SN Chapter 35

Rosaline nodded at Macaron's words. She, too, had been noticing it without pause—from the moment Balta's city gates opened and they encountered the guards.

She closed her eyes. Her vision cut off. But her senses painted the scene around her. A herd of warhorses. The clank and ring of the knights' armor. The carriage wheels rolling over packed earth and gravel, while an unstable and violent energy—as though ready to burst at any moment—washed over everything in waves. If a single demonic beast's power was a torch, then what surrounded her now was flooding the surroundings like a wildfire that had already consumed everything in reach. She had sensed something like this energy before—from the Fragment embedded in Rikardis's black tea, and from the ferocious creatures called demonic beasts.

The vizier named Atilak carried none of it. But every guard encircling the delegation—each one, without exception—held that energy within them. Because of this, an extraordinary sight that she would never have been able to witness even in the Accursed Mountain—famous for the sheer number of demonic beasts inhabiting it—spread out before her closed eyes. This was never a force capable of concentrating in a single place like this. Facing that bizarre sight, each individual nerve in her body registered the wrongness—a cold prickling moving through them one by one. Goosebumps rose along her arms. The reason Macaron had been startled and kept saying things was this. It seemed even Macaron had never encountered magical power concentrated to this degree.

Rosaline swept a sharp gaze over her surroundings. Many of Balta's citizens had come out to watch the delegation pass. Fortunately, no strange magical power registered from the ordinary people. Those guards, in all likelihood, were a specialized unit.

With unease pressing at her, Rosaline steered her horse in close alongside Rikardis's carriage—close enough that the horses pulling it snorted irritably. Macaron heard the horses' displeasure and scrambled out of the pocket immediately, pointing at them and pronouncing judgment. Having apparently lived with an old grandmother, its facility with cursing was exceptional by any measure. The pronouncements grew louder. Rosaline sent it back inside. Fortunately, no one had witnessed any of this.

Balta was vast. Only after a considerable time did they arrive at the palace at the capital's center—extravagant beyond all description. The delegation's schedule placed their meeting with 1st Prince Haqaev two days away. For today, having just arrived, they would unpack and rest. Atilak had vacated an entire separate palace structure for the delegation's use. The knights swept Rikardis's chambers thoroughly before anyone was permitted to retire.

Rosaline was assigned a room as well. She removed her armor and tended to her weapons. Atop the armor, Macaron moved restlessly, surveying every corner. Those already tiny rice-grain eyes had narrowed further still—down to sesame-seed slits. Whatever its temper was, it was not mild.

The alien density of magical power thickened past any possibility of dismissing it as imagination. The force encircling Balta's palace in silence possessed a vast body to it—as though pressing down on all of them at once. The entire vast palace felt like the inside of some great demonic beast's mouth. Rosaline drew her sword and held the blade up against the moonlight. The edge gleamed sharp.

"If it gets dangerous, run, Macaron."

Macaron glared at her. It stated, precisely, that it had never run from anything and did not intend to start now.

"I can't run."

Macaron had further observations on the matter. It made them all, leaping in place to ensure each point was properly received.

"There's someone I have to protect. This time—for certain."

Macaron raised the question: this time?

Rosaline had said it herself, and yet she found she had to consider what she meant by it. She hadn't failed in the task of protecting him before—so why had those words come out. Rosaline and Macaron both tilted their heads. But there was no one present to provide an answer.

The night deepened.

Knight-Commander Stass gathered all of the White Night Order and relayed his instructions.

"You've all worked hard, making it to Balta."

Several knights remarked that this was remarkably sentimental of him, or put in requests for a salary increase. Stass allowed himself a small smile. Rosaline watched his smiling face with something like admiration. A smile on the knight-commander—that thousand-year-old stone—was a genuinely rare thing to see. Macaron, still with only its face poking out of the pocket, stirred and shifted. It said something about a handsome male—she couldn't quite catch the rest.

"Even if true danger comes on the road back to Illavénia—while we remain inside this palace, there are no guarantees of anything. I trust you all know this well."

The senior knights answered with a resonant "Yes, sir." Stass kept his silence a moment before he spoke again. His complexion was dark enough to make his already low, settled voice feel heavier still.

"I will state this now, in case it is needed. Knight-Commander: myself. Vice-commander's adjutant: Sir Raymond. Among the senior knights: Sir Pardickt, Sir Kylo, Dame Rosaline, Sir Hale. Among the junior knights: Sir Nestor, Sir Claude, Sir Bastian, Sir Shten, Sir Arman. Should combat break out within the palace, these ten—excluding myself—will escort His Highness the Second Prince and His Highness the Fifth Prince out of Balta's palace. Knights not named will hold and respond with force, buying time for the escape. All of you, recalling the oath you once swore—your lives,"

Give them.

A chill that ghosted up the spine. Every member of the White Night Order straightened at once. Resolve pressed down hard against fear. Not one of them lamented their own situation and fell apart. Their eyes burned clear and bright, and beneath that steadfast conviction, their oaths were carved fresh again.

Vice-commander Nathan and his adjutant Raymond, who had been standing before the senior knights, brought their fists to their hearts and saluted Stass. Senior and junior knights alike raised their fists to their hearts in exactly the same way. Stass, watching his subordinates harden into something solid, raised his own fist to his heart. The knight-commander's low voice broke the silence once more and filled the room.

"The glory of Idelabheim, who cleaves the Black Moon—to each of you."

Many eyes had taken up positions inside the palace where Illavénia's delegation was staying. Among the maids and servants. Above the ceiling. Below the floor. Up in the trees. They did nothing but watch the delegation's movements—no killing intent anywhere. But the calculating gaze of a foreign nation grated at Rosaline's nerves. 'Should I kill them? No—Kallix had said you shouldn't carelessly kill people in Balta. What to do.'

'Whatever you need to do, whatever action you need to take—if you are uncertain whether it's permitted or not: you must ask the people around you before acting. With. Out. Fail. Ask someone close to you, or someone you trust. With. Out. Fail.'

Rosaline hesitated, wavering, before knocking on the knight-commander's door. Raymond would have been the first obvious choice—someone nearby—but lately, despite being in the same unit, she had barely laid eyes on him. She had only spotted him here and there, hurrying between his responsibilities as one of the delegation's officers. When she tried to think of who else might be trustworthy, the knight-commander's face came immediately to mind.

"Come in."

Inside the temporarily assigned command room, there were several others besides Stass. Vice-commander Nathan and his adjutant Raymond, along with a few senior knights, had a map spread before them and were in the middle of some discussion. Raymond greeted her with a warm, eye-crinkling smile. Rosaline smiled back.

"What is it, Dame Rosaline?"

Rosaline hesitated a moment, then moved toward the knight-commander. She came closer than expected. Stass was, in a manner altogether unlike himself, caught off-guard. Raymond narrowed his eyes and watched her movements with careful attention—the look of someone braced to sprint across the room and intercept her at any moment.

Rosaline stepped up to Stass and covered her mouth with one hand, as if about to whisper something. Raymond craned his neck to get his ear into the space between them. He was very concerned about what kind of explosive declaration was about to emerge. 'What on earth are you about to say, Rosaline. I'm hungry? What's for breakfast tomorrow? May I go home?' No matter what it was, none of it was the sort of thing worth slipping secretly into a superior's ear.

Raymond had craned his neck so far that his appearance had become rather unseemly—but because of it, he was able to catch every word she said. Vice-commander Nathan, standing nearby, looked at him with an expression of profound displeasure. It was the look of someone observing a parent in the grip of severe overprotection. In the meantime, Rosaline's question flowed into both Raymond's and Stass's ears at once.

'There are people watching the palace. May I kill them?'

"……."

"……."

Stass quietly made a sound—hm—and then said,

"No."

Raymond also said "No, Rosaline," with clean finality. Rosaline made a tsk with her tongue. She must have found them quite aggravating. Her frustration was understandable—but they were, after all, visiting under the name of a peace delegation. Illavénia's side could not be first to hand Balta grounds for war. Yes, the watchers were watching the palace—but they hadn't attacked. If their side moved first to take lives, it could be the delegation's own position that became precarious instead. This was a time that required patience.

Rosaline made an "Oh—" and launched herself back toward the knight-commander's ear. Raymond wedged himself back into the space between them. Closer this time than the last. Vice-commander Nathan's expression pinched harder than before.

'Then as long as I don't kill them, is it fine?'

"That won't do either."

"No!"

She didn't appear to understand at all. Rosaline's cheeks went sulky. She was scolded—by both the knight-commander and Raymond. Absolutely, absolutely never, under no circumstances, not unless they came at her first. In that brief exchange, Rosaline heard nothing but "absolutely never" and "no" dozens of times over.

Eventually, she moved her head slowly up and down in reluctant acknowledgment. A collective exhale moved through the room. Whatever the rest of it had been, the fact that she had noticed the watchers in the first place was worth commending. Rosaline reported every position she had identified to the knight-commander in precise detail, then left the room.