“Your majesty!” one of the men beside her shouted, seemingly as surprised as Casteddu, either they are very good at acting or she is truly a naive idiot, he thought.

Either way, he could not let his guard down, all his fellows depended on him, this is either a trap laid by them beforehand, to humiliate them further, or an empty gesture of a naive monarch, whose actions however sincere will only cause them trouble in the future.

He crossed his arms, “Why would you do this? Are we not more profitable to you as slaves?” he probed the other side, even though he expected a dishonest answer, the longer they talked the more he could discern.

“Truthfully, yes, it is in my economic interest to keep you as slaves.” She replied “However, I simply find the idea of slavery abhorrent. Up until now, I had left management to my ministers and only recently found out about your situation, thus I rode out here to remedy the situation immediately.”

Casteddu looked over the party, given the way her entourage had acted plus the relatively small size of the retinue guarding the queen, her story was plausible. An idealist ruler suddenly finding out about wrongdoings in her land and rushing out to deal with them while her exasperated servants must follow.

However, he remained wary, he decided it was time to simply be upfront to see how they would react, “Frankly, I do not believe you, you wish to win our trust to somehow put us in a worse situation.” The guards beside her immediately took offense to his words, but once again the queen stopped them, while also looking pensive.

“I truly give you very little reason to believe I'm sincere, and however precarious your situation already is, the risk of trusting me is a lot.” Even if she was naive, she could understand situations like this pretty well, at least.

“So, how about this?” She asked her guards to put their swords away and step back, which they reluctantly did after she threatened them.

Then, she simply walked forward.

This surprised everyone around, and the man that had been standing beside her immediately jumped into action, but she once again stopped him, “Do not move forward, Kavanagh, this is an order from your queen. Don't forget who is in charge.”

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The man, to his merit, hesitated for only a second before moving ahead again. Royal guards should protect their liege at all costs, even against their own wishes.

“If you come any closer, I will strip you of your title of knight, I will fire all my other guards, and then I will come back here alone.” She looked at him with a totally serious expression, the previous levity in her words gone, she really meant it. “If you want my best chance of survival, then you will stand down now.”

With this ultimatum, he finally stopped, but refused to take a step back, she seemed satisfied with this much. She glanced at the others, to see if they would make a move, and finally turned and kept walking towards Casteddu.

Previously they had been a few feet apart, with her guards on either side of her, even if he desired to attack her, he would have been quickly parried and cut down. But now she stood directly in front of him, with all her guards far away.

Right below him, she stood and looked up at his eyes. The girl was only five feet four, while him with his neck extended easily cleared eight feet, his body mass was easily triple hers, and with a single strike from one of his hands he could break her body and toss it around like a ragdoll.

“What are you doing?” he asked, unsure how to react.

“I'm asking you to put your trust in me and believe, but that is far too risky for your people. So, to make this fair, it's only logical that there should be risk for me, too” She lifted her right arm towards him, with her hand open awaiting a handshake. “I have put my trust in you, so now I ask you to put yours on me, that's all.”

Casteddu looked at the minuscule, fragile woman. Physically, it was no contest, but she stared at his face, unwavering, without blinking, he was almost sure that behind her green irises he could see the faint outline of a raging fire.

He was taken aback, he almost felt like looking away from her penetrating gaze. He had seen eyes like that but a few times before, someone who thinks they can change the world. Among commoners, people like her would frequently go off to join an army or mercenary band in search of a greater purpose or some lofty goal, and then their enthusiasm would immediately get themselves killed in the first battle they took part of.

A fool.

And what is a person who follows a fool into battle, but a fool themselves? Allying with this girl, there will be nothing but tragedies for them in the future.

Yet, a fool’s enthusiasm is contagious, when someone feels so deeply about something it is hard to not get caught up in their wave. She really wants to help us, this idiot.

That much was true.

He looked down at her with a neutral expression, without betraying his internal thoughts. Whatever her body might look like, he understood she was stronger than most men he had met. Or, at the very least, far stupider.

He lifted his own right arm, and gently grasped hers; they shook hands while Eriu smiled.