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The Holy Volakian Empire was a vast state that dominated the southern half of most maps. Its territory was greater than that of any other country in the world, far larger than the three other great nations. Blessed with a temperate climate and rich land, the Volakian Empire might also be said to be the most livable of those nations. Speaking purely in terms of its natural environment anyway.
For the people who lived and thrived in this fertile place naturally wanted to grow stronger and stronger. It became a tradition in the empire that the powerful were venerated and the weak suffered. Through long ages of history, this value system had not changed—indeed, the weight of ages had turned it into an immutable law that bound the nation hand and foot.
And the foremost representatives of the nation’s way of life, those who most fully embodied its ethos of strength, were the Volakian emperor and the royal family.
“I must admit, it’s quite an impressive sight to see all us siblings gathered in one place,” remarked Prisca as she looked around, checking who was present.
“True,” replied Vincent.
Half brothers and half sisters sat side by side, tipping back glasses of alcohol. Prisca and Vincent between them could hardly have counted the number of their siblings on their fingers. Prisca’s brothers and sisters numbered no fewer than sixty-six—although, if only counting those who were still alive, the number immediately dropped to thirty-one.
“ ”
She had eighteen brothers and thirteen sisters, and all of them (all thirty-two, including Prisca) were the blood children of Dreizen Volakia.
The Volakian Empire was a melting pot of many peoples, and the emperor chose the strongest from each part of the empire, without regard to what group they belonged to, and took them as his brides, producing many offspring. Dreizen had only sixty-seven possible heirs—hence why he was frequently derided as a seedless boy-emperor. Such mockery was only natural when his forebears regularly sired a hundred or two hundred children as a matter of course.
“Not that it makes things any easier for those of us he did father,” remarked Prisca, who was one of them. “With more than sixty brothers and sisters, it’s hard to remember which name goes with which face. If only a sage king always gave birth to sages.”
The situation was so bad that there were some siblings Prisca had never even met, people with whom she shared no bond other than a nominal connection of blood. Why should she ever love such people? And perhaps more to the point, why should she ever hold back against them?
Vincent’s talk of mutual advantage—now, that was a bond that couldn’t be denied.
“Ohhh, look who it is. Prisca, and not looking very impressed.”
“ ” Prisca said nothing.
“My word! No greeting when it’s been so long? You’re going to make your dear older sister cry.”
The young woman who identified herself as Prisca’s older sibling spoke in a voice that practically dripped with honey; Prisca regarded her coldly. They shared the same orange hair, but this young woman had drooping, come-hither eyes. She was four or five years older than Prisca, and her substantially more feminine figure showed it. She was indeed one of Prisca’s sisters, and her name was…
“Begone, Lamia. Listening to that drawl of yours makes me sick to my stomach. I find the sound of your voice far more dangerous than a poisoned dagger,” Prisca said.
“Cold, cruel, and sharp-tongued. What our dear Vincent sees in you, I’ll never know. Care to enlighten me, Brother?”
“I like the saucy ones.”
Prisca’s words went beyond cold—they were barbed, practically deadly—but Lamia showed no sign of backing down. In fact, she smiled graciously, though making no effort to hide the venom in her voice. She had established herself as a presence in Prisca’s life since long before. It might have been sweet had she been inspired by a desire to get her little sister to notice her, but Lamia was acting out of pure and simple hostility.
As if to underline the point, she said, “Oh, yes,” and smiled very carefully. “I hear you were attacked by your servants—and in your manor to boot? How positively awful. I pity to think that you can’t relax in your own home.”
“So the bitch feels compelled to howl.”
Under other circumstances, Lamia would never have let such information slip—it was a sign of her confidence that the attack would never be traced back to her. Prisca glared, knowing just how sly Lamia could be.
Lamia looked downright pleased with Prisca’s reaction. “I love the face you’re making right now, Prisca. The face of a sorry little child who doesn’t know anything.” She reached out and yanked Prisca’s lips upward into a false smile. Then as if she had instantaneously lost all interest in her little sister, she sidled up to Vincent instead. “I can’t help wondering, why call us all to this annex today? Why not the Crystal Palace? Don’t you think it’s rather odd—and with all the flitting rumors of Father’s failing health?”
“There’s a significance to it, I have no doubt. The Crystal Palace is the symbol of the capital city—he cannot afford for it to be destroyed. Instead, he chose this annex, a separate building that he does not care about.”
“ Are you suggesting…?” A smile threatened to cross Lamia’s face as she made to ask Vincent what he really thought. But before she could get the question out, it started.
“ ”
The door opened with a hush, and every gaze in the great hall turned toward it. Slowly, someone came through the door—a white-haired man on the verge of old age. His arms and his neck were thin, and his skin was pale like that of a sick man. His crimson eyes, though, still glowed; it was not life but conquest that animated this body.
“It’s the emperor…Dreizen Volakia,” Prisca murmured when he appeared.
Yes—this was he, present ruler of the Holy Volakian Empire, father of the thirty-two children gathered in this hall, Dreizen Volakia.
“ ” The assembled children knelt at Dreizen’s approach, showing their respect. The chatter that filled the hall moments ago had disappeared completely, and in the silent room, Dreizen’s slow footsteps echoed loudly. At last, he reached the throne-like chair at the far end of the vast space. He let out a long sigh and cast his eyes over the hall.
“I wish I could say it’s good to see you’ve all come.”
“ ”
Nobody spoke.
“But I notice a few who have chosen not to kneel to me.”
Those who had knelt looked up in surprise, discovering a number who were still standing—Prisca not least among them. Vincent and Lamia, too, stood. Not quite ten siblings in all…
“Might I ask what you think you’re doing?” one of their older brothers demanded. “Our father—His Excellency the Emperor—is present. You insolent—!”
“Insolent? Don’t make me laugh. If you and I are both true members of the royal family of Volakia, it should be self-evident which of us is right. And it isn’t the brainless idiot who only knows how to stand on ceremony,” Prisca replied, merciless.
“Wha—?!” the older brother exclaimed. When there were more than sixty siblings, the difference between the oldest and the youngest could be like that between parent and child themselves. This man was red in the face and quaking at the tongue-lashing he had just gotten from Prisca, who was twenty years his junior. “Prisca, you foulmouthed… How dare you speak to your older brother that way!”
“Older brother? Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry—there’s so many of you, and I’ve been blessed with so few siblings whose names and faces are worth remembering. I’d completely forgotten that you were one of my brothers.”
“ !” Unable to bear the humiliation, the older brother in question jumped to his feet, his face flushing furiously. He looked ready to lunge at his much younger sister right then and there.
But they were interrupted by Dreizen, who simply said, “Stop.”
“Hngh… But, Father…”
“Disrespect to me, you say? If she’s doing it for show, it doesn’t even rise to the level of stupidity. But I do not reprove her for failing to kneel before me. In fact, I prefer this.”
With these words, the emperor halted a fight between his children—but not in favor of the elder brother. Rather, he permitted Prisca’s behavior. As proof, Dreizen brought his bony hands together, looked at Prisca, and said, “Prisca. Why is it that you do not kneel to me?”
“Surely, you don’t need me to spell it out. It’s because I saw nothing worth kneeling to. You’ve grown old, Father. You hardly look like someone who belongs at the apogee of an empire whose first teaching to its subjects is: Be strong.”
“Bwa-ha!” Thus castigated by a girl of scarcely more than ten years, the emperor didn’t become enraged, but rather, he laughed aloud. With his crimson eyes, he briefly scanned the others who had joined Prisca in not kneeling.
“ ” None of them denied the truth of what Prisca had said. To a greater or lesser extent, all of them agreed with her. In their eyes, the current emperor was not worth kneeling to.
“And that is what makes you members of the Volakian Royal Family. That is what makes you my children!”
“Father…!”
“Rommel, a moment ago, you spoke of insolence. Insolence! What value is there in such trappings?” Dreizen paused, then said, “Rommel… Would you like to try yourself?”
“Try myself…?” The man called Rommel knit his brow at the emperor’s words. Thereupon, the emperor reached out his hand into the air and gave a great, powerful wave of his arm. The space directly in front of Rommel warped and twisted, the hilt of a sword abruptly appearing from the rift.
“ ” Rommel stared at it, wide-eyed. The others in the room inhaled sharply. The hilt that had appeared was just that beautiful. The scabbard and sword it held were decorated with such loveliness that some exclaimed without meaning to.
“The Bright Sword, Volakia,” said Dreizen.
“The blade handed down from generation to generation through the Volakian Royal Family…,” Rommel mumbled, looking as if he was flushed with heat. He took his father at his word; his face as stiff with excitement as it was with fear, Rommel swallowed and stepped forward. “S-such a tremendous responsibility is also a great honor, Your Majesty…”
Rommel was practically shaking with joy, but Dreizen didn’t answer him. With every eye in the room watching him expectantly, Rommel steeled himself, then reached out for the scabbard that floated in midair.
The Bright Sword, which bore the name of its empire, had existed since the founding of the nation. As its name suggested, only the Volakian emperors were permitted to wield it—even Prisca had never seen it with her own eyes before.
Nor had she seen firsthand what it meant that only the emperor could wield the blade.
“Huh?” Rommel said stupidly as he grasped the hilt of the sword and attempted to draw it out. And well he might, for the moment he did so, the hand that touched the sword burst into flame, which quickly became a conflagration that consumed him in the space of an instant.
“ !” Rommel couldn’t even cry out as the flames engulfed him. He could not even speak, for his throat and lungs were the first things to be burned away. He perished without so much as a death rattle.
In Rommel’s place, those who had bowed to the emperor began to shout, desperate voices rising. But scant good it did. Rommel fell upon the carpet, seared, dead before he even had a chance to writhe in agony. He was so badly blackened, it was impossible to tell whether his corpse had fallen on its back or its front.
It had only taken a matter of seconds for Rommel, a member of the royal family, to be burned to death.
Several siblings looked like they might be sick as the stomach-turning stench of roasted human flesh began to rise, but Lamia, her brow furrowed, summed it up succinctly: “Ugh. He stinks.” As for Prisca, who had recently witnessed her entire entourage burned to ashes, the scene was surprising but not repulsive.
Even then, her surprise wasn’t directed toward Rommel’s death, but rather at its source: the Bright Sword.
“Only the emperor is permitted to touch it. That much is clear.” Among the startled siblings, maybe ten of them had quietly accepted the truth of Rommel’s death. Naturally, Vincent—who offered this murmured assessment—was one of them, as was Prisca, who had come to the same conclusion.
“F-Father! What is the meaning of—?”
“Silence,” Dreizen said, cutting off the expression of astonishment at Rommel’s death. The aged emperor looked around the great hall, turning a penetrating gaze on each of his children. As his red eyes pinned each of them in turn with their cruel light, Prisca noticed something.
“Wh-what’s going on?” asked one of the others in a timorous voice, having noticed the same thing.
Namely, the space in front of each of them was warping and twisting, and a red sword hilt had emerged before them. It happened in front of Prisca, and it happened in front of Vincent and Lamia as well. Was this some sort of joke? From thin air had appeared thirty-one Bright Swords, exactly as many as the number of siblings in the room (now that Rommel was dead).
“We will now begin the Rite of Imperial Selection,” Dreizen announced. He made no acknowledgment of the staggering scene and spoke with only his own unamplified voice. Suddenly, he was no longer the withered tree, the elderly ruler, the guttering flame not worth kneeling to. His eyes open wide now, Dreizen looked like a raging fire.
“The Bright Sword chooses its own master. Being chosen by the sword is the first requirement for any who hope to assume the imperial throne.”
“ ”
No one made a sound.
“Your destiny stands before you in the form of the sword. Now! Draw it forth. It is the fate from which there is no escape.”
As he spoke, the emperor—or rather, the former emperor—Dreizen Volakia stood, and the hilt of a sword appeared above him as well. He reached up and grasped it firmly—and in that instant, his body was wreathed in flames.
“ ”
It was the sign that the sword itself was finished with the previous emperor and now sought a new owner. With the end of Dreizen Volakia, the throne now sat open. This, the destruction of the old ruler, was the sign that the contest had begun. The Rite of Imperial Selection, by which the emperors of Volakia had been chosen for generations.
While everyone else stood transfixed by the sight of their father’s incineration, Vincent said, “Prisca.” He had predicted the demise of the former emperor—but had he known this was what would happen?
It didn’t matter. Prisca turned at his call, his black eyes meeting her crimson ones. An understanding was established between brother and sister.
And then without hesitation, Prisca reached out for the sword in front of her…
“This world bends itself to suit me.”
The sword allowed itself to be drawn into her hand.
The Rite of Imperial Selection, which would determine the next ruler of the Volakian Empire, had begun.
The relentless, remorseless shedding of blood among the imperial siblings had started.
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