Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 11

『Gladestalkers, fan out. Keep enemy eyes off of us.』

Saraca’s brief pursuit of the Undead Commander ended not with closure, but with an ever-increasing sense of unease. He gazed down at his bloodstained claws, thoughts racing to make sense of the outcome. Mitra stood beside him; not a trace of her usual levity could be detected.

How do things just keep getting worse?

“Hey,” Girika said. “You sure this one was Undead?”

“Are you saying that she was a Human collaborator?” Saraca asked

“There are idiots wherever you go,” Girika shrugged.

There were cases where the living encountered Undead who were willing to ‘coexist’. Without a single exception, the living who fell for their overtures eventually discovered that they had committed a fatal error. That error not only cost them their lives, but also affected the lives of countless others.

‘Coexistence’ with the living was simply a means to an end for the Undead. Once that end was achieved, the Undead reassessed the value of their living collaborators. Those collaborators were sometimes wrangled into some other venture, but they were most often killed off.

In the case of the former, working together with the Undead only made them more and more of a risk factor. For the Undead, who harboured no notions of friendship, loyalty, or love toward the living, said risk factors became increasingly untenable and were inevitably eliminated.

Unfortunately, as Girikia noted, there were always idiots who thought they could trust the Undead – or at least get something out of them – so Undead beings who learned to exploit the desires of the living were never short of willing fools.

“My first thought was that she was Uhlan,” Saraca admitted. “Even her stance looked like some derivative from their martial schools.”

That was the first of a long list of unsettling things about the Undead Commander. Undead spawned with a certain degree of martial expertise, but it was divided between the Skills and Abilities that all Undead of their type had and mundane combat techniques. If one learned how to fight one Death Knight, one knew how to fight every Death Knight.

This Undead was different, however. Saraca could tell at a glance that she wasn’t simply ‘using’ what she had. Furthermore, what she had was Martial Arts. To his knowledge, Undead beings could not use a ‘warrior’s magic’ no matter how powerful of a warrior they appeared to be. It implied that she both possessed the requisite skill and had grasped how to conceptualise Martial Arts. Since she was a Commander, she might have attempted to ‘train’ her soldiers and had passed on that knowledge.

But how had she gained that knowledge in the first place? Had she infiltrated Human society and learned? He still couldn’t figure out what sort of Undead she was.

“So you’re saying that she wasn’t Human,” Girika said.

“She got up after I hit her,” Saraca said. “I’m pretty sure I turned her insides into paste. No living thing survives that sort of ordeal. Not only did she walk away, but we found her running around rallying her troops with no sign of any injuries. There weren’t any of those Undead Priests around, either.”

“Well,” Girika sniffed, “she looks and smells like a Human. Sure, Undead might get away with the looking part, but not the smelling. Also, uh…she’s still there. The body, I mean.”

“A type of evolved Zombie, maybe?” Mitra said.

“I ain’t ever seen no Zombies like that,” Girika snorted. “Body’s not rotting or anything. If she were alive or whatever, old Arjan’d probably ask her out for dinner.”

Saraca looked over at the corpse lying several metres away. Karuvaki and two other Sacred Claws were still inspecting it and casting spells to prevent it from somehow getting up again. Certain Undead left corpses – such as the aforementioned Zombies if they were raised from corpses – but most powerful Undead simply disintegrated after losing their animating force. They never existed as a corpse in the first place, so they similarly left nothing behind.

If anyone came across Saraca and his entourage, they would have undoubtedly assumed that they had killed a Human. There was absolutely no sign that she had ever been anything else.

“Karuvaki,” he said, “is there any chance that this corpse is some form of magical or supernatural deception?”

“A-are you saying that she’s not actually dead?” Mitra looked around.

“I’m not sure what I’m saying,” Saraca said. “Nothing makes sense here. Summoned Death Knights. Undead Commanders that leave behind fresh Human corpses. Maybe she is still running around somewhere and this corpse is just some weird decoy manifested from an Ability. Or maybe it’s some contingency that she had handy for infiltrating Human society. Nothing would surprise me at this point.”

“There’s no sign of this being some sort of deception,” Karuvaki walked over to stand on Saraca’s right, “That aside, the equipment on that corpse is real…which leads us to the biggest issue.”

“Should we take it with us?” Girika asked.

“Are you crazy?” Mitra snarled, “I thought she was wielding an Astra when she landed in front of us. My fur nearly jumped off of my skin.”

“…so we just leave her there with her stuff.”

“Normally,” Saraca said, “I’d say we use Obscure Object and take it with us. But this situation only grows more absurd with every new piece of information that we come across. Not only does she have something that looks like an Astra, but she has armour to match. One doesn’t just randomly have complete sets of the stuff. Even single pieces are nearly impossible to find.”

The ‘biggest issue’ was not the fact that the Undead Commander was wearing equipment – though that in itself was still a major cause for concern – but the appearance that the equipment took. Astra were divine relics with power beyond the artifice or even comprehension of the greatest talents that the central powers had to offer.

If the corpse lying before them had real ones, their fight would have gone much differently. Considering that she was a tireless Undead being and had considerable martial capabilities, she would have probably been able to wipe out Rol’en’gorek’s forces on her own. This had been proven beyond a doubt in the past when the Beastman Confederacy thought it had gained an inexorable advantage over the Minos League. They attempted to exploit a generation’s absence of any powerful divine-blooded champions and put an end to their destructive expansionism, only to have their expeditionary army obliterated by Astra left behind by the Boastful Sage.

While the Undead Commander used ‘imitation Astra’, it was still enough to give anyone with the requisite knowledge pause. There were many implications to consider, and some were dire indeed.

“Maybe it was in that negative energy wasteland,” Girika said. “If it was buried in a tomb or something, it’d be hard for any of the living to find.”

That did make a sort of sense, though it was a stupid sort of sense. Many cultures buried great figures with their treasures, but the equipment in question was likely far beyond the value of the average national regalia. Most nations prudently passed that sort of equipment down to the next generation of defenders. Simply burying it meant that it ended up in the hands of whoever defeated them because they weren’t using it.

“It’s not worth the risk,” Saraca said. “Just leave everything as it is for now. We need to follow up with Rana Saj. Maybe whatever this Undead formation was defending will have the answers we’re looking for.”

“If some random guy comes around and takes it…”

“Then we can track them with divination magic,” Saraca said. “Our Sacred Claws have already familiarised themselves with the items. This probably sounds terrible, but we can also find out if the items are in themselves a trap by seeing what happens to whoever takes them.”

“Fair enough.”

『Form up, we’re moving out.』

“Hold on,” Karuvaki said, “we need to refresh some of our enchantments. Death Ward and a few other things are running out in less than five minutes.”

Hopefully, the Undead Commander was destroyed and that was the end of it. Next came whatever was on the hill, which he suspected to be a Night Lich that had developed a spell or Skill that allowed them to create the Death Knights and other powerful Undead beings that had rampaged their way across the Draconic Kingdom.

The summoner’s assets were deployed in the encirclement of Eastwatch and the reserves set aside for defence had been broken, so it should now be as vulnerable as it would ever be. Every individual in Clan Ki’ra would be strictly weaker than their target, but they weren’t so weak that they wouldn’t be able to overwhelm it. The summoner probably wouldn’t have enough mana to kill even a tenth of them in one battle.

Of course, there was the possibility that the summoner immediately escaped or teleported away when it felt adequately threatened, but powerful Undead had a certain degree of pride – or perhaps disdain – for the living that would at least see an attempt to show their opponents the folly of crossing them.

Beside him, Mitra’s ears swivelled all around.

“I don’t hear any fighting coming from the hill,” she said.

“Maybe it’s over,” Karuvaki offered.

“Or maybe the target escaped,” Girika said. “I know for sure that a magic caster’d need more time than this to wipe out Clan Ki’ra. Maybe we should have let them take out this Commander while we went for the summoner.”

“No one could tell how powerful the Commander was,” Saraca replied. “With her equipped the way she was, I had to assume that Clan Ki’ra would be destroyed. They might take massive casualties against a single Night Lich, but at least they would have a good chance of defeating it.”

“If it stuck around.”

“Yeah, well, those were our options at the time. Stop talking like a pretentious brat from the military academy.”

Girika shut his mouth. He hated being compared to academy brats.

The last of the Gladestalkers came in. Kasturi went directly to him.

“Something’s coming from the direction of the hill,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re here for us or here for that corpse, but they’re heading straight this way along the road.”

“Something?” Saraca furrowed his brow, “As in the Undead?”

“I can only assume so,” Kasturi replied. “They’re Human in appearance like the Commander that we just destroyed. Some of Clan Ki’ra’s detached forces are still fighting against the Death Knights scattered about, and every time these ‘Humans’ come across them, they assist the Undead. There are nine Death Knights and two Elder Liches accompanying them now, plus a bunch of Zombies that they’ve raised.”

Saraca released a long sigh.

“What about Rana Saj and Clan Ki’ra’s main force?” He asked.

“If they were defeated,” Kasturi said, “there’s no sign of any survivors fleeing the area.”

More Commanders? Or perhaps they were encountering a whole ‘species’ of Undead previously unknown to the Confederacy.

“What about their equipment?” Karuvaki asked, “Are they wearing anything like the one we just destroyed?”

“Ehm…one of them is wearing a black suit? In the fashion of the far south. He has the look of an elderly Human. The other is a girl in a black one-piece dress with black slippers and a black shawl. She’s riding in the crook of the man’s arm. The girl might be the same one I saw on top of the hill, but she was too far for any real details back then.”

Fashion from the far south? Yet another new thing that he couldn’t ignore. Centimetre by centimetre, every piece of information was transforming this incident on the fringes of the continent into a catastrophe of global proportions.

“The dress might be a robe,” Mitra said, “so that makes the girl the one that summoned everything? The man carrying her around might be a ‘bodyguard’.”

“It would explain why Clan Ki’ra was defeated,” Karuvaki said. “We only considered that there was a Commander and a summoner. A powerful Undead ‘champion’ existing in addition to that should be next to impossible, but his garb presents a disturbing possibility.”

“If they have a link with the far south,” Saraca agreed, “we’ll have to send people to see if anything has changed along the Dreadlands. But first, we need to deal with this.”

He examined their surroundings, identifying the various tactical advantages offered by the terrain. As one achieved greater heights of power, they went far beyond the ‘realities’ of most, but certain rules always applied.

『Gladestalkers, take positions along the ditches; keep the muddy fields between you and our targets. Try and get rid of the summoner as quickly as possible before supporting our warriors with the Death Knights. Mitra and I will fight the bodyguard. Sacred Claws, make sure you get Dimensional Anchor on the summoner just in case she tries to teleport away. Druids, unload everything you can on that ‘bodyguard’. The quicker we get this over with, the better.』

His entourage went about following his orders. The battle plan was a simple one: keep the Death Knights occupied while they hit the bodyguard and the summoner as hard as possible. Once they were out of the picture, nothing else would be a threat.

Unless we find out that there’s even more to this entire thing…

A group of silhouettes appeared on the horizon, following the rural road toward Saraca’s group. They resolved into the aged, Human-looking bodyguard with the girl in black in the crook of his arm, accompanied by the Death Knights and Elder Liches. Minutes passed as they casually closed the distance.

Saraca’s eyes constantly moved over the surroundings, alert for any additional forces.

『Ji, something’s moving in the shadows. We have more than Kasturi reported to fight.』

『So…Shadows?』

Shadows were a type of Undead, and they appeared just as they sounded: the shadowy figures of various living beings. They sapped their target’s strength with a touch. Those that fell to them became Shadows themselves.

『Greater Shadows, going by how strong they look. A bit stronger, maybe.』

『Watch out: they have Greater Shadows or something stronger lurking about as well.』

The Undead group drew closer, and the oppressive air emanating from them grew. Like the Undead Commander, the summoner and the bodyguard lacked the characteristic crimson gaze of the Undead, making it likely that they were dealing with a new Undead ‘species’. Given what they had learned about the Undead Commander, they were the most dangerous type of Undead ever encountered – too dangerous to be allowed to exist.

『How strong are the summoner and the bodyguard?』

『I can’t tell. They may as well be regular people.』

It was the same assessment that she gave the Undead Commander, indicating that they had some means to block attempts to directly gather information about them.

The bodyguard’s unfeeling gaze went from Saraca to the Undead Commander’s corpse near the road. Saraca didn’t wait for the reaction.

『Go!』

A ray shot out of Karuvaki’s hand, bathing the summoner in a green glow. Six bullets flew in at the same time. The air crackled with electricity as his Druids cast Call Thunder Storm using Silent Metamagic. Twelve Greater Air Elementals rushed forward, invisible to the naked eye.

Saraca gathered himself to charge, then blinked as the bodyguard turned around and threw the summoner away. The summoner let out a squeak before landing in the flooded ditch with a splash.

The bullets thumped against the bodyguard’s back and fell to the road. Twelve columns of divine flame lanced down from the sky – Flame Strike spells simultaneously silentcast at their foe. The bodyguard dashed forward, somehow evading the bombardment. As their foe rushed forward, the thunderstorms were unleashed upon him. Their target seemed to leave afterimages of himself as he made his way. Saraca immediately dropped his offensive stance for a defensive one.

How do you dodge one hundred twenty lightning bolts in a row?

He was too strong. Even without a direct read, an experienced warrior could tell from their foe’s movements alone.

『Saraca!』

The bodyguard blurred toward him. Saraca made the call.

『Evac!』

Girika interposed himself between the bodyguard and Saraca. A single blow laid him low, but the sliver of time he bought was all that was necessary. With a thought, Saraca activated a crystal inside his armour.

The scenery shifted from the muddy fields of the Draconic Kingdom to the empty room of an inn. The cool, humid wind of the riverlands was replaced by dry, sweltering heat. All around him, the members of his entourage teleported in. Saraca placed Girika’s body on a nearby bed.

“Resurrect him,” he said.

Saraca turned away and looked out of the crack in the window. In the plaza below the suite, the Merchants of Stormport were preparing for the evening markets. His thoughts turned to the brief encounter and a dark mood fell upon him. The truth had revealed itself, but he wanted to deny it with all of his being.

An unprecedented army of powerful Undead. Those Undead being summons in themselves. A new type of Undead that displayed strange traits and acted outside of the bounds of characteristic Undead behaviour. The appearance of Astra-like equipment and a being with the strength to fell a powerful Dragon Lord.

“Damn it all,” Girika grumbled behind him. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

“I’ll apply for a raise,” Saraca chuckled.

“As if the department will loosen their claws on the budget.”

“At least we had your body,” Mitra quipped. “We had to resurrect you from an old hairball last time. Kasturi wouldn’t let you near her for a month.”

“Saraca,” Karuvaki said in a more subdued tone. “What are we going to do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” Saraca’s voice grew grim. “Contact Devi – we’re going home. The Cycle of Calamity has begun anew, and it has come in a form that threatens all life. The entire world must prepare however it can.”

Droplets of water fell to the road as Draudillon dried herself off, the soaked fabrics of her dress clinging to every curve of her figure. A part of her was irked over the fact that Sebas didn’t try to sneak a peek at her. Instead, the Sorcerer King’s Royal Butler – or whatever he was – scanned the surroundings before going over to gently lift Baroness Zahradnik’s remains from the muddy field nearby. He placed her on the grass alongside the road, an unreadable look on his handsome face.

“We…We assume that she will be resurrected?” Draudillon said.

“Your Majesty is familiar with resurrection magic?” Sebas asked.

“Crystal Tear had a Cleric capable of casting it,” Draudillon nodded. “Their members died once in a while. The forces that came from the Theocracy also had it available. We have become accustomed to powerful people having access to resurrection spells, and it is difficult to imagine the Sorcerous Kingdom not having them.”

“I see. Your Majesty is indeed correct. We will resurrect her at the soonest available opportunity. Pardon me for a moment while I deliver my report.”

Sebas went over to one of the Elder Liches accompanying them. Draudillon’s gaze went to Baroness Zahradnik’s body on the road. She released a tired sigh.

Once again, my hesitance to act has led to trouble for everyone…

Draudillon trembled. She had a feeling that, no matter what she did, hell was her destiny.

Even with the security of her domain apparently well in hand, she was still confronted by an unpleasant choice. No matter how she twisted or turned; no matter how she hesitated and believed that she had escaped those unpleasant choices, the World reached out and snatched her back.

Every time it did, she was placed before yet another unpleasant choice. Every time, it made a single demand: decide.

The World wasn’t very kind about it, either. Whenever she hesitated or ran away, she was punished. She wouldn’t have minded it if it was some personal punishment, but what was meted out were consequences that happened to others. Those that she cared for. The denizens of her domain. People that relied on her or became close.

And, as time went on, her punishment grew worse. Dragon Lords might not have had excellent parents to guide them, but they still had the World to answer to.

To be born with the ability to wield the primal magic of the soul – Wild Magic – was to be born with a certain destiny. No, that made it sound too romantic. Fate was a better way to describe it. Every Dragon Lord was born to be something, and the World expected nothing less. As far as she knew, only a bare handful had managed to break themselves free of that fate.

Ostensibly, it was to be what many with some insight on the matter called a Keeper. It was an objectively better way to put it, as ‘Dragon Lord’ led many mortals’ thoughts in characteristically mortal directions. They envied or feared Dragon Lords for their power and knowledge; resented and hated them for ways that often set mortal priorities aside. Even those that befriended Dragon Lords and were informed of their nature couldn’t understand. To truly understand, one had to be a Keeper themselves.

As her great-grandfather had so eloquently put it, Dragon Lords were the curators of a vast library, and every book – every story – was one of the countless souls that cycled through existence. Dragon Lords were regulators of the World’s ‘soul economy’, charged with ensuring that the World as a whole remained healthy and continued to grow, becoming richer and more vibrant as the ages passed. Though the world had changed, souls still existed and thus their duty remained.

Beyond that universal role, each Dragon Lord had a ‘speciality’. Some, like the Heavenly Dragon Lord, were born to destroy certain types of invaders that manifested from other existences and that had been his duty for aeons. Most Dragon Lords, however, were merely gardeners tending to their respective plots around the world and were not too much stronger than the Ancient Dragons of the present day. What they were was sufficient for what they were meant to do and Draudillon was the weakest of them all.

Draudillon figured it was because she was born as a ‘Human’. She was a Human Dragon Lord taking care of a domain where Humans were the predominant population. Humans were weak, and so was she.

And, so, even before her coronation, she set about her task. It was already her domain the moment she was born, after all. Her mother – the Queen at the time – couldn’t understand what she was doing, thinking that she was ‘playing’ at being a future Queen and humouring her daughter’s whimsies.

To begin with, she wanted a country that was ‘good’. She couldn’t guarantee that everyone was, but she could at least foster a society that encouraged what she desired. One that was built on integrity and trust. Where people never selfishly abandoned their fellows or lived dishonest lives. A place where the best of humanity could thrive.

As a Dragon Lord, she ensured that the environmental conditions in her domain were ideal for Humans and she did her best to guide them in the right direction. While she wasn’t a Human Lord, she could use her limited capacity for Wild Magic to emulate some of their capabilities. The rest was simply a matter of study, which took time, but Dragon Lords had plenty of that. Of course, she couldn’t coddle her subjects. Spoiling her people would only lead to decadence and warped worldviews.

Her efforts were far from in vain. The ‘Draconic Kingdom’ started to take the shape of the country of her dreams, and the people even came to reciprocate her care. It was a good country: one that prospered in times of peace and showed unparalleled resilience when troubles came. It was a place where people lived, loved, fought and died, writing characteristically good Human stories in infinite variation.

Someday, she thought, those stories would eventually make their way out into the world, enriching all of the other stories that they intertwined with. Yet, to her dismay, that future was barred to her people with malicious intent.

As much as she loved Humans, she also understood their faults. Foremost amongst them was that they did not handle power well. It was almost as if they were not meant to have power, as the result of their having power tended to result in terrible outcomes.

The Slane Theocracy was the preeminent example of this. With the assuredness granted by their ‘divine legacy’, they tore down and rebuilt the world around them in their image, uncaring of the rest of its inhabitants. Whatever threatened their efforts that they couldn’t exercise control over, they twisted, warped or destroyed outright. The Draconic Kingdom was no exception.

Perhaps the worst part of it was that the Theocracy followed the rules. Rules that kept Dragon Lords and other beings in the highest realms of power from directly intervening in their machinations. As their neighbour, Draudillon had little choice but to lock herself inside the cage that they built for her and her people.

The World didn’t care about that sort of thing, however. It was simply yet another trial – one that demanded various decisions out of her. And, now, events had transpired that forced her hand: the stories in her keeping were being robbed of the ability to write.

Yet, even though she knew that she must act, acting came in fits and starts. She did one thing and stopped; prepared other things and stopped again. Hesitation stayed her hand, for her great-grandfather was right: she cared too much.

Every soul was precious, be they Human, Beastman or anything else.

“Lord Sebas,” one of the Elder Liches said, “reconnaissance reports a Beastman warband approaching from the northwest.”

All around her, the Death Knights took up a defensive stance. Sebas lowered his hand from his ear and tightened his pure white gloves, a grim expression on his face. He took a step forward. Draudillon stepped out of the ring of Death Knights, reaching out to grasp his elbow.

“Sebas,” she said. “Please, stop. I don’t want you to do this anymore. I…I’ll take care of this. I’ll take care of everything.”

A slight frown marred Sebas’ dignified face.

“Forgive me, but I’m not sure that I understand what Your Majesty is saying.”

“The reason why I asked to come; why I was so happy that you would come with me, wasn’t because I wanted you to fight. I was just happy that someone would be with me. Most of the time, that’s all a girl needs.”

Draudillon stepped past Sebas. In the distance, the Beastman warband appeared, breaking out into a charge upon spotting them.

“Also,” she said softly. “If you can find it within you…please don’t hate me after this.”

She closed her eyes. Her self reached out, coiling around the approaching Beastmen.

Pay for the stories that you’ve ruined with your own!

Learn what it means to intrude upon a Dragon Lord’s domain!

How dare you do this to the souls under my care!

A dozen lines went through her head; lines that she thought might encourage her to do what must be done. In the end, however, she could only say one thing:

I’m sorry.

A tear trickled down her cheek. Then, she pulled.

Agonised howls filled the air. The Beastmen slowed, then stopped. Most of them collapsed where they were; some of them crawled a short distance before doing the same.

Draudillon travelled further, sweeping over the land. Hundreds of thousands of agonised voices screamed in her mind as she ripped away the soul of every Beastman in her domain. She wept silently as they fell where they stood, from Eastwatch to Foca Bay and throughout the Draconic Kingdom’s southern provinces.

I’m sorry.

One by one, she destroyed them, tearing their stories into shreds to fuel her spells. A storm of Wild Magic swept over the land, cleansing every well, stream, pond and lake. The bodies of her subjects were purged and their minds restored: every man and woman; every child and those yet to be born. As the Beastmen fell and their souls were taken, the people of the Draconic Kingdom were made whole again.

In the end, she was left with quite a bit left over. The souls she had harvested were of far higher quality than average. Draudillon pondered what she would do with the rest. She turned her vision to the canyon past Eastwatch.

I could destroy that mountain range and turn the entire jungle into a lake–

Her breath caught in her throat. What was she thinking? She released the souls to the World, collapsing onto the road with her face in her hands. Her shuddering sobs filled the deafening silence left in the wake of her atrocity.

“Your Majesty,” Sebas asked after some time. “Were you always capable of doing that?”

“With the suitable preparations, yes,” she sniffed.

“Then why…”

“Because,” Draudillon looked up at him, “because–”

She blinked as she looked at Sebas through her soul-charged vision. After witnessing him fight, she suspected, but now everything came together.

I see. So that’s how it is…

Dragon Lords did not come into existence by accident. Her birth, considered a miracle at a time when no new Dragon Lords could be born, was no stroke of incredible luck, but something that had happened by design. It was she who had been woefully mistaken when she thought it was to be the Keeper of a Human domain.

Every moment of her life before this point was simply practice. Preparation for her true purpose. She was born as a ‘Human’ and placed in a position of weakness under a Human nation ‘blessed’ by the legacy of their ‘gods’. It was all schooling for when the real thing would come…and she had just ‘graduated’.

Entities not of their world had manifested upon it: echoes of an existence called ‘Yggdrasil’. The World had even put her in the region where they were to appear.

Draudillon was born not to guide Humans, but to guide ‘Players’ – who were reportedly very Human-like in their behaviour. Beings that possessed unfathomable power and more often than not lacked the experience to wield it appropriately. She was born after the advent of corruption and thus did not bear the resentment of the Dragon Lords who existed before that time. Everything that she was made her the ideal liaison between these newly arrived beings and the strange ‘new world’ that they found themselves in.

Well, papapapa always said that the World doesn’t usually play favourites.

Her great-grandfather would probably keel over if he ever found out.

Draudillon picked herself off of the ground and brushed off her knees. She looked up at Sebas again.

“Because,” she said, “there is a difference between can and should. If I’m not mistaken, you should understand that difference?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Umu,” Draudillon nodded. “Please let His Majesty the Sorcerer King know that I look forward to our long and fruitful relationship.”

“Of course,” Sebas smiled his kind smile. “I’m sure that His Majesty will be most pleased with your message.”

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