Interlude: Washed Ashore

A cacophony of sound drifted over from the battlefield—pained screams, the trill of a bugle commanding a forward march, and the clang of swords clashing. Throughout it at all, Ada sat huddled in the dim light of a covered wagon.

She had used the recent beating she’d suffered from the viscount as an excuse to stay out of the battle. It was easy for Lord Credias to render her immobile, but he couldn’t make her fight against her will, so he’d decided to leave her to her own devices.

Besides, his primary target—Kiara—had demanded his entire attention when he saw her nearby. Thus, despite the threats he’d made against Ada, he had been too distracted to actually act on any of it.

Ada was feeling incredibly relieved. Back on the day she’d rescued Kiara, too, she’d been terrified of what hell he might put her through for defying him; hence why she had screamed and shouted about how much she hated Kiara while she saved her, playing the part of a woman consumed with jealousy. Seeing that his ex-fiancée had nearly died in the chaos, Lord Credias never doubted that she had acted out of mere envy. It was all thanks to that that he hadn’t subjected Ada to anything worse than the beating.

In the end, the king of Salekhard had shown up to rescue Kiara from the flames just in the nick of time. When Ada witnessed him carrying her away in his arms, she had felt a deep sense of accomplishment; she’d done exactly what it was that she’d set out to do.

At the same time, part of her wished that she could have been saved, too. She knew she was in no position to hope for that. If she went back to the Farzian army, she’d be either executed or imprisoned for her hand in the marquis’ death. There was no other way it could possibly go.

Death was the worst fate she could imagine. She wanted to live, no matter how painful it was. That was the reason she’d always buckled under the viscount’s threats.

Yet just this once, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go into battle. She’d even lied to get out of it—even though there was no telling what Lord Credias might have done if Kiara hadn’t been around to distract him.

What she’d remembered in that moment was the smile Kiara had flashed her as she’d lay on the ground, beset by flame. Though Ada’s main reason for attempting to burn her to ash was to disguise the fact that she was helping her, she’d also had a feeling that Kiara had wanted to die there.

Ada, on the other hand, would never have wished for death in that situation. Even after everything, she still sought her own happiness—whether that happiness was with the prince or not.

And yet, Kiara had truly been glad. Was it because she knew the prince loved her that she chose whatever she had to to keep from betraying him? Ada hadn’t a clue. But ever since that incident, Ada had mustered up the courage to disobey and lie to the viscount.

What she really wanted was to escape from him, but she had nowhere to go. Thus, she’d stayed put, assuming that someone else would decide where she would end up after the war was over.

Or so she’d thought. A knight suddenly came running over, strapped for breath, only to raise the hood of her wagon and shout, “Lady Spellcaster! We need to get out of here!”

“Why? Did we lose?”

Considering that he was ushering her away in a hurry, it didn’t seem likely that they’d won. She was right on that point, but there was even more to it.

“The viscount has fallen in battle!”

Those were the very words she’d always longed to hear, but she couldn’t help doubting her own ears. After suffering under his thumb for so long, had all that time she’d spent wishing for his death finally paid off?

“The battle is still going, but Her Majesty instructed us to move you somewhere safe if anything were to happen.”

“Her Majesty did?”

Ada was torn. While she sat there hesitating, the knight made her decision for her, tugging her out of the wagon by the hand.

Once she was outside, she saw that the battle was indeed far from over. Though the armies were still trading blows, it was clear from a distance which side was winning.

The Llewynians had supposedly had the Farzian troops outnumbered. Based on all the strategy she’d overheard, she had never expected that they would be pushed back this quickly.

Ada still couldn’t believe that the viscount was really dead. Just to be sure, she asked the knight, “How did he die?”

“I wasn’t in the vicinity, so I’m not clear on the specifics, but I heard that he was slain by Farzia’s spellcaster and the prince.”

So it was Kiara. Ada still had no idea that Reginald could use magic, so she assumed it had to have been her.

Although Lord Credias hadn’t been Kiara’s formal mentor, he had held enough power over her to put her through the wringer. Hearing that she had been the one to fell the viscount regardless made Ada’s heart leap in her chest.

But if the viscount was gone, did that mean Ada was free to run?

It was at that moment that she saw a band of soldiers running down from the top of a hill. Judging by their blue banner and capes, they were Farzians.

Ada could have sworn she’d spotted a familiar face among them.

“No way...”

Ada smacked the knight’s hand away, scurrying closer to the incoming squad. Their figures still looked small in the distance, but there was no mistaking it: that was Felix, the very man Ada had nearly killed.

Not much time had passed since their last encounter; if he was already back in action, did that mean the Farzian army had some sort of specialized medicine at their disposal? Whatever the case, she was just glad he’d survived.

And yet... Ada came to a halt. Felix had told her she shouldn’t have done it. All he cared about was faithfully carrying out his prince’s orders; if she hadn’t attacked his allies, he wouldn’t have had to attack her. If he saw her now, would he just hand her straight over to the prince, indifferent to what happened after that? The thought terrified her.

Given Kiara’s more naive tendencies, she would probably step in to defend Ada. Still, given that the prince had turned his back on Ada when she threatened to gulp down the contract sand, Ada doubted that he would listen to her. She couldn’t stand the idea of Felix turning his sword on her a second time.

And so, she chose to head back over to the knight who had come to take her away. To start, she just had to get away from the battlefield. Then she could start thinking about her next move.

◇◇◇

The viscount of Credias was dead. Isaac, too, had heard the news.

“Did Kiara do it?” he wondered aloud. “And here I’d heard that just getting near him was a struggle for her. The girl has guts, I’ll give her that.”

“Is this really the time to be praising her?” Mikhail sighed beside Isaac, observing the battle from atop his horse.

The battle had reached a stalemate, a constant push and pull.

It hadn’t been that long since each side had arrived, yet Farzia had turned their swords on Llewyne and Salekhard without giving them a moment to prepare. Going by just the numbers, Isaac’s side had the advantage. Thus, they had managed to force the Farzians back at first; however, just as Isaac had called his soldiers’ advance to a halt, finding something off about the enemy’s path of retreat, the Farzians had created a spiked stone fence to hide behind, sharp enough to pierce a warhorse clean through. If that wasn’t bad enough, soldiers had been stationed outside to defend the barrier, too.

No doubt the fence was Kiara’s doing. Isaac was constantly amazed by the sheer functionality of her magic.

Complaining wasn’t going to get him anywhere here. Instead, he’d told the Llewynians that there was no reason to charge straight in, proposing to split their forces in two and go for a pincer attack.

Perhaps because Salekhard had declared their intent to surrender as soon as the battle was “nearly” decided, Farzia had opted to wedge themselves in the middle and focus on crushing the Llewynian forces.

As the truth would have it, Isaac had spoken to the silver-haired prince just before the battle.

◇◇◇

Prince Reginald had sent one of his men to a town Isaac’s troops would be marching by, and the emissary had entrusted one of the villagers with a message.

Isaac hadn’t been averse to meeting up himself. If the prince was looking to talk to him, that meant he’d probably heard about Salekhard’s plans to throw in the towel from either Kiara or Gina. In which case, he figured he might as well take the chance to negotiate better terms for the surrender.

The following day, Isaac had tagged along with a group of soldiers going out on patrol. It was hardly uncommon for him to wander off, so a mere one-or-two-day excursion was unlikely to tip Llewyne off to the fact that he was in contact with Farzia.

The soldiers on patrol had decided on a time to meet back up before splitting up along the way. After that, Isaac had taken a day to travel out to a riverbed just past the Delphion border.

They hadn’t determined their exact meeting place. Neither side wanted to be found out, so they had refrained from marking a spot. Thus, Isaac had simply wandered downstream looking for the prince, and eventually, he had spotted the man in question coming upstream.

Reginald, the prince of Farzia, had the kind of face most women would love to keep a portrait of. As he reflected on how Kiara had likewise been taken in by those good looks, Isaac had come to a stop and dismounted his horse, instructing the three knights who had accompanied him to take their horses and hang back.

Then, he had called out, “Ho there! I heard you had some business with me, so here I am.”

“I appreciate your compliance,” the prince had responded, likewise requesting his knights to stand back before trotting over to Isaac. His smile hadn’t faltered in the least, even as he approached an enemy king with nothing but a single horse. Now here was a formidable man. Unless their face was frozen in fear, most people wouldn’t be smiling as they talked to a man they would soon be fighting against.

“Keep this brief, will you? If I’m away for too long, people might start to get suspicious.”

“I don’t want this conversation to go on too long myself. Otherwise, I won’t be able to hold myself back from punching you,” Reginald had replied without batting an eye. “First of all, I’d like to thank you for rescuing Kiara from a certain loose cannon while she was in your custody.”

The remark had been delivered so nonchalantly that Isaac had taken it for sarcasm, his lips quirking in a wry smile. Apparently, the prince had heard about the kerfuffle with Lord Credias.

Given his cool demeanor, however, it had seemed less likely that Kiara had told him about the you-know-what. It would have been difficult for her to bring up, no doubt. Seeing Reginald so blissfully ignorant had put Isaac in a slightly better mood.

“I heard the truth from Kiara, as well as some Salekhardian mercenaries we hired—that you plan on losing to Farzia partway through the war, that is. If that’s true, I thought we might have a few things to discuss.”

Isaac had nodded. This was exactly what he had expected to hear.

“Sure, why not. I’m sure you’d prefer to settle everything in Trisphede, wouldn’t you? Since you’re running on a fairly tight schedule and all.”

“Correct. Let’s start by discussing the conditions of your surrender.”

The two had then gone into the particulars of the arrangement—Salekhard’s demands, as well as the parts Farzia was unwilling to negotiate on.

It had appeared that Gina had given Reginald a good amount of detail. It had been somewhat vexing to see just how much Gina—and her guardian, Girsch—trusted the prince. Though at the very least, that had made it much easier to get to the core of the discussion. This would take some of the burden off Mikhail in the aftermath.

Once the discussion had ended, Reggie had murmured, “So you really do plan to die and give up the throne.” The look on Reggie’s face had been so grave, it was almost as if he was mourning the life of an enemy king. For a moment, Isaac hadn’t known how to react.

Gina had probably told him that, too. Nevertheless, Isaac hadn’t been banking on his sympathy.

Perhaps that was what had spurred him to say, “Yes, I believe that should be a fitting place to die. Shouldn’t you look a little happier about it? Oh, right. Tell Kiara that I’m not sorry about the kiss for me, will you?”

Reginald’s eyes had narrowed, a faint smile rising to his lips. “I didn’t really want to kill you, but I’m glad to see you don’t want me to hold back. I’ll do my best to keep it painless.” He’d then added, “Of course, whether Kiara will allow it or not is a different matter. Even if it is what you want.”

“Isn’t she your subordinate, more or less? You sort her out.”

“Only because we had to give her a formal position in our organization. She’s marching along with us as a courtesy.”

Reginald’s explanation had left Isaac speechless. At the same time, some pieces of the puzzle had finally fallen into place for him. One would have thought she’d be too busy fighting for her life to have time to worry about her reason for killing people; that certainly explained why she’d been so scared of murder, unable to find a sufficient justification.

“Say, don’t you think you’re letting her do a little too much thinking? That’s how she managed to stumble over something as trivial as fighting in a war.”

Reginald had known exactly what he was referring to. “I see you’ve talked with her quite a bit. Nevertheless, I’m not interested in making any demands of her. I don’t want to drive her into a corner.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s been treated like an object ever since she was young. Consequently, she developed the habit of telling herself that everything bad that happens to her is just a dream... as a defense mechanism of sorts. If I put too much pressure on her, she might take refuge in the world of dreams permanently.”

“A dream? Really?”

There had seemed to be more to the story there, but Isaac hadn’t had time to get into the weeds of it. Thus, instead of asking anything more, he’d ended the conversation there and left the two of them to return to their respective camps straightaway. Now that he was back with his troops, he reflected on what he had debated whether or not to say: I’d say that Kiara’s learned to stop running from you, at least, wouldn’t you?

“If he doesn’t realize that much, all that hard work of mine might as well have been for nothing. Poor, unappreciated Isaac.”

“What are you mumbling about?! Llewyne is on the move!”

When he looked in the direction Mikhail was pointing, he saw that amid their attack from two directions, Llewyne had resorted to last-ditch measures. A line of ten soldiers was being spurred on from behind, and it seemed each and every one of them had been made into a defective spellcaster.

Last time around, Lord Credias had been so focused on taking down Farzia’s spellcaster that it had cost the Llewynian army dearly. No doubt he would be just as obsessed with killing her this time, and since they did need to take her out, they couldn’t send him anywhere else.

Of course, Farzia had monsters on their side, too. To combat them, Lord Erling had asked Lord Credias for some of the sand to make defective spellcasters.

The defective spellcasters began indiscriminately wrecking everything around them, and as a consequence, about one-third of the fence Kiara had built for Farzia was destroyed.

Salekhard couldn’t very well stand back and do nothing, so they attacked a unit of Farzian soldiers toward the center, which had pulled out ahead of the pack.

Still, Salekhard did want to call on compassion from Farzia down the line. They couldn’t take it too far. All the same, they had to give Llewyne the impression that they were fighting with everything they had. It was a fine line to toe.

That was when Farzia tossed out one of their trump cards: Gina and her frostfoxes.

The mega-sized Lila’s magic, in particular, packed a punch. Both Llewynian soldiers and a portion of the defective spellcasters soon had ice clinging to their bodies, rendering them immobile. In the meantime, a rescue team swooped in, allowing the Farzian unit that had been left behind a chance to flee.

Salekhard couldn’t afford to sit there and do nothing, so they sent a group of torch-bearing soldiers toward Lila. The foxes could handle heat just fine so long as they didn’t run out of mana, but seeing as exposure to flame would cost them a huge amount of their magic reserves, they weren’t fans of it.

That finally got Gina’s foxes to stop in their tracks. When the Llewynians saw that they had an opening, they charged at Farzia once more. They still had the advantage in terms of numbers. Both Kiara and a good chunk of Farzian soldiers had been sent to deal with Lord Credias’ squad, so their forces had been as good as halved. This was their one chance to back Farzia into a corner.

But then, a new unit came marching down a southern hill toward the Farzian army—a flock of blue capes and swords gleaming in the light.

They were Farzian reinforcements, clearly. They numbered about 4,000—more than enough to account for the gap in their forces. The moment Kiara’s squad came back, the battle would be over.

As he watched the troops march solemnly ahead, joining up with the rest of the Farzians, Isaac muttered, “It’s over.”

Llewyne would retreat before long. Salekhard’s best move was to make a show of defending their rear and clash with a handful of Farzians in the process. That would be the perfect chance to put an end to all of this.

“Your Highness,” Mikhail called out.

“That’s ‘Your Majesty’ to you.”

Isaac gave the same flippant response he always did, but Mikhail looked like he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. “I’ve begun to wonder if perhaps you shouldn’t have become king after all. Prince Yefrem could have done everything you did. At the very least, then I wouldn’t have had to tag along with you, only to suffer feeling sympathy for the enemy,” he said, chewing on his lip.

Isaac laughed. He’d probably only said it now because this was his last chance.

“I chose to go through with it of my volition, and you just wanted to save the life of the man you owe so much to. Besides, if my brother wanted to make a show of allegiance to Llewyne, he would’ve had to get married to do it. No reason to make Ginaida suffer more than she already has.”

Isaac had known Ginaida since he was young. While she’d always put on a demure act in front of others, she’d then run off to do something as unladylike as climbing a tree just to get herself a measure of privacy. And then, claiming that she had to keep her skills sharp if she ever wanted to return to her hometown, she would go practice swinging around her sword. She was truly a one-of-a-kind girl, and so Isaac had taken an interest in her.

However, she was in love with his brother. Seeing as Isaac’s feelings hadn’t yet grown serious, he had swiftly filed her away as a “little sister.” And yet, when he’d taken her as his fiancée, just a smidge of those old, faded feelings had been rekindled.

“Really... Maybe I just have a thing for women who like to slap men around.”

“Personally, I’d say you have decent taste—though neither of them really acts the part of a noblewoman.”

“No surprise there. I don’t act the part of a prince or king myself.” Isaac then started barking orders mid-conversation. “Hey, our left flank is growing thin! Send over that squad toward the rear! Make sure to start falling back, while you’re at it!”

“I think being a king suited you best.”

Even amid all the bustle, Mikhail’s murmur somehow managed to reach his ears. Isaac flashed him a strained smile and patted him on the head.

“I leave the rest in your hands. Just follow the plan.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he answered. Isaac smiled back, wholly satisfied.

But when he spotted a certain something in the corner of his eye, his expression did a one-eighty.

“That’s not good... It looks like this is going to drag on a little longer. All troops, halt your retreat!”

When Mikhail noticed the same thing, he turned white as a sheet.