§
I’ve mentioned this previously, but I don’t need nearly as much sleep as a mortal. The circadian rhythm of both fairies and vampires is highly syncopated. Their sleep/wake cycle has neither a relationship to day and night nor any set rules as to the length or limits, and few fairies have an established sleeping habit. It can only be said that the average fairy or vampire can generally not get away with a continuous waking state without eventually suffering a decline in health. Even so, a week or two without sleep is not particularly detrimental to our health, just mentally fatiguing.
Really, we go to sleep when we feel the need for a break. And we only sleep until it seems better for whatever reason to be awake. We can average an hour every other day or twenty three hours a day with an equal lack of health impacts, so our normal behavior is strictly a matter of personal preference.
And readers paying attention may have already noticed I don’t sleep much. I go out at night, I stay up crazy late, sometimes I just don’t sleep at all.
So looking back, I see that I skipped from bidding Amana good-night to having breakfast with Rod without saying a word about what I did in-between.
Well, for the first time since Tiana was a squire in the Royal Knights, she had a bedtime. A divinely-commanded bedtime, no less. I had been told it was to reduce the strain on Gaia’s amulet, but Rhea admitted later that it had actually been for the sake of Mother and Little Sister… or rather, my daughters, as Rod insists I start thinking of them.
No, for now, they still bear the identities of their past life, so I’ll keep calling them Mother and Little Sister until I’m actually pregnant with them.
Gaia’s purpose was to borrow an extra portion of my pneuma in order to relieve the stress on their souls. It was easy to think of them as being safe in Sky Ocean, but that was only their awarenesses. Their actual souls were with me, inside the amulet, and showing the first signs of fragmentation.
It has taken dozens of lives to repair my soul after fracturing when I succumbed to the Affliction. We wanted Mother and Little Sister whole and healthy in this upcoming life, not after waiting dozens of lifetimes for them to recover.
So, long story short, Gaia cast a divine blessing on me to ensure that I fell asleep and stayed that way for the night. I slept for a solid nine hours, which would have been unusually long even for my old identity as Robert. He usually slept only seven or so, even as a teenager.
That’s why I only learned what Amana had done with the information I gave her the previous night after I sent Rod and Mireia away to decide what they were going to do.
§
When I went looking for her, the staff directed me down to the South Bailey Courtyard, the open area inside the curtain wall between the Main Gatehouse and the Main Hall Keep. There, a pair of steam vehicles, possibly the same ones that had brought us here, were coming up to pressure off to one side while Amana held a final discussion with the team members for the mission to recover Mother and Uncle Owen. It seems that it takes quite some time to get the machines ready for the road, so they were staying out in the cool morning air while they waited.
I knew each and every of the team members, because they had all come with us from Atianus. It was the entire traveling party with the exception of my maids, Rod, Mireia, Sir Topas and Lady Halet. Even Garen, the Pendor house knight who had been my designated guard for the journey here was part of the mission. But…
“Aren’t the fairy warriors going with you?” I asked Lady Serera as Amana lectured Dilorè about some issue. The snippets I overheard suggested she had heard about Dilorè getting lured in the Lady of the Green Tower previously.
Serera replied with a puzzled frown, “Why would they do that?”
“Didn’t Grandfather send them to help retrieve Mother’s body?”
She gave me a gentle, barely audible “Hohohoho”, followed by an amused shake of the head.
“What’s so funny?”
“He very obviously sent them to guard his mother, my dear child,” she stated with arched eyebrows. Then gave a glance at Gaia’s amulet and added, “And his daughter. He charged Dilorè and me with retrieving her body. We should be sufficient. Those girls will be remaining here in Narses, or wherever else you may go. Which had better not be anywhere else than here, My Lady.”
“Two fairy knights against whatever demonic forces might be waiting for you…” I started.
“Ah, it’s not just fairies, my dear,” she answered with a mild smile. “Setting aside the fact that should you give the others more credit, we do have other forces joining us.”
Amana had wrapped up her lecture when she noticed me and came my way with Mathias and Ryuu trailing her.
As she arrived, she noted, “There are two hippalektryon squadrons waiting at the airfield where we landed your aircraft before. And we’ll have a flight of Sea Wyverns flying cover.”
My eyes grew. “Wouldn’t a stealth mission be a better idea? Going that big will attract too much attention!”
Mathias chuckled. “An even better idea is to go big with a long range air patrol that happens to secretly drop off the stealth mission close to the target, then leads any observers elsewhere.”
Serera added, “We’ll be overflying the target first, looking for dangers before we go in.”
“But you’ll still be on your own once you’re on the ground!” I fretted. “I should go with you…”
“No way!” Ryuu nearly shouted. “Not in your condition!”
“My condition?” I echoed, completely baffled. “I’m fully recovered!”
“Tiana-innan,” Amana interceded, “that’s not what he’s talking about.”
“Serera told us,” Ryuu stated, nodding. “You’re pregnant.”
My mouth dropped open, but then Serera’s spiritual voice came.
Don’t you dare say no. We can’t explain the real situation to them, but the fact that you’re going to have a couple babies is the reason you can’t come with us, so you might as already be carrying them. Just admit it and leave it at that.
Ryuu scratched the back of his head and added, “I guess… congratulations, I suppose.”
Then he put himself back into his old shoes as party leader and said more firmly. “And since that’s the case, you absolutely can’t come along.”
I frowned, then looked at Serera. “You should have asked first, before telling them.”
“Well this guy was demanding you come with us,” she answered, hooking her thumb at Ryuu. “And some others began agreeing. You’ve earned a lot of trust from these people. I had to tell them why it wasn’t an option this time.”
I noticed a problem. “But I have to. You said that Mother’s shield is built to only come down when one of her daughters touches it.”
“Which is why I’m going with them,” Amana stated. “I’m her daughter too, remember?”
“Wait, what? You’re going with them? What about the duchy?”
“His Royal Highness and I completed the handover of military command last night,” she stated. “As for the civil government, I’ve informed the vassals that you are now acting as Mother’s proxy. I also delivered the Privy Council’s declaration that your hubby is Viceroy of the South, and he informed them that you have his full backing as Acting Duchess.”
Exactly how much did you guys accomplish while I was asleep?
“What about the situation with the river warehouses? I ordered Amalis to report to you.”
“As he’s one of the vassals we informed, obviously he’ll be reporting to you, now,” she dead-panned, although the corners of her mouth were turned up slightly.
“Amana, I barely know anything about the situation here right now!”
She chuckled. “I went on a little hunt last night, checking other warehouses associated with that Beretin fellow. I turned up quite a few of his sins. I met with the viscount early this morning and I left a report for you on your desk.”
“My desk?”
“Mother’s desk. It’s your desk, now, right?”
My head was really starting to hurt… well, metaphorically, anyway. “Amana… at least explain that viscount. You said he was Lord Mayor, so how is he a viscount? I don’t understand the local politics here at all!”
She laughed and then shook her head. “It’s not like I know much more than you, right? I was only filling in for Elder Sister, remember?”
She was right. Amana had simply been working for Mother as a mage. Inda was the one who had been acting as her double. She had this situation just dropped in her lap, too.
“I can tell you that the Viscount is an urban lord. His ancestors voluntarily let your father annex their territory many centuries ago. In return for surrendering peaceably, he let them keep their title but didn’t let them keep their land. They’ve been rotating the mayorship of Narses with a handful of urban barons ever since.”
Dukes of Orestania have titled vassals, normally barons and baronets. But viscounts in Orestania are glorified barons, just like how marquesses are glorified counts, so dukes can elevate their senior-most lords to viscounts.
Counts and below can only have untitled lords for vassals, so the title of viscount is actually pretty uncommon. And I had never heard of an urban lord– an aristocrat with a hereditary title but no domain to govern– having the title before. I wondered if Amalis was unique.
I was glad my sister told me. I would have offended the man if I ever asked him where his territory was.
She may have read that thought on my face, because she nodded. “There’s a notebook on your desk that Mother made for Elder Sister. It was her cheat sheet, with all the information about the vassals and the territory that she needed to know to act as Mother’s stand-in. You should read it as soon as possible.”
Left without anything else to argue against, I just gave a weak nod, then looked around at everyone who had gathered around us.
Lady Chiara had tucked in beside Ryuu. She smiled and asked, “So it’s really true? You’ve got a baby coming?”
“Um… yeah,” I admitted. I had already accepted that I wasn’t getting out of it, anyway.
“Congratulations!” she replied, her eyes sparkling.
The others began echoing her. My brow bunched up as I shook my head.
“I’m not up to the point of being happy about it.”
“I’m having trouble imagining it,” Ryuu declared. “You don’t seem like you would even do something like that.”
“Ryuu!” Chiara scolded, horrified, as my cheeks began blazing red.
But Dilorè and Serera, both of whom knew the truth about it, burst out in laughter, a mixture of Serera’s hohoho and Dilorè’s merry, sparkling giggles. They weren’t about to pass up the opportunity to tease me.
“She’s half fairy, right?” Dilorè noted, still giggling. “We’re not known for holding back.”
“It was bound to happen,” Serera agreed. “After all, she’s got such a handsome fiancé, right?”
“Will you two please not do this?” I begged. I don’t think I could blush any harder.
Amana hugged me around the shoulders, “You just heard her. We fairies don’t hold back.”
I gave a dissatisfied sigh as my sister, too, began laughing.
The steam cars were ready to travel, and the drivers called for the team to load up. I wished them good luck and stayed to watch them drive off, bound for the airfield.
I know that Rod, Mireia and my maids were still with me, but it was a lonely feeling watching most of my allies in the castle disappear through the portcullis. I was having to fight the urge to fly after them. Especially since I still wanted to go fetch Mother myself.
If I wasn’t in a kimono, which was preventing me from growing my wings, perhaps I would have done it. Of course, even if I had, I would have remembered Rhea’s dire warning and returned. We needed to make Serera’s claim the truth before tomorrow. I couldn’t afford to leave.
After another dissatisfied sigh, I turned and walked back to the Main Hall Keep. It’s a massive, imposing building, filling more than half the space of the huge South Bailey, the main fortification of the castle. So it projected an oppressive atmospher as I walked back into it. Even though I was in agreement with the plans, I might as well have been entering a prison.
