Lilianna rose from a restless slumber early the next morning.

  Lately, her nights had been long and her mornings exhaustingly quick in arriving. The detestable ball of exploding hydrogen hadn’t even risen yet, and yet here she was getting ready to check for more metaphorical fires that demanded her attention. To say nothing of the veritable bonfire that awaited her in the southwest.

  She was still within the Transfixion of Heaven, her seat of power. There were two primary reasons she hadn’t already left to accompany her generals to the city of Den-Ghel. The first was that with no proper basecamp, it was technically dangerous for her to be present. She may have been the most powerful woman in the world at present, but arrogance was a swift and lethal foe. Especially when the remnants of a heroic party skulked around her Empire.

  Though, preparations would be finished to receive her later in the day, and the Geolle would feel the full pressure of the Exaltare for daring to step out of line.

  She stood up from her bed and paced over to the dresser, tossing on a loose cotton robe and flicking her fingers through her hair, grooming it with the simplest of spells. She didn’t need to make herself look particularly presentable, there were no meetings planned before her departure, and Court obviously wouldn’t be held either.

  But the Exaltare was decidedly not above basic hygiene, just because she had to do so herself.

  Walking into the bathroom, she rinsed her face and scrubbed her fangs, idly worrying that her daughter wasn’t taking care of herself. She knew Athena would see to it, but that didn’t mean Lycoris would necessarily be willing. At least the girl was good at taking responsibility, she was terribly mature for her age in that respect. Perhaps the only thing Lilianna could thank those wretched Humans for teaching her daughter.

  Already, she heard her phone starting to buzz as messages and updates arrived, as punctual as ever. Returning to check on it, she saw nothing terribly surprising or troubling. The Geolle were continuing to be obstinate, the “rebels” in the city were barricading the tunnels to any non-Geolle—much to the chagrin of the few Fangchasers, and much more recently Piscin.

  Even though the Republic was, by-and-large, happy to be part of the Empire, the leaders were expressing their sympathies to the rebelling city, even while claiming they held no accountability for the actions of any fools standing up to Tenebreimen.

  And, of course, they were more than willing to try and weasel concessions out of the Empire before putting their foot down on their own kind. Part of the reason the Geolle were even dissatisfied enough to consider something as foolish as rebellion to begin with was because Lilianna had strong-armed them into rather severe trade arrangements a few centuries back.

  It’d been necessary to source materials to construct The Spire, which went a long way itself in appeasing their discontent, but it didn’t change the fact that their economy was beginning to bottom out.

  Would that we could truly make them dependent on us for goods and services… Lilianna lamented. They won’t even let us supplant their industry! …Despite the fact that they waste so much iron and elbinaut.

  Not that she really cared if they wasted their own resources. Her wish was for them to become incapable of manufacturing anything without Vampire assistance.

  The most irritating thing about Geolles was that they had little demand for imports despite living in literal underground cities. They carved their own cities out of stone, they minted their own coin, and they forged and manufactured their own metals and necessities.

  Of which they basically had none. They wore moss, for Ancestors’ sakes! How was one supposed to make them dependent when they didn’t even need textiles? Heat and cold were more or less a non-issue, as far as Lilianna’s experience dealing with them had taught her, and whatever they ate was either grown or caught underground.

  It made finding leverage over them a nightmare, and thanks to that stupid wretched Witch, they were able to whittle away at the foothold her predecessors had built up.

  Frustration’s fangs had firmly planted themselves into Lilianna’s neck. She wasn’t one to often experience genuine failure, even if she was no stranger to setbacks.

  Her goal was to create as smooth of a machine as possible out of the Empire, in preparation for her daughter’s eventual ascension to the throne. Granted, that was still a few centuries off, but such a major incident so soon after Lycoris’s embrace… Lilianna wasn’t a superstitious person, but it was an unfortunate omen.

  With her routine finished and her posterior planted on her office chair, Lilianna snapped her finger and…

  “Right.”

  Athena was tending to Lycoris, there was nobody there to pour her morning glass. The recent lack of sleep certainly hadn’t done her any favors. Perhaps it was time to find a replacement.

  Only there wasn’t anyone else that stood out in the way Athena had.

  After fetching and pouring her own glass of blood, Lilianna chuckled as she envisioned the maid’s terrified stammering of how such a thing was unnecessary for Lilianna, that she should be the one to handle such menial tasks and allowing Her Majesty to do so herself was like strangling the life out of her.

  Flicking the imaginary Athena out of her mind, the Exaltare sat back down and began scanning her emails, though her eyes constantly wandered to the clock in the corner. There was nothing particularly pressing, no critical updates saying the Empire had caught fire or the Idra were rebelling, or anything of the sort.

  However, there was an email from the head of Alephertz Academy, a reply to her personal request. She hesitated to click on it, but pushed the pointless emotion aside and was rewarded duly. It was merely business, stiff formal paragraphs stating the complications her request would bring and the necessary arrangements and financing the Academy would need to support it.

  She knew better than anyone there wouldn’t be anything personal in there, and yet a part of Lilianna still worried—or, perhaps hoped—there would be.

  Of course, the second reason she had yet to leave was because a part of her hoped that her daughter might decide to return home that afternoon, longshot though that might be. The girl had boundless conviction, for better or worse; she wouldn’t just give up and come back, not unless she was satisfied with how things were proceeding.

  Thinking about her darling little flower, she began penning a reply and running the numbers in her head, eager to push past this business and arrive at her new favorite time of day.

  “Oh right, we’ll have to send a memo out to have her wardrobe re-measured. That maid had better not have put any strange ideas about underwear in Lycoris’s head.”

  ＊　＊　＊

  Inside a room lit only by the windows at her back, Lesath Unglaria sat alone atop a literal stone slab. It’d been sourced from a rock from a nearby park that she split the top and bottom off of, and transported to her temporary abode in Condore.

  Her documents sat bundled up in a folder tucked beside the slab, a pillow and blanket were neatly folded on the other side of said slab, and standing in the doorway was a Vampire with an extremely strained look on his face. In his hand was a mobile phone, and his arm was trembling.

  “I-It’s… for you. Her—”

  “I know.”

  It was already plainly obvious.

  There was only a single person who would dare try to converse with her via tellyphone. Much less when she was in the middle of her morning ruminations.

  And Lesath could already hazard a guess as to why she would contact her. There were few reasons of sufficient urgency to warrant such a reaction.

  She held up her hand, still sitting cross-legged on the slab. The man seemed slow on the uptake. She shook her hand impatiently, glowering at him.

  “Hand it over.”

  “O-Oh, are you sure? Her Maj—”

  “Yes.”

  Lesath sighed as the man somehow managed to stumble on the completely barren floor, nearly dropping the phone. She snapped it out of his grasp and held it up in front of her.

  “Lesath speaking.”

  …

  The man cleared his throat. “Um, I p-put it on hold. Push the yellow icon once.”

  “I see. Get out.”

  “Yes’m!”

  The moment the man shut the door behind him, Lesath rhythmically rubbed two of her fingers on the stone slab in a circular pattern before thrusting her palm down, erecting a barrier of silence around herself. Ensuring that she wasn’t facing toward the windows—to prevent anyone from potentially lip-reading—she pressed the yellow button.

  “You know I don’t like using these things, Rosey.”

  ‘Where, is, our, daughter, Lesath.’

  It was a simple question, but Her Majesty was not asking. She was clearly not in the mood to chitchat, but Lesath was caught somewhat off guard by the remark. Truthfully, she had expected it to be some new catastrophe involving the Geolle, given that they were doggedly determined to throw themselves under the bus at every opportunity—and that Her Majesty was heading southwest today.

  It was deeply troubling that the girl was like a black box inside Her Majesty’s heart; that Lesath had failed to predict what the cause was rattled her.

  No reports had reached Lesath about anything amiss with the little sprout of death, not that she felt remotely invested beyond the threat she represented. The only thing out of the ordinary was when she’d been awoken in the night because a couple of animals at the zoo had gone missing.

  “Last I spoke to her was at the end of the little meeting she arranged. After that, she returned to Hotel Walach, accompanied by her maid. I watched the two of them enter the vehicle and leave from the floor above. I have no information on what happened after.”

  ‘Then launch an investigation into the hotel. Now.’

  “Ros— Your Majesty, I have some concerns about this girl.”

  ‘Now is not the time for this, Lesath.’

  Lesath pressed on, undaunted. “Why did you take the Hero to be your child?”

  ‘We do not know of what you speak,’ the Exaltare snapped back defensively.

  “Don’t give me that, you were not pregnant four decades ago.”

  She had known “Lilianna” for almost as long as Rosa had gone by that name. From a time before she sat on the throne. The woman had a penchant for bouts of recklessness and taking bold and sometimes self-detrimental moves, and it was Lesath’s job to rein her in when she went too far. That was the relationship they had; that was why they almost always knew what the other was thinking.

  Which was exactly why it was so troubling that Rosa hadn’t seen fit to tell her what she was planning, or why she decided to adopt the Hero. Or… how, even. Every piece of logic and knowledge Lesath held on the matter was completely incongruous with the truth that had stared her down across the conference table.

  Because Lesath was supposed to be Rosa’s voice of reason, she knew exactly why she hadn’t been told. Because she cared deeply for Rosa, more than any other person on this ball of rock, Lesath knew exactly why she hadn’t been told.

  But even if she understood, the barb of betrayal still bit deep, spreading its venom under her skin.

  After a pregnant pause, the Exaltare spoke, sounding tired and anxious, ‘Do we have to do this now, Daggy?’

  “You don’t get to pull that on me now, Your Majesty.”

  ‘You already know why I didn’t tell you.’

  “That isn’t what I asked.” Even if it was what she implied.

  ‘…Lycoris is my daughter. Surely you can understand what that means to me.’

  “Did it have to be—”

  ‘You’re mistaken about that,’ Rosa snapped, ‘She is not the Hero, and never could have been. I do not know why they saw fit to deliver her to me, but it was a surprise bordering on providence.’

  “But… it’s too soon, Rosey,” Lesath whined.

  ‘I’ve ruled for over three thousand years, Daggy! …It will be some centuries still before she’s even ready to inherit the throne, and we both knew this time would come either way. Better it be my own child than an Idra, or—Ancestors forbid—a Mano.’

  “The thought of a Mano inheriting the throne is rather depressing,” Lesath admitted.

  ‘And she is an Aphtangloa proper. There is no better choice for the throne.’

  “Would she not be half-Drimus, by technicality?”

  ‘Mmrgh… This isn’t the time for jokes Daggy, I’m worried. Please, she won’t pick up her phone, and the maid’s has lost signal, and I can’t even go out there! You know I was slated to leave for the outskirts of Tamisrah’s lands this afternoon… I haven’t felt like this since we crossed Mount Hokma.’

  When their companion, Lucia Unglaria—Dragon grant her peace—had been abducted by sylphs, and they were uncertain if she’d been sunstruck or worse. That had been a rough time for everyone involved. Lesath remembered it well.

  And the unsteadiness in her remaining companion’s slightly rambly voice as she invoked the past was genuine, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  “Do you have any idea how unfair that is? Or are you telling me that her life is worth as much as Lucia’s was?”

  ‘She’s the heir to the Empire, Daggy. Honestly, I pray that this situation is just a mishap, and not nearly as severe… But my point is I feel just as torn apart by anxiety as that day. You know I cannot afford to abandon my post as Exaltare.’

  “I swore my allegiance to you, Rosa. Not to the Throne, not to the Aphtangloa, not to the Empire or its lineages. Everything I do is to protect you,” Lesath stubbornly replied, though it pained her to do so.

  There was a labored, quivering sigh from the other end of the call. ‘Then, I am ordering you to investigate where Lycoris went. If she is in danger, then save my daughter, for my life is hers. I will gladly give everything for her. Never forget that I do not, nor will I ever, ask for anything.’

  The phone beeped, and the line went silent.

  Without the Exaltare’s voice filling it, the room suddenly felt cold and hollow. So too did Lesath’s spirit.

  “…Except to be a mother.”

  The Executioner stood up, frowning at the novelty of being ordered to save a life.

  Just how many would end up lost, as a result?

  ＊　＊　＊

  A guard’s mind had been tampered with, the penthouse was filled with bloodstains, furniture had been toppled over, steel had been bent and dented, the kitchen furniture was a mess, and spilled across the table was wine spiked with an absolutely unsafe dosage of narcotics. There was nobody inside the room, and all of Her Highness and her companions’ belongings remained where they were.

  No matter how Patton scrolled through the report and pictures on his phone, it was obvious what happened.

  Someone had broken in, drugged Her Highness, and dealt with her guardian maid.

  He couldn’t imagine who would be stupid enough to directly invoke Her Majesty’s ire in such a way. Not even one of the Seven would be able to get away with something like that. At best, they’d be able to walk it off after a crippling blow, but they would certainly be rendered a pale imitation of their former self.

  To say nothing of the poor sod that would suffer whatever excruciation Her Majesty had in mind. It left him wondering just what would motivate someone to do such a thing.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He had no shortage of time to spend pondering it either, as he sat in the back of the open-topped vehicle bouncing along the train tracks in the subway.

  There had only been one other incident that night, which was in the same zoo where trouble befell Her Highness the afternoon prior. It was fairly obvious to Patton that they had taken her there, and upon hearing what happened, the reason became obvious.

  One of the maintenance hatches had been broken into, and there were feathers scattered around it. And two myrhs were unaccounted for. This brought several other questions to Patton’s mind, like why they would bother stealing a pair of myrh. Perhaps to transport Her Highness…

  Once they got into the tunnels, there wasn’t much of a lead to follow unfortunately. The myrh didn’t exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs—or feathers, more realistically—behind them. Which meant that they were stuck splitting into several small teams and sent to trawl the myriad network of subway tunnels and offshoots for any sign of Her Highness, her captors, or the myrh.

  Patton’s squad was following the tracks toward Kranes, as it was possible they took her all the way to the town. They armed themselves up, headed toward the blockade they’d set to keep the Whispers from leaving through the tunnels (though, he realized now that was unnecessary, given what Princess Lycoris explained the day before), and…

  All four members inside the ATV—Patton included—let out gasps of shock as the headlights illuminated the “breadcrumb” left for them. The tunnel had collapsed. There were bodies of Whispers buried in it, but more important was the single myrh resting on the tracks right in front of it.

  When the creature saw one of them get out of the vehicle and carefully approach, it stumbled up to its feet and limped forward on an injured leg.

  The soldier lowered his rifle and turned back to Patton. “What do we do, Chief?”

  “Check the rubble, make sure there’s nobody alive trapped under there. Sam, you’re good with animals right?”

  Sam rolled her eyes, cut the vehicle’s ignition, and leaned an elbow back over the seat. “Baldock isn’t a blood-hunter, Chief. He’s a house pet.”

  “Uh-huh, and how many mice has he caught and ‘roasted’ again? Weren’t you just complaining the other day about—Ouch!”

  She elbowed the guard riding shotgun hard enough to jostle the vehicle, before swinging the driver-side door open and rolling out of her seat. As she approached the myrh, she pulled out a cylindrical tube and cracked the tip open, letting the fluttering orbs of light drift out of it and gather in the air near the ceiling. After illuminating the cold and dry tunnel, she crouched down to meet it at eye level, clasping her leather-gloved hands together.

  “Come on girl, it’s okay, lemme take a look at that arm of yours.” She turned to shout back at the two still in the car, “One of you, bring over the medkit.”

  “For the myrh?”

  “Just listen to her, Jett,” Patton sighed, “and join us in checking the rubble if she doesn’t need your help.”

  The last two clambered out of the military car, and Patton walked past Sam and the myrh while Jett brought over and dropped a duffel bag beside, before joining Patton and Flak at the edge of the rubble pile.

  Ignoring the sounds of Sam cooing at the myrh and the animal’s whimpers, Patton slapped a hand on Flak’s shoulder.

  “Find anything?”

  “Just broken dreams and concrete.”

  “I’m not talking about your poetry collection, Flak.”

  Rather than justifying the remark with a response, Flak kicked one of the rocks with the inside of his boot.

  “Come on Chief, not his fault he’s a hopeless romantic. Or that he leaves his notebook out on top of his desk during room inspection.”

  “That was one time.”

  “You know I really liked that one line, how’d it go? ‘Lorainne, your eyes shine like the moon, reflecting my—’”

  “Alright alright, we don’t need a recap, Jett. Get to searching.”

  Patton regretted bringing it up, though the silence while they searched the rubble was a poor substitute. It felt that much more like they were exhuming a long-forgotten tomb unearthed during a city expansion project without any banter to liven things up.

  The stones were packed tightly enough that he couldn’t imagine anyone surviving it. Though, if anyone could, it’d be the Exaltare’s brood. Even still, the idea of that sweet little girl…

  He shook his head, focusing instead on shifting the piece of rubble in front of him.

  Apparently similarly unwilling—or unable—to handle the silent shifting of stones, Jett made the bold decision to open his mouth.

  “So Chief, you were babysitting yesterday, right? What’s Her Highness actually like?”

  Patton sighed, “Honestly… I don’t know.”

  He tossed the large boulder aside, once it was clear it wouldn’t disrupt any of the other stones.

  “She was very disarming, I guess.”

  “What, did she throw you to the ground?”

  “It bodes poorly for your poetry if you’re too dense for metaphor. But it’s either that, or she has a twin sister who took her place in the meeting.”

  “Like mother like daughter, huh?” Flak cut in with a laugh.

  Jett shivered, orating as though he were reciting more bad poetry, “Careful now, ‘Speak the Overlord’s name, and she shall hear thy slander.’ Besides, if she had twins, you know they both would have been put on stage at the same time.”

  “Anyway, point is she seemed pretty naive… at least until it came time to talk to the generals overseeing this whole operation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Her Sinistrous so livid, or so caught off guard.”

  “Damn, seriously?”

  “I mean, look at her mom. She’s probably a tiny tyrant who’s never stepped outside of her ivory tower.”

  “Flak, the Transfixion of Heaven is made out of an Adamantite-Choraline compound, reinforced with enchanted Orichalcum pillars and—”

  “Metaphor, Jett,” Patton sighed. “You know I was joking earlier, right Flak? You don’t have to prove anything to us.”

  “Don’t see what’s so surprising about that, though. I mean, nobles are all two-faced, aren’t they?”

  “It’s just… she felt so genuine, I guess. And was astoundingly thoughtful. Sure, she was direct, aggressive, and demanding during the meeting… but it was because she seemed genuinely concerned and upset for the lives of the people. If it was all an act, I’m terrified to think of what she’ll be like as a ruler.”

  “Maybe she’ll blow up another capital.”

  “Ugh, don’t start with that. I’m sick of reading about horoscopes and reincarnation theories.”

  “Hey Chief, think I found something.”

  Flak held two large boulders up, kicking a smaller one aside with his leg. Stuck in the rocks with a bundle of dead Whispers reaching for it, was a small dagger made of sapphire, its blade like solidified and sculpted water. Its mythril silver grip was stained with dried blood, and the ocean-like blade gleamed in the magic light with an almost sinisterly blue hue.

  “A knife?”

  “‘A knife,’ he says,” Flak derisively repeated. “We have got to get you a remedial history lesson, Jett. Or maybe just send you back to school in general.”

  “Oh fuck off.”

  “It’s the Lunar Tear…” Patton muttered in quiet stupefaction.

  “Either of you feel like sharing? ‘S real pretty, sure, but—”

  “It’s a royal treasure, Jett. As in, something from before Tenebreimen was an empire.”

  “Oh… well, shit. What’s it doing here then?”

  “Lilith’s teats, man! Why do you think?”

  “Both of you, shut up for a sec. Flak, keep holding those boulders.”

  Patton pulled out his own sprite-light tube, cracking it open to illuminate the rubble as he crawled toward the knife. He sharpened his gaze and scoured the rocks and dead Whisper carcasses as intensely as he could, the breathless silence oppressively squeezing down on his shoulders.

  Carefully, he picked up the blade and turned it over, frowning after finding nothing else amiss.

  “No major bloodstains, no scraps of cloth… nothing. If Her Highness came through here—which this little treasure all but guarantees—then most likely, she’s unscathed. Hopefully…”

  “What’s the plan then, Chief?” Sam asked, approaching the group from behind with a much more upbeat myrh rubbing against her side. “No telling what’s on the other side of that tunnel, considering all these corpses.”

  Patton stared down at the dagger, his eyes alighting as his neurons connected the dots.

  “It’s a magic artifact.”

  “Huh?”

  “This dagger, it’s a… well, supposedly it holds awesome magic power. Or amplifies magic? Whatever the effect is, it’s extremely mana-rich.”

  “Can I put these rocks down, now?”

  “It’s arm day, Flak. don’t interrupt the Chief,” Sam shot back.

  Patton wagged the dagger, holding it by the blade with his fingers. “Her Highness shared an interesting tidbit yesterday. Apparently Whispers feed on mana.”

  Both Flak and Sam’s eyes widened in surprise, while Jett tilted his head.

  “So, what, she tossed a priceless relic as a distraction?”

  “That, or it was to get all the Whispers to pile up here and cause a cave-in. Maybe she used it to escape her captors? Or, to keep the Whispers from going after her. She’s an Aphtangloa, after all.”

  “She’d be like a mecha-magnet, then…” Sam rubbed her chin.

  “So odds are Her Highness isn’t buried beneath the rocks then. That’s good. Would hate to have to be the one to tell the Exaltare her daughter died in a cave-in.”

  “I’d hate to be the one to tell her that her daughter’s in Kranes.”

  All three of his soldiers looked toward the grimacing Patton.

  “I’ll leave that to Her Sinistrous. For now, let’s report back and get a proper team in to clear out the tunnel. There might be more Whispers on the other end, and we’ll… probably have to rush operation ‘Snack Time’ ahead of schedule. I imagine the Executioner will want to rescue Her Highness as soon as possible.”

  Even if they seemed to get along like oil and water, there was no chance Lilianna’s most trusted advisor would hold anything else in higher priority.

  “Anyway, come on, get back in the truck. Put the myrh in the back, I’ll hang off the side.”

  “Aye aye, Chief.” “Yes, Chief.” “Roger that.”

  “Bwok.”

  ＊　＊　＊

  Earlier, at around midnight.

  “So, who exactly are they?”

  Inside of the shelter, four fluffy-eared figures gathered to look at the pair of unconscious women. They had both been stuffed inside of enchanted bags, and refused to wake up no matter how much abuse was applied. The maid’s cheeks had begun to turn red when the assigned shelter leader told them to stop, and one of the four joined them to actually inspect and diagnose the two.

  Meanwhile, the little lady passed out the moment she entered the shelter, and the myrh curled up around her was hissing at anyone who got within five paces. Nobody could disturb her or look for any sign of identification, though the Vampire who demanded they open the door continued to leer disdainfully at everyone else.

  “The maid certainly looks like she works for a fancy family… You think she belongs to the girl?”

  “You don’t wanna get involved with her, I’ll tell you that much,” the Vampire called back in a hushed whisper.

  It was late at night, so most of the people inside the shelter were asleep, but the new arrivals would likely cause quite a commotion in the morning.

  The Fangchaser closest to the curled up myrh clenched his hands around the iron pipe, his knuckles whitening as he trembled with barely-restrained anger.

  “Don’t you start with us, Vampire. This is all your fault to begin with! Your stupid obsession with machines. You ruined our homeland,” he growled under his breath.

  “That’s hardly my fault. You act like it was my decision to dispose of refuse in that scrapyard. Nor was I the one who decided self-aware robots were worth inventing.”

  “It was your people!”

  “Who did all that long before I was ever born. And if you think life is so bad here, why live here? Why not go back to your wide open plains or… whatever.”

  “I would if I could,” the Fangchaser snarled.

  “Quiet, you two. People are trying to sleep,” the Fangchaser with the rifle put a stop to their feuding once more. “You sound like you know something, Varilas.”

  “It’s frankly weirder that none of you do. Guess you really do keep your snouts out of politics, don’t you?”

  One of the female wolf-folk rolled her eyes. “Spare us the lip and explain.”

  The Vampire, Varilas, flashed a wry fangy grin as he briefly savored the ignorance lingering on their faces, before he’d change the trajectory of their lives forever.

  “That little girl who stumbled in on myrhback is Crown Princess Lycoris. Your future Exaltare.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bullshit.”

  “How can you even tell?”

  The commotion got some of the other recently-awoken shelter-dwellers to turn their heads towards him. Being the center of attention for once certainly felt nice. Especially since they decided not to let him be the one in charge of the shelter, despite being the only one with real managerial experience, as far as he cared.

  He clucked his tongue and shook his head as he shrugged. “Because there is only one Vampire with silver hair and red eyes, and that is our empire’s ruler. Surely you’re cultured enough to know that much.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t that mean this girl has to be the Exaltare?”

  “Would you all keep quiet? People are trying to sleep in here.”

  Varilas sighed in an exaggerated manner, “This is the first time an heir has ever been born to the Exaltare in the history of our people. Do you see now why it is so absurd that you wouldn’t have heard? Her Highness is, quite literally, a miracle gifted to us by our Ancestors.”

  “Then what in the six hells is she doing here?”

  “That… I don’t know.”

  “Shouldn’t you be checking on her to make sure she’s not, y’know, dead?”

  There was an awful lot of blood on her. But Varilas didn’t want to risk getting too close to the myrh. They were dirty beasts, even if this one was accompanying and wrapped around the Princess. Plus, it was behaving quite overprotectively. If there actually was something wrong with Her Highness, it was a smart enough creature to realize that her own kind would be able to care for her. Probably.

  “If you can find a way to get the animal away from her, then gladly.”

  “What, are you actually afraid of a myrh? Worthless, tech-loving bat… Feh.”

  “Give it a rest, Gier. It’s not as though you’re any better with animals,” the leader with the rifle sighed.

  “U-Um, please allow me to take a look. I don’t think he’s going to bite. He’s probably just a little overly nervous and alert from all the stimulus of being away from home.”

  The Fangchaser who snapped at Varilas earlier turned around and thumped his iron pipe against the ground, causing the tiny Vampire child who approached their group to shiver in fear. She couldn’t have been older than forty, but her lips were pursed with overcompensating sincerity. Before any of them could object, the viridian-haired girl got down on her hands and knees and began crawling forward toward the myrh. And as expected, when she got within a meter, the creature raised its bird-like head and hissed threateningly.

  She stopped at that distance and sat up on her knees, speaking quietly as she slowly raised her hands, palm-up, at it.

  “Hey hey, shh, it’s okay. That girl is very very important to us, we want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Hmph, is that little bloodsucker really naive enough to believe that will work?”

  Varilas wasn’t even sure the beast could understand spoken tongue, but he had more faith in the little girl than the Fangchasers did. it kept staring at her for several tense moments, before eventually leaning down and curling its neck back around the Princess resting against its flank.

  Taking that as a sign, the child crept a little closer, getting right up next to the myrh before it opened its eye again, making a guttural warning sound. She carefully, slowly extended her balled up fist toward the myrh, letting it sniff the air and stare at her.

  After a minute of careful examination, she turned around and smiled at them. “There’s no scent or sign of fresh blood. But I don’t think he’ll let me take her away. Oh, also, she has some weird bracelets on.”

  The Fangchaser clutching the hunting rifle like it was his wife turned to Varilas, “So, what do we do?”

  He quirked his brow in response. “Now you want me to lead? Hmph, very well. The answer is simple: nothing. There isn’t anything we can do. Hopefully she awakens in the morning, and has something resembling good news for us. In the meantime, get your rest… for she is just as much a terror as her mother, and no doubt will be just as domineering.”

  Varilas watched the pack of Fangchasers turn back to look at the peacefully sleeping girl, their disbelief plain on their faces. None of them had seen what she was capable of. They probably barely even understood who the Exaltare was, or what sort of person always sat at the pinnacle of the Empire.

  With a laborious sigh, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and powered it back on, deciding that some education would be worth the rationed battery life.

  “Come here, then. I have a video downloaded to show you what I mean. At this point I’m hardly surprised you never saw Her Highness’s first appearance in society, but I guarantee you’ll never forget it once you have.”