The Forest That Devours
The northern reaches of the empire was a place where cold blizzards blew without end.
A land of biting wind and a gray sky that stretched on so far it seemed to have no ending at all.
Yet neither the bitter cold, nor the wind that deadened the ears, nor the endless sky that made one doubt one's own sight could do anything about a heart already sunk and torn to shreds.
Daisy rode hard through a blizzard so violent she could barely keep her eyes open.
The letter she had left on the desk offered no explanation beyond a single line.
How could anyone possibly explain a feeling like I would rather die?
What would the Emperor think when he read it?
Perhaps he would be glad.
Perhaps he had always wanted his most capable knight gone, sent away to the Forest of Illusions.
She knew better than anyone that what she felt—this heart of hers—meant the forfeiture of her right to be a knight.
But Daisy simply could not bring herself to remain at the side of an Emperor who loved another, to watch his child grow and protect it with her own hands.
Even imagining that cozy family of three made her chest ache as though it were being torn apart.
It hurt far more than when a demonic beast had torn through her arm and blood had poured from it like a waterfall, more than when its poison had turned everything below her thigh a deathly purple, more than when an enemy's blade had run her through the shoulder.
It was a pain so raw and so foreign she could not endure it—and worse, she could not even hold onto the faith that someday it would heal into a scar.
There was no place in the imperial palace where she could stand on her own two feet any longer.
And yet the Emperor's knight could not abandon her Emperor and flee somewhere far away.
If a knight who had sworn fealty to the Emperor could no longer keep that oath, only one thing remained to her.
To repay it with her life.
She would give this life to save the Emperor, besieged by scheming nobles and a hostile people.
And perhaps, if fortune smiled, she might even save the empire, the way her grandmother once had.
But right now, Daisy felt no desire whatsoever to save the empire.
She only wanted to die in the Forest of Illusions.
No—that was a lie. She didn't want to save the Emperor at all.
The truth was, she wanted him to regret it.
She wanted him to grieve when he saw her body, torn limb from limb by demonic beasts.
She wanted him to live out his days regretting that he had thrown away all their years together.
If that was what it took, she wanted to be remembered by him for the rest of his life.
You are the person I trust most in this world—the only one I can show my true self to.
That was what Franz had said.
But Daisy could not be the person who simply understood and accepted everything about Franz.
Because her feelings for him had grown far too large for that.
Because the feeling had taken root and bloomed into greed.
Daisy spurred her horse faster.
Strangely, she did not encounter a single demonic beast along the way, and before long she arrived before a forest so intensely blue it stung her eyes.
As if by magic, the sky above the forest was clear and blue.
The driving snow fell no further, stopped short as though by an invisible wall, leaving the forest untouched beneath it.
As she stood for a moment gazing at that eerie sight, a house-sized purple demonic beast came bounding out of the forest, drooling, as though it had been waiting all along.
Daisy swung her blade once and cut the beast down.
Its sticky, rank blood rained down over her head.
The warmth of the blood steamed for a moment, then quickly faded.
Soon she would die, buried in the stench of this blood.
How many days could she last?
Two days? Three?
The smell of the beast's blood, the fresh scent of forest earth, and the dry fragrance of snow assailed Daisy all at once.
She turned to look behind her.
There was no one there—only snow, falling in thick white sheets.
Would he know by now? Franz?
Would he tell the nobles that their knight had gone to the forest as they wished, and ask them to wait seven days?
Daisy dismounted and set her foot on the snow-covered ground.
The world fell silent.
Only the soft hush of falling snow could be heard, flake after flake.
The Forest of Illusions beckoned to her.
Daisy gripped her sword and wiped the frozen tears from her face with her hand.
Then, slowly, she turned toward the forest.
This would be her grave.
As if this was how it should have been all along, her steps toward the forest held not a trace of hesitation.
And if this was to be her grave—then it was a grave far too beautiful for words.
The forest swallowed Daisy without a sound, and fell silent once more.
But the forest that had taken her in permitted nothing else to follow—not so much as a single squirrel seeking shelter from the cold.
Franz rode without escort, at a pace that bordered on madness, and still he urged his horse faster.
The Emperor's black stallion shrieked as it drove itself past every limit.
"Your Majesty!"
Matheus shouted from behind, chasing after him, but it was hopeless—there was no catching up.
Franz could think of nothing except riding north.
When Matheus had come running to the Emperor's residence, his face drained white, he had known at once.
It couldn't be—he had told himself that a hundred times in those few short moments, but his ominous instincts had never once been wrong.
On the stiff, aged paper there was only a single line: that she was going to the Forest of Illusions.
It might as well have been a last will and testament.
A will, written in Daisy's own hand.
For the first time in his life, he could not think at all.
When the previous Emperor had died on the battlefield, and when he had been forced onto the throne without any time to prepare his heart, he had always known what needed to be done.
But the moment he read that letter, his mind went utterly blank.
Franz abandoned everything where it lay and rode north.
He did not even hear Verdi shouting after him, screaming that he could not abandon the palace like this.
If she had been riding for days without rest, she would have reached the Forest of Illusions by now.
He might already be too late.
Franz rode on, praying desperately—praying that he wasn't too late, that on the road Daisy had tripped over a stone, or been delayed by a demonic beast, anything to slow her down.
But his ominous instincts always became reality.
As he drew closer to Lanke, the demonic beasts that should have swarmed out to meet him did not appear at all.
The road was peaceful; only the snowfall had grown fiercer.
He rode through Lanke, still so cold, the wind so bleak it chilled him to the bone, riding and riding until he reached the forest.
No one stood before the Forest of Illusions. Only a single riderless horse stood there, snorting into the frigid air, neighing aloud to no one.
"That's Daisy's horse."
Matheus, who had at last caught up, spoke from behind him.
He had known already, without being told.
That Daisy's horse was standing here, all alone.
Franz dismounted and stared at the forest.
The impossibly blue forest swayed its branches in the faintest of breezes, like something out of a dream.
Still, not a single demonic beast had appeared.
Standing before a blue forest where birdsong drifted down through falling snow was surreal enough to dissolve any sense of reality.
But even more unreal than that was the absence of the beasts themselves.
Here, in northern Lanke.
Standing directly before the Forest of Illusions, the very cradle of the demonic beasts.
Which could only mean one thing: someone had already entered the forest.
For the moment a knight crossed its threshold, the Forest of Illusions locked its gates and barred the demonic beasts from ever coming out again.
Countless knights had rushed to enter it, hungry for glory, but not one had ever come out alive—except for a single legendary knight.
Franz stepped toward the forest, slowly, one foot at a time.
What Daisy meant to him, what feelings he held for her—none of that mattered now.
Only one thing was certain: he could not let her go.
The claim that he had never intended to send anyone into the Forest of Illusions had been a lie.
Plainly, unmistakably, he had no intention of sending Daisy to that forest at all.
His slow steps quickened, his stride lengthening.
"Your Majesty! You must not."
One step short of dashing into the forest, Matheus planted himself in his path.
"Move."
"Your Majesty, come to your senses. You are the Emperor of the Lowes Empire. What do you think you'll accomplish by going in there?"
Matheus's ordinarily gentle face had twisted into something fierce.
"If you don't move, I'll cut you down first."
Franz drew his sword from his sheath.
Blinded by despair and rage, he could see nothing and hear nothing.
"I can't allow it. Even if you kill me here, I cannot let you pass."
Matheus drew his sword as well.
Pointing a blade at the Emperor was something he had never imagined even in his dreams.
But now he had to stop him.
Franz swung without hesitation.
Steel met steel in the air with a sharp clang.
Matheus caught the blow, but the sheer force behind it drove him backward, his boots skidding through the snow and leaving deep furrows behind him.
He had known it all along, but Franz's skill was simply beyond what Matheus could withstand.
Worse still, there was no feeling in the Emperor's blade at all.
It moved as though it would cost him nothing to kill Matheus—a loyal retainer he had known half his life, a man who was brother to him in all but blood.
"The Forest of Illusions never admits two knights. You know that better than anyone, Your Majesty."
"Then why block me, knowing that?"
"The forest attacks those who try to enter after another. For the sake of the empire itself, you cannot be injured, Your Majesty."
Franz withdrew his sword and brought it down from above this time.
Matheus caught the strike with one hand on the hilt and the other braced against the flat of the blade.
"Move. Daisy is in there. I cannot simply stand here and do nothing."
"Stop this. You won't get in regardless. You must put the empire before a single knight, Your Majesty."
Their gazes collided, burning, through the swirling snow.
"You cannot possibly be ignorant of what going to that forest means. And yet—how? How could she abandon me and walk into that forest?"
Franz's voice was thick with reproach.
The Emperor, who so rarely revealed what lay in his heart.
Eyes that had never once wavered were now trembling like waves in a storm.
A strength no longer orderly, on the verge of collapse, poured through the blade undiluted.
But Matheus had no patience for the Emperor's anguished heart.
"Did you truly never know?"
Matheus asked, sharper than he had ever been.
"Daisy looked at you and no one else, all this time. Can you honestly stand there and say you never knew?"
His voice was charged with fury.
Franz stared at Matheus.
Could he really claim he had never known how Daisy felt?
Could he say he had never noticed those eyes that turned to him, always, as if it were the most natural thing in the world?
But one thing, at least, was certain.
He had believed he knew her completely—and the truth was, he had known nothing at all.