“You walk this path, because it’s yours to follow, the choices you make now will shape the future. Leona Crossford.”

Jolted up wide awake, the Princess found herself lying on what seemed to be a cold smooth floor, it was moist and cold to the touch but the texture was reminiscent of liquid, it didn’t seem to cling to her as ripples formed the moment she raised her hand from it. Endlessly reverberating throughout the seemingly infinite horizon of water. Looking up, a sky she never saw was before her eyes. The golden red sky itself seemed shattered, fragments of reality and void seemed to flicker between themselves as if fighting for the right to exist.

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

She flinched the moment she heard it. A male voice filled with melancholy came from behind her, instinctively she turned around while standing up. It was a male figure shrouded in dark haze, his form was so unstable she could imagine it dissipating into nothing at any moment. She then asked.

“Who… who are you?”

The figure stopped looking at the sky and turned at her, head tilted as if thinking about something. A few silent seconds later he started to slowly nod while bringing his left hand towards his chin.

“Right… I forgot I brought your mind over from there. Fine, very well.”

With a snap of his right hand, a violent torrent of thoughts and memories flooded her mind and everything from the previous encounter with Lastraeous came back as a distant memory.

“Aaaargh!”

The pain was so great she fell to her knees, hitting the ground with her fists in an attempt to ease the pain in her head.

“Oh dear, maybe I shouldn’t have given you all the memories in one go. Well, I’m still learning so bear with me.”

He took one step forward and in the middle of the motion, his form shifted in a black current, finding himself forming back to his humanoid self beside the agonizing Princess. His hand reached for her head and her pain suddenly subsided. He pulled his hand back and adjusted something near where it should be his neck.

“I believe we can skip formalities, Leona.”

He was about to fall on his back when the ground itself formed a chair of flowing water, he took his seat, which was surprisingly solid, and crossed his legs before taking a deep breath.

“Here, where you are right now, this is my realm. It has no specific name as I’m terrible with providing such. If you wish to ask anything, now is the time.”

He flicked his left hand up and another chair of water formed on the opposite side of him, behind the Princess. Her breathing was ragged, head still pulsating from the pain, although her thoughts stopped rushing, the memories of her time spent in the void was slowly coming back. Her eyes filled with anger locked onto the black haze where his eyes would be.

“Lastraeous… why have you done this…!? Those memories… if I had them I would have prevented this!”

She tried to stand but fell back on her knees again, her body still shaken from the flood of information that assaulted her brain. The god on the other hand, seemed disinterested in her struggles and instead just wavered his hand in disdain as he spoke.

“Foolish girl, no amount of knowledge from the future would have prevented this from happening. Even with the royal army at your disposal you wouldn’t have been able to defeat him.”

He changed his legs, crossing the left on top of the right while scratching his chin before continuing.

“…Besides, it’s best to be this way. Your animosity makes it easier to speak with you like this.”

“Huh…?”

With her legs still trembling, she managed to get herself back on her feet. Her teeth clenched to the point of causing her pain.

“Why are you doing this to me!?.”

upon closing both hands into tight fists, she stumbled forward trying to hit the black haze. Her clumsy swing passed through the figure, unharmed by her attack.

“Do you know how humanity became stronger?”

She couldn’t muster any more strength and before she could fall with her back on the ground, a chair erupted from the water and formed right where she would sit. Knowing that trying to harm him would do her no good, she decided to indulge his question.

“Acquisition of knowledge?”

“Close, but not quite. Before the human-demon war, there was barely no industrial production, relying solely on the strength of arms to produce weapons and armor. People died of sickness as if it was a natural occurrence of life. War and strife moves people forward to a common goal. The people you swore to protect and bring to ever greater heights used to fight amongst themselves for food and water.”

“And so you decided to create another war through Alexander?”

He chuckled lightly.

“No, no, he is the precise reason as to why I have chosen you as my champion. He is under the influence of Eleonora, the goddess of life and death.”

Leona frowned her brow.

“Goddess of life and death? Isn’t she who governs the light?”

He laughed, his voice seemed a bit more human than last time they talked. After he was done, he seemed to clean something off where his eye would be and explained.

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“She is one of my brethren. I had given life to her in order to create beings that could inhabit Arcadia with a continuous cycle of life and death. But with the rise of the warrior known as Eleonora, she has been wrongly recognized for her light and let’s say, she doesn’t take betrayal lightly.”

He made a double edged dagger appear out of thin air as he flicked his left hand and started to spin it around his fingers as he continued to explain.

“That being said, a misbehaving child needs to be punished and what better way to do it if not beating her own game?”

That statement made Leona’s blood boil, if whatever he was speaking was true, that meant countless lives were lost for a mere quarrel between the gods. One of which was her father. She closed her hands into tight fists trying to quell the rage within as she further questioned the god.

“Then… everything for all of you, was a game?”

He scratched his chin with the point of the blade before flicking it at the princess as he answered.

“Not quite. Your world is an interesting one, it is riddled with strife and hatred yet there’s so much beauty and compassion. I, for one, prefer to see how long it lasts, after all it was a hassle to create your kind.”

He inspected the dagger before turning at her, before she could say anything he threw the weapon at her. She couldn’t react in time and the only thing she felt was the warm blood dripping from the wound in her throat as she looked down and stared at the handle of the blade sticking out from under her chin. Her hands instinctively reached for the handle in order to remove it, even though she felt no pain at all the feeling of having something embedded in her body made her panic. Although before she could do anything, Lastraeous approached her from the peripheral of her vision, grabbing her hands which were holding the handle.

“As a token of my trust, I shall allow you to keep these memories of our encounter. Go, my champion, show my own unruly child the power of civilization.”

He plunged the blade deeper into her throat.

“Gah!”

She could only hear her own gasp as life left her and with a violent jolt, Leona woke up to what seemed to be a dense forest.

Though she had no idea where she was, she did remember that Krieg was with her. Upon reaching her hands beside her lower body to get up she felt a cold surface on the touch, much different from the rest of the wet uneven forest floor. Lying on the ground, a double edged dagger was under her right hand. She held the handle and brought it closer to her face, inspecting the weapon.

It was no different than a regular dagger and to her surprise, it was the same one she just had the displeasure of having stuck in her throat. She could still feel the lingering sensation of steel piercing through her flesh and instinctively reached for her throat to inspect it.

‘Damn you Lastraeous.’

Thankfully there was nothing wrong with it. She stood up and removed the cloak, tying around her hip to serve as a belt as she tucked the dagger behind her lower back. Her eyes wandered around the vicinity in order to look for Krieg; however there was nothing but vegetation around her. A tingle of desperation started to hit her, what if he had left her? No home to turn back to, no purpose left to live for, why would he still accompany her?

‘No… it’s not like him.’

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she dispersed the unnecessary negative thoughts that plagued her mind.

‘I won’t give in to despair. Krieg would never leave me, not like this.’

Upon focusing and sharpening her senses she could feel the flow of magic of her surroundings, a common usage of the user’s personal magic as it could react to others, may it be living or just the natural environment. Though with her mother’s teachings, Leona was a bit more perceptive than other mages of her own age, which was implied to improve as their days went by.

Much like the plane she was before, the world seemed to turn dark for a moment only to become filled with a myriad of colors representing the different flow of mana around her and after a brief moment of total focus, she found her knight not too far from there, a few meters ahead of her kneeling down near a bush.

‘What is he doing…?”

She crouched and opened her eyes, much calmer now she decided to move silently.

Threading through the mud with her feet covered in waterlogged rags was much more difficult than it initially appeared, but nevertheless she continued on, periodically checking for his position by emitting a small amount of mana towards her surroundings.

“Princess Leona, you should stop doing that.”

A familiar voice startled her, looking up, she noticed the elf sitting on a branch right above her, Phoebe’s smile was comforting in that situation.

“Phoebe!”

“Shhh…”

The assassin brought her index finger in front of her mouth to signal silence to her. Her voice was low, barely able to be heard with the constant sound of rain pelting the dense foliage around her.

“Sir Krieg saw a few knights. He’s checking if we should attack them or not.”

“Knights?”

The elf nimbly climbed down, landing right beside her. The dark blue cloak covered most of her features but the mesmerizing deep blue eyes were entrancing to look at, from Leona’s perspective, she could easily pass for being a noble. Phoebe suddenly stood up and nodded for the Princess’ surprise.

“Come Princess.”

“Huh?”

The elf stood up motioning with her hand in order to call the Princess to tag along with her. Leona stumbled forward with her feet sinking slightly into the muck. In front of her, Krieg donned a full set of steel plate armor, something which threw the Princess off as to how he managed to acquire the new protective gear. Behind him there were five mounted knights wearing Arcadia’s brand stamped in their red capes

“I wished we could meet in more agreeable times, but alas, it is what fate stored for us.”

An unfamiliar male voice came from behind Krieg, standing at the knight’s shoulder, a man in his fourties’ wearing what seemed to be military garb from the royal army, it was a dark blue uniform with golden trimmed shoulder pads and a seamless and also golden chain that crossed his chest, his trousers were held by a thick dark leather belt which then stopped at the shins where the high leather boots covered.

His hair showed age as there were some white strands standing out from the well kept dark brown brushed back hair. His dark blue eyes seemed to convey a strange warmth as he approached her.

“I’m commander Hawk, leader of the High Knights of Arcadia. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Princess Leona Crossford.”

“It’s my pleasure, commander Hawk. Mind I ask however, how do you know me?”

“I worked very closely with your mother and father, though it pains me to admit that I have been far too long away from them after the war ended.”

“Ahem.”

Krieg cleared his throat, which promptly made him nod in agreement whilst looking at the knight.

“Right, apologies. I’ve come to offer my limited aid to you, as of now, Arcadia is currently under Alexander of Lorraine’s rule as you already know. However, most of us do not agree with his intervention nor do we wish for another war… we’ve come too far for peace and I won’t accept a noble runt to throw our hard work away.”

Leona’s eyes widened in surprise, hearing that from someone with influence in the order of the royal knights was comforting.

The commander closed his right hand into a very tight fist as he looked deep into the Princess’ eyes.

“Leona Crossford, for the future of the Arcadian Kingdom, I beg of you, follow Eleonora’s footsteps and become the rightful ruler of Arcadia. I- no. We must prevail if we are to keep the kingdom from falling into another age of blood.”