but she never paid him any mind since he never had the heart to directly approach her. Still, the thought of having an admirer as handsome as the stranger before her was quite telling of how beautiful she was, and Janice stopped glancing at the entrance so much as she resumed her haughty stance.

“Does it matter?” the man said, casting an unreadable glance over the disgraced maid. “You have told me what you want. Now I ask of you, how badly do you want it? What would you do for it?”

Janice clenched her fists in anger as the violet-eyed stranger flipped the tables on her once more by reminding her of the travesty she had admitted to him. First, he stalked her into the alley and now he was holding her confession over her head. Janice did not know what to make of him and decided to hesitantly answer him.

“Ummm...” she stared nervously. “Well, I would...” Janice kept staring at the ground, afraid to admit how much she was willing to do. After all, she had thrown away her virginity, which more than proved her willingness for a good life.

The stranger pulled in close a second time.

“You would what, Janice?” he whispered in her ear, his breath on her ear sending her heartbeat back to its previously rapid pace. She could not believe how affected she was by such a man.

Her mouth opened on its own accord once more.

“I would do anything,” she bit out in a cold tone. Her head was desperately screaming at her to shut up, her body was overheating at the handsome man’s proximity, and her voice kept speaking of horrible things against her will. Horrid things that she knew deep down were absolutely true.

“I would kill anyone, lie to a priest, or spit in Helio’s face. Anything.”

She couldn’t see it, but there was a way the stranger’s mouth curled into a sinister smile at the mention of Helio. It seemed he really believed his delusion of being Akira.

“Good girl,” he said approvingly as if she were a puppy. Janice grit her teeth, uncomfortable with you one look from the man forced her secrets into the light. Perhaps he truly was... Akira...?

“I will give you what you want, Janice.”

Janice would have fallen to the ground if the strange force wasn’t holding her to the wall.

“What?”

He stepped back suddenly, a bored look crossing his face.

“Nevermind then. I had thought that perhaps you would wish to fulfill your goal and be powerful enough to punish your past mistress. It seems I thought too much of you, Janice.”

The stranger moved as if to walk out of the alley as if they had never met. Punish Winter? The thought of crushing that infuriating brat under her feet sounded like heaven to her ears. But Janice quickly put two and two together, reaching a shocking conclusion. For her to be powerful enough to do something to a royal princess, there was only one woman in the world who was in a position to do such.

The empress.

“Wait!” Janice called out desperately. The man froze, but his back was still turned. He would listen.

“Good sir,” she inquired carefully, quickly returning to her simpering words, “what did you mean by that statement?”