In Kuroinu

The palace sat at the top of the city on a hill that might have been natural or might have been built by people who wanted their queen to look down on everything. White stone walls, higher and thicker than the city walls below, with banners in deep blue hanging from the battlements. Guards at every gate in matching armor, polished steel with that same blue at the collar and cuffs, and they stood straighter when Filia showed them the royal summons she'd arranged through the court office.

We'd left the others at the inn. Filia said the audience was for the hero and his party leader, not the full group, and her tone made it clear that was the queen's protocol and not a suggestion. Llusse had looked annoyed. Tianne had nodded. Mila had waved us off with both ears up and a "Good luck!" that made a palace guard blink.

The throne room was large enough that our footsteps echoed. Stone columns on either side, tall windows letting in long shafts of morning light that hit the floor in bright rectangles. Tapestries on the walls showing battles I didn't recognize and a few I did, scenes from the war with the Demon King's forces that had been going on long before I arrived. The ceiling was painted. I didn't look too closely because we were being watched and staring at the ceiling seemed like a bad move.

Three women were waiting for us at the far end.

The queen was seated. She was older than Filia, maybe late thirties or early forties, and she wore the age well. Her hair was dark and pulled back from a face that was handsome in a strong-boned way, with a jaw that suggested she'd inherited stubbornness along with the crown. Her eyes were light brown, almost gold in the window-light, and they were on me before I was halfway across the room. The throne wasn't ornate. Wood and iron, with cushions that looked like they'd been chosen for function. She sat in it like she'd been sitting in it for decades, which she had.

Sophie Elisabeth Irail. Sophia the Thirteenth. Queen of Lesdea. Descendant of the legendary Hero, which meant she was immune to my power, which meant every inch of credibility I earned here came from my mouth and my brain and none of it from the Blessing.

I'd known that from the source material. Seeing her in person, I was glad. I'd rather earn it anyway.

To her right, standing, was the princess. Marie was younger than I expected from the descriptions I'd read. Seventeen or eighteen, with her mother's bone structure softened, rounder, her hair lighter, her eyes wider. She was wearing a blue dress with silver embroidery at the collar and she was standing with her hands clasped in front of her and she was already watching me. Her lips were parted. She was leaning forward half an inch, like she was trying to hear what I hadn't said yet.

To the queen's left, hand on the pommel of a sword that was too clean to be decorative, stood the woman who would kill me if this went wrong.

Leonora Ofallon. Commander of the Royal Guard of Lesdea. The strongest knight in the kingdom. She was twenty-six and she was tall and she was built like a weapon that happened to be shaped like a woman. Broad shoulders under plate armor that fit her like it had been forged to her body, which it probably had. Dark hair cropped short. Eyes that tracked me across the throne room like a hawk watching something it hadn't decided about yet.

Her hand tightened on the pommel when I stopped at the prescribed distance. The tendons in her wrist stood out.

Filia bowed. I bowed. It wasn't the best bow in the world but nobody stabbed me.

"So," the queen said. Her voice carried without effort. "You're the hero my scholars summoned."

"That's what they tell me, Your Majesty."

"They tell me a great deal about you." She studied me like she had all day and was planning to use it. "Your name. Your origin. The nature of your power. The... mechanism of its activation."

A guard coughed somewhere behind us.

"They were thorough," I said.

"They were paid to be." Her eyes held mine. "I'll spare us both the pleasantries. I know what the Hero's Blessing does. I know how it works. And I know it doesn't work on me." She let that sit for a second. "I'm a descendant of the First Hero. Whatever magic your Blessing carries, my bloodline renders me immune. So you'll have to earn my trust the old-fashioned way."

I grinned. "I prefer it that way, Your Majesty."

Her mouth twitched. The corner came up for a fraction of a second and then she straightened it. "Do you."

"I do. Anyone can be impressive with magic. Being impressive without it takes actual effort."

Leonora's grip on her sword hadn't loosened. She was watching me with an expression that said she'd heard charm before and wasn't buying any. Fair enough. I'd have watched me the same way if I were in her boots.

"Your party leader has informed us of the situation in the southern borderlands," Sophie said. "Organized monster activity. A destroyed farmstead. Evidence of coordination." She looked at Filia. "You have physical evidence?"

Filia produced the marked blade from the cloth wrapping she'd been carrying. She stepped forward and presented it to the queen. Leonora intercepted it, took the blade, examined the glyph at the base, and then passed it to Sophie with a nod that said the weapon wasn't poisoned or enchanted. Thorough.

Sophie turned the blade over in her hands. She was careful with it, holding it by the flat, studying the glyph with the same focused attention she'd studied me.

"This mark," she said. "We found the same design language in a cave system south of the village we were based in," I said. "Carved into the walls. Too precise for goblins, too deliberate for strays. The blade came from one of two orc-type creatures that attacked a farmstead between the village and the capital. They were equipped. Armored. Marked."

"Orcs don't organize," Leonora said. Her voice was low and clipped. "They raid. They scatter. They don't carry matching weapons with matching insignia."

"No," I said. "They don't. Unless someone is directing them."

The throne room was quiet for a moment. A sparrow had gotten in through one of the high windows and was perching on a column capital, unbothered by the geopolitics happening below.

"The Shield Alliance has sent word," Sophie said. "The northern front is escalating. Olga Discordia's forces grow bolder despite setbacks, and the Alliance's mercenary forces are stretched thin." She set the blade down on the arm of her throne. "Now you bring me evidence that organized enemy forces are operating within Lesdea itself. Hundreds of miles south of the front."

"I believe they're scouting," Filia said. "Testing response times. Mapping terrain."

"Preparing," I said.

Sophie looked at me. Her light-brown eyes were sharp. "Preparing for what?"

Everything in me wanted to answer that question honestly. I wanted to tell her about Maou, about the demon hierarchy, about Kruul and Guignol and Sand, about the fact that Olga Discordia was fighting a war on two fronts and losing, about the betrayal that was going to tear the Shield Alliance apart from the inside, about Vault and the Black Dogs, about Dirk in Leuven and the demons whispering in his ear, about the thirty-six women across this continent who were going to suffer unless I got strong enough fast enough to prevent it.

"I don't know yet," I said. "But the evidence suggests a large-scale operation with intelligence behind it. Lesdea needs to be prepared for the possibility that the northern conflict isn't staying in the north."

Sophie held my gaze for a long time. I kept mine steady and let her look for the lie. Technically I wasn't lying. I didn't know the exact timetable.

"Leonora," the queen said.

"Your Majesty."

"Increase border patrols. Double the scouts along the northern road. And send word to the Shield Alliance that Lesdea is seeing activity within our own borders."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Hero." Sophie looked at me. "I'm assigning Commander Ofallon as your liaison to the crown. She will be your contact for intelligence, resources, and coordination. You report to her, and she reports to me."

Leonora's jaw tightened. She looked at the queen, then at me, then back at the queen. She didn't argue. Her hand stayed on her sword.

"I would also like you and your party to remain in the capital for the time being. We have barracks, training facilities, and access to intelligence you won't find on the road." She paused. "And hero?"

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

"Earn it."

I bowed. It was a better bow this time. We backed out of the throne room and the doors closed behind us and the hallway was cool and quiet and I breathed out.

"That went well," Filia said.

"She almost smiled."

"She did. That's practically a standing ovation from Queen Sophie."

We walked down the corridor. The palace was busy, servants and guards and officials moving between rooms, and someone had left a cart of bread loaves in an alcove that a gray cat was investigating from on top of a bookshelf. The cat looked at us with complete indifference and went back to the bread problem.

Marie was waiting at the junction where the corridor split toward the main gate. She was alone. She'd taken a side door and beaten us here, which meant she wanted this to look accidental.

"Oh," she said. "You're- hello. I'm Princess Marie. We weren't formally introduced."

"Haruto." I bowed again. Three bows in one morning. A personal record. "It's an honor, Your Highness."

"Please. Just Marie." Her cheeks had color in them and she was holding her clasped hands a little too tight. "I wanted to- I had some questions. About where you're from. Your world."

Filia glanced at me, then at Marie, and pressed her lips together. "I'll wait outside." She walked away before I could object.

Marie and I stood in the corridor. A servant passed with a stack of folded cloths. Morning light came through a window and lit the dust in the air.

"What would you like to know?" I asked.

"Is it true there's no magic?"

"That's true."

"Then how do you- I mean, how do things work? Without magic? How do you heal the sick or light a room or travel long distances?"

"Carefully." She laughed and the sound was bright and surprised and she covered her mouth with her hand. "We built machines instead. Things that run on different kinds of energy. It's hard to explain without showing you."

"I'd like to see. Someday." She was looking at me with an openness that had no defense in it. A girl who'd spent her whole life in a palace, meeting a person from a place that didn't make sense.

She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a handkerchief. White, with blue stitching at the edge. She was fidgeting with it while we talked, turning it over in her fingers, and it slipped.

We both reached for it.

My hand got there first and her fingers closed over mine on the fabric. Her skin was cool and her grip was soft and her eyes came up to mine and we were both bent at the waist with our hands touching over a handkerchief on a palace floor and she wasn't pulling back. Her lips were parted and the pulse in her throat was moving faster than it had been a moment ago.

I straightened up. Held the handkerchief out to her with a bow. "Your Highness."

She took it. Her fingers grazed mine on the withdrawal and she clutched the handkerchief against her chest and her cheeks were red and she took a step back.

"Thank you," she said. "For the- yes. Thank you."

"Anytime."

She nodded. Turned. Walked back down the corridor in the direction she'd come from and her pace was careful and measured and she didn't look back until she reached the corner and then she looked back, once, quickly, and then she was gone.

I stood in the hallway. The dust was still floating in the light from the window. The cat on the bookshelf had gotten a bread roll and was carrying it away with the confidence of a creature who'd never doubted a decision in its life.

Filia was outside the main entrance, leaning against a pillar.

"The princess likes you," she said.

"Everyone likes me."

"Your humility is your best quality." She pushed off the pillar. "Let's go. We need to tell the others about Leonora."

We walked down the hill toward the city and the capital was loud and bright below us and the sun was warm and the marked blade was still in my pack and the queen of Lesdea knew we were here and the strongest knight in the kingdom was going to be watching everything I did from now on.

Good. I wanted her to watch.

The cat had finished the bread roll by the time we left. It was cleaning its face on the bookshelf through a window as we passed.

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