The next morning, Ras was sleeping in his quarters in the crown prince’s wing of the palace when a loud knock at the door woke him up.
“Excuse me, Sir Talion, I’m coming in!”
In walked the raven-haired imperial guard, apparently in too much of a hurry to await Ras’s reply. The levelheaded legate seemed unusually anxious today.
“Kanalayka…?” muttered Ras upon seeing her. “What’s the hurry? I thought Fiarca was taking the morning off today.”
Ras lazily sat up in bed. He was topless, save for numerous bandages wrapped all around his upper torso. His skin was so pale that he looked like a ghoul who’d just arisen from his own grave.
“That’s exactly the problem, Ras! What happened?! I heard she fainted. Is that true?! You were supposed to be with her! Why didn’t you protect her?!”
“Sorry, Kanalayka,” said Ras, clutching his head. “Could I ask you to keep it down a tad? I’ve got a terrible hangover, you see…”
“A…a hangover?!” blurted out Kanalayka, aghast. She suddenly noticed the pervasive scent of alcohol in the room. “Wh-what about those bandages?”
“Oh, these?”
Ras lifted his slung arm with little trouble. He recalled his little visit to the sick bay the previous night, and the chaos that had ensued.
“I think the priestess went a little overboard,” Ras explained. “It’s not as bad as it looks, honest. Just a few cuts, scratches, and bruises here and there. Considering I fought Fon, it could have been a lot worse, and it probably would have been if Fiarca didn’t win her over with drinks.”
“Fon? You don’t mean Fon Cigel, do you?!” Kanalayka shrieked, her eyes wide. “What was the Black Blade doing on imperial grounds?!”
The Blades were the most accomplished swordsmen and -women in all the lands. It stood to reason that Kanalayka, a student of the blade herself, would relish the opportunity to meet one.
Ras thought she might as well not bother, but he didn’t say it.
“She was making my life difficult,” Ras replied. “I can’t believe I had to drink that much just to keep up with her…”
Shaking his head didn’t make the pounding go away. Ras groaned.
The previous day, after Ras’s training, Fon Cigel had come barging into Fiarca’s room and began consuming Auriol’s prized wine collection. Ras and Fiarca had been expected to join her, and when dawn came, she suddenly left as though her job there was done. All she left behind were countless empty bottles and the passed-out forms of Ras and Fiarca.
It was possible to treat a hangover with auramancy, but due to its harmful effects on the body, it wasn’t recommended. That was why Ras was dealing with his headache the old-fashioned way: with peace and quiet.
“Actually,” said Kanalayka, “one of my men said he heard strange rumbling noises coming from the cathedral last night. You wouldn’t happen to have had anything to do with that, would you?”
“Yeah. That was the Vildhjärta’s fault,” Ras replied.
Given the amount of noise the fight produced, Ras figured it was little wonder the sound carried to the surface. It must have caused quite the stir in the imperial palace, as people wondered just what on earth was going on down there.
“The Vildhjärta?” Kanalayka frowned, baffled. “You mean the Chasseur His Majesty gifted you?”
“More like forced on me,” Ras said with a shrug and a sigh. “I have a feeling he just wanted to be rid of it.”
The Vildhjärta was a Chasseur with a mind of its own, capable of autonomous action. Even sealed beneath the palace grounds, its mere existence was nothing but a risk to the imperial family. The emperor surely would have disposed of it long ago if it hadn’t been the Black Blade’s property.
And then who should wander blissfully ignorant into the picture but Ras, Fon’s disciple? He made the perfect scapegoat onto whom to foist the Black Blade’s poisoned chalice under the pretense of rewarding him for his great feat two years prior.
The emperor’s motivations were clear to Ras now, once it was far too late.
“Do you mind if I ask you something else?” asked Kanalayka, somehow looking even more worried than before. Her gaze was directed at the foot of Ras’s bed.
“What is it?”
“Who might this beastfolk child be?” she asked. “Surely you haven’t moved on from women and onto the court page boys?”
“Page boys?”
Ras followed Kanalayka’s gaze. Curled up on his bedsheets was a child who appeared around ten years of age, sporting animal ears and a tail. All they were wearing was the white shirt that Ras had given them. It was difficult to tell their gender, but they weren’t a boy. In terms of physical appearance, they were closer to a girl, but in reality, they were neither. They weren’t even a living being in the first place.
“That’s not a page boy—that’s the Vildhjärta,” Ras told her.
“What?” asked Kanalayka, blank-faced.
“The Vildhjärta,” Ras reiterated. Then he deigned to elaborate. “Fon called her an ‘external access point.’ She’s not real; she’s made of aurons. It’s kind of like the summoned spirits that some auramancers can conjure. Fon says she’s capable of gathering information and repairing damage to the main chassis.”
“Your page boy is a direct connection to the Vildhjärta?”
“I told you she’s not my page,” said Ras, sighing heavily. He was used to slander by now, but he didn’t really want to be accused of diddling little boys on top of everything else. Unfortunately, such rumors were going to be hard to shake with the Vildhjärta’s proxy following him around. She was an artificial projection, so her face was as perfectly sculpted as a doll’s. If anyone saw her faithfully following in Ras’s footsteps around the halls of the palace, they could only draw one possible conclusion.
Suddenly, the girl began to stir, as though roused by Ras’s heavy lamentations. She lifted her head and scanned the room with her large pupils. As soon as she spotted Kanalayka, her hair bristled like a cat’s.
“Good morning, Master! Who’s this? An enemy? Should I kill them for you?”
“Calm down. She’s on our side. And weren’t you just saying yesterday about how you hated killing people?”
“I’ll kill as many as it takes to keep you safe, Master. That is my only purpose.”
“Well, don’t. Kanalayka’s a friend. Got that? A friend.”
“A friend! I understand, Master! Let’s all play together!”
The Vildhjärta threw herself at Ras, who blocked her face with his palm. “You’re a Chasseur,” he said. “What does it even mean for you to play?”
He sighed deeply again and turned to Kanalayka.
“You see what I have to deal with? Would you mind lending me a hand?”
“With what?”
“The Vildhjärta needs a tune-up. Where should I go for that?”