The Delegation (0)
"What an audacious bastard. Even more so than I'd heard."
Raphael rose from his chair. The fork that had fallen to the floor floated up on its own and settled back into his hand, its crumpled shape quietly smoothing back to form as if it had never been bent at all.
"You seem to think you're something special."
Raphael came toward me, step by deliberate step.
"Men with talent like yours have always existed. One in ten million, perhaps. Your kind numbers in the dozens across the Empire alone."
His blue eyes fixed squarely on mine.
"I am the apex of all mankind."
"...I confess I don't follow why you're telling me this all of a sudden. Did I belittle your talent, Your Highness?"
"Kneel."
The command came in a voice thick with boredom. "Show the imperial family the respect it is due. Do that, and I will consider your proposal."
"Is this a required step in negotiations?" I asked, turning to King Sandor.
"If I were you, I wouldn't ignore the prince. Not if you want any subjects left to rule."
Sandor's yellow eyes gleamed with madness.
So the imperial family did intend to crush me by force. Exactly as expected. If they'd wanted serious negotiations, they would have sent the prime minister, not a pair of lunatics.
The Emperor has his reasons for needing to make Mabel a duke. And I have mine for needing to become one.
Which meant this table had never been open to compromise in the first place.
And if that was the case, there was no reason to curry favor with any of them.
"Very well."
I nodded. "If the imperial family shows my duchy the respect it is owed first, I will kneel."
Raphael's brow twitched.
"Three years ago, the imperial family found itself beholden to House Esterzy. That was the moment the crown owed this duchy its proper respect. It never paid."
The Floating Castles the demons had occupied were annihilated in a single stroke — by Kalman and me. The Emperor should have summoned me then and commended the effort. Rewarding merit and punishing failure is the barest virtue of a sovereign.
"You crow over catching one measly demon viscount? I could erase a worm like that with a flick of my finger."
"One measly demon viscount... I suppose one could see it that way."
I let a laugh slip. "Though isn't it amusing, coming from the man who calls himself the apex of mankind?"
Then I pointed a finger at the air above my own head. "That he's never once looked above it."
"Sandor."
Raphael turned to the king. "Teach this uneducated monkey some manners."
"As you command."
Sandor stepped forward.
"Don't blame me, Iden. You brought this on yourself."
Sandor's arm melted into sand and poured away, and the spilled sand came whirling at me like a typhoon.
His Awoken Ability was Sands of Eternity.
No swordsman, however brilliant, can fight a sandstorm. I'd heard he took pleasure in using this power — the power to turn his own body to sand — to torture his opponents.
I stood calmly with my hands clasped behind my back, and just before the wind could touch me, I gave a single soft puff of breath. In an instant a ferocious gale erupted and hurled the entire sandstorm back toward Raphael.
"Your Highness!"
With an expression of pure contempt, Raphael lazily raised his left hand.
VMMMM——!
A transparent barrier bloomed over him. Grains of sand hammered against it like hail.
SHUNK—!
And a jet-black thunderbolt speared through the chest of a very startled Sandor.
"What the—?"
Sandor muttered, staring down at his own chest in open bewilderment.
What had skewered him was the fork Uld had hurled. Wrapped in a coil of black sword-qi, it spun back into her waiting hand.
Blade Command.
The ultimate technique — wielding a weapon by will alone. Uld fixed Sandor with a glare of terrifying intensity.
"You brought this on yourself."
Killing intent rolled off her in waves. Once Uld had a weapon in hand, rank and decorum ceased to exist.
"...Well, I'm impressed. I took that young lady for a decoration."
The hole punched through Sandor's chest repaired itself almost at once, sand flowing back into place, and his arm wasn't far behind.
But his body had not fully restored itself. His left hand was still missing below the wrist.
"Looking for this?"
I asked with a pleasant smile. A fistful of sand, packed tight as a ball, hovered in the air before me. Sandor reached out with his right hand to call it back.
"...What is this?"
The sand refused to obey. Sandor's face flushed a furious red, veins bulging across it, and though he strained until it seemed something might tear, the sand did not so much as tremble.
"How did you bind my sand?"
Sandor asked, and there was something like admiration in his voice.
"That's a secret."
Because this entire conference room is a formation built for the sole purpose of binding you, that's why.
The original plan had been to take King Sandor hostage and tilt the negotiations in my favor, but Raphael had barged in uninvited and thrown a wrench in the works.
Not that it mattered. All I needed was to make it known that I was not a man to be trifled with.
"If you wanted a duel, you might have said so in advance."
I gave Raphael my brightest smile.
The turmoil behind Raphael's eyes was plain to see. He had meant, no doubt, to intimidate me into stamping my seal on the arbitration proposal.
"And how long do you intend to sit there watching, Kalman?"
Raphael said, irritation fraying his voice.
"I did not come here to fight."
Even with all this commotion breaking out around him, Kalman was calmly finishing his meal.
"Did you fail to hear that monkey spewing insults at me?"
"Lord Iden's point — that the imperial family must show respect first — was a valid one. Everything Lord Iden did afterward fell within the bounds of a proportionate response."
"Ha."
Raphael's scorn spilled out in a single bark of laughter. "The bastards who murdered my parents, banding together so loyally. Truly a sight to bring tears to one's eyes."
"That is quite enough."
Just then, Thalia came striding into the main hall, sword already drawn. Violet sword-qi billowed off her blade like rolling waves.
Raphael had exactly two choices left: fold up his pride and withdraw, or dig in his heels against three Grand Master-class powerhouses at once.
"...You've ruined the mood."
Raphael turned away. "Do not forget that the imperial family has not recognized you."
He walked out of the main hall with measured steps. I dispersed the formation and returned King Sandor's hand to him.
"Iden."
King Sandor called to me before following Raphael out.
"I look forward to the day we meet again. It will not go as it did today."
"Until then."
I would rather never see Sandor again, if I had any say in it. His eyes looked even less sane than Raphael's.
Kalman did not follow Raphael. He stayed behind and finished his meal.
"I'm grateful for the help, but you've made your own position considerably more difficult."
"I did not help you. I upheld my neutrality as a member of the delegation. That is all."
No — what he'd just done was nowhere near neutral. It had tilted squarely my way, as far as I could tell.
Or had I imagined it?
The blank mask of Kalman's face lent a great deal of weight to the 'imagined' theory.
"What was that about earlier? What the prince said."
I turned the prince's parting insult over in my head. I could have written it off as venom spat in a fit of temper, but his curse had clearly been aimed at both Kalman and me.
"The meal was good."
Kalman rose from his seat.
Through the window I watched the delegation's backs as they rode away.
So far, everything had gone according to plan.
Raphael's arrival had been the one surprise. If he hadn't come, I'd simply have prodded Sandor until he worked himself into a rage on his own.
The formation meant to bind Sandor's sand, unfortunately, had been spent. If Sandor had charged in on top of it all, it would have made a truly magnificent spectacle.
I pulled my gaze from the window and looked at Uld.
"Thank you, Uld."
"Hm?"
"For crossing swords with His Highness on my account."
"Oh no... what on earth did I even do...?"
Her eyes spun in slow circles. Apparently her senses were only now coming back to her.
"If you cast me aside now, you might still escape the charge of treason. What do you say?"
I asked it in a deliberately breezy tone. "You heard His Highness's offer. With your skill, you could well win a seat among the Seven Pillars."
"But a title is not why I came here."
"Then why did you?"
"Because I thought you were someone special, my lord..."
Uld's voice trailed into a mumble. Which left me, of course, looking like the villain for fishing.
The image of Uld squaring off against King Sandor armed with nothing but a fork was going to return to me for years. In that moment, even I had thought her someone special.
"Ahem. Hem."
Thalia cleared her throat behind me, and I whirled around. I hadn't even known she was in the room.
"The delegation appears to be leaving the holy city directly."
Thalia reported it in her usual flat tone. "We have also received word from Sir Talon that Lord Drek is safe."
"And the gifts?"
"Nearly ready."
Along one side of the ducal residence, cargo wagons laden to the brim stood in a row — wagons loaded with the fortune earned from the Oradium mines.
That wealth was bound for Second Prince Viro. As a bribe, more or less.
Esterzy territory was still healing from the wounds of the war with the demons. We could not afford to make an enemy of the imperial family on top of everything else.
Raphael was not emperor yet. And Viro was gathering a faction to stand against him. I intended to drive a wedge into those cracks.
"Why did Raphael call us bastards?"
Thalia gave me a sideways look.
"I'm a bastard, fine. But why Kalman?"
"You were not aware? The Sword Duke killed his own father and inherited his title among the Seven Pillars."
"...How?"
"A long time ago. His Awoken Ability manifested in the middle of a sparring match with his father, of all things. He tried to recall his sword mid-strike, but the nature of the ability would not allow it."
Kalman's Awoken Ability was the Sure-Hit Sword.
Sure-hit meant the blow could not be voided — could not be denied. In the end, Kalman had watched, wide awake, as his own hand killed his own father.
Kalman and I had never once exchanged a private word. I had never imagined he carried a wound like that.
Hold on.
Could that be why?
Had Kalman thrown his full strength behind my journey to save my father because he had seen his own past superimposed on mine?
Back then I had worked him to the bone under the pretext of leads for the investigation — and even at the time, I'd suspected that pretext was too thin to move a man like him.
...What is with this guy? Making a person feel all itchy inside.
At this rate, I was the one who'd been on the receiving end of one-sided generosity.
"I'll have to go to the capital."
"In person, my lord?"
"Yes. I'll look in on Kalman on the way, and settle accounts with Mabel while I'm at it."
I turned to Uld. "Will you come?"
A puzzled look crossed her face.
"If you'd rather not, you don't have to."
I gave her a smile. "You know as well as I do — we're not betrothed yet. If you set your mind to it, you can still make all of this as if it never happened."
The betrothal had already been postponed once. Leaving straight for the capital would postpone it again.
"I've already nearly been murdered by the First Prince, so next comes the showdown with my dear elder brother — and after that, a fight to the death with the Demon Duke. Hardly the married life you dreamed of, is it?"
I had assumed I could push the whole scheme through without a single pang of conscience, but something about meeting Uld's black eyes kept making my resolve go soft.
"I'm going to keep disappointing you. If you can live with that, take my hand."
"...You have never once disappointed me."
Uld laid her hand carefully on my arm. Her eyes looked up into mine, and they were certain.
"Not once."