Chapter 45 The Imperial Capital of Solebria

Chapter 45
The Imperial Capital of Solebria

Mitsuru looked up at the sky.

The Crystal Palace, seat of the Northern Empire’s power, was in the very center of the Imperial Capital of Solebria. Over a span of two hundred years, the city had grown out along boulevards radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the palace, swelling to become home to more than one million people.

The towering central keep of the Crystal Palace, made of a milky-white stone resembling marble, had guest rooms near the residence of the emperor himself. Mitsuru now stood on the terrace near the top floor, looking down on the city. It was, in a way, like looking at the very history of the Northern Empire. The construction of the city of Solebria reflected with uncanny accuracy the class structure that ordered the daily lives of people in the north. In the center, surrounding the palace, stood the looming offices of the government. Beyond them lay the lavish arcade teeming with shoppers that formed the merchant district. Even further out were the homes of the citydwellers, all standing in their approved plots, gaily decorated with the requisite markers of wealth and individual taste.

But the farther one strayed from the center of town, the shabbier things became. There was a deep moat between the city center and the outer ring of town, forming a rift, a natural line of separation that was clear to see from Mitsuru’s vantage point.

The capital city of Solebria was, in essence, a castle town. The city walls, much expanded and strengthened over the years, were always a remarkable sight to the merchants who visited from the southern continent. But beyond these walls and the single gate that led to the bustling Merchants Corridor, visitors never saw anything else of the city. That even here, within the city, there existed not one but two Solebrias, was hidden from their eyes. One of these Solebrias belonged to the rich, the other to the poor. The oppressors and the oppressed. Those who were served and those who served.

Farther still from the Crystal Palace, to the northeast, lay the prison where outlaws and criminals were held. This was an area abhorred by the geomancers of the north, their divinations honed by years of coping with the harsh climate of the northern continent.

Behind the prison edifice stood another gate that led outside the city walls. Many people considered this the gate of no return. The road leading to the northeast from this gate was referred to as the Captives Road, and the location of the forced labor camp at its end wasn’t marked on any official maps of the Empire. No one knew exactly how large it was, or how many souls it held.

Those who survived the camp knew they were guilty of only one crime: they were beastkin. They knew this, but they could not speak it out loud. The only power they had was the power to forget. The blank spot on the map was one way. If one could forget something that had existed, it never did.

Still, truth has a way of finding the chinks in even the strongest armor. Even if people are silent, buildings speak. The land speaks—and there are some who write down what they hear. On this, his tenth day in the Imperial Capital, Mitsuru already had an excellent grasp of the Empire’s history and the true conditions of life here. Much of his understanding came from the documents he found in the archives of the Crystal Palace itself.

Mitsuru had been welcomed as the emperor’s personal guest, and enjoyed considerable freedom in the palace. He spent many hours in the archives, and the researchers welcomed his curiosity and helped him in any way they could. Mitsuru, for his part, knew that the history they fed him had been cosmetically altered to suit their needs. Consequently, he took what he could use and ignored the rest. Many of the older books were locked up with a variety of magical locks, but these were easy enough for a sorcerer of his caliber to undo.

In this way did Mitsuru glean intelligence that even spies from the south had not been able to gather after years of searching. Yet the information he truly sought lay maddeningly beyond his reach. All he had gained from his research was a vague idea of how he might acquire that knowledge…

Which is why, these days, he spent his time looking up into the sky, casting his thoughts against the clouds.

The sky in the north seemed somewhat paler than in the south—frozen, drained of color. Even though this season was supposedly the mildest of the year, the cold wind whipped around him and slipped down his collar and out the sleeves of his robe.

The harsh climate had given rise to a harsh society. It was a vicious cycle—the thought brought an almost childlike frown to Mitsuru’s face. The ankha in the north had gained their dominance by stomping out the other races. Yet even with a unified populace, peace had not come to the Empire. Now different factions among the ankha vied for power. The dual structure of the capital city stood as a testament to that. The ankha of the north, their history stained with the blood of beastkin, had become addicted to the oppression of others—it was their way of life. And so it continued as a matter of fact, and nobody caught in the cycle was any the wiser.

I’ve never seen a greater gathering of self-deluded idiots.

Mitsuru had no sympathy for the people of the north. He couldn’t even pity them. He wasn’t angry, nor did he want to censure them. In this, he was just being impartial. It would make little difference to Mitsuru if the people in the north were the most enlightened in the land.

Everything in Vision is just that—an illusion, a mirage. A fleeting dream that would disappear the moment he returned to the real world.

The very moment he became a Traveler, Mitsuru abandoned the boy he had been in the real world. He had been freed.

It was even possible that Mitsuru was now not wholly human. A Traveler was all he was. And to a Traveler there is only the objective. Nothing extraneous such as feelings of empathy, affection, friendship, or loyalty remained to hinder his progress toward his goal.

The problem before him now was how to deal with this capital city of Solebria. He would have to make plans, concrete plans. Squinting against the chilling breeze, Mitsuru schemed. He would not wait much longer.

He had been lucky. Few obstacles had lain in his path until now. It took him only three days to cross the sea separating the northern and southern continents. After wresting the sea charts from the old captain of the sailship, he had little need for the man. Once he was out on the open sea, and had a feel for direction and distance, he did not need to depend on such unreliable physical means of transport as the sailship. Magic was far more efficient. The sailship merely served as a convenient place to keep his feet dry during the crossing.

When he arrived on the northern continent, he sank the ship along with the captain in the shallow waters near the coast.

On firm land once again, he hid himself in a convenient port town to rest up, then made straight for the Imperial Capital. Along the way, fortune smiled on him again. He encountered a tax collector’s party returning to the capital from their rounds in the provinces. This saved him the effort of asking directions and gained him more valuable resources. The remains of the tax collector and his entourage were easily disposed of with a little wind magic that neatly covered his tracks. Some official might be waiting at the tax bureau in the capital for his delayed collector, but that was hardly Mitsuru’s concern.

Once in the capital, he used enveiling magic to slip inside the Crystal Palace. He took stock of the layout and let himself into the imperial quarters. After that, it was simple. He waited for nightfall and made his way directly to the bedside of Gama Agrilius VII. Waking up the emperor, he calmly announced his business.

The emperor had been quite startled, of course, and—still in his nightclothes—prostrated himself in abject fear at Mitsuru’s feet. It was a better reaction than even he could’ve hoped for.

In the south, Mitsuru had few occasions to announce his status as Traveler to anyone, nor did his easy progress require him to do so at any point. Now, standing before the emperor, Mitsuru realized exactly what it meant to be a Traveler in Vision.

“We are quite enamored of the real world,” the emperor told him. “To us, it is a sacred land. A land of the gods. It is my most sincere wish to fashion my empire to be as much like the real world as I can make it.”

This revelation brought a smile to Mitsuru’s lips. Considering the wars and slaughter that had taken place in the real world, and comparing those to what he knew of the north, it seemed like the emperor had already been quite successful in his mission, whether he knew it or not. Still, something struck him as odd. Though he had learned it only in passing, Mitsuru was sure that the Northern Empire embraced the beliefs of the Old God rather than the Goddess. Travelers, everyone knew, were the servants of the Goddess—yet the emperor seemed quite pleased to make his acquaintance.

He asked about this, and the emperor hesitantly replied.

“Of course, as a Traveler you are well informed. I’m impressed to hear you know of our country’s religion. Indeed, our empire is, on the surface, a bastion of faith in the Old God. But this is merely a convenient means to an end. It became necessary to spread this religion to unite our people against the nations of the south where the Goddess is worshiped. That is all.”

“So, do you mean to say that you, in fact, worship the Goddess as Creator?”

The emperor laughed at the question. “No, no! Of course, the Tower of Destiny does exist somewhere here in Vision, and a Goddess surely lives there who controls the fates of those in the real world. But she is no god of Vision. The Goddess who sits in the Tower of Destiny is a goddess only to those from the real world. She has nothing to do with any of us who live here in Vision.”

The true creator of Vision is none other than the real world itself, the emperor explained. “Do you know how Vision was formed? Vision is a world created by the imaginative energies of people living in your world—the real world. It follows that the gods of Vision, if we must name them, are actually the people of the real world. Is this not so?”

It certainly did make logical sense. “Then why support a religion that teaches people to mistrust Travelers? That completely goes against what you just told me.”

The emperor waved away Mitsuru’s objection. “Master Mitsuru, we know that the Porta Nectere opens once every ten years. But we do not know what kind of person will visit us. If they are talented and wise, this is a good thing. But sometimes, they may be evil or weak. It falls to us to create a difficult environment to separate the good from the bad. If they are truly emissaries from the holy land, they will gain our admiration and worship.”

Mitsuru was stunned. Then he remembered something Wayfinder Lau had mentioned earlier. Many Travelers, he said, abandoned their journey, unable to stand the hardships along the way. They lost their lives somewhere in Vision, or disappeared, never to return to the real world.

“Yet you, Master Mitsuru, have reached our palace. All by yourself, you have penetrated its most heavily defended chamber.” The emperor bowed deeply. “You have proven your worth beyond all doubt. I’m honored to greet you as a guest in our world. You will be accorded all the respect an emissary of the gods deserves, and I welcome you as a trusted ally. But first, you must rest, for I fear your journey has been quite long.”

And so, Mitsuru became a guest at the Crystal Palace.

Mitsuru later asked how many Travelers like him had visited the palace before.

Only one, the emperor told him. Once during the peak of the war to unify the north. “The records say that this Traveler, too, was a man of great power. It was he who first proposed the idea that land should be governed by a single race. He taught us that peace, prosperity, wealth, and power come only to those unified by blood. This became the basis for our empire, and brought us victory in the war of unification.”

Mitsuru wasn’t sure whether to be astonished or bemused. So the source of the oppression of non-ankha, and the genocide that had occurred in the north, had all been another Traveler’s idea. Not to mention the fact that the emperor seemed to think this Traveler was a true emissary of the gods.

Mitsuru was surprised at his own shock. He had decided a long time ago that after what he had been through in the real world, nothing could surprise him.

Still, his bewilderment lasted only a moment. I’ve got more important things to do, he told himself. Events in Vision have nothing to do with me. I need only to reach the Tower of Destiny and do what I came here to do. Then I’ll go home. And I’ll use whatever means I have at my disposal.

The next day, when he awoke in the luxurious guest chambers, his life as an honored guest of the palace had already begun. He was brought before the beaming emperor, his family, and the retainers at the Crystal Palace, and informed that an elaborate welcoming ceremony was in the works. He was shown around the palace and told about its making, and he began to learn the history of the Empire.

But, of course, Mitsuru wanted none of this. Feeling unusually pressed for time, he sought another private meeting with the emperor.

This was when he revealed the reason he came to the north. He told the emperor that the last gemstone he sought was none other than the one adorning the Imperial Crown. If he only had this, the way to the Tower of Destiny would open to him. And he needed it as soon as possible.

He also explained how he had learned of a need for haste in his journey. By this, of course, he was referring to Halnera.

Mitsuru did not care to lose to Wataru in the race to reach the tower. Not that he was worried. But now that there was a danger of one of them being chosen as the sacrifice, it behooved him to achieve his goals and make it back to the real world as swiftly as possible.

But the emperor’s only response to Mitsuru’s urgent request was to laugh. “We know nothing of this Halnera in our empire. Nor do any of our scholars acknowledge such a thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was all a legend cooked up by the United Southern Nations government. I’m afraid you’ve been hoodwinked, Master Mitsuru.”

This was a possibility. But the reverse was also true. Maybe you’re just ignorant. Mitsuru gritted his teeth in silence, and it took a great deal of effort to not let his frustrations show.

“Then, are you saying that I am not to worry about Halnera?”

“Why concern yourself with something that does not exist, my dear Master Mitsuru?”

“Yet, even if Halnera is merely some scheme dreamed up by the south, I would like to reach the Tower of Destiny and finish my journey as soon as possible.”

To this the emperor frowned and lifted his heavily bejeweled person from the throne, “I understand how you feel, but I must ask you to wait,” he said in a harsh voice.

“Whatever for?”

“This jeweled crown you claim to seek—this is most surely the prized treasure of my family for generations: the Crown of the Seal.”

“The Crown of the Seal?”

“Indeed. It would be most difficult for me to give you this treasure now, you see. For, were I to move the Crown of the Seal from its current resting place, a great calamity would visit our empire. It would rock the very foundation of Vision. The gemstone you seek currently protects Vision from that calamity. Thus is the crown that bears it called the Crown of the Seal—it seals the portal behind which the doom of Vision waits.”

For a good while, Mitsuru found himself in the unfamiliar position of being at a loss for words. At length, he spoke. “Then, what would you have me do? If the gemstone I need must protect Vision from some calamity, how might I ever hope to claim it?”

“No, there is hope. I merely said that it would be difficult to give you the gem now. In fact, there are other ways of preventing this calamity from visiting itself upon us. Or rather, there is one other way. Yet, sadly, the Northern Empire lacks the power to achieve this other method. We require certain materials from the south.”

What’s he babbling about now?

“Only a short while ago…” The emperor sat back down on his throne, a tone of sadness in his voice. “Our empire and the lands of the south were locked in a stalemate, and gathering the necessary materials was nigh well impossible. Oh, to be sure, we tried all means at our disposal, but I was not optimistic about our prospects. But the situation has changed somewhat of late. I do not know every detail, but certain sympathizers with our cause in the south have reported that there are traces showing that something has passed from the south to our lands that will radically change the balance of power in Vision. If I am able to identify and locate this something, we would be able to begin our invasion of the south immediately. With victory assured, it would be easy to acquire the materials we need.

“Perhaps Master Mitsuru knows something of this…”

Mitsuru looked up. The old coot must know what it is he’s looking for. You’re playing dumb, trying to get information out of me, aren’t you?

Mitsuru produced the powered-boat designs. “Perhaps you mean this?”

This wasn’t how the exchange was supposed to work.

He handed the blueprints over. The emperor’s joy was evident. “Emissary from the holy land, servant of the gods, I thank you! With these designs our victory is already certain. I would share this victory with you. Please, until that day comes, treat my palace as your home.”

And so Mitsuru had been forced to wait. And he would have to wait until the Empire had crushed the opposition in the south.

I’ve failed. Mitsuru dug his teeth into his bottom lip. My plan was faulty. I did this to myself. But it won’t happen again. Dear emperor, if you think I’m going to sit around here and wait until you can have your fun with the southern continent, you’re sorely mistaken. Standing on the terrace, Mitsuru clenched his hands into tight fists.

If he wasn’t given the crown immediately, there wouldn’t be time for any calamity—he’d burn this precious capital of theirs to the ground right now. Once the emperor knew what he was capable of he would tremble in fear like he was supposed to. What did it matter what calamity the Crown of the Seal held in check—it has nothing to do with me. If they want to stop it, fine, they’re on their own.

Yet, there was certain vital information he lacked…

“Master Mitsuru?”

Mitsuru looked around, his hands gripping the terrace railing.

Opening the double doors to the guest room and bowing stiffly was Adju Lupa. He was one of the officers here in the Crystal Palace, under direct orders from the emperor to look after Mitsuru during his stay. He looked to be in his late forties. Mitsuru had instantly been wary of the man’s gentle, scholarly demeanor. This was no mere administrator.

Mitsuru had heard of the special task force operating directly under the guidance of the emperor—Sigdora—when he was still in the south. He had been staying at a small village inn where he had heard stories about a Sigdora attack that had burned down half the houses in town, and claimed the lives of more than half of the residents.

Not knowing anything of the Crown of the Seal at the time, Mitsuru had wondered why the North had sent troops into the South. Now it all made sense. They were doubtlessly searching for whatever these materials were that the emperor needed.

“The Northern Empire uses Sigdora to reclaim refugees who’ve escaped south, or just to kill them,” the innkeeper had said in a hushed voice. “No one knows why. They want something…or maybe the refugees know something and they don’t want them to talk.”

The story had piqued Mitsuru’s interest, and he fully intended to get to the bottom of this Sigdora thing when he traveled north.

Adju Lupa was a card-carrying member of Sigdora, Mitsuru was certain. And he was no mere operative but one of its leaders. Yes, the emperor had welcomed Mitsuru to his city, most likely an honest gesture, but that did not mean he was not wary of his guest. Especially now that the emperor had him waiting. It made perfect sense to deploy a skilled and trusted man to shadow him during his stay.

“The lady requests your presence in the gazebo of the Garden of Victory for some afternoon tea, should it please you,” Adju Lupa announced politely.

The lady of whom he spoke was the eldest daughter of the emperor. Should nothing unfortunate occur, once the current emperor passed away, she would ascend to the throne as Gama Agrilius VIII, the first female emperor in the north.

But Mitsuru knew that her path to the throne would not be an easy one. The residents of the Crystal Palace were nothing if not talkative. Rumors and whispered secrets were as common as mice in a manger. And the worst of the gossips were easily manipulated—few seemed to realize that the locks on their mouths were loose, nor how important the treasures they let slip between the lips actually were.

“Thank you. I shall gladly accept her ladyship’s offer,” Mitsuru replied. He put on a long woven robe that reached to his ankles and made his way across the Crystal Palace grounds.

The Crystal Palace was surrounded by several lush green gardens. Each of them had been arranged in a different fashion, and each had its own name. The majority of them were built to commemorate the births of important members of the Imperial Family over the years, these being given names of unclear provenance, such as the Garden of Origins, or Garden of the Spring of Service.

The Garden of Victory had been built three hundred years before when Gama Agrilius I established his unified empire after a protracted political struggle that spanned the entire northern continent. The garden was built on top of a platform that once supported heavyweight artillery. Wood and bricks from a historic fort had been used to build a memorial gazebo. This structure stood in the garden but still maintained its fierce, martial appearance.

Despite its wartime history and severe architecture, Lady Zophie was fond of this garden above all others. This was no less than the fourth time he had received an invitation to tea at this gazebo.

Most of the greenery in the Garden of Victory was shrubbery resistant to the wind and cold typical of the north. Like the other gardens in the Crystal Palace, it was rather drab. There were some high points, such as the former empress’s personal gardens, and the rose garden known as the Garden of Revelations. Yet, for some reason, Lady Zophie appeared to favor this desolate corner. Mitsuru remained baffled as to why.

Furthermore, the Garden of Victory was in perhaps the farthest spot from the Crystal Palace one could go without leaving the grounds. Mitsuru rode out on an animal called a paho, which was similar to a pony in the real world. The lady’s preferred mode of transport, on the other hand, was a contraption that looked much like a rickshaw. It occurred to Mitsuru that perhaps Zophie’s fondness for this garden was not actually for the garden itself but for her rickshaw—arranging meetings out here was little more than an excuse to go for a ride.

Or perhaps it’s that she has a fondness for the fellow who pulls the rickshaw?

The servant in question was a ruddy-faced lad without rank or title—he wasn’t even a soldier, let alone an Imperial Guard. He was not allowed to wear arms or armor of any sort, only a simple tunic that bore the crest of the sun, the symbol of the Empire. After delivering his lady to the Garden of Victory, he would wait patiently beneath a large shrub cut in the shape of a shield until she was finished with her tea. To Mitsuru’s knowledge, he’d never once called Zophie by her name. In fact, he never said a single thing.

But Mitsuru had noticed something in Lady Zophie’s eyes whenever she would glance at her servant.

When he’d first met the servant, Mitsuru had assumed he too was a member of Sigdora. Even on the palace grounds, the daughter of the emperor would certainly have a bodyguard assigned to her. It would make sense that the bodyguard would be a member of the emperor’s trusted elites.

However, Mitsuru had grown less sure of this with every passing day. His sorcerer’s staff was quite powerful, the gem at its tip having absorbed the power of no less than four gemstones. One of its many powers was subtle, yet very effective. By merely tilting it at objects, one could see them with absolute clarity. For instance, if he swung the staff in Adju Lupa’s direction, he could see all the weapons the mild-mannered man carried on his person. Not only that, but he could sense the skill with which he used them. Skill at swordplay appeared as an aura around his body. By the coloration and the brilliance of that aura, Mitsuru could determine just how good a swordsman the man was.

But no matter how many times he raised his staff in the direction of the lady’s servant, he found no weapons or any trace of martial skill. It was possible, of course, that he was looking at a man who had been highly trained in the art of concealing his identity. Or equally possible that he was simply a harmless rickshaw puller.

When Mitsuru arrived, he found the servant in his usual place, crouched in the shade under his favorite shrub. When he spied Mitsuru approaching, he swiftly stood, took the paho’s reins in his hand, and helped Mitsuru dismount.

Lady Zophie smiled pleasantly from a high-backed chair in the gazebo. The seating here wasn’t too comfortable, and the lady routinely brought a large cushion with her. An intricately embroidered cloth had been draped over a circular table. A silver teapot gleamed in the sunlight.

Whenever the lady came to have tea here, a full entourage of ten female servants would appear bearing teapots, teacups, and cakes. While they drank, the servants would pour tea, and those with nothing to do would hover by the lady and her guest, waiting with bated breath, ready to fill any request directed toward them. The first time he’d come, it had been rather difficult to enjoy his cup of tea with such excessively attentive service. The lady’s calm acceptance had seemed bizarre to say the least. This, Mitsuru thought, is what it means to be royalty. If there was always a crowd of people waiting to please you from the moment you were born, he supposed anyone could grow used to it.

Personally, Mitsuru thought the whole thing was an unneccessary extravagance. To have ten people serving one person seemed an egregious waste of resources. He knew things had been much the same in the real world once upon a time. In a way, visiting Vision was like getting in a time machine to visit the past of his own world.

“It’s quite cold today, isn’t it? Perhaps not the best day for having tea in a garden,” the emperor’s daughter said, rising from her chair to greet him. Over by a shrub, her servant bowed on his knees, placing his fists upon the ground in greeting. Mitsuru took his seat opposite the lady.

“Yet I find the sky a remarkable blue. It is so beautiful, I fear it might purify my soul just to gaze at it.”

“Such modesty! Did you know, perhaps, that my name Zophie means the color blue in an ancient tongue of our people?”

The emperor’s daughter happily gave instructions to her lady servants, and soon the table was covered with fragrant tea and a selection of cakes. All the while she talked in a pleasant, lilting voice. She began by telling him how splendid she had felt upon waking that morning, going on to complain about how difficult her history lectures had been, and how much time it had taken her to stitch the pattern for her new ball gown, and how she’d heard of a new play that was garnering much praise in the capital…

Zophie was all of fifteen years old. She was the daughter of the emperor, yet in many ways she was still just a little girl. She was as giddy and talkative as any girl one might meet in the town. Mitsuru, in general, spoke little, taking in all that she said while making the occasional requisite comment or murmur of approval.

On occasion he would smile or nod, be surprised or impressed. She seemed to revel in Mitsuru’s every gesture, and seem quite pleased that she’d found this clever fellow to enjoy conversation with—even if he was a shade on the young side. Mitsuru, for his part, enjoyed these times for his own private reason, which he could never tell her.

When he first went to meet with the emperor’s daughter, he’d been so surprised his breath was taken away. Her face looked like someone he knew. They were almost identical.

The woman was his aunt—his father’s youngest sister.

After Mitsuru’s father, enraged at his wife’s infidelity, had killed Mitsuru’s mother and his little sister, then taken his own life, Mitsuru had been shuttled around between various relatives, eventually ending up with his young aunt. In truth, he’d been pressed on her. Here was a young woman, just graduated from college, who doubtlessly sympathized with Mitsuru, yet certainly lacked the means and wherewithal to raise a young boy. She tried being nice to him and that failed, and when she tried to control him, she lost control of herself and ended up crying and screaming.

She was not, in general, a happy person. Her eyes always had a sad, forlorn look to them.

Mitsuru grew to hate his father. Had he not committed suicide, Mitsuru would have killed him with his own bare hands. That all-consuming rage opened the Porta Nectere. It provided Mitsuru the chance to enter Vision.

Everything about the emperor’s daughter reminded him of his aunt. Her little affectations. The shifts in her expression. The timbre of her voice. Everything. He thought his aunt must have been like this when she was a high school student, beautiful and unafraid of what lay ahead.

The Watcher of the gate, Wayfinder Lau, told Mitsuru he would encounter people in Vision who closely resembled those he knew in the real world.

—Even though they may look like two peas in a pod, the people you meet here are not who they are in the real world. They may have not a single thing in common. It is merely your own energy that causes them to appear the way they do.

Mitsuru had taken Wayfinder Lau’s words to heart, and, for better or for worse, he hadn’t yet met anyone resembling someone from the real world in his travels until now. Lady Zophie was the first.

And now, staring at her face from such a close distance, he began to wonder if Vision wasn’t really more than just something created by the surplus imaginative energies of people in the real world. Perhaps the real world and Vision were like two sides of a coin, each complementing the other. Making the other whole.

What had been discarded in the real world, what had never seen form, those dreams that never came true, these were what made Vision.That was why Halnera required a sacrifice from both worlds.

If this were the case, then Zophie’s easy smile and unfettered happiness belonged by all rights to his aunt back in the real world. Mitsuru would reach the Tower of Destiny and straighten out his twisted fate. On the morning he returned to the real world, all the happiness that had been Zophie’s would be returned to his aunt. This he promised himself.

It made the task before Mitsuru quite simple. The relationship between his aunt and Zophie was a perfect example. He would merely apply the same principle to his mother, his little sister, and himself.

Perhaps this is why, before he claimed the final gemstone, he had been confronted with this challenge and forced to do a little self-reflection. The Tower of Destiny had given him this encounter with Lady Zophie to prepare him.

That is why, in Zophie’s mindless prattle, he felt the weight of his mission. The enormity of what he stood to gain made his heart race.

“Master Mitsuru?”

Mitsuru snapped back into focus. Zophie was looking directly at him. He was afraid his attention had wandered in the middle of their discussion. “My apologies! My mind began to drift off into the clouds.”

Zophie smiled brightly. Her hairpin—an elaborate affair covered with stones of many colors and bound with a silver chain—swayed elegantly. “Do not worry on my behalf, for I know what it is that concerns you and causes your mind to wander. I know the source of this concern is my father…”

Mitsuru’s face tightened.

Zophie turned to her servants standing ready. “I must speak on a very important matter with Master Mitsuru. I will call for you when I need you,” she ordered.

The servants shuffled quietly off, leaving them alone in the Garden of Victory.

“Sending your servants away?” Mitsuru asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Of course, sending them away does not ensure that one of Adju Lupa’s men does not hear our every word, but I care not. For it was none other than Adju Lupa himself who suggested I speak to you on this matter, Master Mitsuru.”

Mitsuru was not surprised to hear that they might be observed. He had assumed that Sigdora’s eyes gleamed in every dark corner. But he was startled to hear the revelation that followed. “What is it that Lord Lupa said?”

Zophie bit her lip lightly, glancing in the direction of the shrub where her manservant waited. “Before I speak of that, may I ask you, Master Mitsuru, if you have divined the true nature of the man who pulls my rickshaw?”