IWJACM Chapter 2

He was a powerfully built man in a white shirt.

He was sitting on a camp bed set against the corner of the tent. The pressure of his presence—born simply from the mass of his frame—was considerable.

His black hair, slightly disheveled, had been pushed carelessly back from his forehead. Dense brows and long-set eyes were left plainly in view.

He had the cord at his collar loosened. He looked like a predator that had been resting at its ease and had just discovered, with no particular urgency, unexpected prey.

The man subdued his opponent with his eyes alone, and Elise could not move as though she had been nailed to the floor.

She knew this man.

"A…"

A small whisper fell from her barely-parted lips.

"Kyr… stan."

Grand Duke Kyrstan. Half-brother of the Van Yela Emperor, and master of Lothier—one of the few blessed lands of the north.

Elise had seen this man before.

Before Argan's fortunes had begun to turn decisively, some three years ago. She had seen him when he came leading a diplomatic mission to Argan.

She had only caught a passing glimpse from a distance, but his presence was the kind that was impossible to forget. Besides, the Grand Duke—with his black hair and blue eyes—had already been the talk of the entire continent at that time.

He was said to be the half-brother who had appeared from somewhere out of nowhere at a time when the current Van Yela Emperor was still the Fifth Prince, fifth in the line of succession.

The late emperor's missing concubine, who had produced a child with some vagabond. So strictly speaking, not a drop of Van Yela imperial blood ran in his veins—but the Fifth Prince had been pleased to take him as a brother.

Six years later, the Fifth Prince launched a rebellion and seized the imperial palace.

The man who had stood at the eye of that bloody storm was this half-brother of unknown origin.

Upon his accession, the new emperor at once conferred on him the rank of Grand Duke and granted him the territory of Lothier, famed for its prosperity.

Under an emperor pursuing an aggressive policy of territorial expansion, the Grand Duke had spread his infamy across the entire continent.

People called him the war demon.

"……"

A suffocating silence stretched between them. Elise could not push out a single word.

Would this man remember her?

Elise had been Argan's princess—but Andrei had kept her carefully hidden and prevented her from attending even imperial ceremonies, so her face and name were not widely known across the continent.

The only things the world clearly knew of her were that she was the twin sister of Argan's emperor. And that she was extraordinarily fragile.

Everything else was speculation. They say she cannot stand in sunlight for long. They say the emperor prizes her so dearly that she has not married, even past the proper age. They say she is actually half-broken somewhere, not entirely sound.

There had even been the filthy rumor that she and the emperor—who were twins—were in that kind of relationship with each other.

When Elise learned of that rumor, which tarnished Andrei's honor so deeply, she had begged her brother to allow her to attend his birthday banquet. Perhaps if she appeared, such scandalous talk might die down at last.

That day had been the first and last time Elizabetha had revealed herself to the world.

Delegates from across the continent who had arrived to celebrate Argan's emperor's birthday had attended that banquet. The war demon of Van Yela among them.

If he had seen her that day too. If he remembered her. If, in this very moment, he had already seen through her identity—

Then any hope of escaping from here safely became remote indeed.

To this man, she was unequivocally the princess of an enemy nation who had to be seized and killed. And she had gone so far as to kill one of his subordinates and flee.

Her vision blurred at the edges.

Of all the moments—why did she have to cross paths with this man right now?

If he was Grand Duke Kyrstan, he was almost certainly the supreme commander with authority over this entire encampment.

Her life hung on a single word from this man.

Whether or not he perceived the darkness curdling through her, the Grand Duke kept watching her in silence.

From behind the door, urgent voices reached them again.

"Lord Kyrstan! Are you within?"

This time he responded to the call as well. The man spoke slowly.

"What is it?"

His voice was lower and carried more resonance than she had expected. It was slightly roughened, as though he had not long woken.

"Lord Roderick has been assassinated! There seems to be an intruder. Your orders—quickly!"

The Grand Duke's clear blue eyes swept over her—more precisely, over her body. Down across the blood-soaked hands and the shirt that was torn nearly to uselessness, to the skirt heavily stained with blood.

Elise's heart hammered. One word from him, and her life would be over.

In despair, she scraped her fingers against the mark inscribed behind her ankle.

The magic circle on her ankle was the spell Andrei had told her to use only in the very worst of circumstances. The spell he had ultimately had no choice but to carve despite insisting it should never be needed—the one that would detonate the body of the person it was inscribed upon.

If she pressed this mark and called her brother's name, Elise could vanish from the world without leaving so much as a trace of filth behind.

The Grand Duke's gaze returned to her face. He had been watching her with an unreadable blank face, and then—without warning—he rose from where he sat. His footsteps fell.

One step. Two steps.

When fewer than three paces remained between them, Elise's face crumpled with grief.

'It's over. There's nothing left. Only death.'

At least die as befits a princess. Die cleanly, with the pride of Argan. Andrei would still be waiting for her on the other side of death, not yet gone anywhere.

So I'm not afraid.

"Andre—"

Elise pressed the magic circle on her ankle and began to call Andrei's name.

"I stand before Her Highness, the Princess of Argan."

'What?'

In the next moment, Elise could not finish the word. Her lips parted soundlessly.

The man had gone down on one knee before her.

"This—what—"

Elise was submerged in confusion. For a moment, she lost track of where she was.

'This—wasn't this Van Yela's encampment?'

This man, going to his knee before her—wasn't he the one they called the Van Yela Emperor's loyal hunting dog?

"Commander, may we enter—"

"No. Do not enter."

There was still no variation in his voice. Elise, in a daze, met the blue eyes that had not moved from her.

Their gazes tangled together and would not let go.

"May I trouble you for a moment? Your Highness."

He had clearly recognized her immediately—who she was. Only now did Elise understand that the courtesy the man had taken was the formal greeting owed to a member of a royal house.

There was no one on this continent who dared look down upon the imperial bloodline of the great empire of Argan. It was a custom observed for more than a thousand years since Argan had come to govern this continent of Grendel.

But now that Argan had fallen, it was nothing more than an old, outmoded convention. There was no reason whatsoever to address the princess of a defeated nation with a title of extreme respect like "Your Highness."

Was this man mocking her, then?

"It is not a pleasant sight to find you in that state."

But in Grand Duke Kyrstan's expression and voice, there was none of that. He was not laughing at her, nor did he particularly pity her, nor was he expressing hostility.

He was simply devoid of feeling. As though he had given the courtesy that was natural and expected—but meant nothing beyond that.

Elise bit her lip. From outside the tent, the sounds of agitated feet continued to reach them in waves. In the end, Elise gave a single nod.

"You may proceed."

The moment her permission was granted, the man rose. He lifted a clean linen cloth that had been neatly folded on the small camp desk, dipped it into the water bowl beside it, and wrung it out. Then he came toward her with it.

He lowered himself before her again and asked once more.

"May I place my hands on Your Highness?"

Again, Elise had no choice but to nod. The moment her permission was given, the man's large hands closed around both her wrists at once and lifted them.

He wiped Elise's blood-soaked hands clean with the dampened cloth. The diluted blood ran in thin streams, staining the hem of her skirt and the area near the man's thigh the color of faded roses.

Elise had to stare at his face—blankly—while he cleaned the blood from her hands and arms and hair and helped her into what must have been someone's shirt.

He must have washed not long ago; his black hair was still faintly damp. Below it, the line of his eyes—set long, with their faint double fold—led into a straight nose and a mouth held in an even, closed line. A cold, faultless beauty without a seam in it.

"One who lays hands on Her Highness without permission shall be made to answer for it accordingly."

She could not decipher his intent. One of his subordinates had just died—and he had more than sufficient cause to suspect her—and yet.

'Why is he treating me like this?'

But Elise understood quickly that this was simply his nature.

He resembled Andrei. The kind of person for whom principle and conviction are everything.

Yet this man was not gentle the way Andrei was. The eyes that looked at her contained no warmth of any kind.

This was not an act born from goodwill. He was simply giving a member of a royal house the appropriate courtesy she was owed.

The Grand Duke finished setting her clothes perfectly to rights and withdrew his hands. He stepped cleanly, simply away from her—and then turned his voice toward the outside of the tent.

"Enter, Lord Ruben."

"Yes!"

The tent flap opened wide.

Grand Duke Kyrstan gave the command in an even voice.

"Escort Her Highness."

"I'm sorry? What did you just say—"

"She is the last remaining member of the Argan Empire's imperial bloodline. She is to be escorted with all appropriate ceremony." A pause. "On her final journey."

The blue eyes that delivered Elise's death sentence were cold as ever.