Chapter 33
IV.
Fwit—!
Cawww!
A crow, just about to take flight from a tree branch, was seized by the hand of a platinum-blonde Roan native.
On the shoulder of the figure roughly gripping the struggling black wings, a golden stag—the crest of the Roan royal house—was engraved.
“Caww!”
The crow, resisting and trying to escape by any means, soon had pale blue demonic power injected into its body, and—poof!—its form shifted.
The figure, its face twisted as if in agony, was a low-ranking Belluk messenger clad in black armor.
The Roan royal forcibly pried open the messenger’s mouth, shoved a white orb inside, and commanded fiercely.
“Confess, messenger.”
The messenger’s eyes, which had been rolling and blazing red with the will to resist, instantly dilated wide.
Gasping for a while with clouded eyes, it soon focused its gaze and spoke clearly.
“…Ask me anything. What is it you wish to know, my lord?”
Edawin, his platinum-blonde hair cascading elegantly to his shoulders, glinted his blue eyes and bit out the words.
“Where is Eredite?”
Silent for a moment, the messenger tilted its head, then answered obediently.
“…You speak of Lady Lucy. She is with His Great Majesty, the Black Wing, the Great Emperor Morgadein.”
Watching the messenger still call the Demon King by the title of Great Emperor, Edawin twisted the corner of his mouth.
“…Eredite is still alive? Ha, as I suspected….”
He’d thought it impossible, but it seemed she had survived all this time and was now disgracing the honor of the Haldegard royal house.
Edawin fixed his gaze on the messenger’s eyes and commanded.
“Then you bring me Eredite.”
Even as he was being brainwashed, the messenger faltered, halted by instinctive fear of the order he’d been given.
“B-But she is under the Great Emperor’s protection.”
Twitching a platinum eyebrow, Edawin spat out the words.
“Lure her out. Somehow. If you fail, I’ll make you burst.”
Edawin’s elegant hand seized the messenger’s throat, and as if feeling a searing pain, he began to writhe.
“Ghhk. I-I shall obey, my lord….”
Bound by the magic spell, the crow messenger swore loyalty to an enemy race. Moments later, he began flapping toward the Grand Ducal Castle to carry out the command.
Gazing at the pitch-black bird flying across the sunset sky, Edawin’s eyes sank darkly.
The twilight glow filtering through the tall cedars began to stain his contempt-laden face in dark shades of orange and violet.
* * *
That night.
“Alfredo?”
Hearing the cawing outside the balcony window, Lucy approached with her head tilted.
“You want me to open it?”
Alfredo was the sole attendant capable of passing through the barrier drawn around the window, but Lucy didn’t know that. She simply thought Alfredo, who normally came and went from the bedchamber freely, was cawing outside, so she opened the balcony door without much thought.
Poof—!
The crow, having transformed into Alfredo’s form as expected, bowed politely—then continued in an oddly awkward tone.
“I bear a message that you are to come at once to where His Majesty the Great Emperor is, Lady Lucy.”
The inflection was stiff, as if mimicking someone, but naive Lucy never once suspected he might be someone other than Alfredo.
Tilting her head, she asked back.
“But… didn’t His Majesty say I mustn’t go out alone until he returns?”
Laegar had recently permitted her the horseback riding he had long forbidden.
At the same time, he had gone out hunting himself, saying he would catch a white fox for her riding cloak.
Elated at finally being allowed outside, Lucy hated that it was being delayed for such a thing, but Laegar had looked so earnest that she was waiting patiently for his return.
So she hadn’t expected him to send for her like this in the middle of it.
‘What does he want to show me?’
Without deep thought, Lucy rushed to throw on her cloak and followed Alfredo with a hint of excitement.
Unlike usual, he was using only secluded, secret back paths to exit the castle, but Lucy followed without the slightest suspicion.
Before she knew it, ink-dark clouds had slowly crept out and blotted out the early evening moonlight entirely.
* * *
And a few hours later.
Thwack!
Lucy was sent sprawling by a sudden blow.
Someone trampled her shoulder mercilessly as she tried to rise, letting out a dry chuckle.
“Worse than I expected. To think you’ve been living in this state.”
The one examining Eredite’s attire and the condition above her head was her half-brother, Edawin, the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Roan.
He was nominally the commander meant to defend the border fortress adjacent to the Belluk territory, but in truth, he did not stay in this frozen land.
He resided in his own domain—warmer, closer to the capital—and only occasionally came out on inspection to look around the guard post that bore his name.
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