“I never thought that the first person I would be forced to cooperate with would be an illegal immigrant. What a reckless mistress I’ve found,” Paige said.
“Oh shush. Just follow me.”
One night that week, the pair began scaling the tall wall between countries, using ropes to climb. Since Paige was in the lowest of the low of social classes—a slave—and Westalia was an evil woman who was supposed to be dead, there was no way they could cross the border by ordinary means.
Long ago, this place had been the site of a battle between two divided peoples, and the wall built at that time had remained standing as the border all this time.
“What happens if the night watchmen find us?” Paige asked.
“Then we go with them peacefully to the jail.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I wonder what the prison chef’s specialty is?”
“There’s no way they have a chef.”
There were no human settlements nearby, only a seemingly endless forest. There weren’t many border guards to begin with, but the pair would most assuredly be imprisoned if discovered. Westalia might actually be deported back to her home country if her identity was discovered, and then all hell would break loose.
Forging IDs costs time and money, and that’s the only way we’d be crossing by official means. And time is something we certainly don’t have. The only choice left is to use force, Westalia thought as she scaled the wall with the rope, sweat beading on her forehead. The day of the first round of the empress selection was fast approaching. There was still a lot of work to be done when they arrived at Archaites’s imperial palace, so they had to hurry.
“Here, give me your hand. Watch your feet,” Paige said, extending her hand from the top of the wall.
“Thank you,” Westalia replied, grabbing the hand. Paige easily pulled her up.
Westalia could see the glittering streetlights of the Archaitian imperial city from the top of the wall. Le Chantier Palace stood in the center of the city. It was the country’s grandest building, built by skilled craftspeople who had exhausted all their talent and resources in the process. It was the center of prosperity for the city. The royal family lived and conducted governmental business inside.
What a beautiful palace. It must be twice the size of the royal palace in Lhumzia, Westalia thought. “I... I really want to go there,” she said out loud, looking straight at the building. The night breeze pulled down her hood and flowed through her long hair, turning it luminous and mystical in the moonlight.
“Why are you so stuck on becoming empress?” asked Paige.
Westalia’s eyes narrowed. “Look. You see how the lights of the imperial city sparkle? But the farther you go out from the capital, the darker it gets. Do you know what this means?”
“Does it mean that there is a gap between the rich and the poor?”
“Yes. And there are many noblemen who exploit the weak to line their pockets. It will take power to bring them to heel and make everyone prosperous.” Although Westalia had never experienced poverty, she’d seen with her own eyes those in power who were crass enough to use others as stepping stones to satisfy their own greed.
I won’t allow anyone to be the victim of power like I was. The empress’s job was to protect the innocent and contribute to the establishment of a peaceful order. In the process of her rigorous training to become queen, Westalia had actually acquired a passion for the role. To regain her lost position was not only her revenge against Lily but a means of fulfilling her own dream.
“I can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that someone in power might be acting tyrannically somewhere. That’s one of my reasons for doing this, at least,” Westalia said, smiling softly at Paige. “That was a little too serious, no?” she continued. “I could list all sorts of lofty motives, but to be more honest, I just genuinely want to be the empress. I want to help a lot of people and be needed. It’s been my dream since I was a little girl. Every girl dreams at least once of being a princess, right?”
“Does my mistress truly possess such a pure heart?” Paige asked, laughing.
“How rude! I am splendidly pure,” Westalia replied, laughing along as they began to climb down the opposite side of the wall.
Westalia got a little farther down the rope before her foot slipped on the wall, causing her to let go of the rope. She screamed.
“Mistress!” Paige flung her hand out, but it only grazed the tip of Westalia’s nose.
Westalia felt like her body was floating as she fell down. She’d been warned to watch her step, but she’d been careless. The sky was full of stars. Her road to becoming empress had just started, but would it end here? This is the first time I’ve ever flown, she thought, having come full circle back to being calm as she gazed up at the night sky. The days spent cooped up in that villa, when she had no time to look at the beautiful sky, flashed before her, and she gently closed her eyes.
However, Westalia’s body didn’t experience the hard shock she had expected—she was instead caught by the muscular arms of a man.
“I didn’t expect someone to fall from the sky. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?” said a deep, clear voice.
Westalia opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a handsome man. How bewitching, she thought. He had deep, green eyes and shiny, jet-black hair that looked like it had absorbed the night sky. His sharply contoured face was perfectly proportioned and balanced. On his ear sparkled a long earring with small, strange patterns engraved on it. His eyes pierced through her. When she met his gaze she was unable to look away, and for a moment, they just stared at each other.
Westalia was the first to come to her senses. Oh no, he must be a night watchman on patrol! It was good that she’d been rescued, but she didn’t know whether to consider herself lucky or unlucky to have run into someone patrolling the streets. She pondered how best to excuse herself, then smiled affectionately, knowing it was all or nothing.
“How nice to meet you. I am your goddess, descended from the heavens.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” the man replied.
“I’m serious.”
The man was on guard, but he suddenly relaxed and looked at Westalia with a cold expression. “Well, you must be crazy. Completely crazy. If you’re going to make excuses for illegal entry, then you’ll have to come up with something better than that. What country are you a refugee from? You’ll be punished less if you tell us the truth—”
The joke had been intended to loosen him up. Not one to miss a moment of opportunity, Westalia, with a mild smile on her face—but not the slightest hesitation—took a poison needle from her breast pocket and stuck it into his neck.
“What are you...?”
The man suddenly fell to his knees. Westalia, freed from his arms, pulled her hood back over her face and looked down at him from above, narrowing her eyes.
“A...poison?” the man asked.
“It won’t kill you. It will just incapacitate you for a little while,” Westalia replied, putting the used needle back into her pocket and wrapping it in a bit of fabric. She carried poison needles all over her body, in addition to her rings, for just this kind of situation. There were all sorts of poisons, and the one she had used on him would paralyze his body for a certain period of time, making him unable to move, but he was still able to talk.
“You must be a very dangerous woman to be carrying around such a thing,” the man said.
“Someone once told me I should protect myself with poison,” Westalia replied.
“Then they’re just as much of a scoundrel as you are.”
“As I am?”
“Anyway, don’t you worry. You’re already too late,” he said sarcastically, even though he was numb and immobile.
Just then, the bushes rustled and Paige arrived, dragging two unconscious men with her.
“Oh good, you’re okay,” she said.
“You seem all right too. And those two?” Westalia asked.
“Night watchmen... I think. I knocked them out before they saw me, but now what? Should I bury them?”
The man with the long earring frowned at the two unconscious men. “Wait. Those are my men.” He began negotiating for their freedom, but Westalia and Paige couldn’t just hand them over for nothing. They made the man promise to overlook their illegal entry, then demanded that he give up their horses.
“So you’re just thieves,” he said.
“Are you really in a position to be saying that?”
“I saved you!”
“I didn’t ask you to,” Westalia spat back, brushing his words aside. Looking through his belongings she noticed he had many expensive-looking things and seemed to be quite wealthy. She also noticed the particularly expensive-looking long earring shining on his ear. Westalia reached toward his left ear and removed the metal clasp. She tilted her head at the exquisite pattern engraved on the back of the jeweled ornament.
“What is this pattern?”
“Give it back. That is the one thing I cannot give away. It’s important. I swear I will never tell anyone about you.”
“I don’t think I can trust you,” Westalia replied, dismissing his desperate pleas with an emotionless, brusque laugh. Westalia had been betrayed by her most trusted confidant. She no longer believed people’s words so easily and wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She put the long earring on her right ear and spoke coldly to the man.
“Yes, this is very important to you, isn’t it? I will give it back to you at the point when I decide if you’re a trustworthy person. I’m going to be the empress. So don’t get in my way.”
She called out to Paige and turned away without further ado. They borrowed two fine horses from the man and descended the mountain. If she wanted to become empress, she would have to resort to any means necessary to do it. With a little pang of guilt, Westalia shrugged to herself. Now I really am an evil woman... That’s okay though, if it means making my wish come true. If she wasn’t prepared to do that, there would be no point in risking so much to come to the Archaites Empire. The ornament swayed on Westalia’s right ear as she straddled her horse. She could never have dreamed what the earring she had taken from the man meant—nor how that alone signaled his noble background.