1

“I think I’m looking for forgiveness,” the girl, Millanueve De Guillon said.

On the carriage bench opposite of her sat the cirelo sorceress. The cabin was quiet, the air still. The entourage neared the destination. Margitte had gone out to ride with the leaders, to secure their arrival. Laukan sat further in the back, eyes closed, so deep in meditation that his presence could hardly be felt. His assistant was also out. In essence, it was only the two of them.

Carmelia kept her gaze on the pages of the hardcover novel in her hand and showed no expression. The rumble of the carriage wheels sounded only faintly through the frame, reminiscent of the hum of a faraway engine, and the blanched morning landscape flew by.

“Is that so?” the magician spoke.

“I still owe you too a great debt of gratitude,” Millanueve forced herself to continue. “And—Do you think it’s too selfish? Do you believe there are things in life that can’t be forgiven? Shouldn’t be? I don’t know. Where does the line go, what actions can be redeemed and what can’t? Is there any way to tell?”

“That would depend on the heart of your opponent,” Carmelia said and turned a page. “It differs for every person. Attempting to derive universal conclusions based on a handful of personal anecdotes would not be wisdom.”

“I see. Yes, of course. You’re right. Thinking about it, it’s only natural. But, despite all that…I’ve hurt you too with my actions and—”

“—As far as I am considered, there is nothing to be forgiven.” The sorceress interjected with some weight.

“Truly?”

“Indeed. Rather, shouldn’t you be demanding the same of me?”

“But…”

“I assisted you and your company back at the time solely for my own ends. Whatever followed after was the direct consequence of my personal choices. Therefore, even if there were something I couldn’t agree with in what transpired, I would have myself to blame first and foremost. And blaming oneself for what is done and in the past now is the kind of irrational behavior only humans would do. Which is why I see no cause to continue this conversation.”

Millanueve looked down at the floor in repentance. “Do you say that only for my sake? Isn’t the truth that you’re still angry too? You...and her both.”

Carmelia turned a page and didn’t look up.

“I do not consider myself such an emotional individual that whatever momentary impulses arise in the depths of my being would play any role in my daily behavior. And neither do I identify the necessary causation to explain said ‘anger’. Rather than being occupied by superfluous considerations of this sort, I think your focus would be better targeted towards our imminent arrival in the city of the Langorians.”

“Then, you’re not upset with me?” the girl asked and dared now to glance at the mage with some hope.

“Such is the general tenor of what I said.”

“It doesn’t bother you anymore, what happened?”

“No.”

“You’d rely on me, if—if there was anything I could do for your sake? Without holding anything back?”

“Should the occasion arise.”

“If you insist so, I will believe you, but...Lady Carmelia...”

“What is it?”

Millanueve pointed hesitantly at the corners of the book, worn for being repeatedly inserted and removed from its place in the shelf by past readers.

“That book—I can’t see the title, but...It’s upside down, isn’t it?”

2

General Monterey turned discreetly and surveyed the campsite to double-check where the Langorian officers were, before he spoke. The leaders of the entourage had all switched to horseback today, and took the chance to hold last minute counsel during their lunch break stop.

“Truth be told,” he said, “it’s not getting in that worries me so much as it’s getting out again. The City of Light is famous far and wide for her walls and fortresses, and her majesty spoke of a force two divisions strong. Should anything go wrong, escape may pose a true dilemma. Perhaps we should station a part of our force along the way, to have more options?”

“Negative,” Miragrave denied as she poked the soup in her lunch box with a spoon, lacking appetite. “That would break the cohesion of our unit. Our retreat forms are based on this exact composition of troops. Part any worthwhile number and we wouldn’t have enough men left to secure the non-combatants’ passage. The losses would pile.”

“And why, pray tell, are we even discussing such things?” the Prince of Luctretz injected with an unbalanced frown, seated across the close circle. “As if failure were already a given, or even an option at all. It doesn’t bode well, if such is your attitude from the start.”

“With all due respect, your highness,” the Marshal dryly answered him, “‘good-intentioned’ is not synonymous with ‘fool’ in my dictionary. Failure is an option in any endeavor and who doesn’t plan for it is, without a doubt, just that—a fool.”

“So what is your brave plan then? You’ll take up arms and fight your way through the streets of Walhollem, the armies, the gates, the walls? That is not what I call a plan! Another word does come to mind of its maker, and it’s the one you last employed.”

“Call it whatever you please, but we’ll fight our way out of Hel, if that is where we find ourselves. Because it is an option we can choose, whereas surrender is not!”

The Prince’s expression grew dark and he got up from his camping chair. “Have you ever considered how this attitude of you and yours might be the very reason we are in this desperate bind to begin with?”

Miragrave set aside her soup and stood as well to face him. “You mean, the situation where we are the greatest power on this continent, magnanimously risking our necks to save your sparsely inhabited county from enemy invasion?”

“—That is enough talk of enemies and failures!” Yuliana intervened and parted the two before they could get started with their bickering again. “Discussing the worst case scenario is fine and well, even though I don’t consider it likely myself. I still have faith in my father. He has always valued logic and rhetoric, and taught me everything I know. Before one of swords, our battle is about making him see our side of things and the benefits of peace. And if this fails, I am sure it will be our own incompetence to blame, more than any treachery by our host. I will allow no dividing of our troops. The Colonel would only take it as a sign of underhanded intentions, and impressions of that sort are the very thing we must avoid to the last.”

Miragrave and the Prince continued to glare at each other and didn’t comment.

General Monterey answered on the two’s behalf with a fatalistic shrug,

“So ‘all or nothing’ shall be our course.”

3

The group around the summoned champion from Earth had mysteriously grown since the company’s departure from the Firras. In addition to her standard followers, the Principality’s knights, Jude and Kingsley, had also joined the party, and the previously uneventful days of wayfaring had turned rather noisy.

“Um…” Izumi took a moment to consider her words. “...Leggins?”

“A-ha,” the bard made a contemplative sound, scratching his chin, “I shall be going with ‘Skaelje’ in that case.”

“You just looked at the mountains!” she scolded him. “So lazy! Is your imagination tank empty, or what?”

He shrugged. “Why, it passes, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t try my hardest from the start, would I? Then, Arnwahl. It is your turn.”

“Let’s see,” the knight muttered. “E, so I will say, ’emerald’. That is acceptable, yes?”

“You picked that from the grass, didn’t you?” Izumi pointed out. “So low-effort! You’re all clinically lazy!”

“’Decimated’,” Jude said, next on the line.

“...Dragon?” Kingsley suggested.

“Dragon ends with ‘n’,” Waramoti pointed out. “You’re out of the game! Za-sham!”

“Oh no!” the woman gasped with a start, and then covered her face in her hands in shame.

“Eliminated in the first round…” Jude sighed. “You have no brain for games, Laine.”

“I will do better next time!” Kingsley resolved, gripping her fist with determination.

“Well, Izumi. It’s back to you, still going with D,” Waramoti called the champion.

“Aah, why is everyone so gung-ho about shiritori now!?” Izumi wailed. “It’s such a dumb game, and I regret ever telling you about! D, I’m going with ‘dumb’!”

“Why, it’s hilarious! Unfortunately, after more than a month on the road, we’ve exhausted the more profound topics of conversation.”

“Play by yourselves,” she said with an uneasy sigh. “I’m going to chill for a while. My stomach feels like it’s going to—”

“—Eyes up!”

At that moment, a Langorian knight rode close past them along the line towards the back and cautioned everyone as he went,

“Get ready! Get ready! On your best behavior now!”

The cavalcade tensed at the warning and games were quickly forgotten.

The moment they had restlessly anticipated all those weeks was upon them.

Over the miles since morning, the highway under them had transformed from a sandy country track to a proper street paved with clean, flat stones, an occasional pillar of marble on the side, or a statue of mythical motifs. It was the first visible sign that they were nearing a major population center. Otherwise, there wasn’t yet much to look at. Not many buildings, or farms, the steady development that took place on the way to Bhastifal.

Regardless, they were close now.

Half a mile east from the road, a deep, long canyon split the earth, with shallow water running along the shadowy bottom, separating the insofar snow-free grassland from the frosty slopes and fjords of Skaelje.

The way aligned with the ragged edge of the chasm at a cautious distance, and climbed uphill. And as the riders reached the top of the wide esker, the last stop was already before them. Its sudden emergence caught all by surprise. Upon the view, each man and woman forgot other thoughts at once and an almost religious, awed silence fell over the long line of riders.

“They don’t make my lot easy,” Waramoti remarked as he reached for his notebook.

Towards the front, General Monterey appeared to be thinking the same.

“Where did I put my trunks again…?”

Izumi didn’t comment.

It was only here that the travelers began to grasp the real face of Langoria, the Kingdom they had insofar dismissed as a nation of sheepherders and superstitious chieftains in their longhouses that lacked proper chimneys. A people no different from the uneducated viking population of the far north, entirely removed from the civilization and enlightened science that ruled the central continent.

They had been given few reasons to expect better.

But the cultural evolution they had unwittingly claimed ownership over was not purely unique after all, nor unrivaled, and the realization commanded respect even in the most cynical soldiers.

On the crest of a long, mellow ridge spread a grand city enclosed by an even grander wall. So tall was that wall, exceeding even the wonder of ancient China, that only the rooftops and flagpoles of the highest of buildings could be seen past the bulwarks. Spaced by watch towers and keeps throughout its length, the stone the barrier was constructed of was so spotlessly white it appeared to glow even in the otherwise dim day.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

There in its shell lay Walhollem, the southern Kingdom’s proud jewel, like a magnificent wedding cake awaiting the bride in dignity, bathed in the dazzling crepuscular rays that stole past the failing heavenly coverage in thin long lances.

The company let their horses bring them closer without a word and the city grew in size before them, their sense of wonder in proportion. And the closer they got, the more their confidence waned.

Tratovia’s capital had the Langorian metropolis beaten in terms of square miles, perhaps, but the strengths of Walhollem were of different elements entirely and not so easily subjected to comparison.

If there would ever be a war, then that war would invariably end in the Empire’s favor, no matter how many lives it cost them—so the company had taken for granted until this moment. Their mission was mostly to spare the Langorians themselves and the Luctretzian allies from the needless massacre they were bound for, while Tratovia had very little to lose.

This illusion was here dashed.

Faced with that man-made mesa, the grand achievement of architecture and engineering, the spectacle of timeless human vision and ingenuity, all ideas of challenging it with force were at once voided. No matter how many thousands of men should be thrown at those titanic walls, they could not be undone. Laying siege on the city would require an army of hundreds of thousands of men, and the casualties in penetrating the Firras alone would be horrifying. There were no civilians to take hostage; construction of dwellings outside the wall had been prohibited ages ago, precisely for the impracticality of their protection. That lack of shelter was also turned solely against the invader.

The company rode unhurriedly up the vast, steep rise towards the main gate and tried to picture what it would be like to oppose it on such a barren field under a constant rain of arrows, spears, ballista bolts, trebuchet boulders, and more—it was not a pleasant place to be. Unthinkable. The countless cross-shaped arrowslits staring at the visitors along the length of the wall and above the gateway were too hideous to even look at.

On the slope before the city gates, the travelers felt as if enlightenment had struck them and they had seen through to the madness of all wars.

The Empire being conquered was terribly unlikely, but there was no real way to achieve clear victory either. What was gained and what was given, who triumphed and who was obliterated, such things ceased to matter—there were only things to lose, only losses upon losses, and no part of mankind that wasn’t grievously hurt.

At last they had become united in their purpose.

This was a war that had to be prevented at all costs.

But could the King of this proud land be made to see the same? That was a challenge Yuliana Da Via Brannan alone could face.

The road brought them steadily closer to the turquoise main gate, embedded deep in a chatelet of colossal scale. The gate itself was close to sixty feet tall and a fourth of that wide; two vast halves of ensorcelled metal, upon which any conventional battering ram was guaranteed to shatter to no avail.

The Langorian knights carried white banners to signal the defenders that all was fine. When they were a bare hundred yards off, a deep, metallic yawn rang out and the mighty gates spread like open arms to welcome the diplomats. The doors drew apart to reveal a dark, vaulted passage through the heavy gatehouse.

“You’ll do as we agreed,” Colonel Foulton reminded the Imperial leaders, as they entered the fortress’s shadow. “The whole troupe disarms at the gate. The cavalry and servants stay in the city while I take you to the castle to see his majesty. Minimum personnel only—make it less than ten. Are we still on the same page?”

Miragrave sourly replied, “I assure you, Colonel, I don’t have the memory of a tapeworm.” She then glanced over her shoulder at the young Court Wizard coming behind. “Beuhler, you’re with us. Caalan has to stand by. Laukan and De Guillon keep with Caalan, Arnwahl will cover the servants. Sergeant, go tell number one to get her wide ass up here, she’s coming too—but not the bard!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The entrance neared. It seemed to crush the visitors with its sheer volume. The Marshal brought her horse closer to Yuliana’s, leaned over, and spoke with her voice down,

“Are you still sure you want to do this?”

“What if I said no?” Yuliana whispered back with a forced smile, her face anxious and ashen.

Miragrave wasn’t joking at all with her response. “I’ll have us turn around.”

“No,” Yuliana stopped her. “Who would do this if not us?”

A short distance to the side, the Prince looked up at the sharpened fangs of the enormous porte coleice hanging over their heads and narrowed his eyes.

“I have a bad feeling about this…”

Izumi caught up with the front group and they proceeded the rest of the way through the tunnel. The clopping of the horses’ steps rebounded off the chalked walls and little else could be heard. The passage was about sixty yards in all, the eyes of numerous murder holes watching their every move from the ceiling.

Then the darkness ended and they were in the city, greeted by daylight and blinking, dazed, like sleepers stirring at the break of dawn. No one called for them to stop yet at the exit, so they rode on to bring in the full length of the cavalcade.

To no fanfare did the Imperial emissaries arrive.

There were no crowds to receive them, the street lay clear its full length from this end to the next. The civilians had to have been ordered to stay indoors by the authorities. Just how much did they fear the Tratovians? How far had the King’s paranoia infected the populace? The view was more than disheartening for Yuliana to look at. So much had changed in the air of this street since the last she rode it. A rule of terror so deep would not be undone in a day.

They gazed around the Gatehouse Street, its clean limestone pavement, at the tall, solemn apartment buildings of stone that lined it with their small iron-framed balconies and laundry lines, and blackened weatherwanes the shape of peacocks dangled on the roofs. The front doors were high up at the end of precipitous concrete stairs, firmly shut and forbidding.

At least on the outside, little had changed from Yuliana’s memory. All the minute details of this street and its kindred were engraved in her heart for life and she had traced them many times in her imagination to find comfort in the experience. Yet, she found the homecoming less heartwarming than she had pictured it. Now that the long-awaited moment was here, she found herself wanting nothing more but to leave. The worry for the future seemed to overpower all positive thoughts. The cold dread mixed in the light of day instilled an unpleasant chill in her and she shuddered. She had to finish her business with her father as soon as she reasonably could, and then be on her way again.

The last of the line were in now but still the guards wouldn’t stop them. Guards? Where were the guards? How far would they let the guests go? Weren’t they going to take their weapons? None could be seen.

Yuliana looked back. Colonel Foulton rode a few paces behind her and appeared like he had forgotten what he was here for. Indeed, his face was like that of Odysseus coming home after many years of fighting in Troy and sorcerous seas, only to find a crowd of strangers in his house, courting his wife. She thought it was a weird face to make, but everyone else around her looked the same.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

There were no curious spectators behind the hundreds of windows above them. They were but void apertures into shapeless darkness no living soul could possibly call home. Not one bird floated above the roofs though the skies were typically full of gulls, sparrows, swallows...No stray dogs skittered about in the daily pursuit for edible scraps, or the alms of caring grandmothers. There was nothing. Not one thing. Only an emptiness that took one’s breath away. Still they rode on, as if they had altogether lost the ability to stop.

Ahead opened the northern city plaza, a wide square of painted plates that market stalls typically occupied from early first light till dusk. In the middle of the clearing stood a gorgeous fountain with a statue depicting playing faeries. Water had ceased to run. The weather-beaten stalls stood abandoned. There was not one vendor around to watch over the wares, but no customers either. Yuliana swallowed but found she had no spit left. Her throat was parched and her breathing had grown labored.

The Grand Marshal stopped her horse. Without a separate signal, whether they rode ahead of her or after her, the entire company followed suit, giving way to a disturbing absence of motion and sound. Miragrave eyed the desolation left and right and squeezed the reins so hard that her leather gloves groaned. Light was extinguished from her eyes, her face had gone white, and with great exertion she forced out the words,

“We have made a terrible mistake.”

Yuliana glanced at the Marshal, disoriented and ill, but too confounded to ask for an explanation. Behind her majesty, Margitte reached into her cloak pocket and took out the gadget of bronze, and held it on her trembling palm. The three rings were firmly fixed together, and the needle spun wildly from side to side, fixing at one point for a second, then to shift quickly in a different direction entirely, on and on and on without a moment’s rest, as if torn by great forces. She let out a muffled gasp and nearly dropped the device.

Miragrave saw it and immediately barked, “Put that thing away! Do you want to start a panic!”

She then turned to General Monterey. “We have to leave, now.”

—“Ah!”

Yuliana’s sudden cry drew their attention.

Her majesty stared ahead, across the marketplace. In the west side corner, they watched a lone child stagger out from behind the corner of a building. A little girl no older than six or seven summers, dressed in a red felt coat and boots still too big for her. The child looked terribly weak and famished as she wobbled towards the riders, and them stumbled and fell on her knees. Unable to stand up soon again, the child took a moment to catch her breath. For how long had she been hiding in the deserted city, all by herself, waiting for rescue?

“Oww…!” Unable to fight the grief and worry surging in her bosom, Yuliana climbed off her saddle and ran to retrieve the child. All other considerations left her mind. Her people and kingdom had in one moment become embodied in that frail life, the sole survivor of the unknown calamity that had befallen them. It had to be saved and protected at all costs. She barely heard the Marshal’s voice in her ears.

“What are you doing!? Get back!”

The child was only some eighty yards away, in the open and alone. There was nothing dangerous here. The Marshal could be regrettably hardhearted at times, to an almost irrational extent.

With effort, the child sat up on her knees and reached her little hands towards the Empress, face twisted in agony, wordlessly pleading.

Seeing Yuliana was beyond words, Miragrave turned to a knight close by and commanded, “Shoot the child!”

“Ha…?” The soldier stared back at her in disbelief. Had he heard her right?

His hesitation lit the Marshal’s eyes ablaze with rage and despair, and she repeated at the top of her lungs,

“SHOOT THAT LITTLE GIRL, SERGEANT! THAT IS AN ORDER!”

Orders were orders. One didn’t become an elite knight by asking for reasons. Pushing his humanity aside, the Sergeant took up his bow with rehearsed motions, polished through endless repetition. He nocked a black-feather arrow and took aim with care, certain in his heart he would be judged for his deeds in this life or the next. And then let go.

The arrow caught up with her majesty and whistled past her right ear. She watched in horror the shaft strike the child square in the chest, pierce that fragile form and snuff out the precious young life so early onto its journey—

——It didn’t happen.

Where the child had been exploded a cloud of ink-black mist. The arrow passed clean through the coiling, intangible veil, and clicked onto the pavement further ahead. Then, a figure completely different dashed out of the smoke, a tall shadow so revoltingly foreign it stunned the witnesses with its absolute loathsomeness. The abomination sprinted straight at Yuliana with a low, bestial snarl. She recoiled in shock and horror and fell to the pavement.

“Again!” Miragrave shouted at the archer. “Keep firing!”

“—I’ve got this!” Margitte exclaimed. She stood in the stirrups and raised her staff, pouring as much mana into the formula as she could. “Thessil!”

At the mage’s command, a wide bolt of lightning struck down and smote the running abomination. The pavement split with a bang, and the intense flash made onlookers avert their eyes. The smell of burned stone and ozone entered their nostrils, thick and overpowering.

The blast could’ve broken apart a phalanx of knights or knocked back a charging horseman with ease. The fiend took a direct hit a bit below the left shoulder, wavered to one side, but quickly corrected its balance and ran on.

“Idiot!” Miragrave grunted while coughing. “They repel magic…!”

“Ah…”

All Margitte’s spell had achieved was distract her own allies. Of course, she should’ve known better. She did know, but that tidbit of trivia had completely slipped her mind in the heat of the moment. Perhaps somewhere in her hubris she had thought her raw talent could make up for the disadvantage.

It was too late to do anything else.

The monster caught up with Yuliana. She tried in vain to crawl back, her strength sapped by panic. The creature leaned down to pick up her head in passing—and crumbled to dust.

A subtle sound, like a reverberating ring of a bell, sounded in the air. Yuliana watched the eerie figure dissolve into dust finer than ash, and the powder faded away as soon as it touched the pavement.

She looked up and saw Izumi stand next to her, sword in hand.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked and extended her free hand to Yuliana. “Can you stand?”

“Ha…?” Yuliana stared at the outreached hand. What just happened? Her overwhelmed mind couldn't keep up with the abrupt developments. Then, like an arrow from the sky, a thought simple and stark enough to banish all other considerations hit her, and restored total clarity to her being.

“Oh no!” she cried, her face contorting in anguish. “Mother! Father…!”

Yuliana wrestled herself back up, turned and ran to her horse, her legs still shaky and stumbling along the way, but eventually successful. Wasting no time for words, sparing no thought to her rank, or responsibility, or anyone else, she urged her mount to full gallop and went flying across the plaza, down the eastern lane from there.

“Damn it!” Miragrave groaned and turned her horse to pursuit. “After her!”

Yuliana rode along the street across the barren district, past the lifeless houses and empty yards, the rest of the company a distance behind. She soon came to the limits of the eastern city, where a great gateway arced over the avenue. Beyond the unbarred frame started a bridge across a deep gorge some hundred yards wide.

On the other side stood the Royal Castle of Walhollem on a pillar of bedrock detached from the rest of the land; surrounded by walls of its own, battlements on top of battlements, the central castle tower pointed at the heavens like a divine blade. The familiar sight seemed to assure the returning princess that all was fine. There was no way that castle, the last stronghold of her people, could ever fall. No enemy could take it, no matter how powerful or numerous. Even should the rest of the city fall, even should the world itself come to ruin and loss, that castle would stand, and anyone therein would survive. So Yuliana had always believed. No, she had known it for a fact, from the moment of her birth.

But all was not fine.

The drawbridge was down and the main gate wide open, the portcullis raised in open welcome. Unchecked, unquestioned, finding no more sentries than servants, Yuliana rode home under the gate, and came to an empty courtyard. She abandoned her horse before the naked stairs of the main building and ran on to the entrance. The door here too had been left carelessly open. Who could’ve been so negligent? She knew all the castle guards by name, who to blame. Samuel? Erras? They were nowhere to be seen. Away were Ferge and Philip. So were Helga and Otto. Migel, Herbert...No one—was there no one? She ran through the vestibule, and the long entrance hall beyond, all of it quiet as a morgue, the silky, suffocating veil of death and abandonment over the space.

In the back of the hall started a wide, regal staircase, where the old courtier, Hérce, would always await the guests, ready. Whom may ae introduce tae his machesty? he would inquire every guest, always in those exact words, and Yuliana and the others would secretly laugh at the way he flung his jaw. Gone were Hérce and his gilded staff that he would knock the floor with. Gone were Thatcher the maid, and Selvio, the courtier’s grandson. Everyone. Everyone was gone.

Yuliana rushed up the marble stairs, along the carpeting that ran crimson like blood before her. From the top she picked the left side corridor without thinking and ran on, coming soonn to a larger hall. It was well lit thanks to the tall rows of windows in the sides, which granted the white marble hall its unique, lofty atmosphere. Heavenly, even. For a moment, she almost managed to trick herself into thinking the echo of her own footsteps was another person coming to meet her. A consolation lost tragically soon, swallowed by the overwhelming emptiness that faced her. To the last, her eyes sought for signs of life, on the floor, in the corners, behind the slender pillars, on the high walls where old banners hung limp, finally even in the arcing ceiling, before coming to rest upon a singular object in the far back. At the sight of it, all of her hopes boiled down to nothing. Unable to deny the reality a step more, Yuliana ceased to roam and threw down on her knees and cried, cried like a child before that cold, vacant seat of marble, that pale throne.