16
“Prisca and Lamia should be about done settling things by now,” Vincent said, looking down at the half dead Arakiya. She was completely exhausted, leaned up against a large tree with her legs kicked out, limp.
It wasn’t exactly surprising; she’d single-handedly repelled a magic-stone cannon barrage with the power to annihilate an entire army, and to do so, she’d taken one of the Four Great Spirits into her small body. The consequences were dire; Arakiya had done it knowing full well that it might cost her very soul.
Thus, Vincent’s plan succeeded, and Arakiya had been instrumental.
“It can’t have been easy. Prisca is blessed with good help—I’ll admit that much.”
“I did it…for the princess…”
“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t doubt you.” It was rare for Vincent to praise such loyalty. Nearly everyone who served the royal family was at least as loyal as Arakiya—some even more so. That included Vincent’s personal soldiers, who had been used as bait for the enemy, never knowing that Vincent himself had made a secret agreement with Prisca. “I suppose Chisha is going to give me a piece of his mind, though,” Vincent muttered.
He was looking at Chisha, who, after being skewered by Arakiya, had been right in the middle of the meeting of the cannonade with the power of one of the Four Great Spirits. He was being given heroic treatment but was badly wounded both inside and out. His odds of surviving were no better than a coin flip. He was a clever strategist, a devoted servant whom Vincent would be able to entrust with important positions in the future—and yet even he had been part of the plan, a way of selling the ploy to ensure that it would avoid detection and succeed.
Nonetheless, Vincent was confident that it had been worth it. “I have much the same opinion of Lamia as she did of me and Prisca. The Rite has only just begun, but with this, I’ve eliminated my greatest rivals for the throne.”
From the perspectives of ambition and aptitude, and from the perspective of whether they had any likelihood of actually obtaining the throne, only Lamia and Prisca had been worth worrying about in Vincent’s opinion. Sadly for all the other siblings, not one of them was a match for Vincent. Although, there was one who—though still no threat for the throne—had taken Vincent by surprise in another way.
“Imagine—apparently, I also misjudged my older brother Bartroi.”
Bartroi Fitz, who had departed this world shortly after the beginning of the Rite of Imperial Selection, pruned away by Lamia. He’d hated the idea of brothers and sisters killing one another and had sought to keep the death wrought by the Rite to an absolute minimum with a plan that surprised even Vincent.
“Declining to participate in the Rite himself, he promised the submission of several other siblings in exchange for my guarantee of their territories and persons. A bold move, if nothing else.”
If it worked, the number of heads Vincent would have had to sever in order to achieve the throne would have been ten less. And if each of them had raised personal armies in contesting the succession, the loss of life would have been that much greater. The proposal was predicated on a worldview that ran counter to Vincent’s own avowedly more correct reading of the situation—that none of his brothers or sisters could be allowed to live.
Broadly speaking, there had been two keys to his escape from Lamia’s encirclement. One had been Arakiya, capable of using the great spirit to neutralize the cannonade; the other was the double cross that Lamia had never anticipated—in other words, the siblings and their armies, whom Bartroi had secretly entrusted to Vincent. True, if they succeeded, he would essentially be honoring a contract with a dead man, but Vincent didn’t have it in him to simply consider the matter null and void. Reward must be no more forgone than punishment—that was one thing Vincent always bore in mind as a member of the Volakian Royal Family.
Those siblings Bartroi had persuaded to abandon their right to the succession were no doubt fighting desperately for Vincent’s triumph, for what they saw as their own survival. Never knowing the true nature of the deal. Bartroi had buried the truth. He had always been so convincingly sweet and friendly in order to get what he wanted. Vincent was particularly impressed that Bartroi had even been prepared to incorporate his own death into his plans if it would achieve his goal. Bartroi Fitz had, in truth, been a worthy member of the royal family of Volakia.
“ ” Arakiya, breathing shallowly, had no response to Vincent’s reminiscences. Ultimately, she’d never been anything more than a loyal dog, following Prisca’s orders. She held no opinions of her own, had never needed a mind to think for herself. She was a very useful girl, someone who had never been touched by ambition or traitorous impulse. And yet Vincent doubted it was only her usefulness that made Prisca treasure her so much.
There was something more between Prisca and Arakiya than simply a relationship of master and servant. There was a genuine bond. Arakiya would not hesitate to throw away everything for Prisca—although both she and Prisca lacked enough imagination to fully grasp what that meant.
“You said your name was Arakiya, yes?”
“ ? Yes… That’s right.” Arakiya looked at Vincent suspiciously. He came and stood before her, where she looked at him like a skittish small animal—and then he winked at her.
“I’d like to make you an offer. From me—” There, Vincent stopped and gave a small shake of his head. The emotion in his dark eyes never shifting, he corrected himself: “From your emperor.”
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