“I could have killed him there and then,” Hiro said, “if I’d been willing to make certain sacrifices. But that would have defeated the purpose.”
“How so? The war would have ended, and you would have been victorious.”
Claudia had expected the battle to conclude with the Crimson Princess arriving just in time to clean up after her triumph, and for Lebering to be richly rewarded for standing by the empire in its hour of need. The situation had taken several unexpected turns since then, of which this was only the latest. The path she had thought she was walking no longer existed. Now, she felt like she was lost in a dark forest, blind to where she was going. All she knew was that the boy before her pulled her ever onward.
“And that is to say nothing of how you deployed your forces,” she continued. “You held them back, minimizing their losses...almost as if you knew what would happen. Almost as if you meant for the monsters to prevail.”
“War is such a strange thing, don’t you think?”
Claudia frowned, irritated at being ignored, but Hiro only continued blithely.
“Once war breaks out, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Someone has to smile, and someone has to weep.”
“But of course. Why else would wars be fought? Victory brings spoils and defeat brings ruin. Forgive me, but this all seems very obvious.”
“Of course it does. No one ever questions it, even when they’re the ones fighting. They always think the war started with them.”
Claudia stopped. Her face filled with surprise. Anyone else would have taken Hiro’s words as an offhand remark, but she had glimpsed the terrible truth hidden within, and it cast him as fearsome indeed.
“Then when...?” Her voice cracked. Belatedly, she realized Hiro was still walking and hurried to catch up. “When did this war start?”
He lifted a hand, index finger pointedly extended. “A while ago.”
Claudia’s breath caught. Her eyes widened as if she had glimpsed some monster in the dark.
“The Lords of Heaven, the nations of Soleil... They’re all dancing in the palm of my hand.”
Her heart refused to believe it. It did not want to accept that a human being might be capable of such a thing. In the first place, how long was “a while ago”? When he became the fourth prince? When he had first begun to win renown? For how long, exactly, had he been planning this?
“Once you know what someone wants, it’s child’s play to stop them. Simply lay traps along their way with one hand and coax them along with the other, over and over, all while you prepare an ambush at their final destination.”
He made that sound like the simplest thing in the world, but to Claudia, what he was suggesting seemed impossible. Manipulating the entire world was too great a task for anyone. Too many elements would resist his control. If anyone truly could steer all of Aletia as they desired, thwarting every competing plot or scheme, they would not be a mortal man, but a god.
“Even the Lords of Heaven, you said?”
“All of them.” The firmness in Hiro’s voice left no room for doubt. “All in my palm.”
Claudia stared. Soon enough, she began to giggle. “Ha ha... Ha ha ha ha ha! What fun you must have had.”
Her laughter was not belittlement but praise—that, and genuine amusement that she had unwittingly been counted among the dancing fools.
“But this I will not accept.”
If he expected her to sit meekly and listen as he claimed the past few years of her life had been a farce, he was wrong. He had left her no choice but to spit in his eye. Somebody needed to teach him a lesson.
“I suppose you can guess what I mean to do next,” she said.
“But of course,” Hiro replied. “Anyone could sense you itching to cut off my head.”
“Tell me, do these plans of yours account for me taking you captive?”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He opened the door to the outside. The central courtyard was awash with moonlight, but another light commanded the space, harsher and more fierce: the wavering red glow of hundreds of torches glinting dully off the blades of Lebering soldiers. The troops stared back at Hiro with stony faces. Behind him, Claudia stepped into the light, and zeal filled them as they caught sight of their monarch.
“Can you escape me and my finest?”
All at once, her hand held the blade of Lox van Lebering: the Fiendblade Asura, known to herself and her people as Hauteclaire. Her smile never faltered, but cold hostility flared in her eyes. She drove the blade toward him without a flicker of hesitation.
“Black Camellia, if you would.” Hiro patted his chest and his black mantle writhed like a living thing, billowing out to intercept the thrust. Darkness began to twine around the blade.
Sensing danger, Claudia sprang back. “Well. You won’t complain about being outnumbered, I trust.” She raised a hand and swung it down. “Forward! Show him no mercy!”
With a roar, the soldiers surged toward Hiro. With a sudden gust, Hiro was gone, sprinting toward the oncoming host. As he made contact with the front line, he cracked a soldier beneath the chin with the heel of his hand, knocking the man’s legs from under him and sending him sprawling. He leaped onto the fallen body and kicked a second soldier off his feet. As he landed, he planted his right hand on the ground and swept the legs of a half dozen more, then let his momentum carry him up into a spinning handstand. His feet knocked off helmets, struck faces, and broke noses. Groans of pain filled the air.
As he landed back on his feet, a soldier charged at him, sword raised. Hiro sank into a wide stance and lashed out with his elbow. The man flew back, his breastplate crumpled in. Hesitation rippled through the ranks. Hiro took his chance. He pounced on one man, grabbed him across the face, and slammed him into the ground, grasped another’s arm and flung him into the air, then struck a third in the throat and jumped onto his back as he doubled over, knocking down the soldiers behind with a spinning kick.
He slipped through the crowd like a breath of wind, neutralizing them down one by one. They stood no chance against his agility. He fought only with hands and feet, and still they could not lay a finger on him. The humiliation wounded their pride and stoked their anger, impeding their ability to think rationally and goading them into reckless actions.
“Clear the way!” Claudia barked.
Her soldiers fell back at the sound of her voice, parting to either side to let her through. As heated as they had grown, they were still alert to orders from their queen—either that, or their obedience was simply ingrained. In any case, they left her with a clear path to Hiro. She thrust Hauteclaire into the ground. Glacial mist raced toward Hiro, freezing the earth as it came.
“Too slow.” Hiro stomped down hard. The ice shattered into countless shards, tiny crystals spinning through the air that were soon snatched away by the wind.
Claudia scowled and broke into a run, hefting her greatsword high with ease. Hiro preempted her vertical slash, grasping the hilt before she could swing down. She unleashed a front kick, but he batted her leg aside and released the sword. Her center of gravity pitched forward. As she stumbled toward him, he laid one hand on her stomach and grasped her right leg with the other, flipping her into the air.
She caught herself before she crashed down and spun back into a fighting stance, sweeping the courtyard with a hawkish gaze. Hiro was nowhere to be seen. Her soldiers were also looking around in confusion. They seemed as bewildered as she was.
She cast out her senses, trying to track him down. It only took a moment to locate the tangible power radiating from the battlements. Hiro looked down on them with the moon at his back, his black mantle billowing like so many tentacles, his golden eyes shining in the dark.
“Running like a coward?” she asked.
“But of course.” He seemed to see no shame in the admission. “I wouldn’t rate my chances if I stayed.”
His eyes flicked to the front door of the fort, where a shock of crimson hair burned in the night—the scarlet mark of the sixth princess of the empire, undimmed by the darkness, casting back the gloom. She saw him atop the battlements and stepped forward, her mouth opening and closing uncertainly.
“Where are you going?” she asked at last.
“You’ve done everything I ever could have asked of you.”
He spread his arms wide and gazed up at the moon before looking back down at Liz with a soft smile. There was neither calculation nor malice in his face. Unaccountably, his eyes were pure, tender, and earnest.