Interlude: A Sacrificial Bird

“Please explain yourself immediately!” shouted a Llewynian general by the name of Damian, chasing down Queen Marianne alongside his knights.

There was a good reason they had forced their way into the audience chamber demanding an explanation. King Bernhardt of Llewyne had entrusted his troops to Damian, but just as they had completed their voyage and arrived at the royal capital, Queen Marianne had snatched them up. Her intent was to send each and every one of them to Farzia’s count of Patriciél. In which case, why even have them come all the way to Farzia in the first place?

Damian had come to Farzia in the king’s stead, planning to play his cards just right—all to shift the responsibility for the invasion’s inevitable failure onto Queen Marianne.

While they had successfully killed Farzia’s king and seized the royal capital, Prince Reginald was currently poised to turn the tables. Initially, Llewyne had believed that killing the heir to the throne would bring the rebellious Farzian nobility under their heel. Unfortunately for them, Queen Marianne had failed to strike down the prince, and now the Llewynian army was doomed to meet its demise on Farzian soil.

King Bernhardt had concluded that conquering Farzia was going to prove difficult. Meanwhile, he sensed that the timing was right to frame it as though Queen Marianne had tricked Llewyne into its invasion. Perhaps, for example, he could claim: She told us that, having unlocked the secret to creating spellcasters, Farzia was making preparations to conquer Llewyne. Or even: We were told that Lord Credias’s reason for defecting to our side was that Queen Marianne had talked him out of destroying Llewyne. The possibilities were endless.

Damian had come to Farzia to assess the right time to withdraw their troops, only to be met with the news that Queen Marianne had proclaimed her own ascension to the throne, along with a letter from the queen herself.

I have a plan to kill the prince.

It would have been terribly easy to spin that letter as proof that the queen had hoodwinked them. Not only that, but she had declared herself the new ruler, making it that much easier to claim that the invasion had been carried out under her orders and that Llewyne had merely been dragged in to help. If the invasion failed, they could lay all the blame at her feet.

Upon reaching that conclusion, King Bernhardt had sent the soldiers Queen Marianne had requested. It would have taken too long to make the trek from the Salekhardian border by foot, so they had sailed instead. The men he had deployed were slaves from a conquered nation to the east.

Unfortunately, said soldiers had immediately been dragged off to Sestina by one of the nobles under Queen Marianne’s command. Deprived of his forces, Damian had been left behind in the royal capital with only a handful of men. This had thrown a wrench in his war-ending plan to feign a fight against Farzia, only to get in touch with them behind the scenes and convince them that Queen Marianne had been responsible for everything.

“I was told that you asked for me by name, Your Majesty. That was part of the reason why His Majesty chose to send me, and I came here with every intention of facing Farzia. But how am I meant to take action like this?!”

Queen Marianne remained gracefully seated upon her throne, one leg crossed over the other. Calmly reaching her hand toward a giant birdcage sitting beside her, she replied, “I summoned you here because you have a very important role to play, General Damian. Furthermore, those slaves come from a land under your jurisdiction. If I hoped to borrow them, of course you were the best person to ask.”

“Well, I suppose...”

It was Damian who had conquered that small nation east of Llewyne. It was one of the countries Llewyne had been most eager to get its hands on, given its ocean border and ports. Damian had gone on to serve as acting governor of the territory following its capture. Thus, what Queen Marianne was saying didn’t ring false, per se.

“Besides, I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time now.”

Queen Marianne opened the door to the birdcage with a sweeping gesture. Inside was a viridescent bird. Long-tailed and large enough that the queen would have to hold it with both arms, it was an elegant sight to behold.

“And what question is that?” He was so unnerved that he all but hiccuped the last word.

The queen reached a hand into the cage, only for the bird to peck at her fingers with its pointed beak. As the tip of its bill punctured and dug into her flesh, blood soon began to drip from her digits.

“Your Majesty?!”

Just as Damian made to rush to her side, Queen Marianne asked in a tranquil voice, “Why didn’t you attest to Lord Loutis’s innocence?”

“What? Loutis?”

“My once-betrothed. He served as your adjutant quite some time ago. Surely you haven’t forgotten? Just think of all those trips we went on together.” Marianne dispassionately strung her words together. “But when it was determined that I would be married off to Farzia, he was accused of defiling me prior to our marriage and executed for his ‘crimes.’ You testified against him then. Why?”

Damian pursed his lips. He couldn’t tell Queen Marianne the truth.

To prevent her fiancé, Loutis, from facing execution for his part in Llewyne’s defeat, Marianne had agreed to marry into the Farzian royal family. Unfortunately, Loutis still presented a liability in the eyes of King Bernhardt. After all, there was a chance the man had witnessed the king assassinate his own younger brother in the heat of battle.

“Had my brother not had his fill of revenge for our loss?” Queen Marianne spoke with the assumption that her brother had put him up to it. All the while, her bird lapped up droplets of blood from her fingertips. “I knew that Bernhardt had always seen Arnold as an obstacle. He was afraid that his little brother, talented as he was, might one day usurp his position.”

Damian held his tongue. Marianne was exactly right. That was the reason the king had abruptly ordered a second invasion attempt back then: he had wanted to set the stage to stealthily bump off his younger brother, Arnold, who was more popular with both the nobility and the common folk than himself. Arnold had been left with no choice but to throw himself into a war he couldn’t hope to win, and Llewynian insiders had worked to prevent him from meeting the conditions necessary to negotiate for a truce.

Marianne’s fiancé, Loutis, had been Arnold’s best friend. Though the prince had been successfully eliminated, there was a chance Loutis knew of the assassination. Threatened by the possibility, King Bernhardt had been desperate to see Loutis executed.

Thus, Damian had been granted the rank of general in exchange for his false testimony.

“Come now, tell me. Why did you let Lord Loutis die?”

Queen Marianne, who had been gazing at her bird throughout this whole exchange, finally cast a glance over at Damian, who had come to a dead stop where he stood. When she turned her stare on the knights behind him and let out a laugh, the bird flew from its cage.

It exploded into a creature of enormous proportions, letting out a cry as it tore through the air. In that very same moment, Damian and his knights saw an eddy of flame hurtle toward them.

That became their last living memory.