1

Margitte had been the fifth Court Wizard of Tratovia for barely a month when the first major crisis of her career arrived. Or, the second, after she had very nearly lost two dozen pages of arcane drafts to the incinerator, thanks to a certain someone.

The coming ordeal appeared to be an order of a magnitude worse, if such could even be possible. Already early in the morning, the young mage could detect the unusual tension all over the palace with her keen senses. That inexplicable sense of foreboding occupied every hall and corridor and appeared to only grow denser over the course of the forenoon. At last, Margitte could bear the ambiguity no longer but set out to locate the source of the restlessness and achieved this easily enough. After all, the mood of everyone else in the palace was inadvertently linked to the mood of her majesty and bad things always trickled down from above.

Margitte found the Empress in her east wing office before noon, and peered through the keyhole to see the sovereign pace back and forth before the tall window, her paperwork so far untouched. Her majesty kept nervously mumbling something under her breath, her thoughts elsewhere. This uncharacteristic anxiety might have had to do with the Intelligence Bureau’s report from before. More bad news? Had the war already started? Slightly reinforcing her hearing, Margitte could make out the following words through the door.

“Izumi is coming…” the Empress kept whispering. “Izumi is coming…”

As expected, Margitte began to feel rather anxious herself as she attempted to imagine what manner of a menace could rattle her majesty so. Who or what was this “Izumi”? It was not a word of any language she knew. Her books failed to give her the answer, so she had to try and ask around to find out more.

Margitte departed from the office and was on her way to the palace entrance when she happened to encounter Millanueve going the opposite way. Since the girl appeared to be unusually close with her majesty, there was a good chance she had heard more about the impending disaster.

It couldn’t hurt to ask—as much as she detested the person.

“Hey,” Margitte stopped and called out to the maiden knight. “Come here, airhead. I have a question for you.”

“What did you say!?” Millanueve spun around with a look of indignation. “Margitte! No matter how you’re a little clever for your age, you mustn’t call people like they’re dogs!”

She came over anyway.

“Address me, ‘Master Beuhler’!” the young Court Wizard grumpily corrected. “You ought to be glad I didn’t turn you into something worse than a dog, after what you did!”

“What?” Millanueve shrugged obliviously. “How long are you going to be angry with me? I already admitted my mistake and apologized. They were only some papers and not living creatures.”

“Is that the attitude of someone who sent arcane state secrets to be burned!?” Margitte cried. “Thank the Divines I got there in time, or else you’d be locked up in a dungeon! A dog or not.”

“Now, now. That manner of speaking isn’t very nice!” Millanueve scolded the mage with a pout. “You’re not going to make any friends if you keep it up.”

“I’m not looking to make friends with you, that’s a given!”

With great exertions of will, Margitte calmed herself. It was unbecoming of a magician to lose her composure so easily. But it couldn’t be helped, she found Millanueve simply intolerable. That attitude, treating a Court Wizard like a child—only because Margitte happened to be a bit on the short side and looked young for her age.

“Listen,” the mage said. “A direct answer to my question is all I need from you. Spare me any additional nonsense.”

“Question? For me?” Millanueve blinked, a little flattered that her aid was needed, and immediately assumed a more mellow air. “Well, if it’s anything I can answer, sure.”

“That is well. Then tell me, have you ever heard a name like ‘Izumi’ before?”

“Eh——?”

As though hit by a magic spell, Millanueve let out a startled sound and the expression on her face underwent an immediate, drastic change. Her eyes rounded, face turned pale, and for a lengthy while she didn’t move or speak at all, but only stared through the mage with unseeing eyes, like a sparrow that has hit her head on a window.

“I…Izumi…” she mouthed in a barely audible voice, like a sigh. Then, as if she had forgotten about Margitte entirely, the girl went dragging her feet past the mage, and drifted down the hallway looking like one completely drained of vitality and purpose. Weirdly enough, no actual magical effects could be perceived on her.

“What in the world…?” Margitte muttered in dismay as she watched the girl go.

What kind of a reaction was that supposed to be?

The issue was becoming even more alarming. Perhaps the Guard should be notified of the approaching menace and security tightened? Deeply restless, the magician headed to the front gate.

On the way across the Nexus Hall, Margitte happened to spot Waramoti, another one of her majesty’s close confidants, and saw it prudent to question him as well.

“Hey, you,” she called out to the man and knocked the floor with her staff to get his attention. “Come here, I have a question for you.”

“Oh?” Waramoti paused mid-step and answered the rude hail by lifting his brow. He then came over and bowed with an ironic smile on his irksome face.

“My, I am most flattered to be recognized by your eminence! How may I help you on this lovely day, Master Beuhler?”

As cordial as he was on the outside, there was something about the youth that annoyed Margitte almost as much as Millanueve’s ignorance. That condescending smile of his, as if he were somehow much older and wiser, though he looked not a day older than she was. Not a scholar, or a noble, or anyone of importance, only a nobody with his lute. With effort, she set aside her personal grievances, and made an effort to appear as dignified and collected as she could, to demonstrate the difference in pedigree.

“I happened to overhear someone or something called ‘Izumi’ is coming,” Margitte nonchalantly explained. “Do you know what that is all about?”

“Ahaha!” the bard laughed brightly in response. “So the time has come, has it? I see, I see. I’ve been waiting. Our destiny beckons us and so we must answer. Good, very good.”

His nonsensical words did little to lessen Margitte’s unease, if not on the contrary.

“Answer the question, page!” she demanded with a scowl, dropping her formal facade. “What does that mean? What is this ‘Izumi’?”

“Why, Izumi is a person of course,” the bard answered and smirked.

“A person? An enemy or a friend?”

“Depends on the day, really!” He struck a bizarre pose, gesturing with his arms, and began to explain in an exaggeratedly dramatic tone, “See, Izumi is like a force of nature; none can predict her, none may claim to know her mind. She comes and goes as she pleases and wherever she chooses to appear, lives are lost and destinies altered, forever. She steals hearts and she breaks them; she’s an assassin of emperors, an ally of witches; she cuts down mountains and buries cities; she speaks to Divines as an equal and wrestles with dragons. She’s not from this world at all, but a being from another universe—and, as such, utterly beyond our comprehension. The best we wretched mortals may do is pray we catch her in a good mood, or else suffer the consequences. Once, in another life, I battled her myself, right here in these halls, and was soundly defeated. The fact that she’s come here now means the final act of our fable has begun. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Margitte listened to the outrageous tale while grinding her molars and squeezed her staff so hard her fingers hurt.

“Well then,” the bard concluded his tale, returned to his usual self, and took a step to depart, “if I’ve answered your question…Lunch calls. It’s westonian cuisine today! Those sausages are simply to die for. Would you like to join me, if you’re free? Your grace?”

“No,” Margitte recovered from her daze and replied in a muffled voice, and hurried on towards the entryway with hurried steps.

Waramoti saw off the girl, frowning a bit at the dangerous aura she emitted.

“Eh, did I perhaps take the joke too far…?”

2

A group of black horses cantered down a curving cobblestreet through Bureilion, like shadows across the sun-bleached stones. Mounted were military officers in uniforms no less black than the horses and one glance at that grim fellowship caused other traffic to quickly make way. There went Grand Marshal Miragrave Marafel with her retinue, on the way to the central Alchemical Laboratory across the city to inspect the status of her previously placed order.

On the way, ever alert, the Marshal surveyed the streetscape with her sharp gaze. Near the end of the downhill ramp, her attention was drawn to a shady hoodlum seated idly on narrow stone stairs between the lined houses. The new regime had done a praiseworthy job at cleaning the streets, bringing work and food to many who previously had none, but there was still much and more left to do. Enough for generations to come.

“Hm?”

Looking again as they drew closer, the Marshal shortly realized her error. The figure sitting there, looking ever so wretched, was not a standard beggar after all, but someone whose face she knew. The worn look of the traveler’s outfit was more due to the mileage than simple poverty.

Wondering if she wasn’t seeing phantoms, Miragrave hurried to stop her horse, bringing the squad along with her to a swift, screeching halt.

The sight of the familiar woman persisted. Certainly not a phantom.

“Izumi!?” Miragrave exclaimed, still in doubt.

Hearing her name called, that woman, less young than she looked, raised her face.

“Oh, Mira-rin?” Izumi greeted the rider with an apathetic look. “Hi. It’s been a while.”

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” the Marshal questioned the woman with a heavy sigh. “Don’t tell me you got lost on the way?”

The palace was rather easy to see from anywhere in the city. Indeed, even now, it loomed above the southwestern rooftops, an artificial mountain. But getting there didn’t appear to be Izumi’s problem.

“No…” she muttered in low spirits. “It’s just, I have a bit of an errand to run before that. I roughly know where to go too. It’s not so much a problem of how to get there, as it is…Well, finding the will to, I suppose.”

Anyone who has heard about the summoned champion’s achievements up until this point, might find it absurd to suggest she could fail at something for the want of will or courage. But those who knew the person behind the deeds would also know that the heart in her was still that of a standard human, and there were things in life no one calling themselves as such could find easy, regardless of experiences.

“I see,” Refraining from jests, Miragrave made a faint smile and said,

“In that case, would you like to go together?”

Some four miles outside the main city, along a drowsy countryside lane bordering the farmland, stood a detached cottage. It was unexpectedly small and modest, with only one floor, a thatched roof, and a sturdy base of natural rock. The left end was covered almost entirely by a dense veil of hops, as though the plants attempted to pull the house into the earth and bury it. While winter drew on, the grip of nature’s hand had turned a rustic brown-red. A little white-painted board fence went around the property, with a narrow gate facing the entrance. By the gate was an adorable mailbox, hand-crafted and all white, save for the bright red lid.

Miragrave shortly after her, Izumi passed through the unlocked, faintly creaking gate to the front yard. Lawn grew thick on all sides of a narrow stone path that led across to the house. Here and there in the lawn could be seen small objects—toys, a ball, a wooden cube, bones. There was a dog too, a terrier of gray fur, a tad too small to chase off robbers. It watched the guests with caution, too scared to come closer than eight yards.

Behind the corner of the building, Izumi glimpsed a child, a young boy, spying on them from hiding.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

As they were about halfway through the yard, the front door suddenly opened and they stopped. Out came an adult woman in a plain, green-blue dress and an apron, bearing a basket full of laundry under her arm. She was probably near her forties or thereabout, slim and strong, but her tanned face was prematurely wrinkled by too much sun and worry.

Seeing the visitors, the woman stopped short, alert. The first thing she recognized was Miragrave’s uniform, guessed their business by their faces, and the laundry basket fell at once from her hands.

“No…!” she gasped, covered her mouth with her hands and staggered.

Izumi could only be glad she hadn’t come alone.

A brief moment later, the three of them sat inside the shady house, at a table set by the front yard window, two wood benches around it. Izumi and Miragrave sat on the door-side bench, the mistress opposite of them. No other people seemed to live here beside her and the boy and the dog.

That woman was the recipient of Izumi’s message. That woman, whose name she had learned in a dream to be Elise, but unsure of whether it was her real name or not, she refrained from speaking it.

The woman’s eyes were reddened, but she held back her tears with commendable fortitude and sat upright, hands on her knees, and waited to hear what they had to say. The news was clear to all by this point, but there was no getting away without putting it in words. It had to be said. It was the least Izumi could do.

There wasn’t going to be tea.

Izumi summoned every ounce of the mental strength she’d accumulated over the long year in the otherworld, but it took an awkwardly long time before she had any faith in her voice. She then reached stiffly into her coat pocket and took out the silvery pendant she had carried halfway across the world and placed it on the table in front of the Silver Saber’s wife and pushed it over. Upon a glance, the woman squeezed her eyes tightly shut, bitter tears spilling over her tall cheeks.

Izumi bowed her head low and spoke,

“I’m sorry. Your husband has—fallen in battle.”

Never could she have imagined such brief words could feel as heavy. Fighting the emotion seeking a way to burst out of her, she forced herself to keep talking, thinking she sounded like a robot.

“Thanks to his sacrifice, many lives were saved, including my own. Thanks to what he did, the world was spared from an evil I can’t describe. Your husband...Faalan was a real hero. The genuine article. And I’m proud to have known him. I hope you can believe that much, no matter what anyone else might say—”

“—What does it matter?” the woman suddenly interrupted her.

“Ha?” Izumi raised her head, stupefied by the unexpectedly blunt response.

“I didn’t ask him to be a ‘hero’!” The lady continued, her strong voice wavering with grief and also anger. “I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t care who he saved or how many! I don’t want to hear it! All I wanted was for him to come home! Just him! Was that really too much asked…? He promised—!”

Leaving her sentence unfinished, the woman stood and left the sitting room in quick steps, sparing the guests no thanks or goodbyes.

The house turned silent.

Dumbfounded, Izumi sat staring after the woman, unsure of what to do. Go after her? And do what? Wait for her to come back? Why? Her brain didn’t seem to be working at all. Then, she felt Miragrave’s hand on her own.

“I think it’s time we left,” the Marshal quietly said and they got up and went out.

Dazed and confused, Izumi followed after the officer towards the front gate the way they’d come. Was there really nothing more she could do? Nothing she could say, to ease the sorrow, inspire at least the faintest glimmer of hope for tomorrow? Assure this was not the end? That another day would come and maybe bring better things with it? She didn’t know such words.

Life goes on, time heals all wounds—Izumi knew better than anyone how empty and outright insulting those wornout phrases were. Her coming here was never a feat worthy of a medal. But no matter how bitter and painful, it had to be done.

It had to be done.

“—Wait!”

A light voice called after them. Izumi paused and glanced back. The boy she had seen earlier was standing there by the path, staring at her. He couldn’t have been older than five or six. He didn’t have pointy ears, but his hair was pure white and his eyes gray, like a pair of marbles.

“Was my pa really a hero?” the boy asked her.

Had he been eavesdropping under the window? Forcing a smile, Izumi stepped off the footpath, crouched before the boy, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh yes. He was.”

“Could I be a hero too?” the boy asked.

“Well...I suppose that would depend on you, kid.”

Izumi was about to get up and keep going, before the lump in her throat would choke her, but changed her mind. She looked again at the boy and continued, calmer,

“Hey, you know...up there, far, far in the north, there is a land called Dharva. In the vault of the Bank of Dharva, there’s a mountain of gold waiting for you. A gift from your old man. All you need is tell them your father’s name, and the treasure will be yours. If you ever find that heroic bone in you...you go and get it.”

She ruffled the boy’s hair, got up, and turned to go.

The two women returned to their horses and headed back to the city.

“It was an admirable thing you did,” Miragrave told Izumi once they’d reached the streets of Bureilion again. “Letting them know.”

“It was my fault,” Izumi said. “I asked him to do it. Though I knew the odds were terrible. I might as well have killed him myself.”

They rode on for a while in silence and then the Marshal spoke again.

“Everyone dies. As far as I can tell, there are two ways to it. There are deaths that happen at random, for no particular purpose but to put an end to a story; and then there are those sacrifices that count for something more than their own measure. I won’t say one is always better than the other, each has its place. But wishing to revert a fate that has found its fulfillment wouldn’t be natural. And what is not natural is evil itself. If it hurts, then be glad! That pain means you’re still alive, and human.”

“…Harsh as ever,” Izumi sighed. “It never occurred to you I might need some consoling words myself? I’m a delicate maiden too, you know? Inside and outside.”

“And who will console me?” Miragrave retorted with some irony. “I’ve had to deliver more than my share of such messages in my time, you know?”

“I don’t know how you can do it. Just once was too much for me…”

“I don’t think about if I can or can’t. I do it, because someone has to. Doesn’t that apply to most things in life?”

“You may have a point.” Izumi relaxed her shoulders and drew a deep breath. “Yes. It’s about time I did what I had to…”

“On the way, why don’t you have a look at that.”

“Hm?”

They halted their horses at an overlook by the street. Ahead, in the city downhill, they saw a new tower being raised, surrounded by construction platforms. But it wasn’t a simple belfry, or a chapel tower they were making, but had an oddly familiar design.

“That’s…?” Izumi mouthed in surprise.

It was a clock tower. On a round, white disc they presently hauled up were set strong cast iron arms, and numerals ran along the edges.

“There have been alchemical and magic-based clocks in the past, sun dials and hourglasses and such like,” Miragrave explained, “but that there is the first purely mechanical clock ever assembled in this age. It was inspired by what you and Mr Watts told us about your homeworld. Periods were further divided into hours, hours into minutes, minutes into seconds...Time is no more an unseen dimension exclusive to the rich and learned, but dissected and laid plain before the entire population. Work days can be defined with unprecedented precision, allowing wages to be accordingly adjusted, and saving the government and private businesses millions in silver annually. And that’s just for starters.”

Izumi said nothing but stared at the clock face. She didn’t want to admit it out loud, but the sight of it evoked in her a distinct sense of nostalgia, and blended in that nostalgia was a bang of real homesickness.

“You have been changed by this world,” Miragrave told the woman. “And even now, this world is being changed by you. So don’t ever start thinking nonsense like, ‘oh, I’ve caused more trouble than I’ve done good!’ Of course, I won’t deny that you’ve caused a great deal of trouble too. But that’s hardly something unique to your world or nature. The denizens of this planet can take care of that part well enough on their own. So what’s one troublemaker more?”

“Eh…” Izumi looked at the woman, earnestly surprised, before a heartfelt smile brightened her face. “My. My, my! If I weren’t so scared of falling off my horse, I’d give you a tight squeeze now! Ah, what a surprise! You do know how to cheer up a lady, after all!”

“And what is so surprising about that?” Miragrave retorted and bashfully looked away. “I don’t always tell only bad news to people…”

The Marshal then turned her horse around.

“I trust you can make the rest of the trip on your own. I still have my own business to attend to. Try not to keep her majesty waiting too long.”

“Sure. See you.”

Izumi watched the officer ride off along the street and disappear in the jungle of stone, before she turned her gaze back at the hill of Selenoreion and Imperial Palace on its summit. She drew a deep breath to ready herself and tightened her grip on the reins.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

She left her horse with the guards at the Ptoloios’s Gate and proceeded the rest of the way on foot. The guards let her pass without questions asked when she showed them the ring with the Throne’s emblem on it.

The white stairs she had climbed once before in spring, those innumerable stairs that the marble images of men made immortal lined—it felt weird, going up the same way again without an escort, without hiding, free and easy. As if she belonged in this dream-like land. As if there wasn’t anything weird about her walking this earth.

Izumi didn’t pay much attention to the path. Her thoughts were already at the destination. If only everything went well, if only it didn’t get much worse…Then, she looked up, alerted by the odd tension in the air.

On top of the long stairway, below the gate of Selenoreion, stood a young girl with a menacing look, effectively blocking the way. A teenager, judging by the youthful face and short build, hair copper-brown and curly, eyes willful and stern. Her outfit was clean and militaristic, of obviously costly make, with a loose, hooded black cloak over her shoulders, and it fluttered airily in the gentle wind like the reaper’s robes. The girl posed there like a statue, holding onto a slim ebony staff. Her gaze was fixed on the lone visitor and shone with a wrathful gleam.

Under different circumstances, Izumi would’ve assumed the young lady to be on a Trick-or-Treat-round through the neighborhood, but that didn’t appear to be the case. It was one particularly intimidating little girl she was looking at, and sensing danger, she stopped.

“You there,” the girl called out to Izumi. “What is your name?”

“Me?” Izumi replied, tilting her head in confusion. “It’s Izumi, though. Why?”

“I see…” Margitte-Sophie Beuhler muttered and narrowed her eyes.

“In that case, prepare to die.”