*** PoV: Colette ***

“I can’t believe this brat,” I spat, closing the door of the tool shed - scratch that, skeleton shed - behind my back. “Pulling pranks on teachers is fine, but did he seriously have to make me waste my whole day with this skeleton incident? If you’ll cause some mess using one of my skeletons, at least make sure the others don’t see it’s you who took the scapegoat outside.”

Being the one who made all of the training skeletons the Academy used, I could obviously communicate with them, so if one wanted to make sure they did not blab to me, one had to wipe out any witnesses.

“Why did you have to get even the guards involved though? Even his own shadow could scare poor little Robert, so no one would have even batted an eye to him running around screaming,” I muttered. Prince Keith wasn’t someone who would call the guards on himself for a prank, and Princess Kathleen would probably join in instead of running to the guard station. “I just hope they won’t try to run from me when I get back, but if they do… Sewer rats, it is.”

“You called?” Luckily jumpscares like this stopped working on me centuries ago. Still, it was somewhat disturbing that this rat could pop up from anywhere the moment I mentioned him or his lackeys.

“Go away, Brad. It’s not like I want to pay for your drinks.”

“But if they try fleeing, you will, right?”

“Sure, sure. But make sure it’s not only Keith you catch this time.”

“Understood, boss. I’ll have my daughters behave just this once.”

“Even you can’t seriously believe they would comply. At least tell them to share their prey with me sometimes.” And share they did.

***

“Did that annoying goddess dedicate this week to skeleton-related incidents, or what in her name is going on here?” I couldn’t help but ask, seeing the half-assembled pile of bones next to one of the pillars of the main corridor.

“You seem to be in a foul mood. Found nothing out of the ordinary?” Now THAT was a jumpscare I didn’t expect. At least her being able to speak meant she wasn’t another one of the skeletons I made. I mean, sure, I was the one who turned her into a lich, but she wasn’t just an empty body programmed to follow orders.

“Sylvie? What happened to you? There shouldn’t be anyone able to overpower you around here.” Thanks to the boost that came with being an undead, even the prince’s strength fell behind compared to her, and he was one of the strongest in the capital.

“The problem isn’t the location, but the time. It’s normal for her to be here, but she shouldn’t be in this era.”

Sigh. “I’m not sure who you are talking about, but at least now I understand why you were put into this state.”

“Could you maybe help th–” No, it definitely wasn’t my kick that reset her restoration’s progress.

***

“So who is the little prankster that needs some scolding?” It took me some time to find the prince, but there he was, playing house with her little sister and Alan.

“Oh, Director Hildakoa. What prank did Alan pull this time?” asked the prince, like he wasn’t the confirmed perpetrator in this case.

“I– I swear I didn’t do anything this week,” shouted Alan while running past me, with Sara right at his heels.

“It’s unlike you to not even try stopping him,” said Keith with a confused face. “If it’s not him you are after, could it be that you are here because of the mess that skeleton caused yesterday? Lady Eva has already sent someone to investigate that matter.”

“The one she sent has already finished questioning the remaining skeletons, and is currently standing right in front of you, the person who took the supposed culprit of said mess out of the shed. Any last words?”

“But the one who was sent–” I couldn’t understand why he stopped there, staring at me. “Director, could it be that you are the Collateral Queen?” I must have become as white as a sheet. How could he figure my identity out? I knew that my family name wasn’t recorded in the legends, that’s why I could still use it without having to rely on fake names, so that could not have been the clue. My appearance was also altered to that of a Fushane, and no one would mistake their black hair color with my original blonde one, not mentioning the fact that every legend said I had heterochromia, which was no longer the case.

“What makes you think I am that person?” I could feel the cold sweat on my back. “Do I look that similar to her?” I was hoping I could still get myself out of this situation.

“No, nothing of the sort, but now that you mention it, the only difference I can see compared to when you are in the central tower is your hair color.” Was the cat really out of the bag? “The only clue I needed was the fact that Lady Eva sent you, as she told us Lady Colette had left the castle for that very reason.”

“Where is Eva right now?” Now I was completely lost. The elf hag should have had no reason to disclose my identity to anyone, let alone the royal family. Could it have been somehow connected to Sylvie having been beaten?

“She got locked up in her room for concealing she has unsealed you.”

“So… How exactly did she manage to mess up and reveal it?”

“That was actually a byproduct of the skeleton incident. As you have already figured out, I was the one who took one of the skeletons from the shed, but it was not the skeleton that appeared during the class. I took it to substitute the actual cause of the uproar.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Actual cause? Was there another skeleton there? Why did you have to substitute it? What did you do with it?” It just made no sense.

“What appeared during class wasn’t a normal skeleton, but a lich, just like the head maid and you, and not just a random one at that. It was the Lich Demon Lord of legends. Lady Colette, your sister is back. As for how Lady Eva’s secret got found out, Lady Hanna has recognized the daggers the head maid used, one of which she claimed was supposed to be sealed together with you.”

*** PoV: Hanna ***

“This bath really made it sink in that I’m in an actual royal castle. The one at the inn wasn’t bad, but it has no chance against an opponent this mighty.” I just walked out from the royal bathhouse followed by my four companions. “Now I understand why you had to send the boys away, Your Highness.”

“I know, right? It’s the only upgrade to the castle made by Eva that all of us approve of,” laughed Queen Brianna, the one who invited me to the bath in question. “Apparently people from the Dürre desert really love their baths, the Arid even more so.”

“Can’t judge them for that. Living at that dry place is a real pain, not even considering all the sand. I gave up and moved back here after a single year. Anyone who doesn’t want to soak in a bath after being exposed to it must be insane,” added the ice fairy Bella.

“I still can’t understand why you moved there of all people, sis. You had to know you wouldn’t be able to deal with the heat, being a Tuhina and all,” chimed the panther Maya in.

“Can you blame me? They have the best public baths on whole Lursail. If it wasn’t for the sand, I would have stayed.”

“Maybe I should give them a visit too, then. Those baths sound f–”

“Haaannaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!” I got tackled at the corner by a Fushane-looking woman. Her hair and eyes might have been a different color, but it was still obviously my sister. Soon I was forced into a position that would have made me suffocate, was I still alive.

“Director Hildakoa too? Why does it seem like everyone important knows sister?” wondered Kathleen.

“Everyone important seems to have some secrets. In the Director’s case it’s that she’s actually Lady Colette,” said Keith appearing next to us.

Colette looked up at Kathleen, her face becoming quite scary. “Hanna is MY sister. Keep your paws off of her, Princess. You already have your own sister anyway, don’t you?”

“Waaaaah, brother Keith, sister Kath, heeeeeelp,” came the shouting little bear sister Colette just mentioned. “They kidnapped Alan!”

“Who did what now?” asked the Queen.

“The two rat ladies took him away.”

“Rat ladies? Don’t tell–” started Keith, but Colette interrupted him.

“Oh crap. I totally forgot about them. Don’t worry, little Sara, I swear I’ll bring him back. Sorry for the mess I caused.” I finally got freed from her hug. “Braaad, lead the way!” Who was she talking to? Keith took his panicked little sister away, so it was just the five of us again.

“Well, if the Director says she’ll get Alan back, we have nothing to fear. Eva was right, we can really let her out in the wild, although her being the same person as the one who was feared by the whole planet in the past makes me wonder what happened to her that turned her into a mass murderer. She never seemed to be one to get drunk on power, even though she definitely has the power to wipe any city or even country out.” The Queen had a point.

“Even I don’t know what made her snap back then. Before she wiped our fellow Ilehoria out, she seemed to be a normal, loving big sister. People didn’t even realize it was her going around blowing whole cities up, and thought she was a hero saving the survivors. Her eyes of a Hero did not help either.”

“So how did they figure it out in the end?” Maya asked.

“She stopped saving people. A bit after I was hunted down for supposedly being the Lich Demon Lord, the voices of the survivors praising her as their savior were replaced by the voices of survivors being the witnesses of her rampage. Her targets also changed. Before that her only targets were Ilehoria cities, but afterwards she became indiscriminate.”

“I guess we’ll just have to listen to her version too,” suggested Bella. “If someone knows her reasons for becoming the most infamous villain ever, it must be herself.”

“By the way, where did the Lich Demon Lord name come from? No matter how I look at you, I wouldn’t be able to mistake you for a Demon,” was Maya’s next question. It seemed like she was the one to come up with the most on-point questions out of this group.

“Ah, that’s a funny story. You know the legends of previous Heroes and Demon Lords, I suppose. Just like Colette, they had eyes of different colors, and usually appeared at nearly the same time. One of them was a Demon every time, who would throw the world into chaos, while the other, whose race varied from occasion to occasion, would go against them and save the people. This time, however, the only one to appear was Colette.”

“That means the supposed Hero took the place of the Demon Lord, while there was no supposed Demon Lord to take the place of the Hero,” added the princess with an unusually serious face.

“Exactly. People were well aware of the legends, and looking at how they already found their Hero, they needed to find someone to be their Demon Lord. They needed someone who was present when the first incident happened, whose only known survivors were me and the still infant Clara. It did not help either that a few years after I flew to Elfenwald, I teamed up with the prince of the Demons, Lux, who was apparently looking for me around the world, neither that I was already known as a powerful necromancer by that time. People generally feared the undead, and there I was, leading a horde of skeletons into dungeons with a Demon at my side. It didn’t matter that I had no heterochromia, I was just the scapegoat they needed, so they sent a group of adventurers including Colette after me. The only thing they knew about their target was that it was a young Ilehoria necromancer, so when they ran into us and Colette introduced me to them as her sister, we actually teamed up to look for the Demon Lord together. However, we got split up during a monster ambush, and when I summoned some skeletons to help their party leader and myself, he realized who I was, and stabbed me in the heart from behind.”

“Then you went and actually became a lich. Cliche much?” I could have been fine without that comment from the princess. I preferred when she was serious.

“Sure I did, but don’t ask me why Colette brought me back. My party was only able to tell me that they found me sitting next to the charred corpse of the party leader, with my hair silver and my eyes purple. Most of the other party was also killed, while the few who were spared said they were barely able to flee from the supposed Demon Lord, who they confirmed to be Colette, not me. This cleared my name, but with me becoming a lich, the moniker stuck to me.”

“And after this, she started attacking cities seemingly indiscriminately. If you ask me, these things seem to be related pretty closely.”

“You might be onto something, Lady Bella.” I was quite impressed. “If you are right, that probably makes me the densest little sister she could have.”

“I don’t mind if my sister is dense,” smiled Kathleen.

“It might be a good idea not to say things like this while Colette is around, sister.”

“Having my daughter be this close to the legendary Demon Lord makes me proud.”

“You think I’m close to her, mother? You should see–”

“Sister. Stop. Please.”