1
For the adventurers, the morning passed swiftly if uneventfully.
Izumi was recruited by the supply squad to help heat and hand out food to the lined up hungry soldiers. Yuliana, who had found dry spare clothes to change into, helped as well, as did Riswelze, albeit to a lesser degree.
Brian, who had nearly drowned and remained listless, joined the injured at the freshly set up field hospital. He certainly didn't need to feel lonely. In addition to those from the unicorn encounter, there were several more knights who had suffered injuries, concussions, broken bones or other debilitating ailments in the chaos. There were also those who had been too long in the water and had mild hypothermia, as well as a few who had been exposed to basilisk venom and felt sick. The old wizard Yornwhal assisted the army medics by mixing antidotes from his supply of herbs, set bones, and cast what few restorative spells he knew. Sadly, healing was an exceedingly rare potential and weak in humans, but he still became a lifesaver to many.
The leaders took residence in the main cottage, while the Varnamians had to content themselves with the smaller cabins. Once the day had brightened up enough and everyone had had a warm meal, the Colonel called the knight officers and the woodcutters together, and the group went on a tour around the slope to design their protections.
“As I thought, the fence is useless. I want a proper palisade,” Miragrave made her request to the locals. “All the way around the camp. At least twelve feet high, sharpened ends. Two exits, no more. The main one there, on the road, and a smaller one over there.”
“A palisade?” the headman, Holms, repeated. “And that high? For what? I've told you there are no basilisk nests or other dangerous animals in the nearby areas. Are you expecting a bandit raid? No other people come here either.”
“If only it were bandits,” Miragrave replied. “Leave the whys to me, Holms. I'd prefer two layers, but it has to be ready by nightfall, so we'll have to make do with one for now and fortify it after. And guard towers, three of them. One southeast, near the gate, one west, around here, where we stand, and one in the northeast, near the second exit. Then we should have every angle covered. The hill shields us northwest.”
Holms wasn't particularly inspired.
“All that, by nightfall—with all due respect, Colonel, you ask the impossible! Do you have any idea how many trees it will take? Building such a fortress would take a week! Three days at the very least.”
But the commander wasn't hearing it.
“You have a hundred able volunteers to help you. Make it happen. And that is only for the starters. I also want a moat dug outside the palisade. At least six feet wide. As deep as you can make it. Spiked, of course.”
“Colonel…!”
“You don't like my requests? Would you perhaps prefer to have Attiker plan our defenses instead? If so, you'll soon find yourself tasked with building walls that reach the heavens out of ebony and ivory. I think my wants are still relatively grounded.”
“Damn it...” the woodcutters were on the verge of tears. “Why didn't we listen to the elder…!”
“Too late for regrets now,” Miragrave showed them no pity. “It is your own protection you're building here, gentlemen. Do try to make it last. Better than that bridge.”
In the locals' defense, regardless of their personal feelings for the job and its sensibility, they were still dutiful, hard-working men and got to business without delay. Since ancient times, people of the land would put their minds to manual labor to escape the hardships of everyday life, and so they did now as well. They quickly pooled their knowledge together and brainstormed the most efficient way to get the project underway. Then they divided their knight assistants into groups and educated each group on the finer details of their respective tasks. After another hour, the sound of dozens of axes chopping wood could be heard everywhere in the vicinity.
Left idle, Yuliana took the chance to get some rest after the tiresome journey.
A knight she may have been, but with “princess” for another title, being excused from hard work should've been a given. Still, there was no way Yuliana went to bed willingly. It was a rather absurd concept for a prisoner to willingly work for her captors, but neither was it in Yuliana's character to relax while others toiled. Still, as the young woman could barely stay on her feet anymore, everyone insisted that she retired.
The cabin closest to the cottage was dedicated to the princess and her companions.
The inside of the cabin was only a single room with four basic bunk beds. No mattresses, covers, or pillows, such were all up to the visitor to bring. No drawers, closets, chairs or tables either, only one little window.
A basic shelter for spending a night in the wild, nothing more.
Still, as far as it was from royal standards, it didn't take Yuliana long to fall deep into slumber. She'd been given a tough travel mattress and a woolen blanket from the Imperials' supplies. Equipped with those and her own rolled-up cloak for a pillow, she was out like a candle within seconds.
Used to pulling all-nighters for online events, Izumi didn't feel particularly tired after just one sleepless night. More like, she was tired all the time and had simply grown to tolerate it. Not that she had done anything particularly strenuous so far, either.
However, the earthling soon regretted not claiming otherwise, as the kitchen squad caught her again, and she was stuck washing pots and barrels for the better part of the morning, setting up the mobile kitchen, retrieving firewood for the stoves, and various other menial tasks.
Right as Izumi thought she could slip away, it was already the time to get started with the lunch preparations. The supply wagon had to be unloaded as well and the more delicate foodstuffs stored where they wouldn't be exposed to excess heat and moisture.
“Some 'adventure in another world' this is…!” Izumi bemoaned, hauling another sack of beans to the shed. “I've never had to work this hard in my life!”
Riswelze expressed no signs of weariness either, but neither could she be made to work. The assassin had already made use of her talents and disappeared. Who could tell where?
Therefore, Izumi was left with no one to talk with.
Even so, compared to the night spent on the monotonous march, the work-laden day seemed uncannily brief.
By now, the sun had traveled a good distance on its trajectory and already neared the treetops on the opposing side of the slope. The palisade was also appearing around the outpost at a staggering rate, the moat-diggers following shortly behind it. Watching the men tirelessly construct the defenses, like a crowd of ants, Izumi could only shudder as she passed by.
“My, they sure are energetic. Did something nice happen?”
She stepped in the shady storage building through the low doorway and looked around.
Sunlight poked in through the countless small cracks and branch holes on the walls, but no other light sources were available, and it took a moment for Izumi's eyes to adjust. The Imperials' supply bags, barrels, and crates already occupied most of the floor space, in tall piles that reached the low ceiling.
“Where am I going to fit this?” Izumi pondered aloud, as was her bad habit, with the sack in her hands. “Heeey! Where do you want your beans? What, no one's here? Don't yell at me then if I put them somewhere you can't find them.”
She marched to the back of the shady room, threw the sack on top of a pile that still had space left and turned to leave.
That was as far as she could get.
Someone suddenly jumped out from the narrow crack behind the crates by the wall, and forcibly pushed Izumi into the corner, out of sight. The woman ended up pinned against the wall, the assailant pressing tightly against her. Getting unexpectedly assaulted by a pervert should've been a frightening situation for anyone, but before disgust or terror, Izumi mainly felt confused.
For a knight, her attacker was weirdly short and lightweight.
“W-what? Yule?” She recognized the person holding her by the silky hair. “Weren't you sleeping...?”
The girl stood up on her toes, coiled her slender arms around the woman's neck and pulled her closer. Feeling Yuliana's face approach hers—now was the time Izumi got distressed.
“My! A-aren’t we bold today?” she squirmed in the girl's hold, trying weakly to pull away. “I’d thought you wanted it romantic...Is such a place really fine with you? I probably stink pretty bad too...I may not look like it, but I still have some dignity as a woman, you know...!”
Then, Izumi noticed there was a mysterious, unearthly shine in the princess's eyes, visible even in the dark. Besides the odd glimmer in her gaze, the look on the girl's face was oddly vacant and emotionless.
Yuliana leaned on to bring her mouth closer to the woman's ear and whispered,
“Be quiet and listen, Itaka Izumi.”
Though the voice was Yuliana’s, the unsympathetic, commanding tone wasn’t like her at all.
“Eh, Ai-chan?” Izumi realized it was the Divine spirit speaking through her vessel by some magical means. “What are you doing…?”
“Be silent,” Aiwesh said. “Do not speak. Do not move. Do not think. Do not ask. Only listen.”
“Hm?”
“I want you to take my vessel and escape. Flee this place, without delay. Before their wall is completed and your chances are lost with it, you have to leave, as far as you can make it. Do not let yourself be discovered. Take no one else. Hint to no soul of your intentions. Kill any who might resist. Steal a horse and run. Do you understand?”
“Why…?”
Without answering, Aiwesh let go of Izumi and retreated.
Mouthing only, “before dark”, she turned and left the shed.
“What's up with her? Hay fever?” Left alone once more, Izumi scratched her neck in confusion. “Stealing a horse...That's a lot easier said than done, you know? I don't even know how to ride one.”
2
A short while after Izumi's divine revelation, the salvage squad dispatched to the river returned. Not only had they loaded their cart full of items retrieved from the sunken wagon, they had found three surviving horses wandering near the road. The knights had seen no basilisks and were so able to complete their mission without casualties, earning themselves a five-star rating by any standards.
However, oddly enough, the Colonel was anything but pleased.
As soon as she saw the horses, Miragrave's face turned pale and horrified. Overcoming the surprise, she strode quickly to the Captain and seized him by the surcoat lapel, her brow contorted in anger.
“What did I tell you about survivors, you fool of a man!”
Having never witnessed such an outburst from his leader before, the man wavered,
“Ma'am, I did not think—”
“Clearly, you didn't!” She cut him off. “Take them somewhere no one can see and put them down. With the arrows. Five men with you, one with a whistle and ready. Do it. And for your own sake, pray I'm wrong about this.”
The Colonel shoved the man away and turned to return to the cottage.
“Yes, ma'am...” looking after her, the knight captain was clearly not too pleased with the order.
Anyone in Tratovia adored horses and these were magnificent animals. Not just any average stallion qualified as a mount for the Emperor's chosen elite and the man had been overjoyed to discover them alive. For the knights, their mounts were comrades, friends, family, even. On top of that, the death sentence they were given was far from painless. Regardless, there was no room left for objections. The Captain couldn't risk inspiring mutiny by challenging his orders. Gritting his teeth, his fists clenched, he left to carry out the grievous task.
It was around this time that Yuliana woke up and discovered, to her confusion, that she stood fully dressed at the doorstep of the cabin.
“What was I doing…?”
It wasn't the first time she woke up in a different place, and by now she could guess the reason as well. She also knew it was meaningless to question the Divine's actions or demand and explanation. Since she didn't feel particularly tired anymore, Yuliana decided to go pay the commanders a visit and ask her former mentor about the Imperials' plans.
There was no one guarding the cottage's entrance at this busy time, so she was able to go straight in without problems. But perhaps her timing was poor.
As soon as she stepped in, voices of argument reached the princess's ears.
After the front door, there was a little entry room with dressers and a staircase to the second floor. In the back were two doors, of which the left one was poorly closed. That was where the sounds were coming from. Going discreetly closer, Yuliana brought her ear closer to the opening and listened.
—“Don't you think you owe me an explanation, Marafel?” the Vizier's voice spoke. “What was that drama about? And earlier at the river? Why did you make such a show of valuing the dimeritium over the men's lives, right in front of their faces? It's like you want them to rebel? I can't believe you'd be that stupid.”
There was no answer, and Attiker soon went on.
“And now you say you're only willing to send out an expedition of twenty men tomorrow? Why only two archers? I can't agree with that. Once the wall is up, twenty is more than enough to defend the outpost itself—provided there's even anything to defend against. You'd have sixty healthy men sit here, idle and irritable? It's a waste. Waste of men and waste of time. They should all be dispatched. If we send out more scouts, we can cover a wider area at once and our chances of locating the spring in a timely manner increase dramatically. And in turn, it will reduce the days we need to spend in these accursed woods. I can only express my thorough dissatisfaction with your methods.”
Again, a pause.
“What are you so afraid of? Why are you so desperate to preserve our fighting strength? It's not because of the woods, is it? Don't tell me you still think the daemon is out there, stalking us? Have you lost it? It's dead. We saw the corpse with our own eyes. It's ashes. Dead.”
This time, the Colonel's voice replied,
“I do not take chances, Attiker. In case we are mistaken, those arrows are the only thing between us and certain death. Therefore, it should only be rational that I would value them before any individual unit.”
“Nonsense. Even if we go by your word, even if we assume we got it wrong, give me one good reason why the creature would pursue us this far? Why would it hunt prey that fights back in such difficult and dangerous terrain, when there's an endless supply of much easier fodder all around? In Varnam, Luctretz…You're not thinking this rationally.”
“Daemons do not eat people, Attiker,” Miragrave answered. “They kill for sport. Why do you suppose there are still colonies left on the old continent? Because the goti's magic makes them untouchable? Because the cruleans' strength is overwhelming? Because the cirelo have no match with the sword? No, Attiker. If that were all, Amarno would've been lost eight hundred years ago. Why did the daemons let the elves flee? Why did they allow them to come back? Simple. Because they wanted them to. Those monsters are drawn to conflict, like vultures to a reeking corpse. They don't want to simply kill us. No way. They want to flaunt their supremacy in our faces as they slowly gut us. And for that reason, they ultimately spare us. Because if all life were to perish, their sport would be spoiled. That is all. And it is precisely because we fight back that it will pursue us to the ends of the earth, if only it knows we’re here.”
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Silence ensued on the other side of the door.
Soon, Attiker's lowered voice broke it.
“I always took you to be one of those who were made wiser by Ledarnia. Seems I was too hasty in my judgment. You glorify animals and jump at shadows, pitiful woman. Tomorrow, you will deploy two squads of twenty-five for the spring. Try to bear with the loneliness.”
Miragrave sighed heavily, but wouldn’t argue back.
Instead, she raised her voice to address someone else,
“Yes, Yuliana? What is it?”
The princess jumped at the mention of her name.
Hoping the redness of her face wasn't too obvious, Yuliana opened the door and entered the room.
It was a large hall reaching from one side of the cottage to the other, with a long dining table set in the middle. The large table was made of the two conjoined halves of a single tree. Instead of individual chairs, there were long benches fashioned in similar style, of smaller raw materials.
Over the table, various hand-drawn maps were spread out, illustrating the forest's topography.
“I'm terribly sorry to bother you,” Yuliana apologized as the Vizier glared at her. “As expected of master. What gave me away?”
“This old house isn't suited for sneaking around,” Miragrave, seated at the table, said to her. “Not even Attiker's nagging could cover the boards' creaking. You dared to come in, so you're not a knight of mine. But unlike the locals, you obediently waited for your turn. As you always would when you were still following your father around.”
At those unexpected, nostalgic words, Yuliana bashfully looked down at her feet.
“You really don't miss anything.”
“Oh, I wish. Well? Is there anything you need?”
Yuliana did her best to gather the composure fitting a member of royalty and said,
“I'm sorry, but if it's not too much trouble, could you share your plans for the coming days? Do you truly think you can find this spring? There's a lot of ground to cover out there.”
“And how exactly will this information help you, your highness?” Attiker asked. “You may be our honorable guest, but this is a highly classified military operation we're talking about.”
“Yes, I’m sure the Langorians will snatch the recipe of immortality from right under our noses,” Miragrave told him.
“You're being unprofessional, Colonel,” the man scolded her. “She was just caught eavesdropping and instead of having her locked up for spying, you want to entertain her with an exhibition of confidential information? Am I the only one here with any semblance of common sense?”
“Yuliana is as much a spy as I am a chef. And speaking of common sense, perhaps having an outside opinion could help bring some of that to this wild goose chase of yours.”
The Vizier looked like he wanted to argue, but failed to find the words.
Instead, he ended up gesturing at the papers spread over the table.
“These are maps drawn by the Empire's remote viewers, adepts who claim to be able to perceive faraway events and places, mostly through dreams. Oneiromancers, some call themselves. His majesty has recently hired several, in order to locate the legendary places of power on the continent. Of course, each viewer has had their abilities thoroughly tested. I've supervised the testing procedures myself and, like his majesty, have some faith in these adepts. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. The maps have been sufficiently accurate so far and I see no reason to question their reliability. According to several documents, the spring of eternal youth, described in Agelaos's tale, is somewhere approximately thirty miles north from this settlement. The reports are not consistent regarding the exact position, but we've managed to narrow it down here.” He pointed at the map, marked with a large red circle. “There are no man-made roads beyond this outpost and the flora grows verdant, so the search will not proceed as easily. There is apparently also a swamp region between us and the place. While keeping a base camp here, we will send out scout teams and let them comb the zone marked here. Once they've confirmed the precise location, we have eight so far empty barrels waiting to be filled with the water from the life-giving fountain. After completing this simple task, we are home free. Unless the commander here comes up with another excuse to needlessly prolong our business. I would have preferred for the first squad to be deployed already today, but setting up these primitive fortifications apparently requires absolutely everyone.”
“Against your previous insinuation, I do value the well-being of my men,” Miragrave answered. “I will not send anyone off into the night; the search trips will be carried out in daylight, so that they are back by dusk. And I have every intention to ensure our scouts have a place to return to as well. No matter how they are elite, they are also mortals and need a night's rest before another arduous trip.”
“Yes, yes,” Attiker paced back and forth before the window in the back wall. “Our supplies last us for eight days. Maybe more, if we can catch anything edible in the wild. But the fountain has to be found by the end of the week. Trust me, you do not want to return to his majesty empty-handed.”
“Alas, what decides our success is ultimately not you nor I, or even his majesty, but Felorn,” the Colonel said. “Will the woods pity us? Or will they not? And...No, I should not even speak it, lest it become real.”
Yuliana recalled the conversation before.
The daemon—was it still out there, spying their rising defenses even now from the cover of the woods? Patiently waiting for the opportune moment to attack and turn their excursion into a bloodbath? Yuliana's old teacher had told her many terrible stories about the ill-fated elven war against the monsters of the lost continent, which had kept her awake at night. She would've never imagined those stories could become reality for her.
As if the forest wasn't enough to deal with as it was.
But the Vizier didn't seem troubled by the idea. He was convinced the deceased Baron of Eisley had been the monster in disguise.
Isn't that just what he wants to believe?
“Rest assured, your highness,” Attiker said. “I have faith in the accuracy of the maps. So long as Marafel's knights know how to read one, the search will be a short one. I have no doubt we'll receive the good news already by sunset tomorrow.”
“Wish I had as much faith in your sleep-gazers,” Miragrave sourly commented. “They haven't told us the most important thing: is that spring really worthy of its name?”
“Impossible woman.” Attiker shook his head. “Once we have it, I will gladly toast of it to your good health—and to my own, of course. Actually, before some muddy rain water, I brought a bottle of most excellent brandy for the purpose. Now, excuse me, Colonel. Your highness. Nature calls.”
The optimistic Vizier left the room.
Instead of leaving as well, Yuliana took a seat at the table, opposite of Miragrave.
“Forgive me,” the older woman said. “This is no place for a princess. And I fear things are not going to improve from here.”
“No, it's fine,” Yuliana replied. “Maybe it's a terrible thing to say, after what happened, but I do think it's a bit exciting, even. Back home, going fox-hunting or patrolling the highways was as adventurous as it would get for me. Even such simple tasks would seem thrilling and make me proud for facing my fears. Now, I only feel ashamed of my past self. For being so coddled. This is the actual reality we live in. These are the kinds of real dangers that soldiers around the world must face, to protect their way of life. I’m frightened, of course. Sometimes it feels more than I can bear. But at the same time, I consider myself lucky for being here to experience it. Perhaps this is my chance to mature a bit as a person.”
At her words, Miragrave closed her eyes and smiled.
It was a bit sad, pained smile.
“What...?” Seeing it, Yuliana sullenly twisted her lips. That world-weary expression appeared to laugh at her naivety.
“I'm sorry,” the Colonel said. “I just think you're too good for this world.”
“Eh...” Yuliana blushed, astonished.
“Yes, I've seen that purity many times before, on the faces of many endeavoring cadets. And I've seen it lost equally many times, encroached by the atrocities their innocent eyes are made to witness. When we last met, I didn't expect you to follow in the footsteps of all those men and women I've sent to their graves. Is this also fate?”
“Master...”
“I know this is selfish of me, but please—Don't lose that hopeful glimmer. No matter how dark the night, don't stop believing in the coming of another day. Do you think you can promise me that? Whatever you do, don't become like me.”
Yuliana was a bit saddened by her past idol's jaded words.
“When did you lose sight of it?” she asked. “No matter how I look, it's still too early for you to be saying such things. You're here, you’re alive. You still have a long future ahead of you. If you've lost your light, then let's try and find it together.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Miragrave told her. “But it's too late for me. I may have a future, but no faith in it. My hope, my light—I lost it in Ledarnia. Attiker is right. I was not made wise by what I saw in that land. I was made mad. I may breathe but I am already dead. I know my days are numbered, spent only waiting for the inevitable. And it's close. I can feel it in my bones.”
Yuliana sat in silence, watching the woman's hardened face, trying to imagine what she had been through.
She knew there was no way she could.
“Have you seen a daemon?” she finally asked.
The Colonel didn't answer.
“Earlier, I told you we send troops overseas to show them war,” she said instead, after a while. “But that is a lie. It’s not a war they have in Amarno, and the cirelo never let the cadets anywhere near the places they know are dangerous. We walk the safe paths, in between their patrols, like tourists. Never without supervision. It goes without saying. We are too weak. They say no human who has ever seen a daemon has lived. And they are right. Somehow carrying on, knowing you share a world with such beings—is no life.”
A distant look in her eyes, as if seeing the scenery from years past, Miragrave continued her story,
“It was late summer, the year 993. The second of my six months of deployment had just ended. No enemy sightings, as I wrote in my diary. The cadets were bored and irritable. We all felt deceived. We didn't go through excruciating training to become elites and then spend a month on the sea, just to stare at the ceiling at the elven barracks. Well, I was not all that upset. I'd met someone. A young cirelo warrior. Young I say—he was only twelve hundred years old. But he didn't look at me like I was a mindless pig in a uniform. He looked at me like I was three years old, yes—but with kindness. Yes, what else was I but a baby? He brought me a sylerva flower once, a pure white one from the fields of Osthiln, and I was smitten. Before war and battle, I found myself looking forward to our meetings. I dreamed of spending the rest of my days there at the colony, as a maid, a slave, if he wouldn't have me for a wife.”
As sardonic as the Colonel's tone was, Yuliana couldn't help but smile at the heart-warming story.
“I was overjoyed on a day when he and I were assigned to the same patrol. Forty long miles to march in the jungle, together with the target of my affections. A dream come true. In my world, all dangers had but ceased to exist. I felt I could've easily felled a dragon with my bare hands. It had to be now or never. I decided to confess. And then, we found the body.”
On a tree by the path, deep in the jungle, a cirelo warrior had been impaled on a cut branch, and gutted.
The body was still warm, the killer had to have been close by.
The patrol squad had eight human cadets and twelve elven warriors.
The humans were ordered to stay and wait, while eight warriors went to search the woods, four left on guard.
The actual plan was to use the cadets as bait, while the scouts remained close by, waiting for the daemon to strike again. The cirelo were strong, fearless.
But that day, luck was not on their side.
Miragrave started to feel sick.
Maybe it was the fear and stress, or maybe some other mundane reason, but there was nothing she could do to contain it. The warrior she admired was among the guards left to watch over the cadets. At that moment, she loathed her weak human nature more than anything in the world. She thought that dying was better than showing him her fragility and repulsiveness.
She felt sick and wasn't thinking straight—so she kept telling herself.
And so, Mirgrave left the road and ran into the jungle, far enough that no one could see, heedless of the voices calling after her. She reached the root of a great tree and vomited and cried. She expected death to claim her at any moment and was powerless to resist it.
Wolves would never miss a little sheep so foolishly separated from the pack.
But daemons weren't wolves.
As nothing happened to her, Miragrave eventually overcame her fear and guilt. Feeling slightly better, she made her way back towards the road. But by the time she had the previous place in her sights, she saw that there was no one there.
They had given up on her and moved away while she was gone, it seemed.
As she stood in the jungle, tormented by crushing shame and despair, unsure of what to do, Miragrave suddenly saw two cirelo walking on the path.
The other was him, Thalinn. He had come back for her, after all. The sheer relief made tears stream down the young cadet's face.
Right as she was about to call out to them, the young woman saw another cirelo warrior come down the path from the opposite direction.
Why she hid herself instead of going to them, she couldn't understand.
Because she feared their anger at her cowardice? Perhaps.
Either way, instead of calling out, she took cover behind a tree and watched the warriors meet.
“Thalinn! Meneau!” the recently arrived greeted the other two. “Where are the humans?”
“Stop!” The other two raised their swords. “Why are you by yourself, Heleth?”
“By Inola and Galantea!” the third raised his arms. “I'm not the one! I got separated from Senglen on the way! I think they got him.”
“Senglen already came back. He left with the humans. Said you were dead.”
“By the Lords, it's not me! What do you want me to do, strip?”
“What was the first thing your mother said when you were born?” Thalinn asked him.
“Why do you ask me that?” Heleth said.
“So that I will know if you're the one or not. Answer me.”
“You’re a dog. Of all the possible questions, you picked that? Very funny. Is there anyone in the universe my brother hasn't told yet? Stop this. You know full well the beast is not me.”
“I don’t. Answer the question, Heleth,” the third one said.
Biting his lip, looking annoyed, Heleth looked around and said,
“'My luck ran out'.”
The other two laughed at the response.
“It was because I was born too early and looked slightly blue, okay? There was and is nothing wrong with me. Idiots.”
“Come on, don't get mad. Admit it's funny.”
The one called Heleth walked past his comrades, swearing under his breath.
“I'm going after Senglen, this patrol is over.”
The light-hearted exchange had alleviated Miragrave's fears enough that she felt it was fine for her to come out. Stepping out from behind the tree, she looked at the three elves on the road and—thought her heart was going to stop.
There was only one cirelo warrior on the path. Heleth.
The two he had left behind were neither elves nor humans, but something else.
Something not of this world.
Something that didn't belong anywhere in the universe.
Something that absolutely shouldn't have been allowed to live.
Something the very existence of which violated common sense.
Something that was——dangerous beyond measure.
Miragrave’s senses left her.
She turned around and ran. She ran through the jungle, as fast as her legs could carry her. Without looking back, she ran and ran, thinking only about running, ran like mad, in her sane moments thanking the army sergeants who had made running a second nature to her and the other recruits. She ran until finally having the tall walls of the fortress of Ledarnia in view, then collapsing before them.
For a week, she hovered on the border of consciousness, suffering from a high fever. But she lived.
If what she was left with could be called life.
Of the rest of the patrol squad that went out with her that day, of the cadets and their escorts, none survived. Not even their bodies were ever found.
“To this day, one question has stayed with me, one word,” Colonel Miragrave ended her story. “Why? Why did they let me escape? The daemons' senses greatly surpass those of humans' or elves'. Those monsters knew I was there, watching, they had to have known. They showed themselves to me, and no human who has seen their true form has escaped with their life. Yet, I did. Because they let me. Of all the people in my squad, only me. Did they expect the citadel's guardians to dispose of me as a mimic? Or was the jungle to be my end, weak as I was? Not even worth killing? Perhaps. But at times a thought far worse comes to me. What if I was spared for a purpose? For a purpose so evil and manifold that it eludes my understanding. With dread, I find myself waiting for that time—the time when that purpose is finally revealed and I die, witnessing the annihilation of all that I hold dear.”
Only after a moment of silence, Yuliana regained her self-awareness.
Was it just her imagination, or had the temperature in the room dropped abruptly? She couldn't stop shivering and shuddered. The thought that such things could happen and were happening even now somewhere out there in the world left her dizzy, dazed. She had known there was a war being waged somewhere over the seas.
But what sort of war was it—she'd had no idea.
“My apologies for sharing such an unsavory story,” Miragrave stood and told her.
“Ah, no, thank you for telling me,” Yuliana hurried to say. “I...I’m grateful that you did.”
“Having a little princess look up to me with such respect warmed my heart as a young lieutenant. It still does. But as you can see, I am not a woman worthy of anyone’s admiration. Only a weak, flawed, worthless human, the same as anyone else. If even that.” Though she said such self-deprecating words, there was an ironic smile on the Colonel's lips.
“Not at all!” Yuliana stood and said. “I can't even imagine what I would've done in such a situation. If anything, learning about what you went through—I am honestly in awe. I'm really glad you made it out of there.”
“Flattery won't get you anything,” Miragrave pretended to scold her and pursed her lips, before turning to the window on the back wall. “As Attiker says, the danger to the expedition is slight. You could say it is not even worth mentioning. If a daemon was actually stalking us, we'd have bodies by now. But I still want to prepare for every possibility, if I can. Such is the duty of a commander. Isn't that right?”
Looking back at the woman, Yuliana nodded.
“Yes!”