Nevada

We're finally gone. Finally off to Razil.

Valle had no talent—or desire perhaps—for politics, but he was rather fantastic at warfare. While he dragged his feet regarding implementing political moves, he was fantastic at moving armies. Before Harlock left for Razil, he made sure to inspect the armory for anything he could salvage for the war. To my surprise, he spent more than a few hours talking to my brother about military uses of some items he found and both appeared almost friendly to each other. He still needed some prodding to actually get enough supplies aboard the ship to last us the whole trip, though.

"And we're off!" Carr declared, looking at the horizon. "On to Razil." His smirk was natural enough, but it did not fully conceal his nervousness. Even he was a little uneasy about this, though he also appeared to be excited. A small child going on an adventure, is what he is. "How long should the trip take?"

Valle sank in his seat, absently looking out the window. "Not sure…not exactly a trip that has been made many times before. It should be around two weeks at most, and we have enough supplies to last us for three months."

"Is that why you didn't want us to bring some servants with us? More supplies for us?" Carr asked. "Figured that the mighty King of Cresna would want butlers or bodyguards with me."

"I can't guarantee the safety of anyone coming with us." Valle spoke with an unnatural amount of candidness, his voice low and unusually lacking in theatrics. The man was looking out the window with an absent expression on his face and did not turn around to speak. "Besides, I hardly grew up with lots of servants in the house. We had cooks that worked in the manor, and the occasional maid, but hardly anybody lived there—Cresna has very efficient roads and housing was cheap enough, most people working in the manor lived elsewhere in the city."

Carr seemed to notice Valle's sudden frankness and didn't prod him further. Instead, he surprised me by being strangely rational. "Will it not reflect badly on you, though? I imagine part of being a king is projecting power—if you arrive with not a single bodyguard on hand, will it not make you look weak? Affect negotiations?"

He is surprisingly clever. I told Valle as much before, but he didn't listen. To be certain, I still disliked the man—we never quite solved our differences that arose from his duel against my brother. Lately I had come to appreciate that at the very least, he could be rather pragmatic if the topic came up.

"I prefer to be looked down on," Valle replied, still looking absently out the window. "It is better to surprise than to disappoint."

"Cool philosophy, bad policy," Carr replied. "Man, I know how you like to do things, alright? But you are king now. You have to think about how you act a bit, eh?"

Yes! YES! Say that again! Those were things I wanted to say, but couldn't. Our relationship was warm, but not secure enough that I could be harsh with him. Still, Valle was taking this all too lightly. Carr can say whatever the hell he wants, he is no lord—for better or worse, rules of decorum do not apply to him.

"I do think," Valle muttered quietly. "At the very least, I think enough about how to make things reach the state I want them to. This is the first time the people of Razil will be seeing a foreign lord, which means this isn't just politics. It's a theater. How much do you know about theater, Carr?"

"Enough to know I'm bad at it. So, what's your plan?"

"The same as always." Valle tapped at his sword wistfully. "They will see a castle sailing toward them and be at least slightly confused. They will want to know more about us. At that point, I will challenge their best swordsman and show them what the Champion of Cresna's dueling is like."

Here I noticed something that I wished I hadn't. Despite my best efforts, it was hard to ignore this. Champion of Cresna, not King in Cresna…Valle, my dear, you still think of yourself as Champion before King, do you not? Do you forget what you are? Or is it just that deep inside, your title as Champion matters to you more than the one of King? A smirk crept across my lips. Then again, am I any better? In my mind, I am still Nevada, princess of the Lusobritanio Empire, not the Queen-to-be in Cresna.

"So…their best swordsman is probably Estella, right? Your…old friend?" Carr asked hesitantly. "The current world champion?"

"Hm. Yeah."

Valle's hesitation was plain and I knew why. He would not discuss it with me, but this matter was one I was aware of even before Gilder kidnapped me all those months ago. It has always been common knowledge that Estella, the world champion, was raised in Cresna…and her support of the city is part of the reason why Valle was hailed as a hero in the war and the land given province status. They were romantically involved, most likely. My chest felt tight and I tried to tell myself it was a logical concern—Valle acting out of emotion might harm both of our ambitions. That's not why, though. I actually care for this infernal man. And he cared for me, too, I knew—but he hadn't bothered telling me about his past with Estella. Was he planning at all?

Carr leaned forward. "Can you beat her?" he asked frankly. "The world champion?"

Suddenly Valle spun around, looking at Carr with a confident grin and said, "Of course. Have you forgotten already? You and I have a promise." He pointed at his rival with his index finger. "You and I are going to fight for the title of strongest when this is all done. This means I have to defeat Estella first."

The two men grinned at each other without saying a word for a moment, and yet appeared to be telling each other much in their silence. I professed I did not understand them—Celle's shrug showed she wasn't sure what they were talking about either.

"In any case," Valle said, leaping to his feet and shrugging, "it is not as though I am without an honor guard."

Carr raised an eyebrow. "Dude, it's literally just the four of us aboard this ship. Honestly I'm concerned about us not crashing this thing, let alone having an honor guard."

A deep sigh and a step forward later, Valle tapped Carr's forehead. "I am talking about you, genius. Your presence means a lot more than a dozen guards clad in royal armor."

"Seriously? I'm kind of a nobody."

"Are you serious?" Valle sounded positively incredulous. "You defeated me, as well as Valder. Moreover, thanks to Johan's stupid idea of broadcasting our team match, many people saw how you dismantled duelists with superior stats. I know stats are dead and we are kind of used to seeing you beat people without them, Carr, but don't forget that you are an anomaly in this world. And people in Razil probably love you even more, considering how they aren't fans of stats to begin with."

"Oh yeah, they have always been outside of Francisco's Rules, eh?" Carr smiled. "Not gonna lie, looking forward to meeting those guys. I am glad to finally meet my people."

"They are your people, aren't they?" Valle said, smiling. "There is some humor in there now that I think about it. Rather fun, that. I suppose you do remind me of her in some ways." Valle's smile vanished suddenly, replaced by something nearing disgust. "I did not want to think that."

Here my first thought should have been jealousy—because of concerns relating to either my ambition or my relationship—but instead my first thought was to be positively delighted at Valle's realization that his best friend was similar to his former lover. If I can't directly yell at him for the way he's been behaving, at the very least I will enjoy his misery. "My king, are you unwell?" I asked gently, putting a hand on his arm. "You appear sick."

"I am fine, my queen, I am just a little…" Valle looked up at me with an initial gentle expression and upon seeing my smirk it was replaced by an almost pouty sort of frustration as he immediately understood my amusement. "I am fine," he said dryly.

"That is fantastic," I said.

"In any case!" Valle walked toward the door and spoke as if making an announcement. "Carr, you will make a wonderful honor guard for me. However...your clothes have got to go."

Is he trying to make this sound as bad as possible? Not that I was complaining. "What's wrong with my clothes?" Carr asked, feigning indignation. "These are perfectly good rags!"

Valle did not even attempt to play along. "You are going to be dressing up nicely when we get there," he ordered him, "and you are going to be smellingjust as finely."

"Hey, hang on—I don't smell, don't make it sound like I'm a slob. I take a shower every day!"

"You don't smell." Valle made it sound like an accusation. "That is the bare minimum. Is not stabbing yourself the standard for good fencing? No! You have to smell attractive. Wear some cologne, for heaven's sake. And those clothes—wear something dignified! Let us not even get started on your hair." He paused. "On second thought, let's. When's the last time you trimmed it?"

"I don't know, before I died?"

"Heaven above." Valle muttered, as if confronted with a monstrosity. "Get up. We only have two weeks to turn you into a borderline passable creature. Let us get started right now. Right now!"

"That—come on," Carr laughed, as if it were a joke. He looked over at us for support, though he immediately gave up on mine. "Celle, help me out here."

Celle held his gaze for just a moment then looked at Valle before saying, in a flat tone, "Valle, please fix him."

"Traitor!"

"It will do you some good," Celle said dryly. "Go on, shoo. We are going to have girl talk here."

That appeared to invoke a sort of primal response within Carr, and despite his whiny tone he walked out of the room with Valle nearly immediately. Amusingly, we could hear his complaints of 'My hair is fine!' and 'Listen, if you cover me in some disgusting cologne I'm gonna—' for a long time before they faded out with distance. Then, finally, once silence had blessed us, Celle looked at me and said, "There are two things I want to tell you," she said, in a serious tone. "Is that fine?"

"Of course."

"About what we discussed earlier—fine." She shook her head. "I will uncover the truth, then hand it over to you. You can do with it as you wish. But you must convince me that your plans regarding the culprit's identity take into account the well-being of the common people, or else I will make the information public. I will make arrangements for the results of my investigation to be divulged in case you have me killed as well." She said this last part like it was an afterthought, like she thought I wouldn't kill her. She's right, but I do appreciate that she's making sure I don't even have that option. It makes things a lot easier between us. "I have been investigating things really carefully and I am beginning to form a theory."

"Have you now?"

"I will tell you the details later, but are you aware of the second strange incident that night?"

"No." This was quite new to me. "What was the second incident?"

"There was a second victim—or almost. They were nearly stabbed to death, but they managed to recover thanks to their HP, as they were dragged outside of the castle just in time. Most strangely, they were attacked in the middle of the snow, though no one left any footprints where they were stabbed. It's as if the criminal managed to fly toward them…in an area where no magic was allowed."

"How have I never heard of this?" I muttered. "I was there when it happened."

"I suppose the Emperor's death took precedence, and I do believe there was an attempt to cover this up. Both incidents happened within minutes of each other, so it's natural that someone would try to cover it up…especially when you consider the victim's name."

"Who?" I demanded. "Who was the victim?"

Celle looked up at me and smiled wearily. "Johan."

Now that was quite strange. Johan…if he was the one who killed my father, then how could he have been injured like that just before? More importantly, why would he have been attacked like that? We all had motive, but considering how all our alibis were accounted for when father's death was concerned…

"That will be tricky to consider," I admitted. "What was the second thing you wanted to discuss?"

"Oh, nothing important—I just wanted to let you know that I think Valle is being an idiot and if you don't want to say that to his face, I can absolutely do that for you."

That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. "I might actually appreciate that."

Fedal

The unicorn was growing ever closer.

I tried to ignore it at first—to tell myself that it didn't matter. But the fact was that every time I looked out a window, it seemed like it was growing ever closer to me. What is going to happen once it catches me? Martim…what do I have to do to talk to you?

Carr had a necklace that allowed him to go into the void, and Isabella had gone with him before. Next time, I planned on going. Carr left half the necklace with us so we have access to the void if need be…but that's strange. Hearing about the whole thing made me really question a lot of things. Why was Martim still alive in the void? No, perhaps alive wasn't the right word for it…but something was off.

Was he helping us or Johan?

I placed my arms on the window sill and was met by a most beautiful view—Cresna looked beautiful at night. Even the unicorn looked beautiful, though it unnerved me. "I didn't know anything about you, Martim," I muttered at the unicorn. "It seems messed up, you know? To have killed someone and not know anything about them. Think I was naive about the whole 'Hero' thing. Even if stats were the beginning and the end of it, I don't think I could handle killing people just because they were on the other side. Guess that makes me weak, eh? Wonder how you did it." The wind felt cold, but it somehow would have felt wrong to grab a jacket. "I will always wonder. Sometimes, I find myself wondering about the kind of person you were. What motivated you. Not just because I want to figure out on whose side you were on either. I just...wanted to know more about you. To respect you properly. It all happened so fast, we met, we fought, you died. I wonder what your sense of humor was like. What you enjoyed doing in your free time. I find myself replaying the few conversations we had in my head, over and over, trying to somehow learn more about you...extract even an ounce more of what kind of person you were. What kind of person I killed. You weren't bad. I know that much. And maybe one day, the void will let me see you again. Maybe then I'll be able to talk to you one more time." I walked back to the bed, sitting down and laying my head on the pillow. "Guess life doesn't always go the way I want it to," I muttered to myself.

"You alright, Fedal?"

I jumped as I heard a voice behind me. I turned to see a girl standing there, wearing a familiar smirk and unfamiliar clothes. She stood at about the same height as me, wearing a blue dress, though her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were a light brown. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she said. "You look much better than last time I saw you."

In that hazy, daydream-induced state I was in, it took me a second too long to recognize Isabella. She hardly ever wore dresses, usually both she and Celle wore the high-class clothes that looked closer to a uniform than anything else, with an overcoat and pants. The dress didn't look bad on her though, not that I could say that aloud. "I was really hungover last time you saw me," I muttered. "I was drinking all night with Carr and Valle before they left."

"Oh trust me, we know. We had a good conversation while you guys were being idiots." Isabella's refusal to elaborate further worried me, but I said nothing. "Hey...sorry to tell you, but I come bringing some bad news."

"How bad are we talking about, exactly?"

She produced a letter from behind her - my guess was she had entered the room with it and set it on the bed while my eyes were closed. "Someone is challenging the City of Cresna to a duel."

I opened the envelope and read through it quickly. There was no date attached to the paper, but judging by the writing, it was probably written around two days ago. I skimmed it - and did not like what I read. Much of it was flowery and useless, but it was the ending that concerned me.

'Our troops are rapidly approaching Cresna. You understand, surely, what a prolonged siege and bloody battle will do to your population. And your people are the Empire's - Johan's people! We would not cause them undue suffering if it can be avoided. Thus, our offer stands: have your Champion meet us in single combat and let us decide the winner that way. Not everyone has to die. Just one of us.

If you refuse, we will have no choice but to siege the city upon our arrival.'

My jaw dropped. My heart pounded against my chest. This was bad. Really bad. If this was true, then they were already on their way here, and they'd been preparing for war for much longer than we were. Did we have scouts? Did we know they were actually on their way? Why did this have to happen now, the day after Valle left? I-

"Valente wants to know your opinion," Isabella said, "about what to do."

"My opinion?" I asked, blinking in confusion. "Why does my opinion matter?"

"Because his two options are a duel with the city's fate in hand or to send out Cresna's troops to meet Johan's. You understand what the real question is, right?" She leaned forward and looked me in the eye, a sort of grave seriousness about her that I hadn't come to expect from her. "Valente wants to know whether he will trust Cresna's future to you, as Cresna's Champion, or to Valder, as Lord Commander of Cresna's Army."

I stared blankly at her for a moment. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was this another dream? A hallucination? "I..." I stuttered. "I have to make a decision? Now?"

"As soon as possible. Time is of the essence here - we have to reply quickly if we mean to accept the duel, and sally out if we mean to fight them in the open." She placed a gentle hand on my leg. "I understand you have spent most of the day nursing a hangover, and I'm sorry to drop this on you. But Valle left you with the title of Defender of Cresna - if we fight a duel, you are the one who has to step up for it. If you feel like you can't handle that, we can let Valder take charge with the army."

I wanted nothing more than to let Valder take care of it. The sheer weight of the responsibility of that duel would crush me! If I lost that match, everything we all worked for would be lost in a matter of seconds. Even if I felt pretty confident about my abilities, that...that was too much! We could lose this war before it even started because of a bad decision and a bad swordsman. But if I don't accept the duel, a lot more people will die in an open fight. "What is Valente's preference?" I muttered.

"The duel. He thinks that if Valle believes in you, he should believe in you as well. But he knows how much pressure it is, so he feels like if you are hesitating we should go with the battlefield option."

That sounded like something Valle might say if he were. His father wasn't too different from him in some ways, and that made me feel slightly less nervous. Still, I hesitated. I needed to sleep on this. I knew I wasn't ready yet. I was still recovering from the hangovers from yesterday. I glanced at the clock - it was past midnight. Slept through the whole day, I did...and look at how things turned out when I woke up.

"Tomorrow morning I will meet with Valente and tell me my decision," I told her.

She nodded and said, "Sounds fair. I know it's late, but do you want some company?"

"Yes," I muttered.

I appreciated it a lot when she didn't ask me what my decision was, because I'm not sure what I would have told her.