The Shadow of Isanta
Desidero explained in exhaustive detail how the Duke of Paeroa had risen after that miracle and how, afterward, he had channeled his bitter resolve into plotting a meticulous counterstrike.
Tichite sifted through the rambling praise and lingered only on the parts that mattered.
So he held on for some time even after the oil touched him? But it seems he soon began to rot, becoming no different from a corpse. Naturally they never even thought to check whether he was still breathing. After all, who would dare imagine that anyone could survive being drenched in the Sun God's Oil?
If everything Desidero said was true, it was a story that could only feel like divine salvation. She could understand why he would revere it as a miracle and grace bestowed by the Moon Mother.
“Perhaps the princess used a slightly different oil? It might have been diluted…”
Desidero narrowed his blue eyes and glared at her. His expression made it clear he had no interest in considering her theory; he simply wished she would drop the distasteful subject.
Tichite realized her hypothesis had unwittingly trespassed on a believer’s unshakeable faith.
Desidero stared straight into her black eyes, as though searching her face for any trace of Isanta.
“Tilamin women are terrifying creatures. That notion—if I cannot have her, I will ruin her.”
The young man muttered the words, then snorted and turned his head away.
“Well, not every Tilamin woman is like that, I suppose. At any rate, that was Isanta. And the end of her greed was utterly wretched.”
He added that the princess had lost her life during the war. Tichite had expected to hear that Nyx had taken revenge himself, but the man who drove a blade into Isanta’s heart was not an enemy knight—it was her own servant.
“She was a dissolute woman. She laid hands on any handsome servant who caught her fancy, they say. She would whisper empty promises of making them her royal consort, shower them with favor as if she would grant them any honor or power they desired, then, the moment her interest cooled, have them removed from her sight as casually as clearing a plate. In the end one of them nursed a grudge and exacted revenge. In the chaos of war, killing a single woman would have been trivial. It was a pity I could not deliver the blow myself, but I thought it a most fitting end for her. A hollow, filthy death—like a dog in the gutter.”
As he spoke, Desidero gave a cold laugh. At first glance the sneer looked almost refreshing, even cathartic.
He had once said Nyx would not welcome a woman in Tilamin dress. Yet now it seemed the one who truly, viscerally loathed it was not the Duke but Desidero himself. In the gaze he turned on her, Tichite felt a deep, unmistakable contempt.
The man’s uncomfortable stare lingered on her headscarf. Pretending not to notice, she asked another question.
“May I also ask who the other woman was?”
“The other woman?”
“You said earlier that two women had ruined His Grace’s life.”
Before she could hear the answer, a loud shout rang out from beyond the carriage.
“Halt! Halt!”
The voice came from the head of the column—calm, yet carrying powerfully.
“Small cavalry unit sighted ahead! Approaching from the two o’clock position!”
The Iron Horse Knights had been riding in a wide arc around the tallest peak. As they rounded the ridge they met an unidentified party that had chosen a nearly identical route from the opposite side. This was the point where the mountain path joined the road to Pass Valley; with two trails merging into one, collision had been inevitable.
Nyx raised his arm and ordered the column to stop. The riders obeyed his signal. Horses slowed and halted. Everyone strained to identify the armed soldiers galloping toward them.
At a glance their numbers were far too small to threaten the Iron Horse Knights, yet no one relaxed. Meeting armed, mounted men on the road always demanded vigilance; men who carried steel could find cause to fight for any reason.
Sometimes the wisest way to learn an unknown party’s identity was to declare your own first.
Nyx frowned and flicked his hand upward.
“Raise the banner.”
“Raise the banner!”
“Hoist the colors!”
The Duke’s command echoed from front to rear, center to flanks.
The standard-bearers untied the ropes and unfurled the ash-gray banner of the Iron Horse high into the sky. The black warhorse emblazoned upon it reared proudly.
The other side raised a rather shabby, dirt-stained flag of their own. Nyx did not need a herald to recognize its owner.
A triangular banner on a deep green field, showing a stag with lowered head drinking from a stream.
Any knight of the Iron Horse Knights would know that flag at once. Their own commander had once ridden beneath it.
It was the crest of Count Belar’s house in Elvenlake.
And if a Belar was coming from this direction, there could be only one possibility.
“…Abigail.”
Nyx murmured the name he had no wish to encounter, his palms—now slick with sweat—tightening on the reins.
Inside the carriage, unaware of any of this, Tichite was wound tight with tension. She thought a fight was about to erupt. The knights’ atmosphere was honed to a razor’s edge, as though they could draw steel at any second.
“Don’t worry. They are our greatest allies.”
Once Desidero realized who they were, he reassured her in an utterly casual tone. She opened the shutter and peered outside. If she leaned out a little farther she could see Nyx standing slightly back.
The men had clearly lowered their weapons and abandoned any fighting stance, yet an odd hesitation still lingered in the air.
That reluctance seemed to stem from the way they kept glancing at the Duke, gauging his mood.
When Nyx faced an uncomfortable situation, it was Louis who stepped forward as his proxy.
“I did not expect to see you again so soon. Did you not leave a full day ahead of us?”
“It has been four days, Sir Louis.”
One of the opposing knights rode forward and offered a greeting. He also gave Nyx a respectful salute. The Duke returned a perfunctory nod and observed the exchange from one pace behind.
Louis continued, his voice carefully laced with concern.
“So you are also passing through Pass Valley. But… what in the world happened? It looks as though you’ve suffered a rather unpleasant accident.”
Indeed, the other knights were in poor condition. Their armor was caked with dirt, dented in places, and streaked with dried blood.
Sir Bolzen Belar was Count Belar’s cousin and the de facto leader among them. His armor was an excellent piece befitting his station, yet now the brim of his helmet was bent at an awkward angle.
The rest were little better. A dangling cheek-guard hinge was the least of their troubles; one man had lost his entire faceplate and wore a bandage in its place, the cloth soaked bright red.
With his crooked helmet, Sir Bolzen answered in a weary, troubled voice.
“We were ambushed by bandits on the mountain slope.”
“Oh dear. Is the young lady safe?”
“Of course. Belar’s brave knights drove them off.”
Sir Bolzen squared his shoulders with pride as he spoke, but the sight of his battered comrades quickly deflated him again.
“As you can see, our own losses are not small.”
“Perhaps it’s because you insist on traveling in a carriage that might as well be a jar of honey,” Nyx cut in, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Small wonder the bees came swarming.”
Abigail’s carriage was indeed painted in bright colors and trimmed with gold leaf, gleaming with ostentatious luxury. It might as well have borne the words Please rob me in large letters across its side.
“At least the windows survived. Someone ought to tell her that a carriage like that is only suitable for traveling from the front garden to the back.”
Nyx gave the reins a light tug with his right hand. His mount turned and advanced several steps.
Sir Bolzen ignored the mockery. His eyes shone with desperate hope as he looked at the Duke, clearly convinced Nyx would accept whatever request he was about to make.