Artist
Artist
They had left Seini Forest behind, traveling west into the woodlands of the Ardar Barony.
Ahead stretched the uninhabited wilderness that led toward Hawk Hill—the most direct route to Olpasbet. The party halted there to rest.
It was that dim, uncertain hour before dawn when night and day bleed into one another.
Several campfires burned quietly beneath the fading moonlight and the first pale encroachment of morning.
The flames were wrapped in a hush of magic—smokeless and calm.
With no plume of soot to disrupt the stillness, the soft firelight filled the small clearing, blurring the faces of those seated around it into the darkness.
Aslan sat among them.
The Wings of Stymphalos were still strapped across his body, though he had stripped off his armor and hung it to one side.
Slumped low, he stared into the fire while his hand moved absently through a fall of red hair. The gesture drew out a bright, untroubled laugh.
The giggling—whether hee-hee or heh-heh—was soft enough not to wake a soul.
The elf girl, who had no need of sleep, simply basked under Aslan's stroking and let a quiet, drowsy smile settle on her face.
The jealous glare from the other girl seated beside them was merely a bonus.
None of the three needed sleep.
Not tonight, at least.
Aslan could get by with meditation. The girl's constitution meant a brief nap was more than enough. And the elf had never required sleep in her life. So the three kept watch over the campfires while the rest of the party rested.
Tiyamal was bundled so thoroughly in his blanket that he resembled some enormous cocooned monster, and his soft snores filled the background as the three traded trivial conversation.
Nice weather. Favorite foods. The talk was fragmented—two of them held few strong preferences either way—but it carried on nonetheless.
It only stopped when Ereta whimpered in her sleep.
"Tch."
Angie clicked her tongue and sighed. Fay regarded Ereta with expressionless blue-violet eyes.
Aslan glanced at each of them in turn before his gaze settled on Ereta, something like pity stirring in his expression.
They all felt differently about her.
Angie knew Ereta's history.
She knew exactly what kind of existence Ereta was, had seen with her own eyes and heard with her own ears what the woman had done.
She had witnessed what Ereta was capable of. She knew whose banner Ereta had served under.
By all rights, pity shouldn't have factored in. Yet the girl felt a strange, tangled pity all the same.
Jealousy was woven through it.
She couldn't decide who was more pitiable—herself, with a father worse than any evil god, or Ereta, whose mother was an evil god kinder than any human parent.
At least a father was something you could throw away. In the end, she figured she had it better.
So she envied her. Ereta had a mother she could cling to, even if that mother was an evil god.
Her sigh drew the attention of the other two. Angie caught both looks in sequence and flinched.
"What? Why are you—"
"Jealous?"
The girl had just forced her hunched shoulders back and was trying to bluff her way through when the word struck her silent.
The elf, wrapped in her blanket and drowsing enviably against Aslan's knee, had spoken the truth. Angie really was jealous of Ereta.
"No, I'm not. What exactly would I even be jealous of—"
"Really?"
She crossed her arms and forced a mocking smile onto her face, but the words caught in her throat. Her lips pressed tight, indignation surging behind them.
"I said no. I mean it. Not even a little."
Her voice quivered slightly at the very end. Fay watched her with half-lidded eyes and let out a brief laugh—carefully tuned to sound bright and charming.
"Suuure."
The drawn-out reply landed like something Ereta would have said, and Angie's clamped-shut mouth flew open.
"What do you mean, sure? No, seriously, it's not like that. It's not whatever you're thinking, it's just—Ereta's a little..."
"A little?"
A woman's voice this time. Angie's body went rigid as the worst possible scenario flashed through her mind.
Shoulders hunched unconsciously, she turned her head—and let out a breath of relief.
The speaker wasn't Ereta.
It was Rumel, who had risen early, gathered ingredients, and was already preparing breakfast.
"It's nothing!"
Rumel had tilted her head at the openly relieved sigh, but after that brusque reply she simply shot Aslan a puzzled look and set the pot down by the fire.
Aslan, for his part, had no intention of explaining, so he just shook his head.
In the end, Rumel was left out of the loop, busy pulling things from the cooking pot and putting other things back in.
An assortment of ingredients emerged one after another.
There was meat, already seared to golden brown, grease beading and dripping down its surface. There were the spices Rumel had been grinding since the day before.
Stew again, as always. Humming to herself, Rumel filled the pot with water and added the vegetables she had chopped in advance.
She layered the meat over the mound of vegetables and worked with quick, busy hands, scattering spices.
The three who had been trading idle talk watched the sight as if spellbound.
The slanted blue light of dawn, the woman's humming, the pleasant sound of water beginning to boil—and then Rumel produced one more ingredient. Fay let out a soft "Ah."
"Where did you get that?"
"...Oh, this? I asked Lady Maria to procure it."
Rumel answered with a cheerful smile. Her expression was so gentle it was hard to believe she was of noble birth. Even Angie made a small sound of interest and eyed the ingredients in her hands.
Cheese and milk.
Cheese was one thing, but milk was genuinely difficult to obtain.
Wasn't it the sort of ingredient that spoiled fast and got thrown away? Aslan figured no one short of a noble like Maria could possibly carry milk around.
'Probably used a magic tool. Something specialized for preservation...'
As he thought it, Rumel swept her braid back over her shoulder and spoke.
"Honestly, the atmosphere was a little unsettling, but she seemed... nicer than I expected."
Stirring the stew with a long ladle, Rumel was right enough—Maria was no villain.
That didn't make her a good person, either, but.
"I suppose so," Aslan answered lightly.
The bubbling of the stew filled the silence, and as the world slowly brightened, Rumel abruptly glanced behind her.
More precisely, toward the tent used by Richard and Maria.
In front of it, a handful of soldiers waited at ease. And among them, rigid and glaring openly at Aslan, stood Catherine.
Rumel met that stare, made an awkward face, and turned back to Aslan.
"I have a question."
Aslan stopped stroking Fay's hair and looked at Rumel.
Fay, unwilling to surrender even a moment of attention, tapped impatiently at his arm with her small hand, demanding he continue. He ignored her for the moment.
"Yes, go on."
"That... Lady Catherine, your escort. What exactly is your relationship with her?"
Catherine. Aslan's gaze flicked toward her just in time to see her bare her teeth the instant their eyes met, hostility radiating off her.
When he looked back at Rumel, her expression was complicated.
Having spent some time with Rumel now, Aslan had learned to recognize that faintly dazed look—it was the expression she wore when her mind drifted into speculation.
And sure enough, Rumel was speculating about his relationship with Catherine.
She had likely concluded that just as she herself had confessed, and just as Ereta subtly clung to Aslan, Catherine must have fallen for him and confessed too.
Aslan's standard response to such things was easy enough to guess. After that—unlike Rumel, who had resolved to keep waiting and loving him from a distance—Catherine had probably nursed a grudge.
'No, that's definitely it. There's no other reason she'd make a face like that.'
The truth, as far as Aslan was concerned, was considerably simpler. Before Rumel's fantasies could deepen, he allowed himself a faint smile.
"It's not as complicated as you're imagining. The truth is simple. When I was hired by Lady Maria for a few jobs, Catherine was assigned as my support. We had a disagreement that escalated into a fight. Catherine lost. Failed, rather. She's held a grudge ever since."
A disagreement. Fay and Angie, who knew Aslan well, could probably guess what that really meant. Rumel couldn't.
"What sort of disagreement? Were you, for example... in love...?"
"A revenge killing."
The answer didn't come from Aslan. It came from Catherine, who had approached with the silent step of a hybrid.
Rumel jolted so hard she nearly knocked the stew pot over. Aslan's hand shot out and caught it.
A pot that had been boiling moments ago—a pot that would leave severe burns on bare skin.
Rumel's eyes went wide. She flailed, caught between shock and horror, reaching for the leather flask at her belt to douse his hand with water, but Aslan shook his head.
Rumel cried out anyway.
"...Ah! Sir Aslan! Your hand—!"
"It's fine."
A dull warmth spread across the skin of his fingers. Nothing burned. Nothing blistered. Aslan set the pot back over the fire as casually as if nothing had happened.
Rumel looked at him with moist, worried eyes, and Aslan held out his perfectly unharmed right hand with a gentle smile.
"...Huh?"
Rumel was baffled. Catherine's face twisted with open irritation. Aslan looked between them and let out a soft laugh.
"It's a thing. Nothing you need to worry about."
He deflected their questioning stares and pulled his hand back.
He couldn't exactly tell them it was because he'd drunk dragon's blood and developed fire resistance.
If they asked how he knew what effect it had, he'd have no way to answer.
Instead, he turned to Catherine, who was still scowling at him as if he were an unpleasant smell.
"What is it?"
Catherine let out a scoff, her scarred face twisting, and jerked her chin toward the tent.
"Lady Maria summons you."
True enough, the tent flap was open just a crack.
*
"Come in."
He heard the brief permission and stepped inside, pulling the flap closed behind him. The instant it shut, a suffocating silence descended.
Inside the tent were Richard and Maria.
Maria sat in a chair with a teacup in hand, facing Aslan. Richard was wrapped in bandages from head to toe and looked, for some reason, utterly exhausted.
Aslan took them both in, blinked, and registered the magical energy drifting through the tent.
'This is... a silence barrier.'
A spell to keep sound from escaping. Mostly used to prevent eavesdropping, though it also found common use in lovers' bedchambers.
Then his luck-sharpened sense of smell caught an odor. A faint scent lingering in the enclosed space.
The kind of smell that only arises after skin has rubbed against skin. Aslan's expression went carefully blank.
He wasn't forcing a neutral face. The lack of reaction came naturally. Richard, apparently assuming Aslan hadn't noticed, greeted him with a tired expression.
"Sir Aslan... good morning."
"Yes, good morning, Sir Richard."
"You can speak casually. You used to speak casually before—"
"Sure, Richard."
"...Uh."
You could at least air the tent out before calling me in. Aslan suppressed a sigh and shifted his gaze from Richard's foolish grin to Maria.
Unlike Richard, whose skin still bore the distinct traces of sweat, Maria's body showed no signs whatsoever.
Her attire was immaculate. Not a drop of perspiration. There wasn't the slightest trace of desire or appetite in her eyes.
She'd already finished recharging, apparently.
Seeing Richard so drained while Maria looked untouched, Aslan privately understood why the man had been reluctant to meet with her.
"I heard you summoned me."
At Aslan's words, Maria smiled faintly.
She took a sip from her teacup and spoke at a leisurely pace.
"Olpasbet. How do you intend to enter, and what do you plan to do?"
Aslan didn't answer, waiting for her to continue.
"I understand that we must go to Olpasbet. But it's foreign territory, and the Baron of Olpasbet has been in seclusion lately, on high alert because of the recent civil war. Infiltration won't be easy under normal circumstances. So what will you do?"
The question, once she finally arrived at it, was exactly the one he had been waiting for. It was about time to broach the subject anyway.
Aslan allowed himself a faint smile.
"In truth, I'll need your help with that approach, Lady Maria."
Maria sipped her tea and regarded him with unreadable eyes, and Aslan recognized it as her way of pressing for an answer.
A look that seemed to ask if there was another option. Aslan recalled the route he had taken after killing the White-haired Chrome and making his escape.
"There are other methods, but... that route is troublesome and difficult. Hard to find, as well. If you assist me, we can resolve things more easily and safely."
"And that method would be?"
The teacup clinked softly as she set it down. Aslan noted the empty cup and recognized the gathering not as a casual tea but as post-coital hydration.
Then he let his expression turn faintly pitying.
She had to know. It just looked like she wasn't remembering.
Get a grip.
Perhaps her composure really was only surface-deep. Maria toyed silently with the teacup for a moment before her eyes widened.
"You don't mean—"
"Yes. I mean precisely that."
As if that were all that needed saying, Aslan and Maria both fell silent. Only Richard, utterly lost, wore a blank expression.
"...Um, Sir Aslan. Let me in on it too. What sort of plan...?"
Behind him, Richard still looked clueless, as if nothing was coming together in his head.
Aslan spoke.
"Prepare six mana restraints."
Richard still looked lost, but Maria's expression had turned troubled.