“You want me to…seduce…a princess of the Charlgia Kingdom?”
The masked Auriol returned Ras’s bewildered question with a smile and a nod.
“Princess Tishna is seventeen years old and seventh in the line of succession. She’s quite a beauty, too, if her official portrait is anything to go by. Her mother isn’t a woman of great standing, but it’s said that the king fell instantly in love upon meeting her. I’d say looks must run in the family, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Aur. What’s all this about?”
Ras was starting to get a strange feeling. Auriol was never the kind of person to revel in another person’s confusion like this.
“If you’re worried about falling afoul of her present lover, don’t be,” said Auriol. “She’s fair game. You won’t be getting on anyone’s bad side.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. What’s this princess got to do with anything?”
“We have our reasons, of course. Are you sure you want to know?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Spit it out.”
“Very well. But I warn you, it’s not a straightforward story. Let’s go somewhere else. Kanalayka, could you pour us some strong wine?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll fetch the Cufida fifteen-year vintage.”
Kanalayka’s face lit up, and she hurried off. The imperial legate was somewhat of an enthusiast when it came to wine, it seemed.
“That bad, huh?” asked Ras. It wasn’t even dark out yet—a little early to be drinking alcohol.
“Consider it a reunion drink,” said Auriol. “You will join me, won’t you?”
“I won’t say no to free booze.”
With Elmira leading the way, Ras moved to the guest lounge. Kanalayka walked over to the wine cabinet and picked out a bottle. She poured its contents, a deep bloodred liquid, into two glasses and handed one to Ras.
The fragrance was strong, but pungent and fruity rather than sterile, backed by a faint, smoky undertone.
“This is good wine,” Ras remarked, holding up the glass and observing the light filtering through it.
“It was a present,” said Auriol, bringing his glass to his lips. The black mask had evidently been designed so that the front could open, allowing the crown prince to eat and drink normally. Its elaborate construction threw Ras for a loop. “I still have a few more bottles, so if you like it, take one with you. Consider it a down payment on your new wages.”
“It’ll take more than one bottle of wine to make me accept a job I know nothing about.”
“Quite sensible, Ras. Let’s get to it, then, shall we?”
Auriol’s expression became serious.
“You see,” he said, staring into Ras’s eyes, “there’s going to be a wedding.”
“…You don’t say? And who’s the lucky man?”
“I am, Ras. I hope you haven’t forgotten I’m next in line to succeed the imperial throne. A man in my position has little choice when it comes to matters of love.”
Ras nodded in silent agreement. A bloody civil war about forty years back, coupled with the war of succession in the wake of the former emperor’s death, had left the imperial family with very few children. With the loss of Princess Fiarca, the only direct descendant of Uragan III was Auriol. If he did not produce an heir, the bloodline would be severed.
There was, therefore, no shortage of voices in the realm pressuring Prince Auriol to wed. The border dispute of two years back pushed things off to the side a little, but Auriol’s marriage was well overdue.
“Aur…don’t tell me, the woman you’re marrying is…”
“That’s right. Princess Tishna.”
The crown prince’s voice held little joy, but the decision made sense to Ras. Charlgia was Argyll’s neighbor, separated by a mountain range. Though its territory was small, the nation was rich in arts and culture, and they had formed a defensive pact with the empire. Ensuring that a princess of that country would become the next empress of Argyll was a great honor, and it would strengthen the alliance between the two nations. It was a win-win for both parties, one that was sure to garner strong public support, even if it disappointed the ambitious domestic nobles hoping to offer the crown prince their own daughters’ hands.
“What’s the matter, then?” asked Ras. “Sounds like cause for celebration to me.”
“As much as I’d like to agree, I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.”
Auriol shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips. Ras had never seen the man look so defeated. He raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
“What makes you say that? By the sounds of things, you could hardly ask for a better wife.”
“You’re not wrong there. And it would certainly get the counts and marquises of the Council of Seven off my back.”
“Mmm, yeah. Marrying one of their daughters would only serve to piss off the other six,” noted Ras. “So what’s the issue?”
“There’s something you need to know first, Ras. Do you remember what happened on the final day of the Yura Uprising? Do you remember how Fiarca lost her life?”
Now it was Ras’s turn to adopt a sullen frown. It was something he couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried. The smell of blood. The sight of twisted metal. The day Ras slew a dragon, but in return lost something more precious to him than his own life.
“Why are we talking about this now?” he asked, heaving a deep sigh. “She chose to sacrifice herself. She awoke a sleeping dragon and led the federation’s army straight to it. And the worst part is, it was all her idea.”
The Yura Uprising had seen the empire deploy a force of more than 180 Chasseurs to the Padyne Federation’s 70. By all accounts, the empire should have achieved a resounding victory, but when the imperial forces encountered the enemy army, they found their numbers counted more than 400.
According to interim reports, the enemy had received reinforcements from allies such as the nearby kingdom of Kavir and the superpower of Registan, which controlled the eastern continent. However, details of this assistance never came to light.
In any case, hostilities lasted less than two weeks before the imperial forces were pushed to the brink of defeat. At a crucial moment, Princess Fiarca happened to be visiting the front line along with a supply convoy. She proposed a brilliant plan that no one had ever tried in all of recorded history: to employ the use of a Greater Dragon in war.
On the Yura Peninsula, there was a secluded cave where a Greater Dragon named Kiha Zenri slept. Its location was known to the empire, but the federation had no knowledge of the dragon’s existence at all. As far as Princess Fiarca was concerned, Kiha Zenri was their only remaining shot at victory.
Fiarca volunteered to act as a decoy, luring the enemy’s main army into the dragon’s territory. Once the dragon awoke, it would make short work of the hostile forces.
It was a drastic plan, but not a foolish one. In fact, it gave the empire their best odds at victory. The only catch was that the princess and her escort would almost certainly be killed in the process.
“That’s right,” said Auriol. “And the poor little crown prince could do nothing about it. He had suffered an injury the previous day that removed him from the battlefield, and by the time he woke up and realized what his sister was planning, it was too late to stop her… So goes the official story, at least.”
Ras was a little put off by Auriol’s manner of speaking. “So what you’re saying is,” he ventured, “that’s not what really happened?”
Auriol shook his head and brought his glass of wine to his lips. “It’s mostly the truth, save for one little point—it wasn’t Fiarca who acted as the decoy.”
“It…wasn’t?”
Ras’s eyes went wide. His mind flashed back to the gruesome scenes he witnessed that fateful night. A battlefield ravaged by a dragon. A ruined violet Chasseur, the princess’s personal unit. The crushed cockpit and the long silver hair that hung out of it. Hair so instantly recognizable, it was practically a symbol of the princess to the entire realm.
“You’re lying,” said Ras. “It was her. It had to be. I saw the wreckage of the Ella with my own two eyes. You know as well as I do that only those of imperial blood can pilot that Chasseur. That’s exactly why it worked as a decoy: The federation knew it wasn’t a trick; that a member of the imperial family had to be inside.”
“You’re right on that point, Ras,” said Auriol, his voice dropping to a whisper. “But there were two of us on the battlefield that day.”
This time, Ras couldn’t speak.
The Chasseurs of the imperial family were imbued with minds of their own, and refused to carry those without imperial blood. But conversely, that meant any member of Auriol’s family could have piloted the Ella that day, not just Princess Fiarca.
“Y-you mean…,” Ras stuttered, “it was…Aur? Auriol piloted the Ella in his sister’s place…?”
“That is the truth of what happened that day, two years ago.”
The person before Ras, the person who had introduced themself as Crown Prince Auriol, reached for their mask. Unhooking it, they removed the covering from their face.
There was no horrific wound. There was only a face of peerless beauty. Freed from the auramancy technique contained within the mask, the wearer’s sapphire eyes returned to their natural violet hue.
Ras, his voice trembling, spoke her name.
“Fiarca…”
The imperial princess gave Ras a smile. A smile he thought he’d never see again.
“It’s me, Ras. And now I can finally talk to you as myself once more.”
The woman undid her hair tie and shook her head, allowing a river of silver to flow over her shoulders, like a silver flower unfurling its petals. Her hair was a little shorter than Ras remembered, leading him to believe she must have cut it two years ago, shortly after her presumed death.
Princess Fiarca was still alive.
Instead, her twin brother had died, and Fiarca had taken his place. She became the crown prince and led her nation in his absence.
“Now you know,” she said. “You know why I’ve asked this task of you. If my marriage to Princess Tishna goes ahead, my secret will not survive the wedding night. Before that happens, you must win her over. One way or another, she needs to remain our nation’s ally.”
Fiarca Jeva Argenteia stared into Ras’s eyes.
Ras reached for his glass, brought it to his lips, and downed its contents in one gulp. There was so much emotion whirling around in his head that he couldn’t find it in himself to speak. All he wanted to do was drink so much he didn’t have to remember this feeling.
And so Sir Ras Talion was treated to a lovers’ reunion he never could have expected.