The Princess Who Wants a Friend (5)
Benelia opened her eyes and returned to reality.
An orchestra's old-fashioned music drifted through the shop. In front of her, Theorad was gripping a display cabinet, one hand against his forehead as he struggled to steady himself.
Still looking dizzy, he turned toward her.
“Your Highness… I think I may have fallen asleep for a moment.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well… it felt as though I'd had a very strange dream.”
A dream.
That wasn't entirely wrong. Benelia almost laughed.
She considered explaining what had happened, then decided against it. If he couldn't remember the experience, telling him the whole story would accomplish little.
She was curious, though, about how much had remained with him.
“Now you've piqued my interest. What did you dream about?”
Theorad couldn't answer immediately. He had the vague sense that Benelia had appeared, but the rest lay beneath a fog.
At last, one image emerged clearly enough to describe.
“I was carrying Your Highness as a little girl while running through an underground waterway.”
“How interesting. And that's all?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
For some reason, Benelia found his lack of memory faintly disappointing. Still, she knew what sort of man he was, and that knowledge was enough.
“Then I must be honored to have appeared in your dream.”
She patted his shoulder and walked toward the glass window.
Theorad looked after her.
“Your Highness? Are we leaving?”
“No. I'm going to catch the trash responsible. No more than about ten seconds passed in reality while we were trapped in that hallucination.”
“What do you—”
Before he could finish, Benelia kicked off the floor.
Blue aura gathered around her as she filled her body with mana and hurled herself straight through the window.
Crash!
Glass shattered. People screamed, but Benelia landed without difficulty and sprinted away.
Theorad stared after her in disbelief.
How am I supposed to…?
Only a moment ago, they'd been looking at trinkets together. How was he supposed to understand a princess abruptly leaping through a third-floor window?
There was a reason for her haste, of course.
Theorad hurried to follow—but took the stairs out of the shopping building. He could barely manage telekinesis, let alone levitation, and a leap from the third floor would probably break a leg.
By the time Theorad reached the street and asked passersby where the princess had gone, Benelia had already caught someone.
She stood in a deserted alley with her sword drawn.
Before her, a man wearing the uniform of the shop called the Old Moon backed away on bleeding legs. Fresh blood dripped from the sword's tip. Benelia had evidently wounded him.
“Your Highness!”
Theorad called to her, alarmed, but she paid him no attention. She was intent on the man in front of her.
“Speak,” she ordered. “Who told you and your people to pry into my secrets?”
He said nothing. Breathing heavily, he retreated until he realized he had reached a dead end.
“Do you think I'll answer just because you ask?”
His voice was dark. Then he laughed and released the energy he'd been concealing.
Dark-red demonic mana surged around him.
Bony horns thrust from his head. His skin turned red, making him look like a demon.
Benelia frowned.
“A demon? No. That mark on your forehead… You're a human who made a pact with one.”
An intricate mark like an ancient character scarred his forehead.
The man did not deny her accusation.
“I don't serve demons. I merely use their power for a greater purpose.”
“Those who make pacts with demons all say something like that. Clever or foolish, they never recognize they're the ones being used. Not until they die.”
“Don't sully my convictions with your poisonous tongue.”
He bared his teeth, but she only snorted.
“Convictions? You resorted to a demon because your own power wasn't enough. Don't pretend your reasons make you noble.”
“Shut up! I won't hear that from an illegitimate child abandoned by God!”
“If God abandons children born outside marriage, what awaits someone who has made a pact with a demon? Surely nothing but the depths of hell.”
The man's expression twisted.
“I'm different! I'm special! My master gave me the right to enter heaven!”
“I see.”
Benelia nodded, as if he'd finally told her something useful.
“You say you don't serve demons, yet you speak of a master. That suggests you're taking orders from a person within your organization.”
The man fell silent.
“And this ‘right to enter heaven’—perhaps you're speaking of indulgences issued by the Holy See. Your master must have ties to the clergy. That would make the Emperor, who is on poor terms with the Holy See, an unlikely culprit.”
The man's shoulders trembled.
Benelia's suspicion hardened.
“That leaves my second brother and Duke Brylt. Not many people have connections to the Holy See and a reason to isolate me politically or militarily.”
“That's… nonsense…”
“We'll learn whether it is when we capture you and examine your memories. And don't think of escaping. My knights should be closing in by now.”
The Dawning Steps, a combat force under the imperial family's direct command, were encircling the area.
With his legs wounded, even demonic power would hardly allow him to break through them. What awaited him after capture, he feared, would be worse than death. The Iron-Blooded Princess had a reputation for making prisoners suffer.
He chose what he thought was the lesser evil.
“Do you think I'll fall to a bastard child like you?”
He ripped open his uniform. A symbol engraved on his chest began to shine, releasing a flood of demonic energy.
“May the God of Light watch over me!”
There was bitter irony in a man transformed by demonic power invoking the God of Light. Benelia had no time to dwell on it.
She saw the rough pattern blazing on his chest and swore inwardly.
Damn it!
The spell used the blood within its caster's body to fuel an explosion. It was self-destruction magic, a forbidden practice capable of destroying everything within its reach.
Once the spell was underway, even stopping the caster's breathing would trigger the explosion rather than prevent it.
Benelia drew her sword.
I have to get away…
No. There wasn't time to escape the blast.
Her remaining option was a barrier. Alone, she was confident she could survive behind one.
But Theorad…
He'd followed her into the alley. Could she shield him as well?
After a brief hesitation, Benelia turned and wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“Y-Your Highness?!”
The larger a barrier's protected area, the weaker its defense. By keeping them close together, she hoped to reduce the area she needed to cover and improve their chances of surviving.
Theorad was too startled by her sudden embrace to understand.
As he awkwardly held his hands away from her, Benelia shouted.
“Don't be an idiot! Hold me! This is about staying alive!”
Only then did Theorad understand. He put his arms firmly around her.
Benelia gathered every scrap of mana she could muster and cast her barrier.
Whoosh!
A blue curtain spread around the two of them.
The man screamed out his final words.
“Let's see the true face of this world from the darkness!”
His body tore apart in a sudden flash. Fire and debris erupted outward with a roar that shook the alley.
Benelia pressed her face against Theorad's chest and shut her eyes.
But she felt no impact against her barrier.
Even as the blast continued, her protection showed no sign of strain.
Puzzled, she opened her eyes and turned her head.
A hemispherical barrier had formed around them, holding back everything the explosion threw at it. Fragments of the man's body, bone, and flame struck its surface without making it tremble.
Benelia looked up at Theorad in astonishment.
“You…?”
Without a wand? He formed another barrier with nothing but his will?
Theorad was just as stunned as she was.
I didn't do this.
He had no training or skill for such advanced magic. He couldn't possibly have made the barrier.
He did, however, know one being who could perform magic of that magnitude as easily as breathing.
“Master?”
Cold sweat broke out at the voice behind him.
Before Theorad could explain himself, the elf fixed the pair with blazing red eyes.
“Why are you two hugging?”
To Theorad, this seemed an even greater crisis than the man's self-destruction.