These Reincarnators Are Sus! Sleuthing in Another World

As the imperial siblings met with Kylian privately, Ashton took the opportunity to attend to his own affairs—or rather, those of ark-Chelon.

He was checking on his adoptive father, Cassian. The duke had been bedridden for years now, and sometimes even the family's retainers seemed to forget he was still the head of the family.

"I've brought you something to drink, father," Ashton said, entering the bedroom. "I've mixed sugar, salt, and the juice of citrons with water."

"...Leave that sort of work for the maids," Cassian spat, barely turning his head on the pillow. "What a witless waste of time, when you should be seeing to those imperial wretches. The crown prince himself is beneath our roof—to say nothing of the saber-rattling princess, and that overeducated boor of a third prince. They are our guests—"

"So I'm to serve them instead of you," Ashton said, clicking his tongue. He set the drink and tray on his father's nightstand. "Make certain you drink it, father. If you try to foist it onto a maid, I'll hear of it."

Then, not bothering to hide his vexation, he trudged out of his father's room.

The day continued to wind down, and Evgeni was the next to meet Kylian for a private audience.

As Severus had done, Evgeni went himself to the chamber bearing the eum-Creid name, rather than summoning Kylian to him. It was a quiet testament to the weight of Kylian's temporary authority.

While Severus had likely come on a whim, Evgeni was the type to make a calculated decision. If he felt it was to his advantage to force the issue, he would've made a point of staying put.

Instead, Evgeni sat across a plain table from Kylian, subtly acknowledging him as an equal in negotiation. And despite Evgeni's past frictions with Varant, the third prince came off as eminently sensible.

"It isn't difficult to understand why you might be reluctant to cede the ring to me," Evgeni said, drumming his fingers on the small table between them. "I've been… assertive with Varant in the past. Perhaps that left the eum-Creids feeling slighted."

He paused and let the admission hang in the air. Then he defended his actions. "Yet it was the youngest scion of the eum-Creids, Lady Renea, who falsely claimed a divine blessing she did not possess."

"This has no bearing on Varant's decision, Prince Evgeni," Kylian said flatly. "Speak as you will, but it is wasted breath."

That was a lie, of course. If Evgeni hadn't attempted to tip the scales of Varant's affairs, Kylian may well have bestowed upon him The Dragon's Promise out of sheer exhaustion.

"The northern wall doesn't stand for Varant alone," Evgeni said, brushing off Kylian's dismissal. "Whatever threatens it, threatens the empire—even a simple lie. Was it wrong to subject Renea eum-Creid to the same standards as the rest of the empire's subjects? Especially when I fully honored the autonomy of her house? The law is only one tool in a ruler's hand."

He turned over a palm, as though inviting Kylian to come to the only sensible conclusion, but received only silence.

There was no benefit to getting dragged into a debate over the sovereignty of House eum-Creid versus the reach of the empire. Evgeni's arguments had nuance; yet they obscured the fact that the third prince had played a dangerous game.

If the protection of the northern wall were truly his foremost concern, then he would never have undermined the subsidies which repaired its crumbling mortar. Whether the third prince had ulterior motives, or simply a compulsion to control, he had clearly acted with the intention of bringing House eum-Creid to heel.

Now that the eum-Creids possessed The Dragon's Promise, Evgeni had become suddenly even-keeled. That alone was enough to mark him as two-faced.

"...The point I am making, Sir Kylian, is that my actions—whether you agree with them or not—are reasonable," Evgeni sighed. "That can't be said for Severus, who every day turns into more of an infatuated oaf. Or Isolde, who never left a fight unpicked."

"I have no intention of yielding the ring to either," Kylian said. "As I said, the emperor—"

"The emperor… will not intervene, Sir Kylian," Evgeni said, hesitating for just a moment. "The ring will simply fall onto the finger of Severus. And from there, terrible as his idiotic reign might be…"

Evgeni grimaced. "I suspect my eldest brother would not be long for this world. Would you wish to see Isolde as empress?"

The thought made Kylian's stomach twist into knots, but he kept his expression impassive.

"...The Dragon's Promise is more than an heirloom, Sir Kylian," Evgeni said, his voice lowering. "Imperial records speak of the power it exerts—how it bends others to the will of its bearer." He paused, then added, quieter still: "It doesn't just prove our lineage. It empowers it—that gift granted us by dragon, god or demon."

The final imperial sibling to seek a private audience with Kylian was Isolde. Naturally, she insisted he come to her—contemptuous of even the slightest suggestion of deference, she waited for him in the chamber bearing the ark-Chelon name.

Kylian had no reason to decline. There was nothing to be gained by appearing intransigent. If anything, it was wiser to humor her deep-seated need to dominate. Should Isolde be forced to keep treating a lowly knight as her equal, Kylian feared the second princess might simply explode from all the rage she bottled up.

When he entered the ark-Chelon chamber, Kylian noticed she was in a much better mood than before. "A brief sojourn in the perimeter chambers has given me clarity of mind," she declared.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It was a very dignified way to express that she had, in fact, taken a nap.

Like Evgeni, she waited at a flat table. Unlike her brother, however, Isolde had a meal set out solely for herself.

From a small orichalcum dish nested in ice, she delicately touched what looked like small black pearls to her lips, savoring the flavor. Kylian had no idea what the dish was, yet he was sure it was a delicacy he could never dream of tasting.

"Sir Kylian, I wonder if even you have begun to tire," Isolde said, lazily. "Of this game we play, with carrot and stick."

Kylian was in fact excruciatingly tired. Though he found himself wondering at what point Isolde had ever offered the carrot.

"Let's not waste each other's time," Isolde said. She sipped at her glass of wine."If I laid the empire itself at your feet, would you give me the ring?"

"...I would find the offer suspicious. Why would you surrender the prize to gain the tool?" Kylian replied.

"Ah, there it is," Isolde murmured, her eyes slipping shut as she held her glass closer. She tilted it gently toward her face, as if to appreciate its bouquet. "Always with your artful evasion."

She shrugged, languidly. "You've no intention of giving it to me. And it has naught to do with the emperor. I'd wager you'd sooner hand it over to that troglodyte Severus. Wouldn't you?"

The moment she spoke Severus's name, a twitch caught her mouth. Her eyes briefly parted to narrow slits, sharp again for just a flicker.

Then, as if the thought of him were too much to take without some expression of contempt, she poured the wine she'd been drinking onto the floor.

Severus… truly got under her skin.

She was correct, of course. Isolde was the last person he'd give the ring to—anyone would take a fool over a tyrant. But Kylian saw no reason to show his hand. So he remained silent.

"Do you know how many legends surround The Dragon's Promise, Sir Kylian?" Isolde asked, her tone silk over steel. "You assume I want it merely to rule. That's because you lack imagination, for all your intellect."

"The will of an empress would eclipse even the mightiest artifact," Kylian said.

"And what if that artifact widens the empress's dominion?" Isolde replied, gaze sharpening. "To command not just men, but beasts. To rouse sleeping dragons to war. To rule the heavens above—and the pits beneath the earth."

"If The Dragon's Promise were truly that powerful, one would think the Radoscht Empire would stretch farther than a single continent," Kylian said. "Its emperors once claimed the heavens—yet their borders stopped at the sea?"

"Because it never reached the finger it was meant to grace," Isolde said, holding up her hand with a faint smile. "Even imperial children are sung to sleep by our mothers—but our lullabies are of dragons that turned this land to a sea of flames, and of children sired by demons, born of goddesses, who gazed upon their realm with vermilion eyes."

Kylian frowned. He couldn't help but wonder if Isolde's twisted personality had sprung from her mother's choice in bedtime stories.

When Evgeni—easily the most skeptical of the three siblings—had warned Kylian about the hidden powers of The Dragon's Promise, he hadn't known what to make of it. It seemed entirely possible Evgeni was simply trying to make the prospect of Isolde as empress sound even more perilous.

Whatever Evgeni's aim had been, though, there was no mistaking the zeal in Isolde's belief.

And after all the astonishing events that had played out in his life, Kylian had no cause to question the legends either. But playing the skeptic loosened Isolde's lips as much as the wine.

"May I ask, Your Highness, why you're telling me these tales?" Kylian asked.

"You've ignored my prior threats," Isolde said with a shrug. "I thought it benevolent to warn you, who speaks for Varant. You could lend your aid now and be remembered as one who helped herald my rise. Or Varant may one day find itself prostrate before a woman who has become a god."

The moment Alera had arrived, Camille's placid smile returned as if she threw on a mask. Given the child struggling in her arms, however, it was not very convincing.

"Bent Ham… is getting more bent, Aunt Camille!" Bea whined, as Bent Ham began to squeeze in the crook of Camille's elbow. "You're gonna… break his trotters!"

She sidled out of Camille's arms with her toys, opting to sit on her own. Ailn sighed. They'd just have to keep an eye on her.

"Dame Alera, I'm sure you were caught off-guard by the urgent message," Ailn said.

"...That is an understatement," Alera said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as she took a seat next to Bea at the fountain. "It's rather rude to bring up someone's past like that, you know."

"I'm not here to hunt ghosts, Alera," Ailn said. "The Argent Guard is disbanded, and the Azure Knights have no quarrel." Reaching into his trench coat, he retrieved a torn page, pointing to a line of names. "I'm worried about someone who might be stuck in the past."

Alera's jaw hardened. "Are you insinuating His Grace Ashton—"

"I don't know, Alera. You tell me," Ailn sighed. "Camille says you're trustworthy. I'm pressed for time. If you say 'Ashton' would never hurt Varant, then I can tentatively move forward as if that's the case. There are more names there, after all."

"Mirek… has no loyalty toward the name Blanc," Alera said.

"Does Mirek hold loyalties at all?" Ailn asked, pointedly.

"Mirek cares for an ailing Duke ark-Chelon as if he were truly his father," Alera said, impatiently. "If he were a snake, would he not simply let the duke waste away and inherit his title?"

"I haven't even seen the duke," Ailn said. "Maybe he is letting him waste away."

"How would you expect a bedbound man to—" Alera began to snap.

"Look. Sorry. I'll take your word," Ailn held up a hand. "We've got three other names, then. Astrid. Gerhardt. And Therèze."

"What proof have you that any of them are conspiring?" Alera asked exasperatedly.

"I've got nothing to show you," Ailn said simply. "I'm not putting them on trial, here. I just need you to tell me if any of these three have gotten in contact with you. Or if any former members of the Argent Guard have."

"They should hardly seek me, when I've worked so tirelessly to burn those bridges," Alera said, frustratedly. "I cannot even recall…"

She paused.

"They have not contacted me, but…" Alera spoke, a hint of guilt edging into her tone. "I do surreptitiously check for the well-being of my former comrades. You see, few have been able to integrate into a new order. Many become mercenaries. And if all else fails…"

"Bandits, huh?" Ailn asked.

"It is not terribly different from what we used to do…" Alera muttered. "Recently, I have noticed a number of those I knew, who became mercenaries, have taken their postings down from the local tavern. I had hoped this meant they found gainful employment."

"So, I guess I'm headed to the taverns," Ailn mused. "You've been a big help, Alera—"

"All of them took down their postings," Alera muttered, interrupting Ailn. Realization dawned in her voice. "Nearly a dozen men. This, from a single tavern…"

"A dozen?" Ailn echoed.

This might be a lot worse than he thought.

"If they really are gathering in such force," Alera said bitterly, "then I can only think of one place where they could convene without attracting attention."

She spit the city's name out like a curse. "Amière."