The Clear Skies of Return
The black smoke clouds had vanished. The sky stretched overhead, clear and brilliantly blue.
When Jeanne opened her eyes, a thick, callused hand waited before her.
Without thinking, she reached out and took it.
“Shall we continue, Your Highness?”
“Fabian…?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Jeanne blinked at the elderly knight who addressed her with such deference, unable to believe what she saw.
“I was definitely… at the stake…”
“What are you saying, Your Highness?”
Fabian’s voice carried a note of confusion as he pulled her to her feet.
Jeanne rose with his help and looked around.
Her body, which should have been charred by flames, was completely unblemished.
Instead of a prisoner’s rags, she wore neat, well-fitted hunting clothes.
There was no execution ground, no jeering crowd—only a wide meadow of soft grass and the two of them.
“Seeing you here, this must be the afterlife.”
Jeanne reached her conclusion.
She had died, and now she was reunited with Fabian, who had left the world before her.
For the first time in her life, Jeanne felt peace.
Even if this was nothing more than a fleeting vision unfolding in her mind on the way to death, it was enough. If this dream would soon shatter, she would not waste a single moment of it on hesitation.
“I can’t remember the last time I crossed blades with you.”
“We sparred only yesterday, Your Highness.”
“Yesterday?”
Before she could say more, Fabian’s sword came flying at her.
Their training had always been like this. Because an enemy would not attack only from the front, they prepared for ambushes and sudden strikes.
Jeanne still felt slightly dazed, unsure what was happening, but she decided to simply enjoy this moment with Fabian. It had been so long.
She lightly parried his blade and took a step back.
Fabian pressed the attack again.
Jeanne had a habit of retreating one step after defending from the lower right.
No matter how often Fabian pointed it out, she had never quite corrected it.
This time, too, he aimed precisely for that weakness.
But the result was different.
“Huh?”
As if the opening had been deliberately shown, Jeanne deflected Fabian’s sword with effortless grace.
Her response was so unlike the Jeanne he knew that Fabian faltered in surprise.
“That was the very flaw I corrected only yesterday. You’ve already fixed it. Well done, Your Highness.”
“When you survive a brush with death, you change.”
“A brush with death? What do you mean by that?”
Instead of answering, Jeanne seized the opening and flowed into a counterattack as naturally as water.
There was no hesitation in the thrust of her blade.
The tip of her sword came to rest against Fabian’s throat. Jeanne immediately lowered it.
Fabian took one step back and bowed his head.
“Your skill has improved greatly.”
“I didn’t waste those six years.”
After her eighteenth birthday and before she was sent to the enemy prison, Jeanne had lived on the battlefield for six years.
She had overcome countless crises and cut down countless foes with her own sword.
All that experience remained with her, intact.
But was I truly able to defeat Fabian this easily?
Jeanne possessed the same peak-level swordsmanship she had held at the moment of her death, yet Fabian’s ability seemed to have regressed compared to the last time she had seen him.
It was as if she were sparring with the version of him from long ago, when she had still been a teenager.
“Six years… that would be about the time since Your Highness first took up the sword. I know you love swordsmanship, but perhaps we should end early today? A party awaits you.”
“A party?”
“Goodness, have you forgotten your own birthday? As the master who taught you, I even prepared a gift. It would sadden me if you did not attend.”
A sense of déjà vu washed over Jeanne.
Time seemed to slow.
She already knew what words would come next.
“I am certain you will like it. The gift I prepared is…”
…Autclair.
Jeanne predicted the words before they left Fabian’s mouth.
“It is Autclair.”
No—she remembered.
Autclair. The short sword she had carried even on her final battlefield.
It was as if cold water had been dashed over her. Her mind snapped into focus.
This was neither heaven, nor a final hallucination of her dying brain, nor a dream.
It was impossible. It was unbelievable. Yet Jeanne remembered every detail of this day as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
If this was reality unfolding before her, it meant she had returned through time.
If so, then—
The Fabian standing before her was alive.
“Fabian…”
He looked far younger than when she had last seen him.
His hair had not yet turned white, and the deep lines on his face were gentle rather than carved by exhaustion.
Jeanne dropped the sword she cherished and threw her arms around him.
“Your Highness?”
“I missed you.”
Her guard knight, her swordmaster, the man who had been more of a father to her than her own.
In her previous life, Fabian had died protecting her.
Even with arrows piercing his entire body, he had stood tall until his final breath. That image of his back had been etched deep into her heart.
The warmth she felt against her body was real.
Only then was Jeanne certain this was neither dream nor afterlife.
“I’m sorry. Truly… I missed you so much.”
Her face buried in Fabian’s chest, Jeanne’s voice trembled with unshed tears.
She who rarely showed emotion, who had been called the Ice Saint even by her own allies, was displaying something almost never seen.
Fabian gently patted the back of the girl he regarded as a daughter.
He did not know why she behaved this way, but he was always ready to accept whatever burdens weighed upon her heart.
After a little time passed, Jeanne stepped back from him.
She had held back her tears to the very end; her eyes were red, yet no tear tracks remained.
With a slightly hardened expression, Jeanne asked a question to confirm whether her memories matched this period.
“I heard Sir Liam departed for the front recently. Is that correct?”
“It is. So Your Highness knew as well.”
Jeanne bit her lip.
Taking her reaction for worry, Fabian spoke to reassure her.
“Liam can be hasty and charges in without regard for danger, but his skill is genuine. A mere band of pirates from the islands would be no match for—”
Jeanne cut him off.
“Liam will lose.”
“Pardon?”
“The Rotinzel army must be marching on the capital by now. The king will flee.”
Jeanne did not notice that she had unconsciously dropped all honorifics when referring to the king.
Fabian chose not to point it out.
Why today, of all days? If I had returned even a month earlier—no, even a week—I might have had time to prepare.
There was too little time to mount any meaningful defense.
Jeanne retraced her memories of this day.
Right now, a grand war council would be underway.
If she wanted to change the predetermined future, she had to go there.
Bluisol year 418, June 7th. The day of Jeanne’s eighteenth birthday.
The day the first report of Bluisol’s defeat reached the palace.
“I must see the king.”
And the worst birthday on which she had been forced to shoulder the crushing burden of her nation’s fate.
Jeanne headed for the central hall where the ministers’ council was being held.
She pushed open the firmly closed doors of the conference room.
“You may not enter without permission.”
The king’s guard knight immediately stepped forward to block her path.
Jeanne drew in a deep breath, then looked the man straight in the eye.
“I am Jeanne Claretmer de Roire, princess of this realm and commander of the Second Knight Order. Open the door.”
“Even for a princess, it is impossible. His Majesty has ordered that no one be allowed inside.”
“Moreover, forgive me, but we have received no news of Your Highness’s appointment as knight commander.”
Jeanne frowned.
She had assumed she would be allowed to enter, but of course—she had returned six years into the past.
The eighteen-year-old Jeanne of this time was not yet commander of the Second Knight Order.
There is no time to waste.
The old Jeanne would have waited for someone to intervene on her behalf, but now every second mattered.
“That will not be a problem. You will hear of it soon enough. There is no place within this palace where I, a member of the royal family, cannot go. Stand aside.”
Jeanne shoved the knight blocking her path and opened the doors to the central hall.
The knight tried to stop her, but Fabian moved to intercept him, allowing her to enter unhindered.
The sudden entrance of Jeanne and Fabian during the meeting drew every eye in the room.
Countless gazes fell upon them, carrying a variety of thoughts. Most were far from kind.
“This is no place for a woman to enter uninvited.”
“Before I am a woman, I am a member of this kingdom’s royal family. If you do not wish to be punished for your rudeness toward royalty, you would do well to shut your mouth.”
After silencing the insolent minister with a sharp warning, Jeanne strode without hesitation between the rows of high-ranking officials lined up on either side.
The stares clung to her, hotter than the sun-warmed air outside.
She approached the king.
“May this servant speak a word?”
Her clear, resonant voice filled the hall.
Jeanne’s tone had a way of commanding attention.
The king sat upon his throne draped in crimson cloth, looking down at everything with an arrogant expression.
“No matter your royal blood, you cannot interrupt a war council without proper cause. State your business.”
Jeanne quietly looked up at him.
She wondered why she had once feared this man so much.
He was nothing but a coward who thought only of saving his own skin, a pathetic wretch who would send loyal subjects to their deaths for the sake of power.
“I have heard that war has broken out.”
“That is none of your concern.”
No matter how many years she had traveled back, every event she had lived through remained as vivid as yesterday.
Resentment and fury surged within her, but Jeanne struggled to keep her feelings hidden.
“I have always understood that a true monarch must lend an ear even to the voice of the lowest subject. Since Your Majesty has already dispatched Sir Liam, I know my words as a mere servant cannot sway your decision. Nevertheless, there is one fact I wish to convey.”
Sending Liam was a mistake. He will be defeated.
That was what Jeanne truly wanted to say.
But speaking so bluntly to the king could easily cost her her head, so she phrased her desire indirectly.
The king watched her with mild interest. Jeanne continued.
“Rumors say Rotinzel has brought a new weapon advantageous in cavalry battles. Since Sir Liam specializes in cavalry tactics, I grew concerned and came to speak.”
A year before the war began, Bluisol had sent an inspection delegation to Rotinzel.
Even then, rumors of the new weapon had already been circulating.
“I believe Sir Liam will use his strengths to meet the enemy at the Are Plains. But that would mean fighting on ground of the enemy’s choosing. I suggest we send additional troops at once to block them in the mountainous Leif region instead.”
Rotinzel’s new weapon was the matchlock.
It was more powerful than a bow, but its long reload time and short range meant a skilled knight could defend against it. The Bluisol knight orders had therefore not feared the weapon greatly.
Yet while the knights might block or dodge the shots, their horses could not.
Liam’s proud cavalry had been mercilessly cut down by volley after volley of bullets fired across the open plain.
It would be unwise to provoke the king by openly declaring that Liam will lose here.
Having offered her opinion, Jeanne bowed her head to the king.
There was no need to clash with him yet. The time was not right.