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On Huade, instant communication does not connect the world 24/7 the way it does on Earth. The cost of communication puts the world at the information level of the telegraph age. Despite the existence of ‘video call’ magic, most news travels between regions in dribbles and bits through much narrower bands of communication. Information passes from one station to the next in short texts the size of newspaper articles.
My interception of Trisiagga’s conversation with Lord Durash had put half of the communication captain’s people to work on the ‘Royal Network’, the links to the various locations of Royal Family members. Despite that, information from two of those locations had a frustrating lack of clarity, partly because of the speed of information, but mostly because of the great number of unknowns.
At the heart of the problem was a shocking event. Demons had targeted Rod and Amelia as I had warned, but the attacks Uncle Owen and Mother were carried out by fairies.
Putting aside the troublesome question of how the demons had arranged for fairies to attack, the fairy participation itself was a huge escalation in Orestania’s civil war, and it devastated both locations.
Worse, Mother and Uncle Owen’s whereabouts were currently unknown.
In Atianus, Owen’s mortal guards were dead, and he and Serera were nowhere to be found. Most of the fairy attackers were dead as well, but the remainder had escaped.
“Exactly how did they lose track of my father?” Ged demanded.
The poor communication captain was only relaying the information in her report. She looked a little intimidated by the prince demanding answers from her. I squeezed his forearm and prompted, “Ged,” under my breath.
He frowned at himself, or perhaps at my usage of his nickname, then nodded. “Please just relax and report, Captain. Do you have any details on how my father disappeared? Are there witnesses? Have the mages reported their survey yet?”
The Royal Knights would surely have forensic experts all over the battleground, trying to reconstruct the events.
“The headquarters were completely demolished in the attack, Your Highness,” she explained. “It took time even to ascertain that His Majesty was missing rather than merely trapped under a fallen tent, so the information that the Knights can reconstruct is limited. My last report is that they are calling in a team of divination specialists.”
The captain went on to describe was different eyewitnesses reported, which Ged summarized at the end as, “Ultimately, all we know in terms of hard facts is that Father was last seen under the guard of Lady Serera and the royal knights, and she was last seen pursuing a fleeing group of fairy warriors.”
“Suggesting that they had just abducted His Majesty,” the captain confirmed while nodding. “But other than possibly Lady Serera, nobody actually witnessed His Majesty being carried away.”
Ged considered it all, then nodded. “Lady Serera was with us for several weeks before Lady Sasara asked her to go to Atianus to protect Father in her absence. I feel I became fairly well-acquainted with her in that time. She and Lady Sasara are very close friends, and she would have taken Sasara’s loved one’s protection very seriously. She would only have left the headquarters if Father were no longer there. Logically, we can assume she was pursuing after they carried him away.”
The Prince then surprised me with his next words. “So, then, what is the news out of Pendor? Is Lady Sasara dead or alive?”
“Is she what?” I immediately yelped, but Ged put his hand on my shoulder to quiet me. It should have reassured me, but it didn’t.
“Unknown, Your Highness,” the captain replied briskly. “But we have firm information that the corpse initially believed to be the duchess was a body double.”
For the record, I don’t think the captain knew she was talking about my mother. She didn’t look to see either my anxiety or my relief. I think I would have been careful of the most affected person’s feelings while reporting news like that.
She went on to give a more detailed report. It turned out that Mother’s people in Pendor had thought for a short period that the attackers had succeeded in killing her. My sister Amana, who had recently started serving Mother as a combat mage, averted the sudden leadership crisis when she identified the deceased as one of our older sisters, a fairborn who had been standing in for the duchess while Mother took off on an unknown mission.
Magic races like fairies and fairborn shrivel up and dry out like mummies within an hour of death, so only somebody with fairy sight can easily identify them. The soul’s aura is gone and the physical appearance becomes terribly distorted, but the residual mana in the body bears their distinctive mana signature for many years after death. Amana was apparently very certain that this body was our “Older Sister Inda”, not Mother.
In her absence, Amana and Mother’s Lord Deputy were currently working together to maintain order.
Ged still had his hand on my shoulder. He leaned down to look into my eyes with his brow bunching up.
“Are you alright?” he wondered.
Once I realized he was talking about the death of my sister and not my mother’s disappearance, I thought about it, then shrugged. “I’m not sure what to feel, Your Highness. It’s strange to hear about the death of a sister I have never met. I’m hearing about her death in the same breath that I’m learning her name.”
His eyebrow rose, as understanding sunk in about exactly how estranged I was from the dead woman under discussion. Aenëe wasn’t as quick on the uptake.
“You didn’t know your sister’s name?” she retorted, a little shocked.
With a sigh, I nodded. “I know that sounds bad, but Mother never tells me much about my fairy side. My biological mother is a very ancient fairy, and most of my older sisters are ancient, as well. The only one I’ve ever met is Amana, the fairy that the captain mentioned. Even though she’s almost a century old, she’s my youngest older sister.”
Inda’s death was at least more believable news than Mother being dead. I’m sure if I had heard of my mother’s purported death before Amana ended the misunderstanding, I would have only laughed out loud at the preposterous idea of Mother being defeated.
Ged cleared his throat. “Your foster mother Sasara would count as another sister, of course.”
Don’t blow her cover, his eyes were saying while he spoke.
I nodded with a wry smile and explained, “Out of respect for her wishes, I don’t count her. Mother has never admitted either that she’s my biological sister or that Deharè is her mother, Your Highness.”
We both know the whole thing is a white lie for the public, but he gave a nod of concession and admitted, “True.”
The news from the Dragonsbacks was much clearer. Royal knights participating in the effort to secure the entry into Ilim Below and stabilize the region had converged to form a defensive perimeter around Rod after my warning. After deflecting the surprise attack, they had spirited him off to a secure location.
In Arelia, Allia’s Company, meaning her daughters and the Hero’s Party sans Ryuu, had not yet left after escorting Amelia to take refuge with the king of that country. That fact felt a little surreal to me, thanks to all the time I had spent in Sky Ocean, and I had to remind myself that it had only been eight days since I saw them last, and they had spent a majority of that time on the road, returning to Dausindiu.
With Allia’s help, Matthias and the Arelians had absolutely crushed the demonic attack on Amelia. It helped that the demons didn’t seem to know exactly where to find the princess in the first place, as if they had the general information that she would be in the capital, but not precisely where. Matthias had used the uncertainty and some advanced illusion skills to get the demons to swarm an ‘Amelia’ who was actually a very well-armed Allia, while Allia’s company hid the real princess in a safe location.
“The bottom line is, Amelia and Rod are safe, but we don’t know the whereabouts of either Father or Lady Sasara,” Ged summarized.
“But three out of five in the Royal Family are safe, Your Highness,” I noted. “The odds are good for the other two. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lady Serera and Mother had a plan to get His Majesty safely away, and that’s why all three are missing.”
The Prince nodded while listening, then, while straightening his glasses, corrected, “Four out of six. You forgot to count yourself, Ti.”
I cleared my throat while looking away. I stopped myself from insisting, I’m just Rod’s fiancée. After all, I had counted Mother, a concubine.
My reason was that, after the rebellion split the loyal regions in two, she had in effect become viceroy in the south. The other loyal provinces, Teriedor and Suldor, had been immediately crushed by Parna and Cullen, leaving only the Duchy of Pendor, making the duchess thereof the sole ruler, albeit ruling in the name of her husband the king.
I deflected his point with a smile. “The enemy led five attacks on five targets, Your Highness. I was not one of the targets.”
Ged made a slight chuckling sound, barely loud enough to hear, then nodded. After that, he grilled the captain for several more minutes, getting what additional details he could about the current status of his siblings. Then, it was my turn to report. As far as the prince and his people knew, hordes of demons might still be preparing to descend upon us.
“How much do your people understand about what happened at the mines, Your Highness?” I asked.
“The mages confirmed a mass movement of demons from the mines, then large explosions. My troops have done battle with a handful of survivors, but the rest seem to have been wiped out. Did you perhaps have something to do with it?”
My eyes grew, and I had to stop from laughing. “I’m… not my mother, Your Highness. Maybe Deharè could have done that, but I’m sure I couldn’t. It seems the Mountain King in this region decided to seal the demons in the mines before they became a threat to her people. She won’t offer any further assistance, though.”
Ged’s forehead wrinkled, and he straightened his glasses again. Finally, he asked, “How did the Mountain King become involved?”
“I passed a warning about the demons to the dwarves yesterday just before I returned, Your Highness. I only intended for them to seal themselves underground to avoid the danger, but it seems the Mountain King chose a more proactive solution.”
Aenëe looked puzzled, since she hadn’t seen or heard me do any such thing, but she said nothing. I really had, though, sending my spiritual voice directly to the chieftain.
“So the demons are ‘sealed’ rather than destroyed,” Ged mused. “Meaning there are probably survivors underground.”
“There are survivors,” I confirmed. My bat was still flying around down there, so I could see those survivors, first hand. “They will dig out eventually, I’m sure. We need to plan with that assumption.”
Ged heard the news, nodded gravely, and thought deeply. Then…
“It couldn’t be worse timing, but I must head to Atianus,” he stated firmly. “Perta, you will take over this brigade. Tieg will command my division overall with a brevet rank of general, with orders to prevent a demon advance on Thuriben. I’ll leave it to the two of you to sort out who commands his regiment in his absence.”
Perta frowned, then stated, “Your Highness, we need you to stay in the North until we can stabilize the situation, both here and in Atianus. Depending upon what happens in the coming days, Atianus could become too dangerous a place for you.”
“They have no leader down there!”
The aging military aristocrat hardened his voice as he suddenly switched from his adviser role to that of a senior lord admonishing a young royal. “The King can lead from Thuriben or Bray and still hold out against the usurper, Your Highness! If he were to go to Atianus while the situation was uncertain and the rebels captured him, Cullen would immediately become the victor!”
The prince squared his chin. “Colonel, I don’t follow you. My father is already in Atianus.”
“He’s not talking about His Majesty, Your Highness,” I replied. “He’s talking about you.”
He looked at me, his eyes narrowing and his brow furrowing. I shook my head. Subconscious denial was keeping him from hearing it.
I hated to say it, but I said it, anyway. “Your Highness, the colonel is reminding you that you may already be the King.”
