The Letter on the Desk

Whoever stood behind it all, the citizens who had taken to the streets in protest were sincere.

Though Daisy and Matheus had barely managed to contain the situation, the news that demonic beasts had penetrated as far as Sayron had spread across the entire capital in a single day.

Trembling with anxiety, the people insisted that now was the time for a fundamental solution. Students stayed away from school, merchants shuttered their shops, and even those with steady work abandoned their posts to gather in the plaza. The people's cries to resolve the demonic beast problem pierced the very walls of the imperial palace.

"Your Majesty. Did I not tell you? The people's outrage is reaching toward the very heavens."

Michael Amesis spoke, concealing a sly smile.

"If it is your wish, I can dispatch soldiers to Ranke this very moment—but it seems that is not what the people truly desire."

Yet he could not entirely hide the base note in his voice.

"Then send soldiers to Ranke at once. I will deal with the people's demands myself."

With those words, Franz rose from his seat, trailing a chill in the air, and returned to his office.

Michael Amesis and the other nobles who stubbornly insisted on the Forest of Illusions knew perfectly well that no matter how skilled an imperial knight might be, survival there was impossible. There was only one reason they plunged the people into panic, hoping to send Daisy away: to strip a revered knight from the Emperor's side and weaken the imperial throne all the more. That must have been why Michael Amesis remained so uncooperative even as the Emperor's father-in-law.

It was not unexpected, but Michael Amesis cared even less for his daughter than Franz had anticipated. If the imperial authority weakened, his own daughter would lose the standing befitting an empress—and yet he spared it not a single thought.

"For now, position soldiers along Sayron's perimeter. If any demonic beasts emerge, block them before they can enter the city, and send Matheus to Ranke to deal with them."

"Understood. Shall I also send Sir Rainer to Ranke?"

"No. There is no telling what might happen if she goes to Ranke now. Daisy must remain in the palace. She cannot go anywhere."

"As you command. But Your Majesty, even with these measures, we will not be able to quell the people's fears."

"I know. I have an idea, though I can't say whether it's actually feasible."

"And what might that be?"

At Verdi's question, Franz tapped the desk with his fingers in a steady rhythm—a habit that surfaced whenever he was lost in thought.

"Demonic beasts are rather simple creatures. Dangerous, yes, but not the sort to use their heads. They merely follow a scent, marching straight ahead—then straight ahead again."

"……"

"We build a wall so vast they cannot possibly cross it along the border between Ranke and Chafe, and lure the beasts toward the Death Swamp."

"The Death Swamp?"

"A desert of quicksand that swallows everything whole. Even the beasts would be dealt with easily enough."

It was, indeed, a clever idea.

If it could truly be done, people would never again be placed in danger, and the countless soldiers needed for the fighting would no longer be required. Whether it was actually achievable, as Franz claimed, remained an open question, however.

"Even so, is it not worth attempting?"

Verdi answered. Uncertain outcome or not, it had to be tried.

"I suppose I must speak with the lord of Ranke."

Verdi announced that he would talk with Matheus on his way back to Ranke, and left the office. It was such a brilliant stratagem that he found himself wondering why he, strategist of the empire, had never conceived of it. If it worked, there would be no more need to sacrifice knights and soldiers to the beasts.

Smiling, Verdi made his way swiftly toward the palace archives. He needed to find Andre and determine whether they currently possessed the manpower and the budget to raise so enormous a barrier.

Whatever others might say, Franz Juligen Roheas, who had watched over the empire for more than a decade, was a man worthy of the imperial throne.

Even as the night deepened, Daisy could not sleep, drifting in circles around the Red Spring.

Upon the still surface of the spring, the full moon—round as though it would burst, bright as though it would explode—mirrored itself perfectly.

The Red Spring was a great pool within the imperial palace grounds, where each year, on the day of the empire's founding, a rite was held in honor of the First Emperor. Water welled up from deep underground and flowed out beyond the palace through connected channels; it was a spring of considerable scale, its floor and walls adorned in marble. No one knew why the name "Red Spring" had been given to a spring of such startlingly vivid blue—but along with the palace gardens, it was one of Daisy's favorite places.

Where she would once have wandered the gardens, Daisy had lately found herself drawn to the spring instead. Because she did not wish to cross paths with the other person who loved that garden.

"Sir Knight, so this is where you were."

She had not imagined, however, that she would meet the person she least wished to see even here, at the Red Spring. There were only two people in all the palace she had no desire to encounter.

"Your Majesty the Empress."

Daisy sank to one knee and bowed.

"Rise. There is no need for such formality when we are alone."

Arisa approached with a smile and raised Daisy to her feet.

Empress Arisa Amesis, with her dazzling golden hair and mysterious, light-violet eyes, was beautiful enough to be hailed as the greatest beauty of the empire. Even though pregnancy had left her looking slightly worn, her porcelain-white skin still seemed to glow.

"Please be careful. You are not unattended, are you?"

Daisy said, stepping back a pace. Whatever her feelings toward the Empress, it was only natural to grow careful around a woman with child.

"I am quite all right for now. Truthfully, aside from a touch of dizziness, I feel nothing at all."

Arisa replied with a small smile.

"Why do you wander about alone? Where are your ladies-in-waiting?"

"I expect they are all asleep. I only came out for a breath of night air, and to run into you of all people—perhaps it is fate."

Arisa said, her gossamer nightgown billowing about her.

"Is there something you wish to say to me?"

Fate—the word hardly belonged in an empress's mouth. Daisy steadied herself, quashing the urge to retort, and asked.

"I wanted to apologize."

The words that came from the Empress were entirely unexpected.

"…Apologize?"

"I heard that my father demanded you enter the Forest of Illusions… that he made an utterly unreasonable demand of you. I wanted to apologize in his place. I am truly sorry."

Even her apologetic expression, the delicate furrow of her brow, was beautiful. Perhaps it only seemed more so beneath the moonlight. Daisy could do nothing but stare blankly at the Empress's face.

"Knowing full well what such a demand means, and still making it—it must have weighed on you as his child."

"…No. Those are words the Grand Duke is entirely capable of speaking. The empire is in crisis, after all."

Daisy said flatly.

"No. Anyone His Majesty cherishes is precious to me as well, and I know better than anyone what you mean to His Majesty—and to the empire. How could I ask someone like you to throw yourself into such danger? His Majesty drew a firm line and called it out of the question, so please, put such thoughts from your mind."

The Empress drew close and clasped Daisy's hand tightly in her own. Unlike Daisy's own hand—rough and calloused, scarred and worn—Arisa's was pale, soft, and warm.

Daisy awkwardly withdrew her hand.

"Did His Majesty send you?"

And then she asked.

"No. I simply wanted to tell you this myself, however much I might meet you. His Majesty said nothing in particular, but I believe he feels the same."

Arisa spoke with such confidence—as though she understood Franz's heart completely, as though his heart and hers were one.

And that was what hurt Daisy all the more. The feelings she had pressed down and down threatened to surge up and burst free all over again.

Daisy had taken up a sword before she could properly walk, and from that moment on she had been at Franz's side. Save for when she slept or when Franz attended his lessons to become Emperor, she had shared everything with him. They had weathered crises together more times than she could count.

She was the one who knew Franz best.

Not the empress wed to him by political arrangement.

That was what she had believed.

Until the Empress had conceived.

She hated that woman—hated how, wearing a face so utterly unlike her own, she could stand before Daisy and claim to know Franz's heart. And she despised herself all the more for despising that gentle, innocent woman.

Daisy felt a crushing sense of defeat, a deep and festering disgust. And together with them, anger arrived without fail.

She was angry at Franz. She hated him for marrying another woman, for fathering a child, and still calling her precious. She resented him for threatening the Grand Duke, insisting that he could never send a single soul into the Forest of Illusions—while the empire's fate hung by a thread and no real solution existed at all. And yet she ached at how he never once came to find her.

The words forbidding her from ever entering the Forest of Illusions should not have come from the Empress. They should have come from his own lips.

"If you were to catch a chill, His Majesty would be heartbroken. Go in now and rest."

Before the seething emotions could spill over, Daisy bowed to the Empress and turned away. The person before whom these feelings would burst was not the Empress.

Slowly turning over the emotions she had faced in the smiling Arisa Amesis, Daisy made up her mind. She would do the thing that simply had to be done.

It was early morning, yet Matheus knocked on Daisy's door. By imperial decree, he was to return to Ranke and hunt down the demonic beasts.

He knew better than anyone that Daisy, for her part, would far rather leave the palace behind and return to Ranke to fight. He had told Franz that he would go with her—but Franz had refused outright, saying that the Daisy of now could not be sent anywhere at all.

She wanted to argue—how could a man so worried about her say such a thing?—but she could not bring herself to. Comrade-in-arms though he was, having shared life and death with her, he was first and foremost the Emperor, and she was nothing more than his knight. She could not say everything she wished to say, and in matters entangled with politics it was difficult to speak at all.

What weighed on her was only that she could not comfort Daisy, caught fast in this trial. So she had resolved to tell her: I'll kill every last one of those beasts and come back before you know it—so keep up your training until then.

No matter how many times she knocked, not even the sound of movement came from within. Matheus gently pushed the door open.

The room was empty, the blanket folded neatly atop the bed.

Where could she have gone at this hour?

Scanning the room, Matheus noticed something odd on the desk. A letter, written in Daisy's hand.

In truth, it was not even a letter. On the stiff paper, a single sentence was all that had been written.