These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

Camille was sprinting through Calum.

The knight felt she truly might kill him, fealty be damned. There was a limit. There was a point where idiocy bordered on tyranny.

'Ow! Watch where you're going!'

'Tch. One of those coarse knights from Varant…'

As she pressed through the crowds, faintly aware she was only adding to Varant's poor reputation, Camille added another grievance to her growing list against Ailn. He was the one who'd forced her hand after all. Her desperation was his fault.

Indeed, she never would have had to stiffly trudge over to the third prince's retainers, tail between her legs, pleading for the location of her own liege. If her lord didn't play the truant, then she'd have never even entertained the thought of playing his keeper.

She came upon Calum's oldest library, hoping she had not yet missed them. It was a modest structure, but a pretty one, built with travertine long before marble had dominated the city's landscape.

The once creamy white facade had faded to a color closer to that of sand. And each time Camille laid eyes on the library, she couldn't shake the feeling that the porous surface had gathered a few more divots.

She was here. But suddenly she felt exhausted. Running all this way in armor had been no small feat. Camille leaned against the building's weathered exterior, steadying herself as she caught her breath, ignoring the curious stares which wondered why a knight was panting from exertion outside the library.

When she finally entered, and began to make her way through, she noted with some embarrassment the clinking of her boots against the library's hard floor. The scholars' irritated gazes were a little harder to take. She busied herself by measuring her words—crafting an argument, courteous yet firm, with which to persuade Ailn to return with her to the Great Hall.

"I'm going to murder you," Camille said, unable to stop herself from grabbing Ailn's collar.

"Well, you'd have to beat me in a sword fight first," Ailn replied, shrugging yet averting his eyes. One of his hands held a book. "I've heard you've had a pretty long losing streak against Dame Alera."

Camille's fingers twitched in her gauntlets. How difficult would it be to simply seize his throat?

"You can't!" A small girl suddenly tugged down on Camille's right arm, attempting to protect a duke who did not deserve it. "Uncle Ailn is… Uncle Ailn is helping me…"

"...Uncle Ailn?" Camille blankly echoed.

The girl's stuffed animals had dropped to the floor in her frantic act. So, Camille knelt down, picked up her pig, dog, and turtle, and handed them to the girl gently. Then she explained to the small girl with a sweet smile, "This bad man has lied to you."

"I didn't, actually," Ailn said casually. "This is Bea. Bea, this is your Aunt Camille. Well, technically your first cousin once removed."

"Have you no shame?!" Camille hissed. "Whatever gambit you believe you're playing, no result can justify toying with the feelings of a child."

"I told you I'm not," Ailn said, impatience edging into his tone as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just so you know, it's the Azure Knights who completely missed her. She stowed away in the supply cart."

"That's absurd, I checked the cart myself—" Camille fumed.

But Bea interrupted her, peering up guiltily as she clutched her stuffed animals tighter. "That time you looked for me at the carriage… I was hiding…" Her gaze lowered. "Under the chair… You thought I was a burmin…"

Camille froze, recalling the time she thought a racoon had been eating foodstuffs from the supply cart.

"That—still fails to explain how she would be—" Camille began to sputter. "From where—"

"Bea, where's your home?" Ailn asked.

"Venlind," Bea said.

"And what's your papa's name?" Ailn asked.

"Sig…Sigherd…" Bea mumbled.

Very quickly, Camille's world was losing all sense of reason.

A knight was negotiating with the imperial family, and a duke was taking a child to eat strawberries.

The irresponsible and irreverent second son of the eum-Creids was covering for the scandal of the gilded heir.

A four-year-old had outwitted Varant's finest knights.

"Even so!" she snapped, desperately holding onto her sense of indignation. "One of the knights could have watched—watched—"

"Bea," Bea said. "Like a bzz."

"Watched Bea! Thank you, Bea!" Camille glared at Ailn. "What matter have you that 'concerns the security and prosperity of Varant?!'"

Ailn winced and fell into that odd habit of his—where he fidgeted with the buttons near his wrist. Then, he seemed to come to a decision.

"Look, I can't explain everything," Ailn said. "There are… sources which I can't share with anyone. But I can tell you this." He held up the book he'd taken from the library, opening to a specific page.

The book was a collection of chronicles, detailing the noble histories and lineages of the duchy of ark-Chelon. A decade old, the book was still fairly new. But still, the lineage on the open page had been purged in the years following its compilation.

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Camille's eyes widened in alarm. Perplexed as she still was, that was not a name she could forget—and any matter which bore relation could only be insidious.

Ailn pointed to the family tree. "I don't know how exactly. But I have a strong feeling that someone among these names is aiming for Sigurd's life."

Then he added, "It's a good thing you came, by the way. We were headed to your dad's place."

All at the roundtable were struck nearly speechless. Kylian certainly had no words. When Ailn had slighted the imperial family with his absence, it could have generously been called intrepid. Spending his day in such conspicuous frivolity, however, was a glaring insult—the suggestion that the imperial family were less deserving of his time than the child of a commoner.

And Kylian still had no idea where Ailn had gotten the child in the first place.

Though it was Ailn who—whatever his intentions—insulted the imperial family, it was Kylian who had to take his seat at the table, bearing their furious, imperial gazes.

"...Donuts?" Isolde finally uttered. "Strawberries?"

The second imperial princess's red eyes bore into Kylian, as if he were the keeper of Ailn's evidently lacking diet. What, exactly, did she expect him to say?

Abruptly, Severus burst into laughter. He even slammed the table, it was apparently so riotous.

"Severus…?" Millie called his name worriedly, placing her palm upon his chest. "Is your pride wounded, Severus…? I'm sure the duke had his reasons for acting like such an insufferable, self-absorbed son of a—"

She cleared her throat, clasped her hands together demurely. "Ahem. Ashton, darling, a glass of water if you would please?"

It was rather bold for a barons' daughter to call a duke's son by his first name. To say nothing of asking him to personally retrieve a glass of water. Kylian couldn't help but think that Ashton's smooth, unbothered smile was beginning to come off as a touch pathetic, as he stiffly requested glasses of water from his retainers.

"The duke certainly does have his reasons," Severus said, sounding coolly amused. He paused, his gaze wandering over his siblings. His eyes narrowed in condescension and disbelief. "Are you two really so blind?"

"...Severus, spare me," Isolde spat, stealing an icy glare at Millie. "You of all people have no right to speak of blindness."

"Severus!" Millie buried her face into his arm with a pleading sob. "I told you Isi detests me…"

"What… did you just call me?" 'Isi' stared unblinkingly at Millie's back.

"There is nothing to 'see,' Severus," Evgeni lectured. "The young duke's reputation as a fool precedes him. He mistakes puerility for wit. Self-indulgence for statecraft. That will cost him."

One of Severus's retainers nervously approached the roundtable, whispering something in his ear. This only led to more laughter from Severus.

"Tell me, Evgeni," Severus's voice cut through the air. "Why, this very morning, would Duke eum-Creid see fit to dispatch a courier to Varant, summoning the former duke, Sigurd? If he is so daft, then unraveling his motives should be facile."

He did what? Kylian resisted the urge to openly nurse his headache.

The knight maintained his stoic posture. His arms were crossed. His gaze was level.

…His stomach was twisting into knots.

"Because he is an imbecile, Severus," Evgeni ground out. "I can think of no other reason why."

"I pity you, Evgeni. Duke eum-Creid has merely wrapped himself in the illusion you so dutifully maintain." Severus's voice was amused, yet coolly appraising. "Fools always make this fatal mistake. They let the clever don the hat of a jester. Ah."

He calmly gestured toward Kylian. "But I suppose his knight here will do us the courtesy of explaining it. Even now, the duke's designs become clearer to me."

What? Kylian genuinely had no idea what Severus was talking about.

"Consider this," Severus went ahead and began to dissect Ailn's actions. "The man has a reputation for lacking political acumen. And what does he do? On the very day of the negotiation? He sends for his 'superior' brother. He retreats to the library with a child, as if accepting he isn't sufficiently learned. Meanwhile you two wait for him, sulking and gnashing your teeth."

"He parades as an idiot, and yet we bear the banner?" Isolde scoffed at the absurdity. Her mocking glare snapped to Kylian. "Tell me, Sir Kylian, how in all the world does that follow?"

It didn't. But his experience in battle told him even knights must sometimes ride the tides of fortune.

"His Highness Ailn's victory over His Grace Sigurd… stemmed partially from an ability to unravel the former duke's mind," Kylian said.

And that was all he said. Because it was the truth, however misleading. Ailn hadn't so much orchestrated grand psychological gambits, as simply profoundly irritated his older brother.

"This is… a profound overestimation of Duke eum-Creid's intelligence," Ashton said irritably. He wasn't even smiling anymore.

At least in the realm of politics, Kylian had to agree. But Severus pressed on, taking Kylian's opportunistic comment as the absolute confirmation of his ornate theory.

"The symbolism should speak for itself, Evgeni," Severus said dryly. "Truly, what use are all your academic learnings if you cannot apply them?" Just as Evgeni began to rebut, he added, "Tell me. What shape is a donut? What color is a strawberry? What item brings us all here, today, and what are its characteristics?"

Evgeni froze, then flinched in realization. He raised his head, staring at his brother for a moment with harrowed eyes, before resting it once again on his steepled hands.

Which had begun to tremble.

Isolde's eyes shot wide—only for a fleeting moment—and the amused curl of her lips began to stretch. "This is the dumbest, godsdamned—"

"The Dragon's Promise is his," Severus went on. "His to offer. His to destroy. And we are the ones in need of it. Tell me this. What color defines the imperial lineage?"

"Ah, so he'll pluck out our eyes as a treat for children," Isolde giggled freely, her eyes beginning to drift away in boredom as if she only now grasped the extent of her brother's pseudo-intellect. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Allow me to put this in terms suited to your… particularities, Isolde," Severus said, letting out a heavy, chuckling sigh, as if his sister's ignorance were truly tragic.

The crown prince pantomimed the plucking of a strawberry, and the slow raising to his mouth—biting it with a sharp and succulent pop. Then he let out a breathy 'ahhh,' as if the invisible strawberry really were that delicious.

And as if that weren't enough, he made a show of licking every single one of his fingers, to Isolde's growing rage. "He's playing…" Severus said, in between licks, "...with his food."

At this, finally, Isolde's smirk completely disappeared. The entire hall was silent, as the sclera of her eyes turned as bloody as the crimson of her irises.

"And what… makes him think… he can do that?" Isolde finally gritted out.

Kylian wondered if perhaps he had horribly miscalculated.

While Kylian negotiated with the imperial family, and Ailn aided Bea in her desperate effort to save her father, a lone knight commander was riding deep into the Singing Mountains—his pace brisk, his visage grim.

He'd departed from Varant just three days prior, traveling as swiftly as his horse's endurance would allow. Forcing himself to rest each night had taken all of his self-control—and even then, it had hardly been restorative.

He had not informed the knights of his departure. Not even Sir Fontaine, who he trusted above all else as the most loyal of all the eum-Creid's knightly vassals. Nor had he told his family where he was going.

For all intents and purposes, he'd forsaken his duties. While his comrades protected the northern wall, and his younger sister the Saintess vanquished shadows… Sigurd eum-Creid pressed onward through wind and crag, echo stone clenched within his fist, fully aware something sinister lay in wait.