Day 13 of the Fourth Month, Year 1016, midnight

Dustor City, Grizzle Province

WHEN Victoria came out of the Barrel’s kitchen, she found that her friends were huddled together, whispering amongst themselves as if there was a big secret to be unearthed. Ethan was done with his meetings, too, apparently, as he was sitting with the others. Victoria raised her eyebrows and walked towards their table.

“Victa!” They greeted her with a somewhat guilty smile.

“Are you all talking about me?” She sat down, putting down the mug in her hand.

“Well, you know, when you leave your friends behind, they are bound to talk about you,” Ethan answered lightly.

Victoria tutted at that comment. “Not a very nice behavior.”

“Leaving us behind isn’t very nice also,” Rex retorted, the mug of beer was in his hand. Alize nodded beside him.

Observing them, Victoria raised her eyebrows. “Are you… drunk?”

“I’m not,” Luz raised her hand.

“I just arrived,” Ethan answered as well. “Barely a few minutes here.”

Victoria raised her eyebrows at Rex and Alize. She was about to comment when suddenly there was a sound of crash from behind her. Turning around in her seat, she found the young soldier from earlier crashed into the two men who was sitting across the room from them.

“I’m off watch, brothers! Why didn’t you wait for me?” He sat there and made quite a commotion while calling the barmaid.

The two older men looked at each other, then laughed. “Trainee, you can’t hold your liquor. Don’t drink.”

“I can!” And then the young soldier insisted to the barmaid to have, “…the strongest alcohol there is.”

“I’m not sure that’s what you should be doing,” A voice came from the doorway. A young man walked in and looked disapprovingly at the two older gents’ table. “Henry, Phillip, is this what you should be teaching the trainee about?”

“No, no, Major!” One of the older gents stood up, but he was too drunk to stand up straight. “The trainee suddenly come by and insisting to have a strong drink.”

The young man shook his head. “Tomorrow our unit will go to the field. You really shouldn’t drink. And you too, trainee, even if you aren’t going to the field, you still have shifts tomorrow.” He looked up to the bar, probably for the innkeeper, but since Victoria’s table was diagonally next to the bar, he saw her and frowned. Victoria was alarmed when she saw him.

That was Dev.

Dev frowned at her for quite a while, and that also made the three other soldiers in the table looked at her, including the trainee Martin. He stood up suddenly when he noticed them. “Oh!” He walked to her table and saluted clumsily. “I don’t not usually go here, Your Highness!” He tried to justify himself.

Victoria widened her eyes and felt her heart dropped. Ah, over, it’s over. She glanced at her friends for help, Ethan and Alize just looked confused, Luz who avoided her glance, and Rex laughed heartily. Deep in her heart, she cursed. Her friends were unreliable.

Dev walked to the spot beside Martin and observed them. “Your Highness,” he said, his eyebrow raised.

Victoria cringed inwardly. “Major,” she replied. She didn’t know how her face looked at this point, but Rex who was chuckling now was coughing. Alize probably elbowed him. Thanks, Alize.

Dev didn’t show any emotion on his face. Not surprise, not anything. He just slightly bowed at her. “I’m sorry that you have to see this, Your Highness. I’ll train them better.” Then he dragged the trainee and two other soldiers out of the tavern.

Once he was out of there, Victoria turned back, looked at her friends, then covered her face and planted it on the table.

“What? What’s going on?” Ethan frowned in complete confusion.

Luz coughed slightly. “Victa made a friend on the way back from being kidnapped, but she covered up her identity.”

“Ah, of course,” Ethan nodded. “Our Princess does that from time to time.”

“I didn’t cover it up,” Victoria looked up, half-whining. “I just…”

“Just neglected to tell him that you are a princess,” Rex said. And then he laughed out loud, his drunk face turned even redder.

“Ah,” Victoria grumbled while resting her chin on her hand. “I planned on making one friend, just one, that didn’t know who I am. Now that plan is out the window.” She straightened her back suddenly. “Do you guys think he would think that I’m lying? What if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore?”

“Don’t worry,” Rex said. “We are still your friends despite knowing who you are.”

“Everyone will always want to be your friend, you know,” Ethan commented. “You are too useful not to befriend.” Then he started laughing and Rex joined in.

Victoria tsked. Of course, she knew that. When she went through public school, there were only two kinds of reaction she met when people knew her identity; one, they were intimidated, then tried to please her because of that, or two, they were trying to get even closer to her for benefits, and this was especially true for the nobility’s children. Both types made her quite uncomfortable.

The exception being these four friends of hers that she had known from childhood, the time when everyone was still innocent. Well, they were intimidated by her at first, but children got through that hurdle better than adolescents.

“But still, I just want to go through a normal friendship,” she muttered.

Alize suddenly pat her head. “We are normal friendships,” she said. The sentence was a bit confusing since she was drunk, but Victoria understood what she was trying to say.

Luz smiled. “Yes, our friendship is normal, Victa. Don’t overthink it.” She looked out the tavern. “Well, now that you’ve finished your business and it is very late, let’s go back.”

So, they all stood up, paid for their drinks, and walked out the door. While Ethan and Luz walked at front, Victoria slowed her pace considerably.

Ah, there were still these two drunks. Victoria looked at her friends, smiling and shaking her head. She put one hand around Alize’s shoulder, another around Rex’s. “I need a plan to escape tomorrow, you know.”

Alize, alarmed, looked at her. “What?”

“Don’t tell us that!” Rex put his hands on his ears.

Victoria helplessly looked at the two, back and forth. Ah, what a shame, she thought. They would have made a great couple. “You two won’t remember, anyway.”

“I’m not drunk,” Alize said seriously.

“Of course,” Victoria smiled, “of course.”

The two lovebirds up front finally realized that the other three were left behind, so they went back and helped Victoria bring the drunkards back. The five of them were walking back, supporting each other, while a shriek suddenly resounded through the night.

It came from the mansion near the military base, where the Queen Regent currently resided.

They looked at each other in alarm and started running towards the base.

When they arrived at the small mansion, they saw the soldiers huddled in front of the master bedroom. The Queen Regent stood in the doorway, shaking her head. “It was nothing,” she repeated.

The captain of her guards wasn’t convinced, though. “Are you sure, Your Majesty?”

“Yes,” the Queen nodded. “It was just a shadow.”

A shadow? Victoria frowned. She didn’t believe that it was nothing, but still, after all, nothing could be found. She observed her mother’s room and there wasn’t any footprint beneath the window’s exterior, either.

“Go back,” the Queen said. “We’ll travel back to Naveland tomorrow.”

The guards all saluted and went out of the room, leaving Victoria alone with her mother. “Are you sure you’re alright, Mother?”

The Queen straightened herself. “Yes, child,” she said. “How many times do I have to say that? Go back, go to sleep. I’m going to be fine as long as you’re obedient.”

Victoria grimaced. Whelp, she didn’t want to go back to the capital, though! Ah, but whatever. As long as she was back to the capital, whether or not she’ll go back here later, that still counted as obedient, right?

So, she went out of her mother’s room and back to her own room in the mansion.

Day 14 of the Fourth Month, Year 1016

The Royal Palace, Capital City of Naveland

They traveled for half a day.

The convoy arrived in the capital by evening, when the sky turned to a beautiful hue of dusk. Victoria felt her waist had become numb after riding her horse all day.

After Victoria gave the reins of her horse Snowflakes to the stable boys, she waited for her mother to walked down from her carriage. She gave a bow in greetings.

Her mother looked at her complicatedly. “I hope to see you in tomorrow’s ceremony.”

Ah, the ceremony in the temple of Goddess Eldemore every half a month. Victoria nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.” She couldn’t miss that—it would be too suspicious.

As she went back to her room, she sighed. It’s been a while, but she didn’t miss her room in the slightest. She longed to go back out there. But Mother must’ve warned the guards to watch her, to not let her escape again.

She scoffed inwardly. Mother worried too much.

“I thought you would try to run away right away.”

She looked towards the doorway. Luz and Alize stood there, looking at her pityingly.

Victoria tsked. “Didn’t you see how many guards crowded around my room?” The ranks of her personal guards were posted all around her place. Despite being her personal guards, they took order from the Queen Regent.

“Ah, yes, I did,” Luz chuckled and sat down on the couch in her room. “Seems like Her Majesty is really scared you’re going to run away again.”

“Yes, I really did a big blunder this time.” The Princess let herself fall to her bed. “How would I know that I would be kidnapped?”

“Well… I mean you’re an important person. How could you not expect to get kidnapped?”

She sat up. “You’re not wrong. Ah, Mother wanted me to go the ceremony tomorrow.”

“I won’t go with you,” Alize said, sitting down in the couch as well. “I’ve been absent for a few days.”

“Right. I heard the Captain of the Capital Guard is quite grumpy,” Luz commented. “Probably better if you go back to work as soon as possible.”

Alize nodded. “I know.” Her temperament has always been so quiet, so they didn’t mind her short words.

Luz looked towards the Princess and asked, “you don’t have any weird plans in the back of your mind, right?”

Victoria put on an offended face. “Am I so unruly in your mind?”

“Yes,” both her friends answered with a straight face.

She laughed. “Well, I won’t deny that. But this time I will not act recklessly.” I would plan it very, very well, she thought.

Day 15 of the Fourth Month, Year 1016

Temple of Eldemore, Capital City of Naveland

After the biweekly ceremony, when the Archpriest talked to her mother, Victoria used the chance to sneak to the temple’s back garden.

Not many people were there. After ceremony, the nobles usually talked while trying to assess each other, and a lot of the common folks would usually use the time to worship and pray in the temple, so the ones in the garden were children who had no patience to sit still and pray. Victoria walked to the furthest corner of the garden and sat down on the bench there.

Thankfully, the royal guards that were supposed to prevent her from going anywhere didn’t follow her in. They stayed outside, in every entrance, preventing her from escaping. But that didn’t matter. It wasn’t her intention to escape today.

Not long after, a bulky man in his late thirties walked in from beyond the temple backdoor and sat down on the bench behind hers. Victoria was examining the butterflies that flew over to the colorful flower beds when she heard the man said, “this is a weird meeting spot.”

Victoria didn’t look back and kept looking at the carnation flowers that were most commonly found in this corner. “I am grounded,” she said, a faint smile on her face, as if she was really happy watching flowers blown by the wind.

The man sighed. “What do you want, princess?”

The Princess sat up straight. “Need your help to send Calathea a few messages so she takes me seriously.” She knew Calathea, the leader of Blades’ in Dustor, saw her as a privileged kid who were just playing around. After all, status didn’t matter much in that mercenary group.

Victoria could hear confusion in the man’s voice when he asked, “why do you have dealings in Dustor?”

She narrowed her eyes at the butterflies. “Mr. Lastain, haven’t you heard about the possible war coming up?”

Brad Lastain was the highest leader of Blades whose base of operation was in the capital city. Victoria had to seek help from him a few times, and always paid him the due gold needed, so it was not exaggerating to say that the old man had a good opinion on her. As far as she could tell, at least. The bulky man put on scary expression all day. “What do you need Calathea for?”

“Just keep an eye on things in the base.” Originally, she didn’t plan on asking Blades’ help, but after General Krish Gale suggested her to, she realized that the men she planted in the base were mostly well-known as, well, her men. It wasn’t general public knowledge, perhaps only those involved with politics would know, but still. And soldiers, as Krish also said, weren’t very good in intelligence work. If she wanted to get real insight there, she needed outside help.

Brad Lastain, as the highest leader, had the authority to command the branch leaders, but most of the time the branches operated by themselves. As they were independent, although they could, the leader usually didn’t interfere with how the branches work. That was the reason why she visited Calathea herself in Dustor instead of asking Brad first. Victoria didn’t want to put Brad in a tight spot, so she said, “Just write a recommendation to prove that I’m trustworthy or something. That Calathea just underestimate me, I don’t want her to work sloppily.”

“Well.” Brad sounded a bit relieved. “I’d do that. You need anything else?”

“Not really,” she replied. “Just, be careful. These days are a bit rocky with strange occurrences everywhere.”

Brad only murmured in assent before walking away.

Victoria didn’t move her gaze from a particularly red carnation flower. The blue-winged butterfly clapped its wings before landing on it, creating such a weird contrast, like a sky above the red land… Sighing once, she got up as well and walked slowly back to the temple. []