The next few hours were hectic, in sharp contrast to the slow drag of time last night. There were routine operations to organize, supplies to procure, and messages to receive and send. Two messages in particular required attention.

The first was from Elias. He was leading a part of the Second Company to meet us Corfin from the West, and they had been delayed by an encounter with a roaming demon. A griffin, apparently. Incidents like this were growing more and more common; demons sometimes escaped after emerging from an incursion and could survive for months roaming the Empire unnoticed until they grew too hungry or lost their minds from bloodlust. Elias’s report was as thorough as always, his tone pragmatic but the content grim.

We reached the intersection of the East-West highway and the border of the Landcircle of Rhonel at midmorning on the third day of this month. There we received a report of a griffin in the farmland near the village Loder from a traveling merchant from the Wolf Guild by the name of Alric. According to his account, three villagers had been killed and seven injured in attacks within the previous five days.

We immediately rerouted to Loder and encountered the griffin one kilometer to the southwest of the village. The demon was eliminated with no casualties and disposed of according to protocol with minimal contamination of a single oat field. Medical aid was provided to Loder. One of the seven injured villagers died before we arrived. Details of the casualties and witness testimonies are attached. Loder’s mayor wrote a separate appeal which is also included.

Our new arrival in Corfin is predicted to be at dusk on the fifth.

Left unsaid was the grief I knew he felt, as well as any hope that our potential alliance with the Saintess brought him. I knew Elias – and, frankly, every officer in my company – well enough for such things to be understood without words.

With painfully practiced movements, I marked the site of this new incident on the map. The fresh, wet ink shone red on the old vellum. I looked at it for a few heavy moments before setting it aside and turning to write a response to Elias. It was a short response, simply informing him of our similarly delayed schedule so he could coordinate his path to meet ours.

The more intensive task was reviewing and signing his full incident report. The work was familiar. These reports were required to appeal for financial aid for the village and people of Loder from the lords of their Landcircle, and I wanted to submit this one immediately although approval was unlikely. Lately, the governing aristocrats had started to align more with the insidious Temple position that incursions and demonic attacks were not simply disasters but rather signs of Lumina’s displeasure. Whether or not they truly believed this mattered less than it being a convenient way for them to argue that their resources and money should not be wasted on victims. If Lumina’s retribution was divinely ordained, then it was also deserved, and money was better sent protecting those who had not earned the Goddess’s wrath.

Bullsh*t.  

The second message was from Augusta, who was leading the rest of the Second Company to meet us. She had been responsible for gathering the knights who were stationed near Azure Pass for cleanup after the major incursion the Saintess had predicted. Her group had met no delays and were already waiting for us in Corfin. The bad news there was that an Imperial representative had noticed them and made a bit of a public fuss about why such a large portion of the Second Company would be so far from an incursion site.

I wrote instructions to her for how best to deal with this – a draft of a public statement on how the Second Company was always devoted to the Empire’s safety, along with an assurance that there was no indication any incursion would happen in Corfin, et cetera – and then went to update Rhiannon. It would be her job to manage the rumors once she got to the Capital as she rallied her supporters.

Things were going to pick up speed quickly. Taking the Saintess out of the Temple would shock allies and enemies alike. In the wake of this decision, power would be free to shift between factions, and every second counted. If anyone could leverage our underdog position, it was Rhiannon.

Rhiannon was bent over papers of her own, writing furiously. I came in without speaking and sat on the opposite side of the tent, knowing better than to interrupt her.

After about fifteen minutes, she looked up. There was a weary expression on her face, one which she only showed to three people.

At that thought, my heart sank. Not three anymore. Only two left.

“We can’t afford this delay, Erik. I know we have no choice, and I don’t want to be cruel. But every second counts.”

I waited, letting her voice her worries without interrupting.

“Your father has completely withdrawn from court, and Ian has begun wielding influence as though he has already taken on the title of the Duke. It has only been two months since Cas died, and Adar is moving much more openly than before. He might as well make a public announcement that he orchestrated the accident! And Father is completely blind to it. At this rate, my other siblings will be drawn into the fight before they even come of age. I’m worried that Lleu is already under Adar’s influence. Dylan is as oblivious as ever, but you know how the twins are. They do everything together. If one of them is drawn into the fight without knowing enough then – then I can’t keep protecting them like this. We need to move now.”

Rhiannon looked up, meeting my eyes. Hers were desperate. “The Saintess is our only surprise advantage. We can’t miss this chance. I – ”

She stopped herself there, and I stood up to clasp her hand, feeling it trembling slightly. We were cousins, yes, but more than family ties, we were bonded by our parallel childhoods, both precarious and bloody. We were both imperial children, I from a ducal house and her from the central palace, and we both had brothers who wanted us dead. The fight for the throne among her siblings and my own illegitimate status as the eldest son of Duke Silas Oesten had become more and more intertwined over the years, with my younger brother Ian – the legitimate son and future Duke of the West – now openly aligned with the first prince in his fight for the throne.

The bloody family conflict was all the more frustrating because it was an avoidable one, and because it was not just a family conflict but an imperial family conflict, it inevitably cost innocent lives. Prince Adar, the eldest imperial child, was nearing thirty and growing impatient with the ailing Emperor’s refusal to name an heir. Traditionally, the eldest should be officially crowned heir when they turned twenty-one. Instead, without warning, the Emperor had announced his intention to wait until all his children were of age before choosing an heir. Currently, Adar’s main competition for the crown was Rhiannon, the second eldest and already a demonstrated political genius. Adar had been moving to rally support against her for years, but two months ago, his maneuvering had finally escalated from back-room bribery and shadowy schemes to outright murder.

The public story was that the second prince Caswallon had died in a hunting accident at the age of twenty-one, but Rhiannon’s intelligence network had confirmed it was an assassination ordered by Adar. I had known Cas all his life. He was a friendly and compassionate person, and someone who could not be more obviously uninterested in the throne if he walked around with a sandwich board saying “I don’t care”. I had frankly never respected his position in the fight for succession – I had always looked down on his neutrality as irresponsible – but he was also just a kid who had only just come of age when he died. Cas had been a friend, albeit a frustrating one, and his death was senseless.

Cas’s murder had pushed Rhiannon to join me at the temple where usually she would not take such drastic action. Now that Adar was going so far as to kill off his siblings, she could no longer afford to bide her time building a network of support. While I was desperate to protect my knights, she was just as desperate to protect her three younger siblings, the twin princes Dylan and Lleu, as well as the twelve-year-old princess Ceridwen.

I broke the silence a few moments after Rhiannon’s hand had stopped shaking.

“Desperation is not just cause for cruelty, Rhia. Nor is it a sound strategy. That’s what you’ve told me many times.”

She squeezed my hand tightly, then exhaled, and I could see her gathering herself again.

“Yes. Of course. It’s not sound. We cannot destroy our allies.”

I frowned slightly. I wanted to remind her of what we saw at the Ceremony. I wanted to remind her that the Saintess was another person who deserved our protection. I held back. Rhiannon was grieving, and I knew how grief distorted reality. A lecture now, from me of all people, was not what she needed, and ultimately I trusted her judgement and her conscience. Instead, I repeated what I had first said to her five years ago, when Adar had begun his descent into corruption and she had confided in me that she intended to take the throne.

“I can think of no one better to guide and protect the Empire, Rhia.”

She looked at me sharply, and I knew she understood the subtle rebuke hidden in those familiar and supportive words. It was a slippery slope from viewing allies as useful to viewing them as tools. The battles ahead of us would only grow more intense, and I needed her to remember she was a protector at heart. For a moment, I saw anger flicker in her emerald eyes. I held her gaze patiently. It would be easy for her to throw my judgment back at me and call me a hypocrite, but we knew each other better than that. Yes, I was a hypocrite, and I remembered my mistakes. That was exactly why I was reminding her to strive for something better the same way she had reminded me when I had gone astray in the past.

Before long, the tension faded and Rhiannon nodded slightly, dropping her gaze. We both looked up when a voice sounded from outside the tent flap.

“Your Highness, we are ready.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re leaving now? Before gathering testimony?”

She looked at me wryly. “As if you or Elia would let me do so.”

I smiled at that. For all her strategizing and rationalizing, she had already made the most compassionate decision she could. Perhaps my reminder had been unnecessary.

Just as I had that thought, she hugged me, catching me by surprise.

“Thank you, Erik.”

She pulled back and grinned at me, her eyes hard despite her smile.

“I can think of no one better to protect the Saintess.”

For some reason, my ears felt hot, and I missed my chance to respond before she turned and started directing her staff and guards for departure.