Day 13 of the Fourth Month, Year 1016, morning

Duskbury Town, Goldburg Province

SHE was woken up by a knock to her door.

Groaning, Victoria slowly moved her body and felt that everything ached. “Wait,” she said towards the door. Her head felt slightly aching. She tried to shook it off, but doing so made things worse, instead.

Truly, being knocked out twice on the head, within a day nonetheless, was never a good thing.

After a few moments to get her bearing, she walked to the door and opened it. The innkeeper was standing there, smiling politely at her. “Would you like to have breakfast here, or downstairs, Your Ladyship?”

“Ah, downstairs, please,” she replied cautiously.

“Then you can come down when you’re ready,” the innkeeper said again before leaving.

Victoria rubbed the back of her head, confused, but then went back inside and closed the door. It really hurt. She hadn’t been sitting for long before the door was again knocked.

She squinted, then got up and opened the door again. This time Dev was there. “You ready?”

Victoria frowned. “Yeah, I suppose.” Her head felt somewhat worse, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She noticed Dev had already taken off his bandages, though. “Are your wounds healed?”

Dev shrugged. “The bandages felt too restrictive. Should we change yours?”

Victoria considered that for a second, then nodded. The bandage had been there the whole night. And who knew what Zindo actually put on it? It could be a slow-acting poison. It was better to change it into a cleaner one.

Dev went to his bag and pulled out some medicine and bandages. Victoria raised her eyebrow. “You are very prepared,” she said.

Dev shrugged. “Habit. Thank Goddess those people didn’t take this bag.”

Victoria sat on the bed, and Dev approached her and stood behind her. He slowly opened the bandage on her head. “Oh, that is swelling,” he murmured.

Victoria frowned. She only winced a little when Dev applied medicine carefully, then he wrapped her head in new bandage. “As good as new. Let’s go down now.”

She nodded and they both walked out of the room, Dev with the bag on his back. The corridor was still lit with lanterns even with the sun coming in from the windows. “They are very paranoid,” she commented. Dev didn’t reply.

They both arrived downstairs and sat on one of the tables. The innkeeper approached them and put some baked bread on the table. “This is what we have today,” she said. “I’m sorry, it’s not much.”

“That’s fine,” Victoria replied, and then she stiffened. Right. She was supposed to be an arrogant lady.

When she looked up at the innkeeper again, though, the old woman was already looking at her curiously. “Where do you come from?”

“From Blue, ma’am,” Dev answered while breaking his bread.

“Oh? Why did you leave Blue?” The innkeeper asked again.

“Well, my lady was thrown out of the house when her brother succeeded the house.”

“And you’re following Her Ladyship, young man?”

“Yes, I’ve been in her debt,” Dev nodded with a smile.

“Well, that is… But to travel with just the two of you... Where are you going?” Somehow, the innkeeper already forwent her formal speech.

“We planned on going to Edgefort,” Victoria replied.

The innkeeper looked closely at the both of them.

In face of the skeptical innkeeper, Dev sighed heavily. “Alright, ma’am, we’ll tell you. Actually, we planned on eloping to Cacao,” he said with a low voice. “Please don’t tell anyone. Her Ladyship's brother found out about our relationship and he doesn’t approve, so he was going to be marry her to an old man. We decided to run away. Please,” he begged, “keep quiet about this.”

The innkeeper's eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Oh, young love,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “Of course, of course.”

Victoria almost laughed. Goddess, he could even think up of a plot like that? When the old woman left their table, she nudged the soldier. “How many romance novels have you read?”

Dev rolled his eyes. “Why does that matter?”

She grinned. “Well… that’s quite a good plot. Perhaps you should write and publish them, maybe you could get famous.”

Dev was about to retort, but he was cut off by a young boy running into the tavern. “Mrs. Morneau! Mr. Borthwick’s daughter…” The young boy whispered to the innkeeper, but she could read his mouth. Dead.

Someone was found dead?

“How did that happen? Didn’t they put on a lantern?” Mrs. Morneau’s voice was full of horror that she didn’t bother to control her volume.

“That, I heard Mr. Borthwick said she was going out, and then somehow he heard something breaking. When he went, the lantern already fell on the floor in pieces and only her corpse remained.”

Victoria frowned and was about to approached them, but Dev shook his head. She widened her eyes, about to argue. “But!”

He gestured a military sign for code red, and she was frozen in place as she remembered that. Right. It wasn’t like she forgot that she was kidnapped and her loved ones were searching for her, or that her kingdom was in a big, dangerous situation.

“We have to leave soon.”

Victoria felt conflicted, but she finally nodded. She didn’t know what she could do if she chose to stay either, as she didn’t have any expertise in the matter. “Okay.”

So, they left the inn after saying thank you to the visibly shaken innkeeper, pretending they didn’t notice what was going on. Dev had already taken care of their fee for the night. They went outside, to the horse, mounted it, and continued their journey.

Victoria was silent as they trotted past a barn full with people. She could hear the wailing from inside and something in her heart sunk. Of course, she wasn’t naïve enough to think that everything in her kingdom was sunshine and rainbow. She knew poverty still existed, and that her mother was trying hard to solve it, but these things were in another level. Monsters. And with the village before that, too… There was something weird afoot. She knew magic existed, knew monsters did, too, and she only have surface knowledge about it, but at least she knew there shouldn’t be any monsters in the Continent. So where did these things come from?

Once she got back to Dustor, she would send someone to investigate both places. It was really suspicious, too, because the two places were so near each other. Was it someone’s nefarious plan? That Lady Zevanfya that was mentioned many times in front of her?

As they went out of the town's north gate, Victoria looked back. The lanterns weren’t all extinguished, some were still burning, proof of the townsfolk’s fear. She shook her head. “What’s wrong with these parts?”

Dev was silent. Just when she thought he wouldn’t be replying, he said, “The first possibility is that because it was not that far from Lirsk territory.”

Indeed, the parts that they were traversing were barely tens of kilometers away from Lirsk, only the woods between them. Victoria did jump through the border between Lirsk and Forewood yesterday in the woods, to escape her pursuers. She didn’t think…

Perhaps Lirsk were doing something.

“What’s the second possibility?”

“Well, that monsters are here.” Dev paused for a second. “But from what I know, monsters don’t come from darkness. Darkness gives birth to demons, not monsters.” He shivered when he said that.

Victoria was silent for a second. Demons… It had been thousands of years since, though. So long ago that those things only seemed like legends. The priests of Goddess Eldemore said they existed, though their proof was the record in holy scripture. Parents used to tell tales about them, in hope to scare their children to stay inside during the nights. While history did mention them, many didn’t quite believe.

“Does demons exist?” She found herself asking.

“Well, if you believe the priests, sure,” Dev nodded.

Victoria considered that. She and her mother attended sermon in the temple every month, but Victoria did that mostly just to keep peace in the Kingdom – that the royal family still believed in the Goddess. She herself didn’t think much of the doctrines and treated them like legends. But to think it real… “Do you believe them? What the priests say?”

Dev seemed to think for a moment. “I do.”

“So, you think these are demons?” If that’s the case, wasn’t this a really bad thing? She needed to urge her mother to investigate the matters.

“I don’t know. It could still be Lirsk playing trick on us.”

Victoria fell silent. It was true. Lirsk could have been planning on making a mess in Forewood so they could take advantage of the vulnerability, but that was a bad thing for the Kingdom…

The rest of their journey were spent in deep thoughts and quietness until they reached Andormyne City. []