1

The daily routine of a knight, started at the age of fifteen, had taught Yuliana to wake up every morning in the beginning of the second period before sunrise, whether assisted or not. So she did today as well, even though not only the bed, but the surrounding kingdom too, were foreign. The room she had been given wasn't too unrefined, even for a princess, though purposefully short on furniture. No spare chairs or tables, in case she would attempt to fashion herself a weapon. There was a window, tall and wide enough for a horse to fit through, but securely locked up and without handles. Yuliana could count no less than three pairs of armed guards patrolling the orchard outside the building. To escape, she would've had to break the window and the noise—or the gaping hole at least—would've quickly attracted their attention.

And then there was the enigmatic sorcerer, who undoubtedly had his own means of detecting the comings and goings of people. Being caught meant death and a sad end to her journey. It was a risk too great to take without any guarantees of success.

So left with no other choice but to await her fate in silence, Yuliana began her morning with monk-like asceticism, kneeling on the floor before the window, eyes closed in meditation, as the light of the rising sun little by little brightened up her noble features.

Have I lost your favor, my Lord?

With anxiety, she directed her thoughts towards the spirit residing in her body.

Why, do you feel you have done wrong? Aiwesh's voice unexpectedly answered. I would like to think not, within the limits of what can be demanded of you.

Encouraged by the response, Yuliana hurried to ask,

“Then will you not lend me your strength and help me escape this peril? Before I am played as a pawn against my own family and people. I fear my power and ability alone will not suffice here.”

But what the Lord of Light asked in return astounded the princess,

And why is it that you wish to avoid this?

“Eh...?”

So far as I see, what the Emperor seeks through subjugation is the unity of men. I do not find that endeavor mistaken by itself, in spite of the less agreeable methods of his subjects. Rather, this is an objective I am compelled to share. In a situation where unanimous agreement between all parties cannot be reached, conquering without fighting is a solution worthy of commendation.

“W-what?” Yuliana could barely contain her surprise. “What are you saying, my Lord? Are you not the timeless guardian of Langoria? Are we not your chosen people? Those very people will soon be made to swear allegiance to another ruler, who by treachery and deceit wants to bend them to his will! Is that not the very threat you should advise us against?”

You are slightly mistaken, my child, the spirit answered. Though I resided in Langoria for so long, and though I have granted her people my blessings, calling me the guardian of the land is something the people decided on their own and not by my will. It is no particular flag or a crown that I love, and isolation was not the future I envisioned for Langoria. So far as I see, there is little difference between your people and the people of Luctretz and Tratovia. Are you not human beings all the same? Is your blood not red? I would have promoted forging closer ties with your neighbors from the beginning, but alas, the kings of Langoria have ceased to look for my counsel. For a long time, my name has been used without my consent for trivial, worldly purposes. Regardless, as a Divine fond of your kind, my priority is and has always been the survival of your species as a whole. The threat that concerns me is not the Empire—but daemons. Finding unity is the only possible way men may endure the coming Age of Chaos. I understand that your nation and its ruling dynasty mean much to you. But no matter how close, I cannot place the wishes of individuals or groups above the greater good of a race. To do so would undoubtedly prove against better judgment. I did not foresee this development, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, it would be unwise not to act on it. If your servitude makes the Empire stronger, spares the deaths of thousands, and by extension emboldens the human race as a whole, then this course of events is well. Rather, is this not the optimal role for you—a role only the princess of a nation may carry out—instead of the unlikely conquest of the Trophaeum, where you may die alone and unknown, the same as any common dog of war? If I may express my opinion, that would be a great shame.

“That's…!” Yuliana was left speechless.

Had anyone else told her those words, she would have taken it as a mortal insult, both as a citizen and as Langorian royalty. But the one who had said it was the Lord of Light, one of the great Divines to whom she had promised her body and spirit. She had no choice but to listen to the voice resonating within her very mind.

How could she hope to argue back?

The idea of obeying the demands of spies and criminals seemed abhorrent, yes, but as someone groomed to be a ruler one day, the princess knew better than well that there were times—more often than not—when one had to set aside her personal feelings for the good of her people.

Langoria had next to no hope of prevailing in an open war against the much larger Tratovia, especially if Luctretz had already allied with the enemy. With only the sea to fall back to, the outnumbered defenders would be decimated, the civilian populace bearing the brunt of the campaign.

Obeying her captors, turning herself into a true traitor to her people, Yuliana would disgrace her ancestors for eternity, and most likely see her family put to death by the conquerors. But she would live, perhaps long enough to influence the invaders and help keep the civilians safe. Wasn't saving them from war, murder, and pillage sufficient to pay back for her treachery and disgrace? The alternative was to have everything she loved burn in a futile struggle, and then join her family at the gallows.

Isn't that just what I want to believe? Because I'm too scared to die the honorable death of a warrior?

Soon after the beginning of the second period, a servant came to wake the princess, only to find her already fully dressed. She was then escorted straight to the Duke's office on the top floor of the building.

The Duke's working quarters basked in the rising sun's pale rays, which now reached barely above the garden treetops on the deep cerulean sky. A room on the highest floor in a building on top of a tall hill, this would be the first part of Haywell to be illuminated each day. Thus, being an early riser, the master of the house could begin his respectful duties as the city's head as soon as was naturally possible.

Although that master was no longer anywhere to be found in the mortal world.

The Duke's house, his office and documents, rank and title, the weapons and animal pelts decorating the walls, a stuffed bear, three wolves and a deer with their blank glass eyes in the corners, the expensive, imported carpets warming the floor, the old chests by the walls and the important possessions therein—none of that rightfully belonged to the man presently sitting behind the wide oaken desk in the back of the room.

Though his audacious act appeared to express the opposite.

“Good morning, your highness. Sleep well?” the imposter greeted Yuliana.

It appeared the mage was not present, although with his ability to distort people's perception and veil his presence, there was no way to be certain. The princess chose to remain silent, and without waiting the man continued,

“So? Is there even any point in me wasting my breath asking this? Are you with us? Or against us? It's either one or the other, mind you. No third options, no compromises, no conditions. A simple yes or no. And, of course, anything other than yes will mean your end.”

Biting her lip, feeling like she wanted to vomit, Yuliana answered with effort,

“I accept. For now, I will do as you say.”

Those words alone felt like a branding iron, a poison forcefully swallowed, marking her as a betrayer in spirit, an enemy of all the righteous people in the world. But if it helped protect the lives of her beloved citizens and, as Aiwesh had said, strengthened mankind as a whole, then weren't her honor and dignity a cheap price to pay?

As bitter as it was.

“Oh?” Norenbagh seemed surprised. “And I'd heard the Langorians were stubborn to a fault. Is that so? What turned your mind, if I may ask?”

“Deserved or not, to my people I am already a traitor,” Yuliana answered, “if there is a chance I can spare them from the horrors of war which they've never had to taste before in their lives, then my shame may not have been in vain.”

For a moment, there was silence.

“Wow,” the Duke finally said, throwing his hands in the air. “Were you not the knight princess, after all? I did not expect a maiden from that antiquated kingdom of woodcutters to be capable of seeing the logic of the Emperor's grand vision. I owe you an apology, it seems, your highness. My assessment of you may have been mistaken. Then, you don't mind if I have you swear on it?”

“Swear?” Yuliana frowned.

“Yes,” he nodded. “This is a bit different from the vows we're about to exchange later. See, the funny part about betraying people is, it only gets easier each time you do it. We wouldn't want you to have second thoughts at the last minute. I want you to give me your oath. Repeat after me.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Following the man's words, Yuliana reluctantly repeated,

“I, Yuliana Da Via Brannan, swear by my life, by my ancestors’ spirits, and by the Divines that guide us, my undying loyalty to Mayeshwal III, the Holy Emperor of Tratovia, to answer his call to service without delay, when and how his majesty so chooses, and to never by words or deeds bring harm to his rule or his people, but count myself as one of his faithful subjects from this day to my last.”

Those words, not all that unlike the oath she had given when appointed formally as a knight in the Langorian court, weighed heavily on her heart. But that was not the end of it. As soon as she had finished, Yuliana felt a sharp, burning pain deep within her chest and winced.

From behind her, a dark shadow appeared and slowly stepped past her,

“It is done,” the dark sorcerer, Joviél, spoke. “Your very spirit is now bound by the power of a geas. Should you ever break it, you will be cursed never to know rest, in this life or the next, but to go on in endless torment as a lowly wraith, a plague upon your own people.”

Yuliana grit her teeth as the pain slowly subsided. Though she had agreed of her own will, there was no way she had no regrets.

“That would be all I require of you, my lovely bride,” the Duke told her. “Why don't you spend the day rehearsing your speech for tonight's banquet? It is going to be a night to remember, I'm sure.”

Bluntly dismissed after fulfilling her role, Yuliana was escorted out of the office.

It's black. All she could see in her future now was the pure blackness of slavery, extending to the end of her days. And beyond.

2

Miles away, several hours later, in the ever peaceful town of Grelden, Itaka Izumi stood deeply vexed in her rented little room.

“W-what do you mean, I have to leave it?” she asked the girl in front of her.

“It's so completely obvious, do I really need to answer this?” the assassin called Riswelze sighed. As promised, she had come back to take the woman to the banquet with an appropriate disguise prepared. However, they ended up with an unexpected argument. “They will never let you in with that thing, invitation or not. Just showing yourself anywhere near the gates with it is a major red flag. One that we don't want.”

The talk was, of course, about the Amygla, the greatsword.

Riswelze naturally didn't know what the sword really was and simply assumed it to be a regular, uselessly big weapon. Which was why she had great trouble understanding the woman's attachment to it. Although Izumi's fascination with the sword was mostly for personal reasons and she didn't care so much for its historical or cultural value.

“W-what am I going to do if I'm found out?” she bemoaned. “I'd be completely helpless, wouldn't I?”

“Armed or not, after what you put me through the other day, I'd hardly call you 'completely helpless', but you're right. We should get you—a smaller—weapon once you're inside. My associate inside can probably arrange that much. The Duke has quite the armory, we won't need to smuggle anything in from the outside. The less chance of screwing up, the better.”

“No, no way, if it's not this one, it won't do!” Izumi insisted.

“Why? Wouldn't you have an easier time with, say, a dagger? Like these?”

Riswelze herself was armed with three daggers, a bit shorter than an arm each, two hanging from the belt by her hip and one more holstered under her left arm. Aligned along her figure, you would hardly even notice they were there. The girl demonstrated their efficiency by nimbly swapping the places of the one under the arm and the bottom one on her hip, in a blink of an eye. She also had smaller throwing knives on her belt, behind her back, seven of them, as well as a more practical tool knife, discreetly hidden in the right boot. Her cloak kept them from showing on the outside.

“You have so much hair, you could easily hide a whole stack of blades in there,” the assassin pointed out.

“And stab myself by accident? No, thanks.” Izumi refused the idea. “You chop veggies with knives. I want a sword. A REAL sword! The bigger the better! Like the one in Bers***. I did keigo every day just to be able to swing a Dragonslayer one day. The sticks that all the knights here use are way too light! I don't feel safe with something like that. It'd be like swinging a piece of spaghetti around, I'd only end up missing the timing for parries! It's useless!”

“Spa...Ghetti?” Riswelze repeated, squinting.

“There's no pasta in this world!? No way!”

“This world? Did you mean, 'country'?”

Izumi slumped,

“I don't think I can go on much longer...”

“Don't give me that crap,” Riswelze berated her. “The real deal only begins now. You remember your part, right? A lot depends on you, my hide included.”

“Yes, yes,” Izumi said. “Go in there, create a distraction...But, speaking of distraction, this outfit is...Don't you think it's a little too...how should I even say this...?”

As planned, Riswelze had acquired a real ball dress to disguise Izumi as a noble. It left the shoulders and a great deal of the back and the upper chest exposed, tightening around the waist to emphasize the wearer's bosom and hips. It was fine work indeed, made of the finest cloth available. The point was not to draw too much attention but to blend inconspicuously with the other noble guests, which was why the dress was colored unobtrusive forest green, with parts in light gray.

But…

Perhaps it was a bit of a poor choice, after all, the assassin silently agreed.

The dress, while doing its best to be mild on its own, hardly worked in suppressing the allure of the voluptuous form of its wearer. It had been designed with the intention of accentuating the attractiveness of an ordinary lady—but Izumi's toned and curvaceous physique upgraded even a modest garb into a lethal weapon. With her thick, curly hair tied up from behind, highlighting her slender, white neck, Izumi now appeared like an empress instead of a small town landowner. The modern sterile lifestyle and the genetics of her people had preserved the woman's natural beauty beyond her years in a way impossible for the folk of a rural, hardworking community.

There was no way she wasn’t going to draw attention.

In fact, Riswelze as well found she had trouble looking at the woman straight.

“It's hard to move in and hard to breathe in...and...and...I...I'm going to spill out…”

Embarrassed, Izumi quickly turned away, pulled the blanket off the bed and hid under it in the corner like a shut-in.

With the way she behaved, it was clear she had never dressed for a high class banquet before. How could she be expected to work her way through such an important event? Was she going to be all right?

“It...it will be fine,” the assassin forced herself to insist, with little confidence. “Get over here. I'll add the finishing touches.”

Riswelze grabbed and pulled off one of the gray drapes hanging by the window and wrapped it around Izumi's shoulders like a shawl. It worked unexpectedly well. With the amount of exposed skin reduced, Izumi's assets were somewhat brought under control, changing her impression to more motherly and dignified.

Motherly...?

“Hm? Is something wrong?”

Izumi's sudden question made Riswelze realize her hands had stopped.

“Hey,” the girl said and looked away, without letting go. She was pretty sure she hadn't intended to say anything, but her lips kept on moving regardless. “What do you say, let's call this off, after all? Let's just...not do this, alright? Maybe you're right, the princess is just fine. I don't really need the Duke's money that bad either, there are easier ways to get by, and...it's not worth it, really. Why don’t we leave this town and go somewhere far, far away?”

“Eeh…?”

“You have a family? You do, don't you?”

“Well, can't say I don't,” Izumi admitted. “Just the same as everybody.”

Of course, Izumi thought of family as mother and father, a biological necessity, while that was not quite what Riswelze meant.

“Yeah, thought so,” the girl said, a bit sadly. “I don't know why you were escorting the princess, or whether you were honest with me about your relationship with her. That's none of my business, really. But, whatever the truth is, it can't be anything more important than whoever is waiting for you to come home. It's not.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. Me, I don't remember much about my parents anymore. I was around seven when I last saw them. They were traveling merchants, making their living trading miscellaneous goods—plain junk, to be honest—on the markets across the continent. Always on the road. I...it was somewhere west of Mesniria, I think. I didn't know the names or the places then. We set up our little camp for the night in a valley between the mountains, the same as any other day. And I got lost. That was it. My father always warned me against going off on my own, but when did I ever listen? I always found my way back. It was too fun, thrilling, having these little ‘adventures’. But that one time, I didn't find my way. I wandered off into the nearby woods, thinking I'd explore a bit, and when I came back out, I had no idea which way I'd come from anymore. Everywhere I looked was just rocks and slopes that all looked completely identical to me. I never saw my parents again. I never got to tell them goodbye. After a night of aimless wandering, I was eventually found by...not so nice people. I was sold into slavery and from then on it was only one bad thing after another. You can probably guess. A gal like me doesn't become a murdering thief the easy way, right? Yeah. I grew up to be scum. The vile kind that won't think twice about stabbing innocent, helpless men and women in their baths. I—”

“Rise...”

“Please, don't say it.” Leaning forward, Riswelze hid her face by Izumi's neck. She thought she would cry, but surprisingly enough, didn't. Her tears had run out long ago. Why was she even telling her all this? What had made her this soft? “I know I'm not making any sense, first urging you on and then telling you not to do it. But somehow, I just got the feeling that it shouldn't be like this. If I were your daughter, if you were my mother, I wouldn't want you to do it. Does that seem weird to you?”

“No, I suppose not,” Izumi said. “My daughter or not, I wouldn't want you to live your life like this either.”

“What are you saying, to a person who tried to kill you?” Riswelze wryly chuckled. “That's why you're too sweet. And that's what makes me fear for you.”

Izumi didn't say anything.

Not that she knew what to say. Having been an awkward loner her whole life, the eloquence required to encourage others was something she hopelessly lacked. Holding the girl, trying to comfort her with basic human contact—she was too nervous to even do that.

After a while, Riswelze regained her composure and pulled back, drawing a deep breath.

“I'm sorry. That was unprofessional of me,” she said. “I don't know why, just...Please forget it ever happened.”

“Um, it’s fine,” Izumi said.

“We're not going to stop here, are we?” Riswelze donned a confident smile again and stood upright with her hands on her hips. “Of course, I know it's out of the question. We're going to rescue the princess and get the Duke's valuables, right? I'm not giving up on that much coin! Let's do this then. Come on.”