1

Izumi followed a few steps behind Millanueve past the slim sandstone minarets, small temples, and streetside shrines, where candles burned all day and the scent of incense drifted. Even though the day was warm and the sun bright, she felt cold inside and frequently shivered. Her legs lacked strength and carried her on only with conscious effort. She was nervous. It was a feeling like going back to school after skipping a full term. She looked at the figure of the girl walking ahead of her. Millanueve had cut her hair and Izumi felt as if it had been a limb of hers that was cut. She had to look down at the stones to not shatter.

Maybe it was better to start with an apology, after all?

But again, the girl was faster.

“—You didn’t expect to see me, did you?” she asked without looking back.

How could she ask such a loaded question so casually? Izumi couldn’t see the girl’s face, but her voice sounded easy. No, perhaps there was a tinge of melancholy in it. Irony.

But that couldn’t be helped.

“Well…” Izumi mumbled. She thought she managed to sound surprisingly collected, despite the on-going turmoil inside her. Not that she could come up with any real words. It was as if her vocabulary had been altogether erased from her brain.

“I came just to deliver a letter, at first,” Millanueve continued with an explanation, not waiting for a more eloquent comment. “But then her majesty said I could stay in the palace. I was even appointed a knight in her personal guard—Can you believe that? I thought I was seeing a dream. Waramoti had told the Empress about me, it turns out. About what happened in Alderia and on the way. She knows everything. It’s...a little embarrassing, to tell you the truth. More than just a little…”

“...Ah, you’re right,” Izumi agreed.

It was beyond embarrassing.

“Have you...Have you been well?” the girl asked.

“Uh, sort of...Somehow…”

“That’s...good? So long as you’re alive.”

Izumi failed to respond. What is good about me being alive? Was that a joke?

“It’s such a beautiful city, isn’t it?” Millanueve already carried on as she gazed around, leaping from topic to topic like a pixie on a meadow. “People can build such enormous things too. Seeing it now, I regret not leaving home any sooner. The locals are just a bit strange, but they’re not bad people. Not all of them. Well, you already knew that. Since you used to live here. Sorry.”

“...For just a little while.”

They walked for a while in silence.

Then Millanueve spoke again,

“You weren’t rude to Margitte, were you?” she asked. “She’s so young, but already a Court Wizard, the same as Master Carmelia. Isn’t that amazing? She’s incredible, so gifted— just a bit mean at times, but geniuses are all a little weird, aren’t they? Not that I know so many, but…Ah, I haven’t seen Master Carmelia yet, in case you were wondering. I heard she’s been away this past summer, on some business. Everyone’s very busy here.”

“I see...”

Again, silence.

“Her majesty,” Millanueve said. “She’s a wonderful person. Isn’t she?”

“I suppose she is,” Izumi agreed.

“Leading a country so big—everyone looks up to her, admires her. I do as well, of course. And…I reckon you do too?”

“Well. I guess.”

“Of course. Sorry for asking weird things. I...No, never mind. I’m just glad I found something I can do here. Becoming anything like a hero might be too much asked. The kind of matters Izumi deals with are so far beyond me. But I’m happy if I can help, even just a little bit...”

“I see. That’s—that’s a good thing. I think.”

“So, um...You do your best too, okay? Izumi.”

“Ah. I’ll try to…”

After this, they spoke no more and kept walking, up the hundreds of winding stairs to the top of the hill, to the main building of the palace complex, vast as it was ancient. They went in through the open gate and no one obstructed their passage, as if they were the only people left in a world that had suddenly ended. The passed through the vestibule and the Azure Hall, where man-made stars twinkled on the azure imitation sky, and stepped then into the Nexus Hall, where knights of the Imperial Guard received them.

“Ma’am,” they saluted Millanueve, and then turned to Izumi. “Milady, we have been informed of your coming. Before you enter the Throne Room, we must ask you to surrender any weapons you may be carrying. We shall hold onto them, and return them as you leave.”

“Yes, yes, I know the rodeo,” Izumi mumbled in answer, removed her blade from the magnetite holder, and handed it over. “This is all I have. Don’t scratch it.”

She hated the sound of her own voice and she hated the guards for making her use it. And she had come to hate that sword. You could wash the blood off it, but in her eyes it remained dyed deep crimson. She would’ve preferred to never see it again.

Cleared to pass, disoriented by a bout of dizziness, Izumi went on towards the Throne Room’s black door. The sentries on both sides of the pompous entrance seized the handles and opened the path for her. As the doors were being opened, she halted and turned her head to glance back.

Millanueve still followed behind her. The delusion hadn’t vanished.

“Sorry,” she mouthed over her shoulder to the girl, not daring to look at her directly. “But would you mind giving me a moment alone with her majesty? I’d rather no one else heard this…”

“Oh.” Millanueve paused, blinking. “Sure.”

The girl quickly retreated a step and saw Izumi off, until the two thick halves of obsidian closed once again and silence followed. A crooked smile on her lips, Millanueve looked down at her lonely reflection on the polished flooring.

As I thought, she’s still angry.

2

Yuliana kept fixing the position of her tiara. The frame was made of silver steel, with numerous exquisitely cut sapphires embedded. They glittered and sparkled so that it got hard on the eyes. She wouldn’t normally wear such decorations, save for the more high-profile diplomatic visits, which expected a show of class, but thought it could be fun this once. She had also put on a gaudy white dress that glittered like diamond dust in the light of the magic flames by the throne. Even she thought it was an overkill.

It would definitely make an impression.

Izumi would be surprised to see how well she was doing, despite everything.

I’ve grown too. I’ll show you...

At the same time, Yuliana already knew the theatrics were a waste of effort.

Izumi would come in looking goofy as usual, make a tactless greeting of sorts, perhaps inject otherworldly references that made no sense to anyone else, and in so doing shattered any and all sense of dignity and importance on the occasion. It was what she always did, it was unavoidable. With that person, keeping up appearances was always useless.

But Yuliana was prepared now. She wouldn’t let any bizarre nonsense get to her. One way or the other, she would make Izumi acknowledge her.

To achieve this, she had dismissed the courtier and the guards. Such distractions weren’t needed. They wouldn’t understand the champion, no one else did. They would only get confused and complicate things. For the first time since spring, they would be free to talk things through in peace and quiet, just the two of them. And, perhaps, at long last—find some common ground.

Then the doors opened.

Yuliana drew a deep breath, donned the persona of the Sovereign, and waited. But despite all her preparations and mental rehearsals, she was surprised all the same.

Into the throne room marched one glum woman. Not a hint of a smile on her face, Izumi walked quietly along the crimson carpet in her weather-worn clothes. She made no greetings, uttered not a word of nonsense or otherwise.

Yuliana watched her approach with a deepening frown. Was the visitor really even Izumi? Everything about her from the general air to the walking style seemed to differ from memory. Less whimsical and outlandish, more serious, restrained—in a word, just normal. And for a person from another world to appear “normal” in the eyes of a local was nothing if not abnormal.

Izumi came to a stop before the mountain of dark steps taking up to the throne, and glanced at Yuliana without much of an expression. The outfit and the tiara didn’t elicit one sound of wonder from her.

Then, the woman abruptly knelt and bowed her head.

“Your majesty,” she spoke. “I came back.”

Here Yuliana was beginning to feel very uneasy. “Izumi…?”

“—I came back for one reason and one reason only,” Izumi continued in a tone heavy with emotion. “I want to save this world. I want to make it a better place to be. I don’t want any more good people to suffer pointlessly like they do. But I don’t know how. Whatever I do or try, it all goes south. So command me! Tell me what I have to do! If it’s you, you might find uses for even someone as useless as me, without wasting any more time or lives. I’ll do whatever you want me to. I’ll be your knight, your sword, your dog, or maid, or whatever you need me to be. I’m putting my life in your hands. Use it as you see fit, or throw it away, I don’t mind. It’s all I have left.”

Finished, the woman fell silent and waited for the answer without moving.

For a lengthy while, Yuliana didn’t know what to say.

As a friend, she wanted nothing more but to run down and embrace the woman, cry with her, help by any means bear the pain she evidently carried. But by doing so, she would’ve brushed off the woman’s resolve, made light of her reasons. As much as it ached her heart, Izumi hadn’t come all this way as a friend seeking company and consolation, but as one human being looking for an answer, a reason to live. Not because Yuliana was a friend, or a loved one—but because she was a ruler, a power.

She owed her that answer. She had known as much ever since that rainy night. It was her momentary weakness in spring that had brought Izumi into this world. The responsibility was hers.

Her face tightening, the Empress stood from the throne and began to descend the stairs.

“Izumi,” she spoke with some sadness, “I trust you understand what you’re offering me, after all you have been through? You’ve seen good and evil. You’ve seen death and injustice. You’ve seen what we’re fighting for, what we’re against, and you’ve seen the weight of loyalty. You are no more a stranger to this world, but one of it. Are you telling me you’ve now embraced our values as your own? Or is this only another game for you? Another means of escape?”

“I won’t run anymore,” Izumi said, not raising her head. “That’s why I’m here.”

“If so, do you think you are able to swear on it?”

“I swear.”

“This means, you will set aside your personal notions of right and wrong in favor of the higher justice we serve. You will not cut another soul, if I forbid it. Will you swear you will fight not for yourself, or your feelings, your own need, or greed, or hatred—but for the good of all life, for what is right? For those who can’t fight for themselves?”

“I swear.”

“This means, if you break the law again, for whatever reason, you will face the law. You will not, under any circumstances, let yourself be the problem you’re trying to solve, no matter how your feelings may argue otherwise. And, should it come to that, you will not flee the consequences. Will you swear you will let yourself be judged fairly, if you fall and betray your oath?”

“I swear.”

“This isn’t only about you and me. Do you think you can put your faith in others beside me and accept them as your allies and companions? Will you swear to never abandon your comrade, but help them cross the pitfalls on our path, if only you can?”

“I swear.”

Do you swear never to abandon me, even if I make a mistake and fall?

Yuliana didn’t dare to voice the question on her heart. She reached out her hand.

“Then rise a knight, Izumi.”

Izumi looked up, took the hand, and stood. Her squeeze was firm and determined, but no trace of gladness or pride could be seen on her grim visage, and she soon let go.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Yuliana said. “That’s it.”

“Then...Call me when you need me.”

Without further ado, Izumi turned to leave the way she had come.

Her majesty stood and watched the woman go under a dejected silence. Ever since the moment they’d first met, she had hoped and dreamed their paths might one day align like this for the same goal. Yet, now that the fantasy had come true, she felt little joyful or accomplished for it. None of it had gone the way she had imagined. How was it that life always spoiled the most innocent of prayers?

“Izumi...What happened to you?”

3

Izumi didn’t feel any more at home in the gargantuan palace complex now than she had during her previous visit. Unsure of what to do or where to go, reluctant to deal with people, her feet unwittingly led her along familiar paths out of the main building and into the northwestern keep.

She paused at the entrance of the great library and scanned the vast ranks of old tomes in the rounded hall. There were no people, everything was quiet. No one was reading newspapers on the crimson couch along the central aisle. No secret documents were spread on the oval darkwood table in the middle. The surface of it was clear, save for a lone bronze candlestick, on which a film of dust had gathered. This was the Sovereign’s private collection. No scholars or civilian readers had access here and her majesty was too busy to read, if she indeed even knew such a place existed.

Izumi walked unhurriedly across the hall and through the following corridors, coming eventually to the audience chamber, where she had once upon a time received the absurd quest to assassinate the Emperor.

The tall, ornate chair where the cirelo sorceress would sit was gone. The translucent silk veils around it were removed and so were the candle stands. The oriental carpet on the floor had been taken away as well, showing only the clear-polished floor tiling.

The entire room was barren, as if no one had been there in a long while.

Izumi went out through the open, keyhole-shaped doorway on the north side and stepped into the terrace garden. Sun shone pallid amid frayed clouds, and it wasn’t particularly bright or warm, the colors of the sky like washed out. Water streamed towards the lower levels in narrow, brick-lined channels under the metal grating, and the spicy, exotic scent of foreign herbs hovered in the air, though nothing bloomed.

Izumi walked to the edge of the garden and looked down over the low guardrail to the shadowy courtyard some fifteen yards below. She looked at the wooden practice dummies by the wall, made of hay-stuffed sacks, and she looked at the furtive fruit trees in the corners that had shed their aged leaves, and she recalled the day she had learned the wondrous power of magic. That divine gift seemed only like a toothbrush to her now.

She went back in, looked at the empty audience chamber once more and sighed.

“Lia…Where did you go?”

—“Is that a question that needs an answer?”

Izumi jumped, surprised to hear a voice speak across the hall and turned.

Carmelia’s tall figure had appeared in the east side doorway. In all black like a widow in mourning, as always. A shadow, but not an unsettling shadow; always upright and graceful, slim but tenacious, ancient but ageless. There could be no mistaking her for another. The sorceress bore the weight of millennia on her without faltering, and it made her presence somewhat heavy but also mysteriously assuring at once, like being immersed in deep, warm water, a buffer against the evils of the world.

The sorceress stood and gazed at the woman, and in her grip was a large, black suitcase with a silvery frame.

“Does something about my outfit strike you as odd?” she asked, as Izumi continued to stare on in a wordless daze. “I do change it, when needed.”

The woman made no reply. Instead, she took a step and strode quickly across the floor to the cirelo, threw her arms around her body, and squeezed tight.

“I missed you,” Izumi said, her cheek against the hard chest. “I missed you a ton.”

“I...see,” Carmelia remarked, still and stiff. She raised her free right hand, hesitant, about to lay it on the woman’s head, but then let the hand fall without following through with the gesture. “I don’t think it has been that long since we last saw one another.”

“Maybe not for you. But it felt like a lifetime for me.”

“Is that so?”

“Where were you? I already thought you’d gone and left us.”

“I had business elsewhere. But I am returned now, for a short while.”

“Only a short while?” Izumi distanced herself and asked.

“Yes.”

Carmelia walked past the woman, towards the back of the hall. She set her suitcase on the floor and it opened on its own, and transformed into the missing chair, on which she took a seat. The missing candle stands were suddenly back too and lit with a large flame, the carpet was on the floor, and the room assumed its prior warm tone.

“Once her majesty sets out,” Carmelia said, “I will also leave, to return to Ledarnia. I must be with my people when the cycle changes.”

“Oh, right…”

“In the memories of those of us who lived through the previous cycles, the shift seems only a day like any other. But memories may deceive. No matter what manner of changes take place in our world, we, the inhabitants of it, are changed accordingly. Making comparisons to the old is thus meaningless. It may well be that the past as we recall it is not entirely true to what transpired. It is also possible that the geographic location plays a role in what type of changes occur. Therefore, it is better to be safe than sorry. This will only be temporary arrangement, but—”

“—I met a god.” Izumi interrupted.

“...I see,” Carmelia commented without much of a reaction.

No, for her, it was probably fit to be called a surprised reaction.

“He told me it’s my fate to go to the magic tower and change the world,” Izumi continued. “But do you think I really can? No, it’s impossible, isn’t it? It’s so far away, and there are all those monsters in the way.”

“I don’t know,” the sorceress said and closed her eyes.

“But you’d still try? You’re going to keep on trying, no matter how many trials and errors it takes? Even though there’s no guarantee that things will ever go back the same way they used to be? Even if it might get even worse? Depending on ‘no such thing as hope’?”

“That is correct.”

“Ah, you make it sound so easy,” Izumi said with a sigh. But it was a sigh of admiration. “Lia really is strong. I’ve almost given up a hundred times by now, and I haven’t been here for a year.”

“Do you still think that way, even after seeing me at my weakest?” Carmelia asked. “Strength is relative. In certain respects, I believe you are already stronger than I am.”

“You think? So you have insecurities too?” Izumi asked, as if it were too hard to believe.

“I have nothing if not insecurities,” the sorceress assured.

“And you worry about things?”

“I am worry incarnate.”

“Were there times when you thought about giving up too?”

“Thought about—and did. Many times.”

“But you always got back up and at it again?”

“I am immortal, after all. It couldn’t be helped. I’ve lived long enough to tell that giving up takes one nowhere.”

“That’s right,” Izumi said and smiled. “Yes, that’s right. Then, would you lend me a hand again, for one last time? If you’re there with me, I get the feeling ‘impossible’ isn’t so difficult anymore.”

“If destiny so allows,” Carmelia replied with an air of humility.

“My, my, you’re so not honest!” Izumi laughed. “Isn’t the truth that you’re just itching to go on another adventure together? We’re besties, aren’t we? But maybe I won’t take you! Why don’t you try saying, ‘please let me come with you, nyan~!’, while mimicking a beckoning cat, and I’ll promise to think about it?”

Carmelia exhaled a barely perceivable sigh in answer.

“I only just came back from a very long trip. If you’re going to stay, at least make some tea.”