“Lady Knight.”
The pale-faced queen struggled to her feet and held out her hand to Leif, speaking with a trace of apology.
“I really envy you, able to roam the world with just your sword. If my body weren’t so weak, I wouldn’t have to trouble you to risk your life for me.”
The apprentice knight dropped to one knee, took the young queen’s hand, and kissed the back of it.
“It will be my honor to serve Your Majesty,” she said respectfully. “Where your heart points, there our blades must follow.”
After she finished the whole sequence of movements and lines as smoothly as flowing water, Leif was met with several startled looks.
She kept her face straight and her lips pressed tight.
In the stories told by the priests, every knight said something like this, and performed something like this, whenever they greeted a princess. Some were even more long-winded than she had been. Leif had already rehearsed this scene many times on the road.
Had she done something wrong? Some step not dignified enough?
Dignified, Natiaveda thought silently. Perhaps a little too dignified.
“My, you really are adorable.”
Sophie helped Leif to her feet, then suddenly wrapped her arms around Leif’s waist and threw herself into her arms. Tilting up her small face, she said earnestly,
“I believe you can definitely fulfill my wish.”
The queen was scented with white hyacinth; to Leif, she seemed like a tiny white flower, light and fragrant. It made her think of Lily, before Lily had ever shown any bad habits—back when she had left the same soft, gentle impression.
Leif couldn’t help herself. She snuck a hand up to touch the ends of the queen’s hair. It was softer than wool. Truth be told, she’d wanted to pet it the moment she walked through the door.
The lady-in-waiting gave a soft cough and shot them a concerned, faintly severe look.
Leif quickly, and as unobtrusively as she could, drew her hand back.
Only then did the young queen realize how she was behaving. Color rushed to her cheeks. She slipped back into the high-backed chair that was really a bit too tall for her, and under the cover of her skirts, her feet swung twice in midair.
“It’s like this. What I want to ask you to do for me is…”
At that moment, heavy footsteps sounded from outside the hall.
The instant she guessed who it was, the young queen straightened up in her seat.
The doors flew open with a creak, and a shaft of light knifed into the hall.
A man stepped in from the bright afternoon sun. He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a crown, with a head of gold hair, deep blue eyes, and a hard, square jaw.
It could only be Noren Robertson, the new king of Aeseya, currently at the height of his power.
Behind Leif, all color drained from the young queen’s face. She stared at the man in the doorway, green eyes filled with a hint of fear, and instinctively looked toward Natiaveda.
“My queen grows more delicate by the day,” the new king said, casting Sophie a look that was almost tender, before turning to the shepherd girl standing to the side.
The shabby clothes against that expensive Eastern carpet were painfully conspicuous, and the stiffness of the girl’s bow only further revealed that she had probably had very few chances to meet nobles before this.
Noren knew immediately: yet another brazen commoner trying to use the queen’s proclamation to soar in a single bound. Disgust pricked at him.
“Listen, girl.”
In a few strides, the new king stood before Leif. He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing. He didn’t bother to consider what it might mean to strangle a lowborn to death, and thus saw no reason to hold back his strength.
“I don’t care if you’re a magician, a street performer, or some so-called knight,” he said.
Leif was not at all used to being yanked into the air like that. Both her hands clawed frantically at the fingers crushing her throat, while her feet kicked helplessly, trying to find something to brace against. For a moment she desperately wished Lily were here to come flying in and plant both feet right on the king’s backside.
A cold voice sounded in her ear.
“This is not a game. Since you’ve already accepted this task, you will complete it properly. If you give up, or if you fail, you will bear the consequences.
“Allow me to remind you: the last magician who accepted the decree, as well as the comic troupe—and the entire circus with them—because they overestimated their own abilities and made promises beyond their limits, have already been thrown into the snake pit in the deepest level of Kino City’s prison.”
Leif’s eyes were just short of rolling back in her head; her tongue was almost lolling out. Only then did the new king drop her.
He took out a handkerchief, carefully wiped his fingers, and let the handkerchief fall to the floor.
Then he looked at the young queen with a show of concern, placed one hand lightly on her shoulder, and bent down toward her.
“My noble queen, I truly hope your heart ailment improves soon. The envoys of other nations are all expecting to see you at the banquet. If you once again decline to appear on account of frailty, it would be most discourteous.
“There are already too many who suspect there is discord between us as husband and wife. I really have no wish to add another to their number. You know as well as I do: no kingdom wishes to ally itself with one whose emperor and empress are at odds. I imagine that is not an outcome you desire either.”
For all his pleasant words, the queen’s face only grew paler. Sophie pressed a hand to her chest; her heartache flared again, more sharply than before.
“You should be more cooperative, my queen.”
There was a faint note of reproach in the new king’s eyes as he withdrew his hand and let his glance sweep the hall. His dissatisfied gaze lingered on Leif for a moment. When it moved on to the stone-faced lady-in-waiting, however, it shifted away again, a touch too quickly, almost evasive.
Noren couldn’t have said why. He had long since had hundreds of reasons to drive Natiaveda away from the queen’s side, even to have her executed outright. Yet he had somehow left her there.
There was something terrifying about that woman, but to this day Noren could not explain the source of his own unease.
Leif watched the king’s retreating back and rubbed the bruised skin of her throat. She turned to Natiaveda.
“Why didn’t you say sooner that if I fail, I’ll be thrown into a snake pit?”
Her voice rose, anxious and vivid.
“By then, slick, slithering snakes will crawl over every inch of my body. After winding around me until I suffocate, the biggest one will swallow me whole in a single gulp.”
Her earlier certainty that “this is just a game” was starting to crack.
She understood now: if she lost, there would be no “try again” button. She really would die, and die in agony.
For the first time, this world pressed down on her with a cruelty she could feel in her own skin.
Leif decided that this wide-eyed, innocent-looking lady-in-waiting was no good person at all. She had originally thought Natiaveda was helping her out of a tight spot. She hadn’t expected her to be luring her into a trap instead.
And she herself had not been on guard at all—had even felt a bit honored.
How stupid.
“I came to the royal capital of Kino a month and a half ago,” Natiaveda said. “At first, I had a purpose much like yours. I never thought it would turn out to be so difficult. Out of kindness, the queen kept me by her side. That’s the only reason I’m still alive.
“But the king has already spoken. If I can’t find a way to cure the queen’s heart ailment within half a month, he’ll throw me into the snake pit along with you.”
When she thought of snakes—creatures so weak and cute and, frankly, tasty—Natiaveda couldn’t understand why Leif insisted on describing them in such terrifying terms.
Leif mistook the look on Natiaveda’s face for fear. Her own anger eased a little.
Leaving aside the “respect ladies” principle required by the profession she was chasing, Leif by nature simply couldn’t bear to see cute girls sad or afraid—unless the girl in question was actually a demon dragon in disguise.
The lady-in-waiting looked at Leif and let out a soft sigh.
“Will you fail?” she asked.
Leif pressed the scabbard of her sword against her hip.
“…Of course not,” she said.
“Then it’s good the two of you aren’t at odds,” the queen said. Her hand pressed to her chest, while the other unconsciously stroked the carved figures on the armrest of her chair. Her tone grew heavy. “I actually wanted you and Natiaveda to complete this task together.
“The clown before you, and the circus as well—they all tried to make me laugh, and they all failed.
“I think that as long as I do not know my father’s last wishes, my heart ailment will never heal.
“My father was always in good health, yet a year and five months ago he died without warning. I was out traveling with my companion, Lisstingle, at the time. By the time I received the news and rushed back, I had already missed my last chance to see him.
“I don’t even know the cause of his death. That’s the first thing.
“He left no final decree, so perhaps he passed with some regret left behind, and I have no way to fulfill it for him. That’s the second.
“After all that, my companion disappeared as well. I feel that perhaps she learned something she shouldn’t have.”
The queen rubbed at her brow, as though the memories brought back all the chaos of that time.
So much had happened in just a few short days. She had lost her father and her dearest friend, and on top of that, in her confusion, she had been forced to shoulder the responsibility of guarding the kingdom.
“In any case, I must know what my father said at the end.”
The task the queen gave them was this: they were to go to the Muer Forest outside Kino City and take a branch from the Prophet Tree.
According to legend, if you made the Prophet Tree’s branch into a flute and played it while clearly holding a question in your mind, every answer you sought would appear within the song.
On the entire continent of Deya, only one Prophet Tree remained, the last in Muer Forest. Each Prophet Tree grew only one branch in a hundred years, and each branch could answer only a single question.
Yet even for the sake of just that one question, generation after generation, the Prophet Tree’s branches had lured people to throw themselves into the struggle:
Greedy treasure hunters asking the locations of hidden riches; philosophers pondering the mysteries of the cosmos and why the moon waxed and waned; ruthless schemers eager to learn their enemies’ greatest weaknesses; young men in love, desperate to know whether the girl in their hearts returned their feelings…
That the Prophet Tree had not yet been stripped bare despite all this was only because powerful magical beasts guarded it.
