Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 32 of 54

The count began at the stone amphitheater, its tiers packed shoulder to shoulder, the open center stage cleared for tally. The head scout drove a bright red wooden marker into the ground beside the counting table and rang its small bell once. The sound meant the vote was watched. Kawaii Princess stood at the rail and waited. She saw it on the third row. A man passed two extra tokens to a girl, who passed three more down the line. Across the tiers, another hand did the same. Her rival's supporters were stuffing the count. Kawaii Princess climbed onto the stage and pointed. "Stack them," she said. "Every extra token. Here. In the open." The head scout rang the bell again. Scouts moved through the rows and pulled the doubled tokens from guilty hands. They built them into a tall pillar of ice blocks at center stage, each crown frozen into the surface for all to see. The pillar rose higher than her head. The crowd went quiet. The cheating was a tower now, and everyone could count it. The head scout struck those tokens from the tally and called the clean count aloud. Kawaii Princess won the round by a narrow margin — real, and witnessed. Her rival's face went white. But as the bell rang a final time, the head scout said the next duel would be sung, not voted, and no crowd could carry her through that one.