Interlude: Her First Impression

She laughs like an imbecile. That was Ada’s first impression of Kiara.

Ada hadn’t known anything about Évrard’s spellcaster beyond the fact that she was a woman. Never once had she entertained the thought that the very girl she despised had become a mage.

When they had first met, Ada had been completely taken aback. She had been imprisoned at the time. Hoping to take advantage of the chaotic battle to abscond with Prince Reginald, she’d tried to convince the soldiers, who were aware of her true identity, to let her out. Unfortunately, Emmeline had misinterpreted the situation and stepped in to intervene.

It had been right in the midst of that struggle that the wall had suddenly collapsed, a chestnut-haired girl and a black-haired knight rushing into the room. While Ada was still caught by surprise, the knight had taken out one of the soldiers. The remaining soldier had been instructed to kill everyone there if the hostages were about to escape; thus, he had turned his fallen comrade into a defective spellcaster in hopes of consigning them all to oblivion, losing his own life in the process.

Kiara took out the defective spellcaster in the blink of an eye. The whole spectacle made Ada think back to the Battle of Sestina. Defective spellcasters had been thrown into the fray there, too, but no one had managed to subdue them this handily.

Ada had still been thrown for a loop when Kiara approached her, mistaking her for a victim. At the time, Ada still hadn’t realized she was that Kiara. She’d just thought, Oh, so Évrard’s spellcaster is another young girl like me.

More pressingly, the girl’s obvious interest in Ada’s necklace had sent her into a cold sweat. So long as she had the contract stone, no one would be able to tell she was a spellcaster... or so she’d been told, anyway. Still, she couldn’t help getting nervous. If that bullfrog of a viscount had been lying, she knew she would have no choice but to burn this spellcaster to ash and make a run for it. But thankfully, the girl appeared to assume that the stone was the source of whatever she was feeling.

Only afterward did she finally learn that that spellcaster was Kiara. She was only one year younger, but compared to the mature-looking Ada, she had a bit of a baby face. She wasn’t what one would call a breathtaking beauty, and the clay doll hanging from her waist was deformed and vulgar.

Yet the girl looked so full of life. Why? Ada wondered.

She had escaped an unwanted marriage, yes, but there was no way a daughter of nobility could make it all on her own. Ada had always taken some small amount of solace in the thought that she was off somewhere leading a miserable existence.

In reality, Kiara was fighting of her own volition, operating freely enough within the army to be given a knight of her own.

Why was she so free after running away while the pitiful, captive Ada had to constantly struggle against her own powerlessness? Ada spent that entire day gnashing her teeth in frustration, all the way until the dead of night.

The next day, Ada learned something even more vexing: not only did Prince Reginald care for Kiara, but he even allowed her to call him by name. But Ada was supposed to be the one receiving his favor! The girl’s heart burned with rage.

Still, she had to wonder: why had Kiara become a spellcaster? This girl before her was the same one who had said, “Oh, I see! Thanks, I was just wondering,” and laughed like a simpleton when Ada told her the pendant was a keepsake. She had to have undergone the same torturous process of becoming a mage.

However, she decided to put that question aside for the time being.

Fortunately for her, no one suspected Ada. To ensure that Prince Reginald would trust her enough to run away with her when the day of reckoning came, she had to get in his good graces while she still had the chance. With that goal in mind, she had wandered the fort hoping to bump into him by chance, but she couldn’t catch sight of him anywhere.

The soldiers from Évrard were by and large kind men, and they rarely tried to start anything—which she was grateful for. Back when she’d been traveling with the Llewynian army, she had killed a few soldiers here and there when attempting to fend them off with her magic; however, if she used her magic here, there was a chance Kiara might catch on to her.

She had wondered why the soldiers of Farzia were such upstanding men, only to learn that they had been warned against doing anything untoward to the women of the fort... because they’d be in trouble if that girl just happened to be the spellcaster. Of course, that was probably just the official pretext; surely it was really because the troops were led by such a kind prince.

Ada had taken advantage of that to continue following Prince Reginald’s tracks, but by the time the sky had been dyed in the colors of twilight and it had grown dark outside, she was exhausted.

Let’s call it a day.

The moment she made that call, she casually glanced up and down the fort wall—and spotted Kiara outside the fort. She was engaged in a friendly chat with a man who had the look of a merchant.

Is she making eyes at yet another man? Ada wondered, grinding her molars in fury.

Eventually, Prince Reginald came along, seemingly for no other reason than to bring Kiara back inside.

He avoided her, but not Kiara. The knowledge only further ruffled Ada’s feathers.