§
When I departed Cara Ita, I left trouble in the form of an asura in the hands of a young fairy knight who might have been even less qualified than I believed at the time. Poor Aenëe turned out to be merely a half-fairy who had somehow received enough of Oberon’s favor to get permission to call herself a knight and a royal companion.
But she was strong enough for a half-fairy that she’d had me fooled. She could manifest wings and fight in the air even though she was probably not much older than me. Most half-fairies her age can’t grow wings yet. And I did not believe that Oberon would have granted her his permission, or his royal favor, if he didn’t think she had the ability to pull it off. But she was surely not strong enough to face an asura.
At the time, I had assumed her clan elders would back her up. Mára, who turned out to be her aunt, had told me otherwise while mocking her, as well as my fight with her. After I heard that, I fervently hoped that the asura had left the area.
As it turned out, she hadn’t.
Mother didn’t have the details, but Aenëe was okay. When the asura returned to assert control over the city, the young fairy knight had fled with the baron’s heir in her arms.
Protecting the heir had been her final service to a liege lord who was almost certainly not the individual who actually hired her. More than likely, the lich who had impersonated him and betrayed Ryuu’s party had already killed the real lord before Aenëe arrived on the scene. But she had sworn loyalty to the baron, not the lich, and she honored her contract, protecting the last member of his family the only way she could. For whatever reason, the asura Trisiagga had chosen not to pursue them.
The problem was, the asura could always pursue her later. She pursued me all the way to Atianus for killing her dragon.
I understood Mother’s reasons for me to go, but I didn’t quite follow her plan.
“I need to go to Atius and report to Uncle Owen, Mother. It isn’t appropriate for me to go straight to the front when I will be flying practically right past him.”
Mother is a very independent-minded woman, and the idea I wouldn’t simply go do what I needed to do annoyed her. But, just as she had corrected me when I was about to shoot straight for the goal with Amelia, she recognized this as a similar case. With a vexed smile, she nodded.
“Of course. So, you should be able to reach him this afternoon…”
“Tomorrow,” I corrected. “The aircraft I’m using isn’t that fast.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “Why on Earth would you use an aircraft?”
“I want to bring Amelia and a few others to my mountain, Mother. I commandeered Viscount Oseri’s airboat.”
With a sigh, she patiently replied, “Tiana, we have a rebellion underway. To reach Atius, you either have to cross rebellious territory or fly north through the Tabad. Either way will be too dangerous for a slow-moving aircraft. Without a fairy escort while you fly, you are not to attempt it.”
I wanted to object that Talene’s boat was flying all around the place with impunity, but then I remembered Talene had a jet aircraft that flew up in the stratosphere. Probably, the only such vehicle in this world. My airbort had no pressurization, so its service ceiling was the same as a flying beast’s, and even a DC-3 from the 1930s could fly circles around it, never mind Talene’s craft. A squadron of wyvern riders could easily knock me out of the sky, and I couldn’t leave the controls to go out and fight them.
Well, perhaps, with a little negotiation through Lucy and Durandal, I could get the wind spirits to keep the craft on-course while I went out and fought, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to try that experiment. Nor did I think I could easily explain the idea to Mother.
I frowned. “If I had to carry all the people I want to bring to my mountain in my arms, one at a time, it would take weeks.”
I would probably have to stop every five miles or so while carrying Graham.
“Go take care of your business in Cara Ita and come back,” Oberon told me. “I will detail some warriors to accompany your craft when you are ready to go pick up your passengers.”
I hesitated at that idea for a bit, since I would be effectively hiring foreign mercenaries without the king’s consent. This was an entirely different matter than Dilorè accompanying me as a relative. But Mother promised she would work it out with Uncle Owen and negotiate the price.
With all that agreed, I was off.
For the first half of the trip, I practiced communicating with Lucy inside the stone rather than calling her out, so that she could help me communicate more complex requests to Wind spirits without speaking out loud, she could also pass the voices of others to me.
For example…
Lucy, honey, can you call Little Jia for me?
Jia talk now! Lucy declared.
Hello, Commander! Little Jia then chimed in. How goes your journey?
Normally, I would only be able to communicate to Jia from outside through the Portal network, using my portal system to relay our conversation, but Jia had made a direct link through the Spirit Realm to Lucy when I first introduced her. In essence, Lucy was acting as a second Portal system that could travel along with me. This wasn’t something we could do back during the Elder Age. The network of abode systems, creations like Little Jia or Busy Lu, had advanced their abilities considerably during the long wait for their masters to return.
It goes well, but I’ve made a slight detour, I told her. I need to discuss something with the King. I will probably be gone a few more days than my original plan. Depending on how things go, I may have to work out some changes with Kanon on the trainees. Could you let her know?
Certainly, Commander!
§
With the sun getting low in the sky, I was approaching Atius, after a flight of about eight hours.
Why did it take me from late morning to near sundown to fly that distance? My return trip should have taken me less time rather than more. My speed in the air, boosted by stronger spirit and my new understanding of Will, had increased dramatically. I could possibly even keep up with Kiki at her best speed now.
But Mother had been very clear that I must not fly through the Southern provinces on my return flight. Both sides now had multiple fairy knights in their employ, as well as many other active aerial troops. To avoid any delay caused by hostile encounters, she insisted that I fly north to Arelia through the Tabad before turning east to fly into Orestania, then finally fly south to Atianus, approaching the capital from the north.
Thus, my route ended up being around twice the distance of my flight from Copen to Relador after my disastrous, short-lived career as a high school student.
I was having a deep sense of deja vu and finally put my finger on why that was. I was following the same highway into town that I followed nine weeks earlier, on my way home for the first time after arriving in this world. Back then, I had encountered a band of wyvern-riding raiders battling a squadron of hippogriff-mounted Royal Air Lancers. In the process, I had coincidentally rescued my foster sister Amelia.
That sense increased when I spotted hippogriffs in the air ahead. Fortunately, this time they weren’t in battle. They were simply flying out to intercept the incoming unknown.
I wasn’t there to cause distress, so I slowed down and allowed them to intersect my flight path.
“Captain Finley, 17th Squadron of the 3rd Royal Air Lancers! Please land to declare your identity and purpose!”
Speak of the devil…
“Good afternoon, Captain Finley!” I called back, cheerily. “Long time, no see!”
I saw the captain scowl slightly, then grow suspicious. “Do I know you, My Lady?”
“We’ve met,” I answered lightly. “I’ll put down on the road below. See you there.”
With that, I dropped, a lot faster than the hippogriffs could follow if they intended to land. These particular magic beasts can do dive-bomber-style attacks at about the speed I was going, but they have to pull out at the bottom and zoom climb. They would have too much kinetic energy built up to land.
Different story for an Elder with the power of Will enhancing her flying skills. I easily flared and landed, a few hundred paces down the road from one of the Royal Army’s observation towers.
Once the hippogriffs landed, the somewhat dashing captain dismounted and approached me.
My Lady, I am ready with my shields, Durandal told me.
This should be an ally, but thank you, I replied.
During our last meeting, this RAL captain had swaggered and practically twirled his mustache while drinking in my body with his eyes. His attitude was very different, this time. I don’t think he had already spotted my Royal Knights badge yet, nor did it seem like he recognized me yet, so I assume it was due to the ongoing rebellion of two dukes and several counties. I represented a serious risk.
To the eyes of civilians, when properly garbed, I’m clearly a fairy knight. But in the eyes of those who actually deal with a lot of aerial fighters in their careers, as opposed to the eyes of civilians, I’m not clearly a fairy knight. I look like a succubus, and one of the professions that succubi are known to enter is mercenary work. Succubi are strong and have good aptitudes for magic, so they suit a lot of physical occupations other than sex worker. And succubus mercenaries are prone to gear up like fairy knights, although possibly for different reasons. They might be trying to throw off opponents by mimicking fairies, like a harmless snake that mimics a poisonous one, but maybe they just like wallowing in the sheer lewdness of the look.
With a war on, whether I was an incoming fairy knight or an incoming succubus mercenary, I might be a threat. Hence his far less smarmy manner.
I bowed briefly as he arrived, and declared, “I am Tiana Pendor of the Royal Knights, at your service. How do you fare, this fine day, Captain?”
I saw his brain skip a beat or two, then comprehension dawned. “Ah, the knight from back then. I remember you now.”
His wariness didn’t seem to decrease, which concerned me a bit. I was assuming, considering where we were and where the fight was, that these royal air lancers were on King Owen’s side, but…
Noticing the slightly tense attitude of the other lancers, some of whom were remaining mounted, I smiled politely.
“I am on my way to report to His Majesty, Captain. Are you here to stop me or to let me pass?”
His eyebrow rose, then he smiled. “It depends upon whom it is that you call ‘His Majesty’, My Lady.”
Letting my voice grow level and sharper, I answered, “In Orestania, there is only His Majesty Owen the Second, Captain.”
His face relaxed, and he smiled. “I see. I will need to see your orders, then.”
I frowned. “I have been on a mission in the Dragonsbacks for almost a month and a half, Captain. We weren’t fighting when I left. I’m not carrying military orders.”
His brow wrinkled. “Then I’ll have to ask you to accompany us to our base, My Lady. I can’t let you approach His Majesty without orders. You may contact the Royal Knights from there and arrange for them.
After a brief temptation to say screw it, lose these guys, and be on my way, Tiana’s preference for abiding by the rules prevailed. I smiled and nodded.
“Certainly, Captain.”
