Interlude: The Fall of the Royal Capital

Llewynian forces surrounded the Farzian royal capital soon after the summer heat had died down. However, it turned out there was no need for them to take the city by the force. The majority of the people living there had already scattered in various directions, leaving no one behind to protect it.

Rumors of the king’s passing had run rampant through the city. Afraid to fall victim to the forces of the neighboring country, the citizens had grabbed as many of their belongings as they could carry and fled to the nearest provinces.

Members of the nobility were among those who had fled. Some had stayed in the queen’s good graces and maintained a neutral position, but these people had still failed to forge friendly ties with her. Others were those who had sworn loyalty to the royal family.

The merchants who had yet to strike deals with Llewyne had migrated to the neighboring territories, too.

The servants, attendants, and guards tasked with protecting the castle had tried to make their escape, but the queen had held them back. She had even swapped the guards at the entrances with her own subordinates. It was then that everyone flooded to escape like a dam had broken, spurred by fear that she was planning to kill the guards. The flight seemed preplanned, so the queen suspected that there must have been an instigator.

Due to those circumstances, the only people left in the royal capital were nobles and soldiers serving the queen, the merchants who had been taken under their patronage, and the impoverished people of the town who had nowhere to run. Not a single one of them would close the gates on the Llewynian army.

Llewyne’s generals and soldiers solemnly set foot in the capital without so much as a fight. Soon after they entered the royal palace, it was time for Ada to go to work.

◇◇◇

“Burn, burn! Burn to ash!” Ada chanted, spreading her arms wide and spinning in circles.

The paintings on the wall, the curtains she touched, the carpets she stepped over, and the corpses she nudged or trampled all went up in flames. Making her way out of the flame-ridden waiting room, Ada danced along to the great hall. There, the floor was made of stone, so no matter how hard she tapped her shoes against it, it wouldn’t burn.

Suddenly bored of her dance, Ada stilled and glanced around the hall. Agonized shrieks rang out.

“Wait! Please, wait! Aren’t we on the same side?!” a knight cried out as he backed away, only to be mercilessly skewered by a spear. By his side lay another Llewynian knight who had already departed for the underworld.

The general of the Llewynian forces and his men had been enjoying the queen’s hospitality, partaking in a banquet lined up on the table. After entering the royal capital unimpeded and arriving at the palace under control of their king’s sister, they had dropped their guard. And that was when they were ambushed by the queen’s soldiers.

“Come, Ada, burn them all down. To a crisp, so that no one will be able to tell they were stabbed.”

At her beloved queen’s command, Ada spewed her fire. The wooden table and corpses underfoot all burst into flame and burned away.

“It’s so much brighter now. We have plenty of chandeliers, but I’ve always found this hall a bit gloomy,” rang the bright voice of the reddish-haired, amber-eyed queen guarded by several soldiers. As always, she wore a Llewynian-style gown on her body and a smile on her face.

“A-Are you sure about this?” the man who had ordered the deaths of the Llewynian knights asked timidly. He was one of the noblemen who had thrown in his lot with the queen. After all the help he had provided with the Llewynian invasion, he was thrown for a loop by this new development.

Her smile unfaltering, the queen responded, “Of course. My plan is to eliminate the current royal family and build a kingdom of our own. As if we would settle for a ruler from Llewyne! I have no need for the general my dear brother sent me. All we wanted was more firepower.”

Her soldiers seemed to relax. They had been afraid of eventually coming under Llewynian rule, despite siding with the queen.

“I am the queen. I have no need for anyone who tries to pull my strings. And if he doesn’t want another country interfering, my brother has no choice but to do as I say. So don’t worry, everyone. Once we successfully eliminate the prince’s forces marching from Évrard, we’ll split up the land just as we agreed.”

Standing alongside the soldiers, the Farzian noblemen nodded. They left the room to subdue the remaining Llewynian soldiers.

“What will you do next, Your Majesty?” Lord Patriciél asked as he came to the queen’s side. With him was the one person Ada had hoped to never see again: Lord Credias.

He hadn’t fought in the battle, of course. His portly figure meant he was far from nimble, nor was he particularly strong with a sword. He was only there to watch over Ada.

Oh, how I wish I could kill him! Ada thought. Only then could I finally be free.

The queen had told her, “I have my own reasons I must listen to him. If you were to kill him, however, I wouldn’t stop you.”

The queen had been in desperate need of a spellcaster, and so Lord Patriciél had brought Lord Credias into her ranks. But, as compensation, the queen had been forced to offer up a good deal of her own servants to him.

“But now I have you—my dear, cute Ada. So long as I have you, I have no need for that man.”

Fortunately enough, the room they were in was already completely aflame. The mana flowing from within Ada was more than enough to turn the corpses to charcoal; she was giving birth to flames that reached all the way to the ceiling. All the windows had been left open, yet it was still swelteringly hot.

The queen and the two noblemen were standing a good distance away from the burning corpses, but they weren’t out of her reach. All she had to do was to nudge that fire just enough to rain down on the viscount’s head.

The queen glanced over at her. When her beautiful smile broadened and she took a step back, Ada was overjoyed. Now she could burn the viscount alive without hurting the queen in the crossfire. With great glee, Ada extended her flames toward the viscount. The fire nearly swallowed his body up, like a snake swallowing its prey, but...

“Fool.”

All the strength left Ada’s body, as if the blood had drained from her veins, and she fell to the floor. The next moment, she was assailed with a heat akin to all the water in her body boiling.

The girl screamed, “Help me! Help me!”

No one lifted a finger to help her. The queen averted her gaze, as if it hurt to watch. Lord Patriciél merely stared down at her with the look one would give a stubborn, disobedient horse.

Lord Credias laughed with glee, delighted at the convenient excuse to toy with Ada. “Have you forgotten? I’ve just been indulging your selfishness—at this very moment, even! The moment you rebel, I’m always happy to remind you of that.”

Then, he drew his narrow blade, always hanging unused at his waist. He approached Ada, grabbed the back of her dress, and tore the cloth with his sword. The viscount guffawed as she shrieked and rolled away. All the girl could do was cry at the shame of being utterly exposed to an audience.

Before her eyes, she saw corpses that had charred and long since lost their human forms. Oh, if only this frog would burn up the same way, she thought.

No matter how much she despised him, she had no choice but to grovel at his feet. She couldn’t cast a single spell anymore. By the time the heat ravaging her body finally subsided, she had used up every speck of her magic power.

Now that she couldn’t so much as light a candle, the best she could do was curse the man in her mind. He was nothing more than a fat, ugly brute. She hated him with every fiber of her being. Why was he the one person she couldn’t kill?

“Let’s head to our next battleground. I need you to destroy the prince’s army.”

“What?! No!”

She didn’t want to see the prince with this disgusting bullfrog at her side. There was no telling what the viscount might do to her, and whatever it was, she didn’t want him to witness it. Ada struggled as she was hauled up by the arms, fixing Lord Credias with a baleful glare. But then...

“Wait just a moment, viscount.” The queen walked up to them, quiet as a breeze, and knelt by Ada’s side. Then she whispered into her ear, “Don’t worry. As wretched as you are now, I’m sure the prince will take pity on you. You know how kind he is. Your pitiful circumstances are the surest way to draw his attention.”

Ada was taken aback. Look at how miserable I am! Yes, surely the prince will take pity on me.

A smile broke out on her face.

◇◇◇

Ada was dragged off, giggling as though she had just thought of something delightful. As she watched her go, the queen chuckled.

“You seem to have taken quite a liking to that girl,” Lord Patriciél commented.

“Of course!” the queen responded, grinning from ear to ear. “Oh, what a poor girl, that Ada! And there’s no happy ending for her either. No matter how much she endures, no matter how long she waits, her prince will never come for her! She’s just like me!”

“Don’t you think she’s a little too rebellious? She would be much more pliable if she were brought under the viscount’s heel, her spirit broken.” Lord Patriciél had grown concerned when he’d witnessed her disobey the viscount’s orders, fighting against him until she could no longer move.

“Goodness, no. I much prefer her like this.” The queen smiled. “It’s precisely because she’s such a pure maiden that she continues to dream of a future that will never come to pass. Her attachment grows all the stronger because she has just enough freedom to gaze at what’s out of her reach and delude herself into believing she can one day have it. It’s much more fun to help her cultivate her own hatred, rather than turn her into a mindless slave. Besides,” Marianne added, “Reginald... that boy isn’t such a coward that he would indulge a young girl’s pipe dream for fear of his own life. I’m sure he’ll cast Ada aside. How would that feel, I wonder? To be rejected by the one you’ve been pursuing so fervently. Perhaps Ada will be the one to kill Reginald, who differs so greatly from the prince she built up in her head. After that, she might even take her own life in despair. You see? She’s on the path to self-destruction, so there’s nothing for us to fear.”

“You truly are a frightening woman.”

“Oh? Have you come to hate me?”

“Never. I will adore you for as long as I live.”

The queen laughed delightedly. “Oh, Owen. Do forgive me; I know nothing but how to use people. I simply can’t understand the sort of love you desire, in which you offer up your heart to another.”

Embracing the queen, who spoke so innocently of her inability to love, Lord Patriciél nodded. “I know, Your Majesty. So long as I can keep you by my side, as you promised... that’s enough.”

“Of course I’ll stay. You’re making all my wishes come true. But you know, that seat you’ve taken could collapse under you at any moment. You have to hurry up, find the naughty child gnawing away at its legs, and burn him at the stake.”

“We’ll manage. Lord Credias will learn to control that girl eventually. Perhaps she’ll come to desire her own death at the stake, along with that naughty child you speak of.”

“What a destructive love. I could never do it.”

“That’s quite alright. No matter how broken you may be... you just have to be yourself.”