Do You Remember Me?

Antonio's pride far outstripped his ability, and his obstinacy ran deeper still. He meant to press a hopeless war to its end—not to surrender early and save even one more life, but to go on playing king until the last.

There would be no road by which he might survive in any case. Our sins are too many to hope for a miracle.

Ashatra, once a mighty desert kingdom, had been hollowed out by a civil war that lasted more than ten years. Refugees spilled across the land in droves, and neighboring Parsion seized every Ashatran who crossed the border and made slaves of them all. Those with superior bodies and striking beauty were sold throughout the world through the slave trade of Parsion's royal house.

So once the civil war was over, it was only natural that Ashatra's new king should march on Parsion. Everyone in that country must have hated it.

Elona rose from the bed and went to the window. The room where she had been confined for seven years was so small that five steps carried her from the bed to the glass. In a shabby cotton dress she shivered at the cold seeping through the cracks and looked down.

The royal castle had already fallen. Far off, the walls were coming down, and acrid smoke climbed from every quarter within. Soldiers in ivory moved freely through the palace, killing as they went. Elona closed her eyes to the screams and the crash of stone. Her turn would come soon enough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Behind her, someone hammered the wooden door as if to smash it apart. Elona flinched and turned her back on the window. Whoever meant to break in for want of a key was surely an Ashatran soldier. What would they do to her once they burst through? With trembling hands she undid the latch. She had just perched on the sill, ready to throw herself out at any moment, when the axe bit in and the door gave way completely.

In the instant she seized the frame with both hands, a huge man kicked the wreckage aside and stared straight at her. He was a middle-aged man of Ashatra, and one of his eyes was gone.

"Are you the princess of Parsion?"

The voice was blunt, but she felt no hostility in it. A little thrown, Elona nodded all the same, still taut with fear.

"Yes. I am the princess of Parsion, Elona de Parsion."

The giant gave a low hum and scratched his head. He stepped aside and waved back the soldiers who had come in behind him.

"It's dangerous. Come down from there. The warriors of Ashatra will not harm you, Princess."

"Who are you?"

"I am Tortan, Grand General of Ashatra."

A Grand General stood second only to the king, the second-in-command of Ashatra's host. Judging by his bearing ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the years worn into him, he did not seem to be lying. When Elona carefully set her feet to the floor, he cleared the debris from the doorway and led her through.

"Come with me. His Majesty is waiting."

The Majesty he meant would not be Antonio, but the King of Ashatra. Elona steeled herself and stepped beyond the door.

It was her first time outside in seven years—not since Kazan had died.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

The Farcion Royal Palace, once so beautiful, had become a ruin. Elona could not bring herself to look at the corpses strewn on every side. She walked on with her eyes fixed to Tortan's back, afraid she might find someone she knew among the dead. What became of my brother? Is he still alive?

If this war was revenge upon the royal house of Parsion for making slaves of Ashatra's people, then the chance that King Antonio still lived was vanishingly small. The thought that he might already be dead left her feeling strange. To imagine her half-brother gone from the world was, even in the midst of this slaughter, like being allowed ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to breathe. Her own turn would come next, regardless.

Then Tortan stopped.

"Your Majesty. I have found the princess. As the King of Parsion said, she was in the West Tower."

That honorific, more respectful than any she had heard from him, was surely meant for his king. No answer came, yet Tortan sank slowly onto one knee and settled there. As the view opened before her, Elona took in the sight and felt the soul go out of her.

At the heart of the Farcion Royal Palace, Ashatran soldiers stood packed in ranks along the long gallery of the central garden and across the wide open ground. Baleful eyes, like those of hell's own messengers, drove down upon her. Only one person was not looking at her.

Before the broken fountain at the garden's center stood a tall, striking man with his back turned. She could see nothing but that back, and yet his presence was so vast that the world around him seemed to blur. From the thick column of his neck and the breadth of his shoulders to the arms sheathed in hard muscle, he might have been a flawless statue cast in bronze. Perhaps that was why her gaze kept returning to his right arm.

Strong as it looked, that arm was covered in something like a dark-crimson tattoo. Geometric patterns whose meaning she could not guess, set against the imposing lines of him, gave off an air at ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once mysterious and threatening. There should have been no connection at all, and yet Kazan's words rose in her without warning.

"Ashatra lives under the gods' protection. We hope they will ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be gentle, and merciful. But..."

The man lifted his right hand without a word. At once the soldiers nearby seized her by the arms and dragged her toward him. A captive knelt helplessly before him, and when Elona came close enough to see who it was, she started in shock.

"Brother?"

The captive, his golden hair a wild tangle, was none other than King Antonio. Her face wavered in his bound, unfocused green eyes.

"Elona...? You're finally here!"

At the sight of Antonio laughing, eyes alight, Elona flinched. This was no moment for gladness, and his reaction was all wrong.

When she hesitated, the soldiers hauled her the rest of the way and forced her to her knees beside him. She had just gone white at the bloodstains scattered over the ground when Antonio bellowed at the King of Ashatra.

"You see? Elona's alive and in one piece! There—I handed this bitch over, just as I promised, so let me go this instant!"

Elona doubted her own ears. His kingdom lay in ruins amid the roar of its fall, and still Antonio was trying to bargain with a merciless conqueror, offering up his own younger sister. Her face burned with stunned disbelief.

"Did we ever make a promise?"

From high above her head came the King of Ashatra's quiet voice. Heard for the first time, it was a low tone she already knew.

No. Not a voice she was hearing for the first time....

"What are you saying? A moment ago you clearly said you'd promise—"

"You still don't know your place. That hasn't changed, then or now. Antonio de Farcion."

Heavy footsteps drew nearer. The King of Ashatra stopped within arm's reach and spoke down to him.

"A promise holds only between equals."

"Yes! We are equals—"

"But Parsion has fallen."

The man's scorn spread like dusk.

"Did you truly believe you were worthy of trading promises with me, Antonio? You have already been ruined."

Only then did Antonio seem to grasp his situation. His body began to shake. At last, unable to bear the humiliation, he spat out a retort choked with rage.

"Y-you lowborn slave! How dare you look down on me and insult me!"

"And will it stop at an insult?"

The words had barely ended when steel hissed free of its sheath. A dreadful certainty that death stood at her very nose made Elona lift her head in haste. If she was to die, there was one thing she had to see before she did.

Why the great king of Ashatra had the voice of her first love. Why her brother, looking at him, called him a slave.

"...It can't be."

The moment she saw the man before her, Elona froze in shock. The powerful body gripping a longsword of deep blue steel, the right arm densely inscribed with strange dark-crimson markings, the shoulders set wide and proud, the ivory cloth armor blotched with someone's blood—all of it belonged to a stranger. But the face of the King of Ashatra, looking down at her, was unmistakably the face Kazan had worn seven years ago.

"Elona de Parsion."

He whispered it in a voice so dear that merely to hear it seemed enough to bring tears.