Arillia by Illuminati Architect

Chapter Seven, The Mountains

On the evening of Monday, 5th Meceder as I listened to the creaking of the bed in the next room, I looked up at the canopy of my own. “They’ve known each other less than a week, yet Rebecka and Alice are already acting like a long-married couple. Well, other than the vigorous sex. Why is that?”

Because you told them to, Protag-kun.

Newly reminded of the crazy voice in my head, my fingers stopped their slide towards my panties, and I forced my hand back to my side. I thought through the incantation for the Bind Spirit spell over and over. It was either this mental exercise or the quiet from the next room after a final cry of “Arillia!” from Alice that enabled me to slip away into sleep.

The next morning (Tuesday, 6th Meceder), during my fencing training, I saw Rebecka and Alice walking hand in hand to the stables. Didn’t Rebecka say she would handle that yesterday? Had they spent all afternoon in their room? Rebecka didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d go back on her word like that, but physical affection was something new for the both of them. Or was it something I said?

Sir Hoofblack struck his dead son’s saber from my left hand. “Pay attenion, Princess!”

I thrust forward with the main gauche in my right hand to catch at his extended blade, but he responded with a snap of his wrist, and I felt something snap in mine as my remaining blade fell to the floor. “Ow!”

That hurts so much. It’s like mouse strain ten times over!

“Your Highness!”

“Hold my right wrist straight while I get my wand.” I removed my wand and applied the healing spell, numbing the sharp pain.

One of our guards who had medical training wrapped a bandage around my wrist and fashioned a sling for my right arm.

As I made my way up the stairs, a familiar voice sounded in my head.

You still have mana, right? Whenever you cast healing in the game, it fixes everything right up.

“Life isn’t a game, Greg.”

Just wait until you get Polly. She’s a much better healer than you.

“At least she’ll be good for something.”

When I reached the library door, I met one of the maids, who was carrying a tea set tray.

“Your Highness?”

“Let me get that for you.” I opened the door with my left hand and waited for her to enter.

Inside, I saw Sage Reltuc, Elizabeth, and Carnel seated on the sofa, loudly singing a Nordisle drinking song. They waved their right hands around, but these were empty instead of carrying the traditional mugs of ale.

Rather than dampen their mood with concern about “Poor Princess Arillia”, I closed the door and made my way to my room.

I spent the day resting in bed and repeatedly casting heal on my right wrist.

Mary brought my lunch to my room, and by that evening, I had recovered to the extent I could take off the sling and bandage. Without magic, my recovery would have taken weeks I did not have if I were to match Greg’s schedule for my next ‘pick up.’ At dinner, I kept my right hand in my lap. Elizabeth and Rebecka seemed to notice this but did not speak of it.

I took a day off training on Wednesday, 7th Meceder, and invited Alice and Rebecka out shopping. The guards started to follow us out of the castle gatehouse, but I held up my hand. “We’ll be fine. If the King asks, then tell him I’m with Rebecka.”

She pointed to the knife at her belt; the guards nodded and returned to their posts.

I explained the day’s mission to the two women as we walked along. “I may need to dress you two up on occasion; therefore, anything we pick up today is for my purposes and hence, at my cost. Now, I can just toss anything from my own closet at Rebecka, but Alice doesn’t seem to have anything nice at all. Hence Madisini,” I pointed at the sign on the shop.

“Hi, Meredith,” I greeted the woman of the same age as myself, who looked up from the book she had been reading, “Can you please suggest something fashionable for my sackcloth-wearing friend Alice, please?”

“Of course, Your Highness.” She bowed, then approached us, “And your other friend is?”

“This is Lady Rebecka. She’s always in my hand-me-downs but can have nice things of her own if she likes.”

Meredith glanced to the corner, so I put my left hand on the wand inside my jacket as I reached out with my right hand for her shoulder and silently cast Telepathy.

What is the problem? Don’t worry, I trust these two, but Alice is rather innocent.

One of the girls at the brothel was hurt badly by a customer last night.

I nodded and released the spell. “Meredith, why don’t you take Alice’s measurements while Rebecka and I check in the back.”

Rebecka followed me through the store and out the back door. “May I ask Your Highness where we are going?”

“A brothel.”

“I can never tell when Your Highness is making a joke.”

“I haven’t the knack for that, though Carnel has attempted to teach me.”

Two alleyways later, I knocked on a backdoor, and when footsteps approached from the other side, I said, “Tell her ladyship that the Scarlet A is here.”

A minute later, the bolt was thrown, the door opened, and a large woman bowed and whispered to me. “Your Highness.”

“Chiara, is one of your girls hurt?”

“Badly, and your friend?”

“Rebecka is trusted but never to be trifled with. Show me.”

She led the way upstairs to one of the rooms where a woman in her late twenties or early thirties looked up from the bed. She had blood seeping through a bandage wrapped around her middle. “Who?” She asked weakly.

“No names. I am the wizard.” I pulled out my wand and nodded towards Rebecka. “And she is the wizard’s friend. Show me the wound.”

Chiara unwrapped the bandage, and I cast Light on my wand as I examined the woman. “A dagger cut and not a clean one. I see signs of infection already. Are you carrying a child you wish to keep, and can you be very brave for me?”

“No, and yes.”

“You two hold her down. This will hurt.”

The woman screamed as I cast Cleanse on her and dropped motionless to the bed. Without any pause, I followed up with Heal. For the longest moment, she lay still, with the redness of the wound replaced with a pale scar. The memory of Mother using the same procedure to cure three-year-old Carnel of the pox flashed before my eyes. Then, just like that time, this woman coughed and collapsed into a peaceful sleep.

I sat down on the chair in the room to rest. “I’d like to watch her for a few minutes, but she should be fine. Can we talk here?”

Chiara closed the door and then turned back towards me. “Your Highness visited the slums outside of the city last month.”

“Did you find anything on the man I left behind?”

“I wasn’t there, but I haven’t heard of anything. That other woman now works at your castle?”

“That Elizabeth and this Rebecka have my absolute trust. Anything that needs to be said to or from just me can be relayed through them. The other woman I’m out with today is Alice, just a friend from the castle. Talk to her only for book recommendations.”

“Your Highness is harder to talk to now that you no longer attend the Academy.”

“I have been busy of late. Tell your council that I will not forget my friends when I ascend the throne, and they may remain my friends so long as they and their successors follow my rules. I will be traveling this month but will be back to attend the council meeting next month. For now, we two must return before Alice wonders where we’ve disappeared to.”

On the walk back, Rebecka remarked. “Your Highness has interesting friends.”

“These are interesting times.”

That evening, as I waited for the couple in the next room to settle down, Greg had an epiphany.

Wow, your life was wild even before the game started.

“Greg, this wild, murderous, psychopathic, revolutionary of an Arillia in your game who crawls through mud, eats venomous vermin, and who doesn’t flinch at the most unholy of horrors wasn’t some perfect princess who had one bad night. I’ve always been that way, just looking for that one excuse to strike out at the world.”

The rest of the week saw my mornings under Sir Hoofblack’s shift to physical training for strength and flexibility, especially in my wrists, and the afternoons studying our best maps of Suskan with the Reltucs and Carnel. That Saturday, the 10th of Meceder, Elizabeth and Rebecka held a weaponless combat demonstration in the courtyard. It was a contest of speed and power versus agility and technique. Rebecka should have won, but Elizabeth powered through the more petite woman’s hold, forcing her to withdraw or be broken.

Sunday the 11th, we held a dinner to honor a trio of representatives from the legislature of the Stonekey Free State, which lies on our eastern border. They had taken an oath to bow to no monarch, so we instead exchanged handshakes, and my grip proved stronger than each of theirs, or perhaps they understood that damaging a foreign princess would do them no good during their current conflict with others.

The following week starting Monday, 12th Meceder, I had the blades back in my hands. Now, Sir Hoofblack would withdraw and ask me to explain why my stance or grip was wrong and have me blushing like a novice as I determined what I had done wrong. They say that emotional pain is worse than physical pain and that one learns through pain. I seemed to fight him to a draw that Saturday, but he seemed reluctant to bring his full strength against me.

“Your Highness has learned the sword much quicker than I’d expect any noble to, much less a mage.”

“I have previous experience in the dagger and considerable motivation to learn, but much of the credit is due to my teacher.”

“Your Highness gives me too much credit. I hope that we will have our castle defenses in shape for your inspection in the spring.”

On the way up the stairs, Greg asked why most mages fared so poorly with weapons and other physical skills.

“It’s the price of training from the age of six to open our eyes to the flow of mana around us, which distracts us from mundane concerns. This neither helps nor hinders us with those combat skills we do manage to learn against living foes, for we sense these both mystically and on a mundane level, so there is no distraction. Against the undead, we have a decisive advantage in sensing the mana disturbance, even before we cast Magescan to see them clearly and then use wand blasts against them. Non-wizards handle mundane tasks more easily but struggle greatly if they learn even one spell. That I know a dozen spells puts me above the average wizard, but I would surely know a dozen more if it weren’t for my other distractions of history, politics, court etiquette, equestrianism, blade fighting, and so on. This is why I maintain a large library of spellbooks that I know I’ll need to cast eventually but never have the time to master. Carnel is more of a typical wizard than I am. Even her grammar ‘mistakes’ would be correct if she spoke in spelltongue. Though if she did, then only wizards would understand her.”

This had also been a week of hurried preparations and final fitting of clothing and armor.

That prior Thursday, the 8th, I had seen something I would never have imagined. Carnel found a flaw in the route Sage Reltuc had planned.

He looked this over, then said, “Well done, Your Highness,” as he patted her head.

Rather than calling for his hand to be chopped off, she beamed at him and then looked down at the map as she planned out the alternate route.

Greg was of little help in finding exact paths as apparently the maps in his game had been of “lower resolution” than those in our possession.

Once, when I had asked about a potential monster encounter that Greg had pointed out, Carnel looked up at me and asked. “How do you know about that?”

“Your Highness’s older sister studied this area under me for her senior paper.”

“You’re a great teacher, Sage Reltuc.”

“And you are an excellent student, Princess Carnel.”

Carnel insisted on helping me with the final packing on Sunday, 18th Meceder. I looked over my bookshelves, picked out a pair of volumes, and put the first in my pack as I handed the second to her.

“Here, while I’m traveling, try reading the poetry of Beatrice De Avalon. She was a great wizard, and her insights into mana control have helped me a lot.”

“This is volume two. Shouldn’t I start with volume one?”

“This other book describes the techniques she used to soothe the emotional battle scars of her lady love. You’ll understand those when you get older.”

“Will you give me that book on my eighteenth birthday?”

“Yes, that will be acceptable.”

“Thanks, I think I’ll need it then.”

Just after breakfast on Monday, 19th Meceder, I greeted Captain Fadden as I led my small team on board her patrol ship at the Kristophoro docks. The rest of her crew seemed surprised to have a princess on board, for she alone had been briefed on the mission. I was followed by Elizabeth, Alice, the mule named Eugene, then Rebecka.

My family was there to see me off with Carnel seated on Father’s shoulders for a better view of us from the dock. I waved back at them until we passed under the great portcullis at the south river gate through the city wall, and as we turned the bend in the Scorpion River, I lost sight of them.

We ate with the crew those next three days as we sailed down the Scorpion, and my team slept in the stateroom that had been reserved for us. Those evenings, Elizabeth and I would join the watch on deck to give Alice and Rebecka some quality time together before falling asleep. The crew behaved well and treated Eugene like the ship’s mascot. They seemed to quickly understand that Alice and Rebecka were a couple, seemed to share my distant awe of Elizabeth, and treated me with the respect due their princess.

Carnel would contact me each evening at Sundown, and I would have my wand ready to respond. Her reports would be mostly about her assignments under Sage Reltuc, with a few mentions of what those two had actually found in their research.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 21st Meceder, we passed the Ioa city of Ladythigh, where the Scorpion flowed into the great Ioa River, then turned upstream on the Ioa and sailed with the wind and soon passed the Suskan village of Lelland on the south shore. We sailed a few miles past this, then the crew set anchor just on the south shore of the Ioa River, and let down a plank so we four (and our mule) could walk into Suskan. The ship turned back while we hiked south and uphill.

We set up camp on Woodeel Ridge with the mountains before us. Rebecka put the rabbit she had shot and cleaned and the vegetables she had dug up on top of the three skins of water Alice had filled from a nearby stream. I cast Cleanse on the pile. We made a small fire, started with my magics to ensure it would not smoke, and Alice brewed some of the tea we had brought and prepared a stew.

As we enjoyed our modest dinner, I turned to thank Alice, and she explained that she had quickly learned to cook when her mother fell ill.

Why do you have illness in a world with magic? Shouldn’t your wizards and alchemists cure everyone?

“Too few children have the affinity for wizardry and the patience to endure the training needed, and too many adults squabble over nothing. And in time, each encounters a wound that our healing magics will not cure.” I whispered back to Greg.

“Your Highness?”

“Sorry, Alice. It’s nothing. I see that the Sun is setting, so my sister will attempt to contact me soon. Please excuse me.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

Before I turned away, I noticed that Rebecka had put her arms around Alice from behind, who had leaned back against her during her story. I resolved again to deny Alice’s life as a prize to this “game mechanic” that Greg had spoken of.

I stood with wand in hand as I waited out the last ray of sunshine.

Sister! Just noticed — time. Casting without — book.

Carnel, your link is unstable. Drop it.

You — in Suskan?

Yes, all is well.

Tell Elizabeth xcHndisT

I cut the link to keep Carnel from straining herself further on an unstable spell and returned to the tent I shared with Elizabeth. It was two-thirds hers, one-third mine. The watch order was Alice the first third of the night, Rebecka the middle shift, then Elizabeth until the morning twilight. I was to get a whole night’s sleep, not as a princess, but instead to rest off my mage’s fatigue. Should a fight start, my sharp hearing would have me up and ready to use my full strength as needed.

On Thursday 22nd Meceder, we spent our second night abroad in Grandham Valley. I waited through the twilight with wand in hand but felt no touch of Carnel’s mind. I half debated turning back then, but I knew that there was little extra I could provide for my sister over the resources of castle, capital, and academy.