11
“Please watch your step, Your Excellency. It’s muddy.”
A slim, black-haired man named Chisha Gold emerged from among the trees, leading another handsome young man and urging him to tread carefully.
The area had been secured by handpicked troops, the strongest of the strong, but Chisha felt he’d drawn the short straw. This was the closest he could be to his master, and he hated every moment of it.
Chisha had not been born to this station; his status shouldn’t have been high enough to entitle him to serve a noble household like the Abelks family. He was simply a common subject of the empire. It had been sheer coincidence that he had helped a dragon carriage that turned out to belong to a prince—and that this prince, Vincent, would summon Chisha to stand by his side. The Volakian Royal Family was known to be a little odd—and when Vincent saw the power of calculation Chisha displayed in getting the carriage moving again after its wheel had snapped off in a gutter, he’d plucked him from the street then and there.
From that moment, Chisha began to serve Vincent personally, although he was always intensely aware of how unsuited he was for the position. And he was most unsuited for a battlefield like this—for the war of succession they called the Rite of Imperial Selection. How many nights had he spent asking himself why he was here?
And yet no other person could have been entrusted with such a major role—which left only him. He hated to give detailed instructions, and anyway, there was the pressing issue of whom his master would trust. On that point, Cecils was technically an option, at least, but Chisha was of the opinion that the idiot mutt couldn’t be expected to stick to a given strategy. And so after much deliberation, Chisha had concluded that if he wanted this job done right, he was going to have to do it himself.
“You don’t look pleased, Chisha. Your pallor is even worse than normal.”
“I suppose so, sire… I was just lamenting my own position.”
“Lamenting? Why so?”
“First, because I’m not fond of plans that involve risking my life. And second, because I not only suggested the plan but agreed to take part in it myself—quite strange, coming from me.” He ran a hand through his neatly coiffed hair and sighed dramatically, as if to indicate how much trouble it all was.
His voice almost sounded like a quiet cough, and yet oddly, no one had ever complained that he was hard to hear or understand. At this moment, too, he spoke softly, but his master, listening to him, simply chuckled.
How exhilarating would it be to interject that this was hardly the time for laughter? Of course, Chisha was too rational to do such a thing, and his master too important to reproach.
In the distance, they could hear shouting punctuating the cacophony of battle. An explosion of lives being stolen and defended, each pitting their own values against the other. And at the center of it all stood the man who was now here with Chisha: Vincent Abelks.
Vincent, the man well understood to be the closest to the throne at the beginning of the Rite. It was only natural that he would become the target of the other claimants, but this encirclement was even more vicious than expected. The attacking force they currently faced sat on the high end of the scale of danger they’d anticipated. However…
“It is still within my expectations. Which means the progress of events is still within my con—”
“I see, I see. You’ve found yourself some decent pawns, Brother. You have my compliments.”
“ ” Chisha’s quiet murmur was interrupted by a fiery voice that almost seemed to burn his eardrums. For a brief instant, it felt like his thoughts had been lit on fire. The voice, strong and overpowering, belonged to a girl who brimmed with the confidence that her flame could consume all.
Chisha felt compelled to swallow hard, his face stiffening. He watched as a group emerged from the shadows: a princess cloaked in crimson, flanked by Redmonger soldiers and a silver-haired girl at her side.
“Prisca Benedict.” Standing across from the unflappable young woman, Chisha was suddenly aware that his throat was strangely dry. He forgot to include any honorific when he whispered her name, but Prisca herself chose not to remark on it. Indeed, it—he—was beneath her notice.
She cast her gaze past the stunned Chisha to look at Vincent standing beside him.
“I’m glad you made it, Prisca. I hope you’re well.”
“Of course I am, Brother. And just imagine how much better I would be if your head were to fall from your shoulders right here and now.”
They stared at each other, a brother and sister with an unbridgeable gulf between them, their reunion reeking of blood. But they were both smiling.
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