Unnamed Memory - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

2. Emotionless Words

The aroma of good tea drifted to the ceiling of Oscar’s study.

On that calm, relaxing afternoon, Oscar took a sip from the cup he was given. His eyes grew wide. “It’s good.”

“Oh! Really? Thank you!” Tinasha, who had made the brew, grinned. She was dressed in a white mage’s robe. Her smile was pure and pleased.

Oscar gave her an exasperated look. “Why is a queen so good at making tea? Is this your hobby or something?”

“No, it was so I didn’t get poisoned and killed. It’s best to limit the number of people involved in making the things you consume, right?”

“You’re speaking about it like this is common knowledge. Are you living in your own personal Dark Age?” the prince quipped.

“By the way, I can cook most things, too. Would you like to try some of my dishes?” she asked.

“No, thanks. I have a feeling you’d put something in it compelling me to marry you,” he said.

“I’m not trying to do that!” Tinasha protested, and Oscar laughed out loud.

She had come to draw some of his blood for analysis and, while she was there, had brewed tea, taking over for Lazar, who was buried in paperwork.

Oscar didn’t like making the ladies-in-waiting handle his dressing and grooming, so he did almost everything himself, or he delegated it to Lazar. The young man served the crown prince as his attendant because of their relationship as childhood friends.

He was often overloaded with all sorts of work, and he bowed guiltily toward Tinasha. “I’m so sorry, Princess, to make you brew the tea…”

“O-oh, don’t worry about it. I’m just a spirit sorcerer who has a bit too much magic. It’s not like I’m highborn or anything. If you liked the tea, I’ll come make it anytime you like,” she offered.

“Hmm? You’re a spirit sorcerer?” cut in Oscar.

“More or less. I use spiritual magic often,” she answered.

Even Oscar, not well versed in spells, knew that spirit sorcerers were a special type of mage. Spiritual magic could achieve a much greater effect with the same portion of magical power compared to other magics. But in exchange, the moment spirit sorcerers lost their chastity, the amount of power they needed to work their spells would skyrocket.

In the past, that chastity was thought of as more of a requirement to use spiritual magic, but modern Tuldarr research had elucidated the truth. In theory, spirit sorcerers with an immense quantity of magical power or outstanding spell casting could still use spiritual magic even after losing their chastity. However, in reality, there was not yet a mage who was an exception to that rule.

Oscar wondered if Tinasha could be the first.

Since the king of Tuldarr was so fixated on the idea of making this next queen his son’s wife, Oscar surmised that meant she was a capable mage. But he hadn’t actually seen her using any spiritual magic.

While Tinasha had stated she was not of noble birth, it was apparent from observing her manner and demeanor that she had received a first-class education. And taking into consideration the fact that she was asleep under the castle, he decided her origins couldn’t have been ordinary. Oscar paused in his work to stare at Tinasha as she sauntered away. Perhaps the woman sensed his eyes on her, for she gave him an innocent smile as she left the room.

Once it was just the two childhood friends, Oscar rested his face in one hand apathetically. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s hard to get a handle on her. At times, she really reminds me of a kid.”

“Do you think so?” Lazar asked, tilting his head. He didn’t see her that way, but evidently his lord did. Oscar stared at the door Tinasha had left through, a bored look on his face. Ultimately, he let out a little sigh and returned to his work.

Once back in her chamber, Tinasha retrieved a glass vial and shook it lightly. The blood inside wobbled viscously. As she did that, she moved to stand in front of a scrying bowl placed in the center of the room.

Sigils for a basic medical spell were carved at the foot of the basin of pale water. Tinasha opened the vial and carefully tipped it sideways. A single bead of blood trickled into the bowl.

Once that drop spread into the water, the sigils on the bottom glowed faintly. Tinasha dripped in a few more beads of crimson, then stoppered the vial and directed her attention to the scrying bowl.

“Here we go.”

To break the curse, she first needed to understand the full shape of it.

If she didn’t extract the spell configuration and analyze it further, she wouldn’t be able to undo the hex. It was difficult just to analyze a curse constructed of the spell caster’s own distinctive language. Muttering an incantation, Tinasha pulled the spell configuration from the basin.

One reason she was here after four hundred years was to break this curse. The young woman concentrated so intensely that she forgot to breathe. The formation of the curse ensorcelling Oscar expanded out from the small amount of blood. It was terrifyingly elaborate and immeasurable.

Three hours later, Tinasha extracted the spell that was laid on him.

“This spell…”

The configuration spilling from the scrying bowl wasn’t the sort of magic generally cast on individuals. It was so complex that it was more appropriate for an entire country. No—this was something laid upon a nation. If the crown prince couldn’t bear heirs, then the royal bloodline would die out, and the royal sword Akashia would be masterless. If this hex had been evoked with all that in mind, then it was no wonder it was so intricate.

Tinasha suppressed a sigh and picked up a book at her side. She took out an old paper folded between its pages. It was a diagram of the spell configuration she had extracted from Oscar’s blood four centuries ago.

“It really is…the same one.”

In the past, she had recorded two separate spell configurations. Before her floated the one that matched the blessing enchantment.

Back then, Oscar had explained that he had received a blessing that was too powerful, thus a curse had been cast on him to cancel it out. He was right. The thing plaguing him was indeed not a curse, but a blessing.

The work of magic Tinasha beheld in the scrying bowl now was identical down to the tiniest details. Oscar’s altering of history hadn’t changed that, evidently. This so-called amending of the past may not have had a widespread effect.

The one fact of reality was that Oscar was shackled with this incredibly complex thing.

Tinasha was curious about why he had such a heavy blessing placed on him, but it wasn’t her place to ask. Instead, she thought it a relief that the spell she was examining matched the one she had seen centuries ago. Had it been different, finding a means of dispelling it would have required more than a lifetime.

This was where the real work began.

Now that she understood what she was up against, Tinasha needed to decipher the conflicting curse and blessing simultaneously.

Two spells, forged of alarmingly prominent magical skills.

Tinasha sighed unconsciously when she considered the difference in proficiency between the caster behind such a spell and her current self. Yet at the same time, it also filled her with tingling excitement.

Creating a new spell, putting it in order, and analyzing an existing enchantment—all of it was very intellectually stimulating work. Her mind went wonderfully blank. This would prove to be excellent training.

The more difficult a conundrum was, the more gratifying the satisfaction when Tinasha came to the answer. That was one reason she loved research. She had done it over and over before, and it had made her into the greatest queen, one famed for her spell craft.

No matter how elusive the solution was, she would reach it—chasing it down, if necessary.

A daring smile formed on the young woman’s lips. Tinasha faced the spell and started an incantation.

That day, a lady-in-waiting named Carla made her way briskly down a corridor in the castle long after nightfall.

She had spent the entire day organizing Farsas Castle’s tableware storehouse, and by the time she realized it had taken longer than anticipated, it was already after dusk.

By this hour, most of the castle staff had returned to their lodgings on the castle grounds or their homes in town. The corridors were deserted. As Carla hurried through the deathly still passages on her way back to her quarters, something outside a window caught her eye. Her heart stopped.

A man dressed all in black was standing under a tree in the outer gardens.

The hood pulled low over his eyes and his head-to-toe black garb made it obvious he wasn’t someone who ought to have been there. Carla couldn’t see his face, but he appeared to be looking up toward the castle, judging by the angle of his head. The instant she realized that, a shiver ran down Carla’s spine.

“I need to tell someone…,” she said softly.

Surely, he was an intruder of some kind. The lady-in-waiting set off at a run, but when she glanced outside the window again to check on him, she froze.

“What…? How?”

She had only taken her eyes off him for two or three seconds, yet there was no one standing under the tree now.

What was that man? Feeling as if she’d witnessed something she shouldn’t have, Carla suppressed a scream and fled back to the servants’ lodgings. Once she reached her room, she woke up her fellow ladies-in-waiting and explained what had transpired, flustered all the while.

Three days later, Carla died under mysterious circumstances.

And a short time after her demise, strange rumors began to circulate among those in the castle.

“Apparently, there’s a window you can see a ghost from,” said Lazar in hushed, fearful tones.

Oscar looked up from his work to eye him balefully. He lifted the pen in his hand and retorted, “Bring me a more interesting tale if you intend to spread gossip. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“People seem to believe it, though. It’s one of the windows on the third floor,” Lazar insisted.

“The third floor of what?”

“Of this castle.”

“What?!” Oscar yelped despite himself, too shocked to hold it back. He didn’t think the story would involve Farsas Castle. Before he could request that Lazar tell him everything, there was a knock at the door. Oscar gave the word, and a beautiful black-haired mage came in.

“Sorry to disturb you. I was nearby, so I thought I’d drop in and make some tea,” Tinasha explained, curtsying before popping back up and beaming. That smile brought a glimmery sheen to the room, and Oscar found himself grinning slightly, too. She began to get the tea things ready.

Lazar went on with his story. “So actually—”

“Wait,” Oscar interrupted.

“Someone has died to the ghost—Huh? Why?” Lazar broke off.

“I told you to wait…,” Oscar grumbled, scowling because he hadn’t stopped Lazar in time. Many hated scary stories, and he didn’t want Tinasha to feel frightened in the foreign castle where she was staying. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Yet Tinasha went about the task of preparing tea, her expression placid and calm. Aware of Oscar’s eyes on her, she turned and flashed a smile. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. The mind can’t exist without the body, and the soul is the vessel for the power that forms the core of all living beings. When we die, it disperses and nothing remains.”

The mage’s crisp answer stunned Lazar. “But you hear so many stories of lingering souls…”

“Those are almost always tales of demonic spirits or spells. Even if magic can be used to temporarily contain a soul that has lost its body, it no longer has a personality or shape,” Tinasha stated.

“I see…,” Lazar muttered, looking both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

Oscar, on the other hand, was satisfied with Tinasha’s exceedingly rational response. He decided to keep grilling Lazar for details. “For now, just tell us everything you know. You said someone died?”

“Yes, a lady-in-waiting named Carla. Supposedly, one night about a week ago, she saw a ghost wearing all black in a castle garden. Three days after she told everyone about it, she perished under strange circumstances… Ever since, folks have been saying you can see a ghost if you look out that window at night,” explained Lazar.

“Wow. I don’t even know where to begin with this one,” Oscar quipped dryly, pressing the nib of the pen he had just used to sign a document into his temple. This account was too fishy to take seriously, but since rumors were flying about a death, simply ignoring it was unwise. “First, let’s start with the figure all in black that she saw. How do we know that’s a ghost?”

“Because two or three seconds after poor Carla saw it, she looked back, and it was gone…,” answered Lazar.

“That just sounds like a suspicious intruder, doesn’t it?” Oscar said irritably.

“M-maybe,” Lazar admitted with a stiff face, giving a perfunctory retort.

Giggling, Tinasha poured tea into the teacups. The laugh left Oscar feeling a bit uncomfortable. “And what was so unusual about her death?”

“All of a sudden, she began vomiting blood and met her end writhing in agony. The bizarre manner of her death prompted the mages to conduct an autopsy, but they found nothing,” Lazar responded.

“Hmm,” Oscar replied skeptically.

“Is her body still around? Could I take a look at it?” Tinasha asked as she set a cup down in front of Oscar. The lurid request didn’t match her lovely appearance, and both men stared at her. Flustered, she looked between the two of them. “Wh-what? Is it so odd a request?”

“No… I’d like you to examine it, if possible…,” Oscar muttered.

“Her surviving family claimed the b-body, but there may still be some blood taken from it in the mages’ laboratories,” offered Lazar warily.

“Is that so? I see. Thank you,” answered Tinasha, giving Lazar a warm expression.

Oscar frowned. Tinasha really was suspicious. Her appearance and her temperament didn’t match at all.

He realized he still didn’t know anything about her past. He hadn’t asked because the young woman didn’t look like she wanted to talk about it, but it was possible she had once known death and battle.

Oscar gave an unnoticeable exhale and signed the paper before him. Then he glared at Lazar again. “So? How does the story of ghost sightings from that window end?!”

“Don’t get mad at me… It’s just hearsay. The ladies-in-waiting know which window it is, I think…,” Lazar replied.

“Then how about you take responsibility and go investigate it?!” Oscar barked.

“Eek!” Lazar cried, cowering and about to flee the room. Oscar balled up a paper he had messed up on and launched it at his shamefaced friend’s head. It hit the target.

“I don’t think you could handle something like that, actually. Do you know which mage did the autopsy?” Oscar questioned.

“Master Kumu and…a mage named Lita, I think.”

“Kumu is busy, so we’ll have Lita and Doan or someone else do it. Tinasha?” Oscar said.

“Yes, what would you like me to do? Ask away,” she said with a smile, looking like a cat with its tail held taut in the air.

Oscar looked exasperated. “Why do you seem so eager…? I only want you to scribe a report if you’re going to examine the body.”

“Leave it to me,” she stated.

“Thank you. Admittedly, I’m not really expecting much. I’m just giving this a try because it can’t hurt,” remarked Oscar.

“You’re saying that to my face?! I’ll have you know that my confidence is certainly not baseless!” Tinasha protested.

“I’m joking. Though, I sincerely don’t mind if this all amounts to nothing.”

“…Ungh,” Tinasha groaned, which Oscar ignored as he wrote out an order for investigation on a fresh sheet and handed it to Lazar. Finally, he picked up the cup of tea next to him. A richer aroma than usual wafted up to his nostrils, the result of Tinasha’s steeping. He took a sip, and the scent pervaded his lungs, relieving some of the fatigue that had built up within him.

Recalling something, Oscar said to Tinasha, “Oh, that’s right, the ladies-in-waiting didn’t know what to do because you wouldn’t eat much of your lunch. Afraid of getting poisoned again?”

“What? Oh, n-no. I was just so absorbed in my analysis that I didn’t notice… And I ate breakfast!” she asserted.

“You don’t have to keep at it that stubbornly. If it’s impossible, just say so. I wasn’t expecting much anyway,” Oscar remarked lightly.

“Seriously, why would you say that to my face?! I’m analyzing everything properly, and in the unlikely event that I can’t solve this, I’ll just have your child, so it’s fine!” she burst out.

“…What?” Oscar was dumbfounded. Her sudden declaration had both men staring at her, aghast. However, Tinasha seemed to have no clue that she had said anything unusual as she stood there indignantly with both hands planted on her waist.

While Lazar was struck motionless, a grimace marred Oscar’s handsome features. “Listen here… What do you think you’re doing, trying so hard to marry me? What are you after?”

“I-I’m not after anything! Stop misunderstanding! I’m only saying that my magic is strong enough for me to beat the curse and give birth to a child!” she protested.

“Oh, that makes sense. Right, of course that’s what it would be,” Oscar mused. The king of Tuldarr had said the mother of his child would need to be someone with powerful magic. Naturally, Tinasha fit that description.

Sourly, she added, “Of course, if I did, I’d give up any claims to royal positions. I wouldn’t do anything to inconvenience Farsas. Besides, you don’t have to be married to have a child with someone. I’d take full responsibility.”

“I do appreciate that, but… It’s not like you’re the one who caused this, so there’s no responsibility to speak of,” Oscar pointed out.

Tinasha was under no obligation to take on this task. In the worst-case scenario, she could end up refusing to break the curse because it was, after all, another country’s problem, and he would understand.

When she heard that, her eyes widened a little before she gave a weary smile. “I didn’t cause it, no… But breaking the curse really is my duty. Still, I’d feel awful if that became the reason for my blood to enter the Farsas royal lineage, so just wait for me to finish my analysis.”

The young woman closed her eyes. Her smile was a lonely one, giving the sense that she was very far away.

Once Tinasha left the room, Lazar let out a huge sigh. “She’s really something.”

“Wasn’t she supposed to have received a royal education? Perhaps that’s why she’s so determined,” commented Oscar.

He got the impression that her resoluteness was something deeply, unquestionably etched in her mind.

Yet at the same time, Oscar thought Tinasha also seemed a little insecure. That would need to be corrected if she was to be queen of Tuldarr. A ruler was the symbol of their nation—the support of the people. Any queen who looked down on herself didn’t deserve the service of her subjects.

Twirling his pen in his fingers, Oscar looked at Lazar. His attendant and friend met his gaze with a sullen expression of warning. When Oscar caught it, his lips curved up in a sly smirk. “Well, since she suggested it, maybe I will have her bear me a kid.”

“Absolutely not! Don’t try to use the last resort as your primary option!” Lazar shouted, as if he had been waiting for Oscar to suggest that.

Lazar’s predictable retort made Oscar burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. I don’t mind women who are pretty more than anything else, but I’m not interested,” he stated blithely, but his criticism was scathing.

Normally, Lazar didn’t hear his lord speak that way, and his expression clouded over with something more than just relief. “That’s an awful thing to say. I thought you liked her, Your Highness.”

“I think Tinasha’s interesting, but I still don’t know anything about her. And besides, she’s not really looking at me anyway,” Oscar replied.

“Do you truly think so?” Lazar pressed.

“I do.”

Oscar could tell as much simply by meeting the woman’s eyes.

Having lost interest, he ended the conversation there, sipping at his tea with one hand while leafing through papers with the other.

Tinasha went back to her room first to make some progress on her analysis. Once she reached a good stopping place, she went to visit the mages’ laboratory. She thought that, by then, Lazar would have notified them of her investigation.

As she suspected, Kumu, the chief mage, was there to greet her when she peeked into the room. The man was renowned for his high level of magic proficiency. Kumu ran a hand over his shiny shaved head before bowing. “I deeply apologize for troubling you to do this.”

“Not at all. I’m the one who’s overstepped my bounds in asking, so please excuse that,” Tinasha responded.

“I-I’m honored to be working with you! My name is Lita!” said the young woman next to Kumu with a vigorous bow. She was the mage who had been in charge of the autopsy. She smiled nervously at Tinasha while Kumu brought out three bottles from the back of the room.

“We took samples of her blood, stomach contents, and skin,” he explained, presenting the containers to Tinasha, who accepted them readily. Once, as a queen, she fought on the front lines of battle herself, where she witnessed gruesome deaths time and time again and also used magic to kill people. That was how rulers in the Dark Age lived.

Under the mages’ close supervision, Tinasha undid the bottles and began to recite an incantation. An intricate spell configuration poured into the containers one after another. Kumu and Lita gasped at the sight of the magic.

As her incantation finished, the beautiful mage from Tuldarr glanced at the three bottles with half-open eyes. Suddenly, she turned her face up and asked Lita, “What did the body look like?”

“Oh, ah… We confirmed that she vomited blood, and her eyes were wide open and bloodshot. There was blood and bits of skin under all her nails, as if she had raked them along her own body, and there were scratch marks on her neck and chest,” answered Lita.

“Did you look at her head?” Tinasha questioned.

“H-her head?” Lita repeated.

“Her scalp. Did you look at it soon after she died?”

“N-no, I didn’t…,” Lita admitted, trembling.

Kumu cut in. “Have you noticed something?”

“I think she was poisoned with a magical draught. It’s an old type of potion, but I’m pretty confident,” Tinasha replied.

“That’s—,” sputtered the mages as they tensed up. Because the autopsy didn’t detect any sort of toxin, Carla’s death was declared to be from unknown causes. But if she had died by poisoning, that changed things considerably.

With a grimace, Tinasha looked around as she capped the bottles. “Could I borrow these for a bit? I’d like to extract the traces of the poison and identify who made it.”

“Identify who made it?! You can do that?”

“What? Isn’t that beyond what our technology can do?”

“That’s the first I’m hearing of this…”

Kumu and other mages in the laboratory expressed their shock, but Tinasha said nothing.

Ever since she woke up, she had been studying desperately to fill in the four-hundred-year-long gap in her knowledge, but there were many things unrecorded in books.

The spell to identify the maker of a potion was difficult to cast, and back then in Tuldarr, only a few mages were able to use it. After four centuries, she would have thought that the spell would have been revamped and widely taught. Yet for some reason, such was not the case. Beneath the intense stares bearing down on her, Tinasha felt a headache coming on.

She didn’t exactly need to hide the fact that she had come from the past, but if she revealed it willingly, people would only question her sanity.

Tinasha grinned brightly. “It’s my specialty spell.”

“Y-you mean it’s one you devised yourself?” asked Kumu.

“No, but I’ll go over the details another time. For now, I’m going to investigate this. May I take these back to my chamber?” she inquired again.

“Oh, er… Yes, you can. Please go ahead,” Kumu responded.

Calm and collected, Tinasha tucked the bottles away in her pocket. Kumu looked like he still had things he wanted to ask her, but he gave up on them with a light shake of his head.

To Lita, Kumu instructed, “This is the perfect chance for her to see the window that’s the source of all the rumors. Show her the way there.”

“Oh… Me? But there are ghosts there…,” Lita said hesitantly, looking around the room for someone to take her place.

Doan raised his hand. “We have to investigate the window; that’s what His Highness has asked for. I’ll go, too.”

“So does that mean I still have to do it…?” Lita questioned apprehensively.

“Of course you do,” Doan retorted.

Amid the mages’ bickering, Tinasha tactfully interjected, “Ah, I can go on my own if you’ll just tell me where it is. I’m sure you all have work to do.”

“This is their work, so please don’t worry about them. Lita, go,” Kumu ordered for the second time.

“All right…,” Lita replied, hanging her head.

With Doan leading the way, the three made their way through the castle, lit with afternoon sunshine. As they walked down a lengthy corridor, Lita asked Tinasha timidly, “C-can you really identify who made the potion? And were there traces of it that you could see? I wasn’t able to detect any…”

“It’s no wonder you couldn’t. It’s a type of poison that’s unrecognizable without preexisting knowledge. There are multiple types of potions that don’t leave any traces. If you start by suspecting that it may be one of those, you can more or less make a guess. Have you ever heard of maseira?”

“Huh? What?” Lita stammered.

Doan answered evenly. “I haven’t. Is that the potion the killer used?”

“I think it might be, although I can’t say for sure until I do a bit more proper research,” Tinasha said with a shrug.

They reached the hallway with the purported ghost window. Lita jogged over, clearly wanting to finish her loathsome task quickly.

“Wh-which one was it again?” she wondered aloud, trotting from pane to pane and touching them.

Tinasha and Doan sauntered over behind her and inspected. There were about a hundred windows in the long corridor, and it took roughly a half hour for Doan to examine them all. He sighed, slightly exhausted, and turned back to Tinasha. “Nothing seems to be here.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed.

“C-can you only see the ghosts at night?” offered Lita, who had rejoined them.

Doan pondered that. It was true there weren’t many rumors of spotting a ghost in the daytime. However, that was assuming ghosts existed to begin with.

Doan, who didn’t believe in such things, almost revealed in his expression how much of a bother he found this, but he took care to conceal that feeling in front of Tinasha. “Then we’ll make our rounds of the windows at night. We’ll ask the soldiers to look from the outside, and Lita and I will take the inside…”

“M-me?! I’m not good with ghosts… Oh wow, my stomach. It hurts so much.”

Doan eyed her coldly as she clutched her stomach. An amused smile playing on her lips, Tinasha cut in. “Well, it can be unsafe for women at night, so you can ask one of the men to sub in for you if there are no objections.”

Doan thought over the lovely princess’s words and nodded. Lita wasn’t likely to be of much help anyway, even if she came along. It would be prudent to bring someone else. “All right, we’ll do that, then. I’ll notify you if we have any findings.”

“Please do, thanks,” said Tinasha, and she parted from them there to drop in briefly on the study before going back to her rooms.

At midnight, Doan and his fellow mage Kav were patrolling the windows, as they had been doing since an hour after dinnertime. So far there was nothing amiss. Looking outside only revealed the flickering lights of the torches the soldiers on patrol carried.

Doan gave a little sigh. “I guess it’s just a rumor after all.”

“But the Tuldarr princess said someone used a potion, right? That she possesses a spell that can determine who made it is incredible. I wonder if she’d teach it to us…,” mused Kav.

“Normally, Tuldarr wouldn’t let a secret like that slip to another country,” replied Doan, thinking back on Tinasha. She possessed frightening beauty and magical ability. Yet she wasn’t the king’s daughter. So then, what was she? Was it really a good idea that they had invited this mysterious woman who had been sleeping under a castle to Farsas?

“She couldn’t be a witch, could she…?”

No one knew the ages or faces of the only three witches in the land. He didn’t want to think that Tinasha could be one of them, but he also couldn’t rule it out at this point.

Doan glanced outside the window.

That was when the muffled bang of an explosion sounded.

“What was that?!”

They had felt the impact from the blast ripple through the castle wall, and the two mages exchanged glances.

Farsas Castle, which had been asleep, quickly awoke in furious activity.

Shortly before Doan heard the explosion, Tinasha had gone to bed.

Her spacious bedroom was neat and tidy, with few objects. An assortment of spell books lined half the bookshelves along the wall, and magic implements occupied the empty spaces.

On top of the desk by the window, moonlight shone in on the three bottles of samples she had borrowed from the lab.

Gauze curtains were drawn around the canopy bed at the back of the room. Oscar had requested them to be made to resemble the ones that hung at the bed underneath the Tuldarr palace.

The pale glow of the moon poured in from the window. The aperture had been cracked to allow a breeze in, and someone quietly pushed it open from the outside.

An intruder entered, their footsteps muffled. The trespasser glanced at the bed to make sure Tinasha was asleep, then picked up the bottles on the desk. After verifying their contents, the intruder breathed a sigh of relief. They stowed the bottles away and put a hand on the window.

But before they could take a step, an impassable barrier rose over the window.

At the same time, the lights in the room flickered to life.

“You’re so predictable. You should have tried a cleverer approach,” spat the woman with evident disgust.

The trespasser flinched in shock and whirled to face the bed, where Tinasha was not, in fact, asleep. She was sitting on the mattress, her legs crossed as she brushed the curtains apart. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she said, “I’ll hear you out if there’s anything you have to say.”

Her head was tilted innocently to one side, but her eyes were as cold as ice.

Next to her was another woman who had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Meredina, an officer in the army, drew her sword and fixed her gaze on the intruder.

“Mage Lita, I’d like you to explain just what is going on here,” Meredina demanded as she pointed the tip of her sword at the trespasser.

“The culprit is one of our own mages?” Oscar asked to confirm.

“Most likely,” Tinasha replied swiftly.

Prior to returning to her room, Tinasha had dropped by the study to inform Oscar of the gist of the situation. Her ivory fingers massaged her temples. “I think maseira was the magical poison used to kill that lady-in-waiting. I thought use of it would have died out a long time ago, especially here, so I was surprised to discover that.”

“What do you mean by ‘especially here’?” questioned Oscar.

“Maseira has a history in Tuldarr. Four hundred years ago, it was responsible for some serial murders, and the symptoms were about the same as what our casualty here experienced. Immediately, after a victim dies of maseira poisoning, black flecks form on their scalp, but a person’s hair can make that difficult to recognize. There’s also a certain spell one can cast that will eliminate all traces of maseira in the body,” Tinasha explained.

“There’s a potion that can do all that?!” Oscar exclaimed, his eyes growing wide. He had never heard of such a concoction, even from the court mages.

Tinasha gave a faint smile. “There is, indeed. But in exchange, a bit of the spell cast to erase remnants of the toxin will be left over, because that magic is overwriting the maseira. Even then, it’s extremely minute and wouldn’t appear lethal. Thus, anyone examining the body would overlook it. It’s a very crafty method.”

“So if someone used a spell to conceal the poison, that means it had to be a court mage,” concluded Oscar.

“Precisely,” Tinasha affirmed with a nod.

Oscar leaned against the back of his chair and sighed. If Tinasha hadn’t been here, this whole matter would have been written off as simply a mysterious death.

Looking pale, Lazar cut in. “Wh-who would do such a thing?”

“I have a good idea, and I think I’ll know for sure very soon. Earlier, I told the mages that I knew a method for identifying whoever made a magic potion. Our poisoner will come to kill me or take back the samples,” Tinasha said with a bright smile.

Lazar’s jaw dropped. Oscar gave an exasperated exhale. “Are you stupid…?”

“What?!” Tinasha cried, insulted.

“I trusted you and sent you out on this case, and this is what happens. We’re well past giving something a try because it can’t hurt—and into the realm of truly awful ideas,” Oscar commented.

“You’re really going to say that to my face?!” Tinasha objected, outraged. Unfortunately, it was true, so she couldn’t offer more of a rebuttal.

With difficulty, Oscar tamped down his desire to lecture her endlessly. “What’s done is done. If the poisoner’s coming tonight, find someone to change places with you.”

“I can’t change places with anyone. My magic is unique, and a mage might notice,” she stated.

“Appoint a guard, then! This is nonnegotiable!” Oscar insisted, his voice raising in reproach.

“Fiiine,” Tinasha said, sulking. The young woman straightened up and held her head high. Judging by her insolent attitude, she was quite possibly used to getting reprimanded. She was like a wicked child.

Internally, she was doubtlessly sticking out her tongue at Oscar. He looked to Tinasha and rested his chin on one hand. Then a question occurred to him. “Wait, if you can identify who made the potion, can’t you just catch them that way?”

“Oh, I actually can’t. There weren’t enough traces of the concoction itself. Instead, I just set a trap,” she answered.

“Wow…,” the prince muttered, at his wit’s end. He had thought Tinasha was hard to get a handle on, but she was even more of a piece of work than anticipated.

What kind of upbringing was responsible for her still behaving this way at her age? Oscar had the distinct feeling he’d end up becoming her plaything. After realizing he was beginning to daydream of Tinasha, he scowled. “Keep your guard up. You’re tracking down a court mage.”

Tinasha’s dark eyes filled with wonder at his hastily added warning, and then she gave a soft smile. “No need to worry. I’m the heir to the throne of Tuldarr.”

“Wh-what in the…?” Lita sputtered, her face pallid as she stared past the point of Meredina’s sword at the two women opposing her. She glanced at where she had stored the bottles.

It had been a ploy.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to be manipulated by some story about being able to identify who concocted a potion. Yet she had trusted it because it had come from the lips of a Tuldarr royal.

Lita ground her teeth in frustration, but she no longer had any time to regret the past. She threw the bottles at Meredina and shouted out an incantation.

“O thing of form, incinerate!”

A gout of flames swirled toward the two women.

Meredina was reaching out to catch the containers but quickly shifted to throwing her arms around Tinasha to shield her. Yet before the fire could reach them, an invisible wall caught it.

In the meantime, Lita turned aside swiftly and tossed a spell at the window to break it. The magical barrier and the pane both blew away, and she leaped out into the night air. Shards of broken glass caught the red glimmer of the flames. Lita used levitation magic to rise up and away.

“Ugh, I’ve failed!”

It had taken a fair bit of effort to infiltrate the castle as a court mage. And now a series of trivial blunders had ruined it all. There was little she could do but make her escape.

Lita called up a transportation spell that would ferry her out of Farsas.

Suddenly, a woman teleported in front of her without making a sound. Her black hair fluttered in the night breeze as she smiled, her lips as red as blood. “I don’t plan to kill you. Please surrender yourself.”

One alabaster hand extended toward Lita, who gasped as she saw the unusual magic held therein.

The disparity between the two was just too great. This wasn’t someone who operated according to the usual methods.

Realizing she couldn’t escape, Lita ended her transportation spell. Instead, she shouted:

“Answer my call, dragons of onyx black! Come forth!”

A gale whipped up. Tinasha held her hair down against the terrible gusts.

Lita broke out in a cruel smile.

Three huge black dragons appeared in the sky above Farsas Castle.

The creatures, so inky ebony it was like they could suck up all the moonlight, cut monstrous figures in the sky.

The sound of their breathing was like dull roars. Surrounded by Lita and the trio of dragons, Tinasha gave a little sigh in midair. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen wyverns. Are you a successor to Molcado’s school of magic?”

“He’s our esteemed grand master,” Lita answered.

“A serial killer behind multiple bizarre murders is your…,” Tinasha muttered.

Molcado was the one responsible for the maseira killings during Tinasha’s reign in Tuldarr. At the time, he was indicted on multiple charges of violating taboos. One of these was the contract he had formed with wyverns. Unlike other types of dragons, wyverns loved to slaughter and eat humans indiscriminately, so summoning them was forbidden throughout Tuldarr. However, Molcado had used the wyverns to attack a village, an act that had incurred Tinasha’s wrath. She had brought the wicked man in herself.

However, only a day before he was to be executed, Molcado killed twelve mages and broke out of jail. Tinasha used every possible means to hunt him down, but he had fled the country. Soon after, Tuldarr plunged into war with Tayiri. Amid the upheaval, she had lost track of him.

For her part, Tinasha had hoped that Molcado had died in a ditch somewhere. Evidently, there were successors to both his bloodline and his craft.

Deeply revolted, Tinasha eyed Lita. “I’ll go ahead and say this one more time: Please surrender. I truly would prefer to capture you alive.”

“…You’ve really got some nerve talking like that. Do you not understand the situation you’re in?” Lita asked.

“No. I’ve got eyes. I understand perfectly well,” she replied.

“TINASHA!”

An angry voice tore through the night.

Tinasha flinched.

The cry certainly hadn’t come from Lita. Its sound had risen from directly below.

Fearfully, Tinasha looked down…and saw a man standing on a balcony. The crown prince of Farsas glared at her, his eyes radiating an adamant sense of authority and power. “What are you doing? Get back here!”

“Ugh…”

Apparently, Oscar had heard the sound of the window shattering. Either that or Meredina had fetched him… Regardless, Tinasha was still in her element. No one was more suited than her to handle a battle between mages.

She shouted down to Oscar, “It’s all right! You’re in a dangerous spot right below us, so go back inside! I’ll take care of this quickly!”

“Like hell you will! Get down!” he yelled back instantly.

Tinasha sighed. Why was he getting mad at her and not Lita, the true villain? She didn’t feel at all satisfied…and decided to ignore his order. With a jaunty smile and a wave to him down below, she turned back to face Lita.

“That damn woman!” Oscar grumbled, his face twitching with rage over how Tinasha refused to obey.

Awaiting orders behind Oscar was Meredina, who was already ashen-faced. No wonder the person she was ordered to guard had gotten herself into such a state. It was clearly Tinasha who was in the wrong. What was she going to do on her own against three giant dragons in the sky?

Oscar turned to call for a mage but then remembered something. “Nark, come here.”

Summoned by its master, the little red dragon appeared on the balcony. It let out a happy chirp.

“Can you get bigger?” Oscar asked.

The dragon bowed in assent, then flapped its little wings. As it moved away from the balcony, its shape changed in a flash. It grew to rival the size of any of the black wyverns circling the castle.

When Tinasha realized what was happening, a look of startled dismay came over her face for the first time. “Nark, no! Don’t bring him over!”

“If I’m your owner, you listen to me!” Oscar shouted.

“I said no! You stay where you are!” Tinasha fired back.

Nark’s head swiveled from side to side at these conflicting instructions, but ultimately it decided to follow its master’s command. It let Oscar up on its back and rose into the air.

“Y-you traitor…,” Tinasha muttered, trembling with disbelief.

Lita laughed at her, high and scornful. “What a farce. But this is perfect. It’s not what I had planned, but how brilliant it will be to bury the Akashia swordsman along with the Tuldarr royal! Die here!”

Light substantial enough to overtake the dark of night erupted from Lita’s hand.

At the same time, two wyverns dove toward Tinasha, claws poised to rake her.

It was a fierce, three-pronged attack, yet none of the strikes found purchase.

The darkness-rending light abruptly vanished, and the two wyverns were immobilized, as if a needle were sewing them up.

Tinasha had accomplished all that without so much as an incantation. She cocked her head to one side in confusion. “Why didn’t you run away? Using the wyverns as a decoy and escaping was the best thing you could have done.”

“Wh-what are you…?” sputtered Lita.

“It’s the truth,” said Tinasha, spreading her arms and weaving a spell between them. She sang out the incantation for it.

“I call upon the breath at the origin of all, the droplets that divide life from death. To deny a breath is to deny life itself.”

The magic unfurled in the sky, resembling an elaborately detailed map.

Lita was rendered speechless, not by the magnitude of the spell but by its esoteric design.

Tinasha’s hand shot forward.

“Disintegrate.”

Instantly, the dragons flanking her burst into tiny pieces.

Bits of flesh and dark, sludgy blood rained down on the ground. Lita watched in disbelief. “What…? What are you? Are you a witch?”

“No, although I’m similar to one,” Tinasha admitted after turning back to check on Oscar. She gave a light snap of her fingers and flashed a cruel smile at Lita. “Well, why don’t you give me your best shot? Although, that mighty grand master of yours you spoke of—Molcado—never managed to harm a hair on my head.”

It was a proclamation only the strong could make, ringing through the air clearer than any incantation.

The one remaining black dragon swept down in a spiral toward Nark. As soon as it sucked in a deep inhale, it breathed swelteringly hot red flames right at Oscar.

However, Nark exhaled white fire to meet the attack.

As red and white collided, the castle was illuminated more brightly than in daytime. Swirling hot winds pricked at Oscar’s skin. Holding his arms up to cover his eyes, he commanded, “Nark, can you fly really close past that dragon’s left side?”

The red dragon turned its body to one side in response, zipping right past the left side of the wyvern as it glided toward them.

The wyvern beat its wings, attempting to turn and give swift pursuit, but then it roared in searing pain.

One sharp-clawed arm tumbled into the garden.

Oscar had lopped off the limb by leaping over from Nark’s back. With frightening strength and Akashia, he sliced through the wyvern’s arm. As the creature raged and writhed, the prince straightened himself up on the wyvern. Kicking off from it once more, he lifted his sword high overhead. “It’s time for you to shut up. You’re causing too much of an uproar in my castle.”

In a fit of fury and pain, the wyvern sucked in air to breathe again. Oscar severed its head before it had the chance, however.

Oscar sheathed Akashia and jumped from the slowly descending wyvern to return to Nark.

“Good job, Nark,” Oscar complimented, patting the dragon and praising it for a job well done. Nark trilled happily, and Oscar laughed. He looked over at Tinasha and saw that the other two wyverns were gone already. She really did have the power to back up her words. Lita was floating in front of her, already unconscious.

Tinasha caught his gaze and gave him a cute grin. “You defeated a dragon alone. I suppose I should have expected as much.”

“Enough. Just come down,” Oscar said irritably.

“I think that goes for both of us…,” she remarked, descending back onto the balcony. Several military officers and mages had already rushed over there. They took custody of Lita and hurried to arrest her and get the situation under control.

Oscar also landed on the balcony; Nark shrank back down to its small form and settled on the man’s shoulder. As he stroked its head, he fixed a cold gaze on Tinasha. “It looks like you need to be monitored more than guarded.”

“I’ll help you clean the garden. There’s bits of dragon everywhere,” Tinasha stated.

“That’s not the problem here,” Oscar snapped.

A strange tension rose between the pair, and Nark looked from one to the other in bewilderment.

Thus, the culprit behind the murder of a lady-in-waiting was apprehended.

“I don’t know how to describe her… She’s really something,” whispered Doan the next day in the study after delivering his report on the aftermath. He had watched the skirmish from the night before from the ground.

Pen in hand, Oscar massaged his temples. “She’s a piece of work, all right. Unpredictable doesn’t even begin to describe it. Is everyone in the Tuldarr royal family so crazy?”

“I think she’s a special case,” answered Doan.

The subject of their conversation was not present. At this hour, Tinasha was likely in her room working on her analysis.

The king and other castle staff members were amazed when they heard about the events of the night before. Surprisingly, the king merely laughed indulgently and said, “She’s something.” This was hardly the sort of escapade to be dismissed so arbitrarily, but everyone was lenient on the guest who had come to break Oscar’s curse.

“Has our culprit said anything?” Oscar asked.

“She’s keeping silent,” Doan informed.

“I wish Tinasha would have told me earlier if she noticed that mage woman messing with the windows.”

“…I didn’t notice, either. I’m very sorry,” apologized Doan.

After Lita was arrested, Tinasha explained that when she, Lita, and Doan went to go look at the windows, Lita had jogged ahead and released the enchantments on the panes. According to Tinasha, she had used magic to refract light in a way that would make people passing by believe they were seeing a shadowy figure outside.

Doan, for his part, was utterly blown away that he hadn’t noticed Lita undoing those spells. And when Lita had asked to be taken off the night shift, that was when Tinasha anticipated she would be paying her a visit later.

Lita herself had only half believed the story about Tinasha being able to identify who had brewed a potion, but because Tinasha had correctly guessed the name of the draught, she’d had no choice but to act.

After getting Oscar to sign the report, Doan sighed. “I wonder what her motive was. Did she have some sort of grudge against that lady-in-waiting?”

“Wasn’t that the reason for the so-called ghost the lady-in-waiting first saw?” posited Oscar.

“So that means…”

“That ghost she saw was probably some associate or other of Lita’s—someone who shouldn’t have been seen,” Oscar surmised. “When Lita found out he was spotted, she killed her and tried to throw everyone off by making it out to be all part of a ghost story. Doesn’t that sound right? Although, it was all for nothing the moment one very irregular woman appeared on the scene.”

“An associate who shouldn’t have been seen…,” Doan muttered in wondering.

“Lita thought it a stroke of luck that she had a chance to take down the swordsman bearing Akashia and a Tuldarr royal in one move. There’s no telling the sinister motives beyond that, though,” said Oscar, his head in his hands over how annoying everything had gotten.

Doan eyed the prince. He thought Oscar was pretty irregular himself for taking down a wyvern alone, even if he’d had a dragon with him. But the prince didn’t seem to be aware of that. All he had done so far was criticize Tinasha for going rogue without talking to anyone about it.

Well aware of the prince’s penchant for sneaking out of the castle on a regular basis, Doan thought, You two are extremely alike…

He knew he’d incur Oscar’s wrath if he said as much to the man himself, of course. Ordinarily, Oscar would just make a face at something like that, but he got weird when Tinasha was involved.

Placing the documents under his arm, Doan bowed. “Well, I’ll continue looking into who that shadowy figure was.”

“Thanks,” Oscar answered, resting his chin in his hands again with a scowl as if recalling something displeasing.

After spending the morning using magic to help clean up the garden, Tinasha returned to her room momentarily to summon Mila. The redhead appeared, looking bemused as she knelt before her master. “Lady Tinasha, do you need something?”

“Do you remember Molcado? The guy who caused trouble in Tuldarr four hundred years ago,” Tinasha said.

During Tinasha’s reign, she had commanded all twelve spirits. Though she only had Mila now, the red-haired spirit girl had been present during Molcado’s killing spree.

In a very human gesture, Mila tilted her head to one side as she thought. “Hmmm… Oh, oh, that weirdo! I remember!”

“I want you to look into where he fled to and what he did after he got away,” Tinasha instructed.

“Yes, my queen. But why?” asked Mila.

In reply, Tinasha smiled. It was the grin of a monarch who could subdue and conquer all who beheld her expression. “An assassin who is a descendent of Molcado has appeared. This event may hold some relation to other forbidden curses, too. If you discover other cases of mages using wyverns, inform me of their whereabouts.”

“As you wish. Oh, but Lady Tinasha, will you be all right alone?” questioned Mila.

“I’ll be fine. This era seems reasonably peaceful. Actually, I was surprised to learn that my rule is part of a period now referred to as the Dark Age. I suppose it was a brutal time, though,” commented Tinasha.

“I’m definitely glad no one is at war now. But, Lady Tinasha, you don’t know what kind of people are out there, so be careful when you’re alone. No matter how strong you are, you’re still the quintessential mage. You’ll get hurt if you go up against a super-capable sword fighter or the like!” warned Mila.

“Ah…,” Tinasha replied. True, she couldn’t really handle close-range combat. Oscar had taught her swordplay when she was a girl, but things got so hectic once she took charge of Tuldarr that she hadn’t been able to keep practicing.

Thinking of many past battles, Tinasha made a face. “All right. I’ll set a spell to notify you should I experience massive blood loss.”

“Please call me over before you suffer massive blood loss,” Mila stated in exasperation before she winked out of sight.

The spirit was very adept in matters of investigation. It might take some time, but she would produce results.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Tinasha went back to her bed and flopped onto it with a sigh, staring up at the canopy.

One thing was solved, but now a different issue had popped up. That was just how life was. Listlessly, Tinasha’s long eyelashes fluttered closed.

“But…he might hate me now…”

After five days of questioning, Lita found a weak spot in the guards’ watch and committed suicide.

Thus, any hope of learning who she had been working with, or what her true objective was, vanished into the dark for the time being.