The room Ras entered was a little smaller than he’d been expecting.
But he quickly discovered it wasn’t the only room. Auriol’s private quarters turned out to be an entire wing of the palace, with a guest lounge, a study, and even multiple bedrooms. It was a mansion the likes of which no commoner could ever own, not unless they were a prominent landowner or a wealthy merchant.
What surprised Ras most of all, however, was how empty it was—including the crown prince, only two people were living there.
Auriol Ref Argenteia sat at the back of his study, at a large desk that smelled like ink and dust, flipping through a thick stack of official papers. It seemed he had taken a quicker route back from the audience chamber and had already started on his work while Ras and Kanalayka were making their way down the hallways.
Standing next to him was a bespectacled woman who wasn’t dressed like a servant. If anything, she seemed more like Auriol’s personal secretary. Her hair was a dull silver, and she possessed a startling resemblance to the auramancer who had attacked Ras the previous night.
When Ras entered the room, the two of them looked up at him. The woman flashed him a carefully crafted smile that gave nothing away, while Auriol’s reaction was harder to understand. It was a look at once thoughtful, genial, and suggestive, and it was exactly the Auriol whom Ras used to know.
Of course, much of his expression was obscured by his mask, which the crown prince had begun wearing two years ago, supposedly to hide a horrific scar from a wound inflicted on him during the war. However, even the mask’s frightening appearance did nothing to obscure the boy’s natural beauty. His feminine features made him the spitting image of the late Princess Fiarca.
As soon as she was in Auriol’s presence, Kanalayka stood at attention.
“First Legion Legate Kanalayka Aluarche, sir. I have brought Sir Ras Talion, as requested.”
“Excellent,” replied Auriol kindly. “Thank you, Kanalayka.”
Despite the mask, his words were clear and carried far. Turning his eyes upon Ras, he smiled.
“It’s been a while, Ras. You look like you have questions,” he said.
“And whose fault might that be?” Ras answered bluntly.
Ras would have been only too pleased if his rudeness offended Auriol and persuaded him to call the whole thing off, but the two men’s relationship was much stronger than that. Sure enough, the crown prince only chuckled.
“Before I tell you anything, I’d like to introduce you to somebody,” said Auriol, indicating the lady by his side. “This is my ever-reliable aide, Elmira Almathe. If there’s anything you wish to know about how things work here in the palace, you need only ask her.”
“Feel free to call me Elmira, Sir Talion.”
Elmira bowed, while Ras eyed her suspiciously. Though she looked like a noncombatant at first glance, there was something strange and unnatural about the way she moved. The flow of her aura was far too elegant for a person who’d never been in a fight. Plus, she appeared completely unguarded, almost as though she was specifically trying to look that way.
“You’re no mere secretary,” said Ras. “Not an aura knight, either. An assassin, perhaps?”
Ras’s words surprised the woman, causing her mask to slip. For just a moment, Ras felt the true deadly pressure that seeped from her every pore.
“Very impressive, Ras,” said Auriol, arching his eyebrows in surprise. “Not even Kanalayka discerned that on her first meeting. To be precise, she is my operative, as well as my personal bodyguard, of course.”
“The Silver Fangs,” said Ras. “I’ve heard of them. Hardly surprising for a member of the imperial family, I suppose.”
Ras grinned cynically. The Silver Fangs were the empire’s secret network of spies, rumored to handle wet work, sabotage, and counterintelligence. Its agents were trained in secret to be able to handle an aura knight in combat if necessary, and this woman was surely one of them.
But that wasn’t the only reason Auriol was introducing Ras to her.
“Don’t you think she looks like someone?” he asked coyly.
She possessed long silver hair, violet eyes, and although her plain, frumpish attire was made to conceal it, a striking figure. As Auriol implied, she looked unsettlingly similar to the late Princess Fiarca, and also to the woman who attacked Ras the previous night.
But after appraising her for a moment, Ras sighed.
“Fiarca wasn’t as buxom,” he said, “nor as slim around the waist.”
Auriol frowned. If Ras didn’t know better, he’d almost say Auriol was offended. “Can you really tell the difference under all those clothes?” the crown prince asked.
“They don’t call me the Stallion for nothing,” replied Ras. “At the very least, I can tell you for certain this is not the woman I fought last night.”
He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like Auriol was keen to imply that this woman, Elmira, was the auramancer who had assisted Kanalayka in bringing Ras in. Ras never had much interest in intrigue, so he just came out and aired his doubts.
“Now, how would you know that?” asked the crown prince, eyeing Ras suspiciously. “Surely you weren’t spending precious combat seconds taking stock of your assailant’s bosom?”
Ras leered. “Believe what you want to believe,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing: Her eye color is fake. It’s a cute little auramancy technique. One you don’t see too often.”
“……I see. I should have known we couldn’t put one past you, Ras.”
Auriol raised his hands in mock surrender. His theatrical affectations elicited a surly grunt from Ras.
“Quit with the games, Aur. What are you hoping to gain by stringing me along like this? Why did you make me a Guardian of Silver?”
“I thought Kanalayka already told you,” Auriol replied with a defiant smile. He sat up straight and looked directly into Ras’s eyes. “I have a job for you, Ras. A job that only a Guardian of Silver can carry out.”
“And I thought I already told you no.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have much choice, Ras. If you don’t accept, the empire will perish.”
“You said what now?”
Ras blinked in surprise. He would have thought it an ill-natured jest, if not for the deadly serious look on Auriol’s face. The crown prince nodded gravely.
“People will die, Ras. Good, innocent people.”
“And I’m supposed to stop it?”
“You are. In fact, you’re the only one who can,” the crown prince declared.
There wasn’t a hint of a lie in his words, a fact that only unnerved Ras even more. If Auriol was telling the truth, and the fate of the empire really did hang in the balance, then Ras could see why he had resorted to such drastic measures.
But Ras was only one out of the hundreds of aura knights at the empire’s disposal. The only thing setting him apart was that he was the son of a count, but it wasn’t like that gave him any additional powers that Auriol would be able to take advantage of.
Meanwhile, as the crown prince, and with his father’s waning health, Auriol practically had the entire might of the empire at his fingertips. What could he possibly need that only Ras could do?
Ras lowered his voice. “Is it a Greater Dragon? If so, there’s been no word.”
It was the only thing Ras could think of that even Auriol couldn’t contest by himself. Unlike Lesser Dragons such as wyverns and wyrms, a Greater Dragon was a civilization-ending calamity. If one of those terrifying beasts came close to a city, there was no telling what kind of havoc it would wreak. It could lay waste to the whole realm, leaving only ruined nations in its wake.
The only ones who could stand against a Greater Dragon were the land’s most powerful aura knights, the Blades. But there were only four of them, and they answered to no sovereign. An unspoken accord between the major powers prevented any one nation from harnessing their unrivaled strength for ill gain. The Blades transcended human society and lived unfettered by its laws.
Which meant Auriol would have only one option. If he couldn’t employ a Blade, he would have to employ one of their students instead. And whom better to pick than someone who had proven themselves against a Greater Dragon already?
If one of those calamitous fiends had been sighted within the borders of the empire, the crown prince would have little choice but to send Ras against it. It was the obvious choice—and the same one Ras would make in that position.
To Ras’s surprise, Auriol shook his head.
“I’m afraid that’s not what you’ll be facing,” he said. “But perhaps you’ll wish it was.”
“You mean it’s even worse? What would you have me slay? An Ancient Dragon? An Angel, perhaps?”
Only a handful of creatures surpassed the mighty Greater Dragon, but they were all consigned to the pages of myth. They were living gods, rumored to sink empires overnight and transform the very land itself. Even a Blade would stand no chance against a living legend like that.
But the grim look on Ras’s face made Auriol laugh.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s none of those—though it may very well prove to be just as much of a headache.”
“Enough jokes,” said Ras, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Tell me. What would you have me face?”
Auriol’s answer was disappointingly plain.
“I want you to seduce a princess.”
At first, Ras couldn’t understand what he’d been told.
“……You want me to do what?”
Auriol’s gaze was worryingly stern. This was no joke. Neither Elmira nor Kanalayka said a word.
“Your target,” said Auriol, narrowing his sapphire eyes, “is Tishna Lumedienne Charlgiana, the fourth royal princess of the Kingdom of Charlgia.”
Ras could barely keep up. Unable to utter a word, he could only stand there in shock as Auriol went on matter-of-factly.
“I need you to seduce her within the next ten months, if you don’t mind.”