Transmigrated As The Villainess' Boyfriend With A... SSS Harem System?

I rode six hours back to Mayorka with a cat in the saddlebag and two questions in my head that I hadn’t quite managed to answer.

To be exact, I answered neither of them.

The first one was Zaleador’s: why his daughter had accepted. All I had were my own conjectures, but the truth had never left Lianza’s mouth.

And that gave rise to the second question, which was mine, and which frightened me considerably more: what I planned to do with the real answer on the day I finally had it.

Halfway there, at the stone pass where the north stops being the north, I realized I’d spent two hours rehearsing the argument I was going to have with my father. Sentence by sentence. With his answers and everything.

But in the end, I never had it.

It slipped my mind to bring it up then, and afterwards there was no more time.

I set myself the task of settling that matter the next time we saw each other.

⋅⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅⋅

Nobody tells you that an entire academy can completely change its mood in a single weekend.

On Monday morning, the corridors of Mayorka were full of people whispering about the same thing, with that gleam in their eyes that only other people’s misfortune gives off when it arrives well dressed. Twenty steps were enough for me to know what they were talking about.

"We’re all going!" Caspian Vereth appeared at my side without anyone having invited him, which is his usual way of appearing. "To the wedding. Everyone. Even the first-years. Isn’t it magnificent?"

I don’t think I’ve ever spelled this out for you. You see, Mayorka has three school years. But since it’s an academy exclusive to nobles, the student intake is extremely low — and that’s not counting that only half of the first-years manage to move up to the second, and half of those to the third.

But the way things were going, we’d most likely end up fewer than twenty by midyear, because the academy had raised its level of rigor in response to what the other three academies of Earolden had done.

The events of *The Throne of Ashes and Thorns* only go as far as the first year, because by the time its continuation was due to come out, I had transmigrated.

"Magnificent," I said.

"You’re terrible at enthusiasm, Elcronne."

"Thank you. Three months of practice."

"Then practice more." He lowered his voice, which in Caspian meant he was about to say something he had genuinely thought about. "Alexia says they’re all going to be watching you that day. That half the hall will be fixed on the bride, and the other half on where you’ve got your eyes."

I raised an eyebrow.

"And why would they do that?"

"Because there are rumors, Elcronne."

"How comforting."

"I’ve told her. I said to her: Caspian, that’s a cruelty. And she told me that I am Caspian."

"Alexia is right about both things," I replied, ignoring Caspian’s nonsense.

⋅⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅⋅

Monday’s class arrived.

Professor Wilda wasted no time.

"On the first of February," she said, and let the metal ruler fall onto the desk with the exact sound of a door closing, "House D’Tariel and House Jahke will unite their seals at the Cathedral of the Three. Mayorka will attend in full."

She moved between the desks, slowly, savoring it.

"And Mayorka will be observed. So I don’t want to see any of you celebrating on the day of the wedding, because — I hereby announce — that day will be your first great Protocol exam."

A few small groans went up, one of which Professor Wilda silenced with a smack of the ruler against the blackboard.

"Each of you," she went on, "will occupy an assigned position in the ceremony and will be graded on it. A mistake of yours will be a mistake of this academy. And a mistake by Mayorka, that day, in front of all the important noble houses, the Council of Empero, and the teachers and students of the other three academies of Earolden..."

She left the sentence unfinished. Coming from her, that was a form of threat.

Then she handed out the positions. She handed them out by rank, and that’s the worst thing I can say about that woman: that she did nothing incorrect. She began with Jahke and worked her way down, step by step, through the seven houses and their vassals, and I knew perfectly well where that staircase ended.

"Elcronne."

"Professor."

"Side nave, third row. Behind the servants of House Vereth."

Someone let out a nasal laugh. Caspian turned around to find who it had been.

And then Lianza raised her hand.

"Professor Wilda."

"Yes, Princess?"

"The protocol of a union of seals grants the central nave to the vassal house of greatest antiquity." She didn’t raise her voice. Lianza never needed to raise her tone when she knew she was going to win. "The Elcronnes have been sworn to mine for three generations. No other house in this room can say the same."

The silence lasted just long enough for Wilda to make her calculations.

"Central nave," she conceded. "Last row."

"Thank you, Professor."

Lianza didn’t look at me once. I didn’t look at her either. We’d already gone a while doing exactly that before the engagement, and we were bad at it, but now, with the wedding date, we were even worse.

⋅⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅⋅

The rest of the class was Wilda taking the ceremony apart piece by piece, and me copying it down, not yet knowing that I was copying the blueprint of a building I planned to demolish.

"Seven movements," she said. "The entrance. The presentation of the seals. The reading of the Treaty. The vows. The Seraph’s Pause. The sealing. The exit. Memorize them; how you execute them will determine your result on that day’s exam."

"What is the Pause?" Caspian asked. He was one of those people who ask out loud all the things everyone else pretends to know.

Wilda made a gesture with the ruler, as if shooing away a fly, but it was Layda who offered her the answer:

"It’s a dead formality. The Seraph of Twelve Wings is the god of pacts, and before a pact is sealed with blood, a moment of listening is granted to him."

"Perfect, Miss Alaranne," Wilda said, turning to the rest of the class. "Anyone else?"

There was no need to specify who answered after Layda, but in case you were in doubt: yes, it was Lianza.

"Twelve counts: the time it takes the officiant to count his wings. In theory, any voice with the right may speak within that moment."

"And in practice?" Caspian asked.

Layda raised her hand to be the one to answer him, and I rolled my eyes. Those two and their rivalry, again.

"In practice, no one has spoken in three hundred years," she said, and then added, smiling: "And anyone who tried without the right wouldn’t even manage to finish the sentence."

Professor Wilda went back to her desk and leaned the ruler against its edge.

"Not even kings can interrupt that sacred ritual. So not only do you lack the right; doing so will carry grave consequences."

I wrote "twelve" in the margin of my notebook and underlined it. Then I underlined it two more times to be sure I wouldn’t forget it, because that’s how she would have done it.

⋅⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅⋅

Apart from the clear and growing rivalry between Layda and Lianza, the class flowed calmly... or that’s what I would have liked to say...

[Good morning, Romeo! 🎺 Wedding in sight. How exciting. I’ve even made myself handsome for the occasion.]

[Mandatory Mission: Get a lady who is not Lianza D’Tariel to ask you, in so many words and out loud, to accompany her to the ceremony.]

[Deadline: the first of February. Penalty for failure: you know who it falls on. Reward: negotiable — I’m feeling splendid today.]

I looked at the back of Lianza’s neck, three rows ahead, and at the braid she had done that morning with her soft, delicate hands.

That someone might ask me to accompany her to that wedding.

"May I ask a question?" I said, and discovered I’d said it out loud when thirty heads turned.

"You may try," Wilda said.

Since I couldn’t ask what I actually wanted to, I asked something else.

"Who has the right to speak during the Pause?"

"Only the Archpriest of the Cathedral of the Three can speak. He’s the only one with divine permission. No one else can."

"Divine permission"? What utter nonsense, I wanted to say, but I preferred to keep it to myself.

I left that class with a mandatory mission I didn’t want, a spot in a cathedral I didn’t want either, and a single question circling my mind: how exactly was I going to manage to speak in those twelve counts of silence in the middle of the wedding, with a god for a witness?

In the corridor, Layda Alaranne walked hugging the wall with three books held to her chest, and as she passed me she stumbled, and as she stumbled the top one fell, and as she bent down to pick it up, she said, very quietly and without looking at me:

"History class. This afternoon. Don’t sit with me."

Afterwards, she apologized out loud three times for her clumsiness and stayed hunched where she was.

I had to admit she was far too good at playing the typical innocent, clumsy heroine.

I went after Lianza, because she wanted to go to her usual place: the library.

I spent that afternoon searching among the books of the forbidden section for anything that would let me speak during those twelve counts.

And I ended up discovering something that might, perhaps, work for me.