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Prince Ged’s eyes remained narrowed in thought and fixed on the half-full wine glass in his hand. Aenëe and I waited, giving him time to mull over the puzzle pieces I had just given him, occupying ourselves with munching slices of hard sausage or cheese. Aenëe had turned her nose up (as politely as possible) at the canned peaches earlier, but I was serving myself a second helping when Ged finally responded to my previous words.
“I see your reasoning, but how confident are you, Ti?”
I set my fork down and tapped my fingertips on the table.
“Of the claim that they are targeting you, specifically?” I wondered.
He nodded without speaking.
This was actually a trickier question than I first thought. I came to this conclusion while my mind was still expanded as far as I could, immediately upon translating the conversation between demons and comparing it with my own observations and the many notes Daq had left of his own analysis of the situation. I saw it quite clearly at that time, but my genius-level reasoning in that state was not so easy to follow for me in my normal state.
But I decided I could relay the gist of it, anyway.
“It begins with the fact that they are paying close attention to the whereabouts of the entire royal family. Which is why you must immediately warn the rest, tonight, Your Highness. I know you have a communication network set up with Atius and Pendor. I hope it includes Rod’s location?”
He answered while straightening his glasses, “Naturally.”
“Fortunately, it sounds like Amelia is not facing an immediate threat. They have reports, but no confirmation, which means they have no assailant close to her. But while they didn’t mention Rod, they specifically named you, Uncle Owen and my foster mother as imminent targets.”
Ged responded, “That suggests we should certainly be on heightened alert for assassins, but why do you believe their plans tie to their military operations?”
“Because they have a massive army of demons whom they are holding back for no good strategic reason.”
He blinked. “Any intelligent commander maintains reserves, Ti. One only commits everything when it’s time for mop-up operations or to respond to an overwhelming turn of events.”
“But on the other hand, one never holds back so much, one puts oneself into a stalemate,” I answered. “The goal is to commit enough forces to drive the enemy before you. If you can’t, you should either be maneuvering for a better position or making a strategic withdrawal. They are doing neither, which means they have some other purpose in mind than simply driving you out of Hamagaar.”
Ged was silent, absorbing my words with a thoughtful look.
I continued, “A ten thousand demon force can match a fifty thousand mortal force. It’s enough to march from Cara Ita to the North Ocean coast while leaving behind sufficient forces to encircle your army. After that, they could simply tighten the cordon and destroy it.”
Huade isn’t twenty-first century Earth. Forces rarely number in the hundreds of thousands, and nobody has ever fielded a million men in arms. In numbers, Orestania could probably field a force equal to Napoleon’s Grande Armée at its peak, but this wasn’t the only war it was fighting.
Fifty thousand mortals would outnumber the total number currently committed to the fight in Hamagaar, or the total number of Hamagaarans facing them. Between her militia and her small regular force, Mother started the civil war with similar numbers defending Pendor, although if she was making advances like Uncle Owen claimed, she had raised additional forces and might be approaching a hundred thousand in arms by now.
Without Parna and Cullen stabbing him in the back, Owen would have committed a couple hundred thousand to the war in Hamagaar, about half the practical total force he could muster without overtaxing the economy. He would have done it in order to get the war over swiftly and decisively, to limit the strain on the Hamagaaran citizens and to be ready to face the demons on Hamagaar’s western border.
Given what they were facing here, the demons had no reason to hold back such an overwhelming ‘reserve’ and prolong the war. Once they unleashed it, they could hand us a devastating loss in a matter of a week.
“They aren’t doing that,” he agreed. “But how does that equate to me being their target?”
“If they followed orthodox strategy, your knights and others would evacuate you long before the demons finished tightening the noose. Even ten thousand demons can’t overwhelm us fast enough to trap you before you could escape.”
He frowned. “You are assuming I would run away.”
I had just picked the fork back up, planning to stab one of those peach slices. I set it back down with a loud clack, suddenly quite annoyed.
“Ged, you are the heir to the kingdom. If nobody else does it, I’m grabbing you and flying away. It would be my top priority, as a royal knight. No matter how loudly you object, I’m carrying you out of here.”
His frown remained, but he understood.
“The exact form of their strategy is unclear,” I continued. “They can’t be just waiting for the right moment to suddenly march, because this location is too far away. So their role takes place after something else happens first. Logically they have a plan to drive you toward them somehow. What Trisiagga said earlier on the battlefield was just a bluff. She doesn’t want to try to overwhelm you here, for the same reason they don’t encircle you now.”
“And so…” he prompted, as if I had their plan in my pocket, ready to reveal.
I sighed. “Durash wasn’t kind enough to outline his entire plan for me. The conversation was mostly about the correct timing for the steps in the plan. But from the sound of it, the timing was dependent upon two things that hadn’t happened yet.”
“Which were?”
I pursed my lips. “More than once they mentioned a ‘sweep’ that was to befall your army.”
“That could be the demon army,” he pointed out.
“Except that he described the demon army emerging as the following step,” I countered.
Ged pursed his lips, then nodded. After all, that detail was decisive. They couldn’t ‘sweep’, then march.
“You said two things,” he noted. “And I take it, the demon army isn’t the other?”
“No. The other event happens before the sweep. Actually, the sweep must begin immediately upon news that the first event is successful, before the first event induces you to leave.”
Ged’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I leave?”
“I have to infer a little, but the part where the Old Grove clan or their allies in the Field and Forest faction attacks Uncle Owen came up here, so I’m pretty sure his death is the first event. Uncle Owen’s death would certainly require you to return to the Capital, Your Highness.”
We had already talked about Cullen being apparently replaced by a demon. But the aristocratic disdain for Owen didn’t extend to Ged. If Owen died, Ged would probably be seen as a better choice than Cullen, so it would make sense that demons hoping to put one of their own on the throne would need to also eliminate Ged in order to make their plan succeed.
He pursed his lips, then nodded tersely.
“Excuse me,” Aenëe asked tentatively. I turned to her and saw a bemused look on her face.
“‘Uncle Owen’?” she quoted meaningfully.
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, I had to let out a little laugh. But Ged was the one who answered.
“Ti’s foster mother Lady Sasara is my father’s concubine. She grew up calling him that.”
I saw a slight deflation in her eyes. “Ah, is that all? The way she speaks so freely to you and refers to the king in such a familiar fashion, I was sure she had something going on with either you or him. How disappointing.”
“Ged’s my big brother, My Lady!” I protested. I think my eyes bulged a little.
“‘Ged’?” she replied, her eyes twinkling.
“My Lady, be serious!” I scolded.
“Alright,” she agreed. “Then let me ask you something. Why aren’t you considering the possibility of an assassin biding their time somewhere close by?”
“Royal Knight mages with danger-sensing magic surround His Highness at all times,” I answered. Glancing at him, I added, “Given what happened with his sister a little while back, they’ve probably been doubled or tripled in number.”
He nodded. “They have. As long as there’s a chance of more traitors in the Royal Knights, security details have been doubled to provide redundancy.”
Blackmailing two knights with the same role would be a lot harder than one. Lady Chiara’s betrayal would not have been possible with a second knight mage nearby and doing the same job.
“But I have serious questions about someone who was nearby, just earlier, Your Highness,” Aenëe countered. “My treasures wouldn’t give me a clear reading, but they were reading possibilities, and the woman in question was positively dripping with Dark mana, at a level I can’t imagine any mortal achieving. I was seeing levels I should only see in a creature like a demon.”
I knew immediately who she meant.
“She would have had dozens of opportunities back in school if she were an assassin,” I answered. “I agree that she seems suspicious, but if she has a malicious role, it should be something else.”
Ged had grown a very deep scowl during our exchange.
“You are referring to Miss Mirna?” he asked, in a dark tone.
“She’s not a demon, Your Highness,” I hastily told him. “I already know that.”
Then I noticed he had identified the right person with very little information. He already knew about her?
“You’re absolutely certain?” Aenëe asked. “My treasures…”
I interrupted, “Your treasures detected a very suspicious creature, composed almost entirely of mana, with only a dozen pounds at most of material substance, most of it Darkness, Fire, Wind and Aether, as well as a little of all other elements.”
Her brow bunched up. In a puzzled tone, she asked, “There’s no creature like that.”
“There are a few rare ones,” I disagreed.
“My Ladies, if I might interrupt you, please don’t give Miss Mirna any more thought. She is… not someone you need to focus on for now.”
“But Your Highness,” Aenëe replied in patient tones, “I clearly detected some kind of stealth spell attempting to prevent probing into her body. She’s concealing something within herself.”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “That spell has a different purpose.”
Aenëe simply blinked at me, tilting her head slightly.
“It specifically causes people to not be curious about her, so they don’t notice anything odd. It seems to be less effective on fairies, which is why we noticed her.”
I said that, but I privately wondered if Aenëe and I had each detected one out of two different spells.
I turned back toward Ged, “So Ged…”
“I said, don’t give her any more thought,” he stated firmly.
Fearing that her stealth spell might actually include some kind of brainwashing effect on mortals like Ged, I let out a short sigh, blowing out my cheeks, then replied, “Your Highness, as a royal knight…”
He cut me off, hardening his voice. “Then let me say this much. The very fact that Miss Mirna is not mortal is a long-standing royal secret. Ti, I will tell you later, in private, as a member of the royal family, but I can’t say more in front of My Lady Aenëe. Can we drop this and get back on track, My Ladies?”
I actually wrestled with that request for a moment, since I was still worried about brainwashing, but Ged was adamant. Even if I didn’t believe him, I needed to let it go for the moment and pursue it later.
“Alright, Your Highness,” I agreed. “So, in the interest of getting back on track, I will say this. No matter what the enemy’s plan might be, your next move is obvious. You must pull up stakes and march the army out of here, starting tonight if possible.”
