“Ahem,” the Bishop cleared his throat, his voice rising an octave. “Lady Richel, do you truly believe the child of a prostitute has any value as a royal hostage?”
“B-but… it can’t be me! Why not a nun?” Richel’s usual cold, seductive aura vanished. Her eyes were filled with repressed panic, and her fingers unconsciously gripped the edge of her skirt-armor, the metal bending under the pressure of her grip.
“What are you saying? Nuns take three vows; they must remain pure for life to show their devotion to our Lord. How could they possibly copulate with a man, let alone bear a child? Preposterous!” the Bishop snapped.
“Then… a daughter of a noble family…” Richel attempted a final stand.
The Bishop’s thin lips moved, uttering three final words.
“It is an Oracle.”
Richel shivered as if her spine had been removed. Her knees buckled, and she slumped to the floor, the blood draining from her face until her skin looked pale and translucent.
Suddenly, Wang Yue began to laugh in his cell. It wasn’t a happy sound; it was a series of jagged, hollow bursts—a tragic, desolate laugh that mirrored a man who had lost everything.
“You thought you were the player,” he wheezed, “but you’re just a pawn, just like me.”
Richel snapped her head up, her beautiful eyes flashing with cold hatred. “Don’t look at me like that!” she screamed hysterically. “I don’t need your pity! I’m doing this willingly! Do you hear me?! Willingly! How could a Faithless like you ever understand? You can’t… hic… you can’t…”
Tears welled in her eyes, merging into a single large drop that splashed onto the floor in the pale moonlight.
The Bishop spread his hands wide like an accordion. “And this is exactly why I like harlots.”
News spread like lightning through the Holy Knight barracks.
“The Captain had tear tracks on her face!”
“For real?”
“I swear. They were obvious—like snail trails.”
“Bullshit! Even if you were sawing through her bone without anesthesia, the Captain wouldn’t flinch. Why would she cry?”
“Ah, she’s at that age, isn’t she?”
“What does ‘at that age’ mean?”
An old soldier took a loud bite of an apple, his eyes dead. “She loves men, but men don’t love her. They probably say, ‘Sorry, I’m allergic to cows.'”
“I’m not listening! The Captain loves me!”
“Accept reality…”
“Impossible! Those… those were tears from staring at the sun to train her vision! They weren’t for a man!”
“She’s crying now. Who knows, she might be having a miscarriage next…”
“Shut your damn mouth, Sakir! I challenge you to a duel! Only one of us leaves alive!”
“Shh… the Captain is coming.”
The dozen or so knights gossiping under the rain awning shut their mouths instantly.
Richel walked by, dragging a heavy cast-iron training sword with one hand. Each slow step she took caused the tip of the blade to gouge sparks from the ground behind her.
She was in a foul mood and desperately wanted to cut something. With a flick of her wrist, the broad blade hissed through the air, clean-cutting two of the awning’s support pillars.
The old wooden frame and oiled canvas collapsed in a heap, burying the knights.
She lunged her sword once into a protruding lump in the canvas—someone’s rear end—and felt much better once she heard the melodic scream of pain.
Richel hadn’t been without her fantasies of the “ideal man.” In truth, she had a hidden fondness for bright, sunny, fair-skinned boys. Specifically, because that kind of image triggered her desire to destroy their personality and slaughter them.
She had imagined that for her, love would be a struggle against her own instincts. She was willing to restrain her darker urges just to prove her love was extraordinary, surpassing any other emotion in the world.
When she was a six-year-old girl, she had come across a book on entomology in the library. The mating habits of the praying mantis had caught her eye.
The book noted that the female mantis eats the male after mating.
Reading that passage, an indescribable emotion flooded her heart through a mysterious channel.
The little girl’s pale purple pupils dilated, and her small white teeth bit down hard. My… what strange knowledge.
Ensuring no one was watching, she tore the page out, crumpled it into a ball, and hid it. Her face was flushed with the thrill of the taboo.
Back home, she smoothed out the paper and read it again and again. It was as if a door to a new world had opened.
From then on, Richel hunted for mantises. Whenever she found a pair mating, she would crouch down, chin in hand, and watch.
She watched with absolute clarity as the female bit through her partner’s slender neck and ground his head between her mandibles.
She felt an uncontrollable sadness, tears streaming down her face.
She watched it time and time again, but she was always confused.
Why did hunger trump love?
Which was more important: the satisfaction of a meal or the joy of love?
This is wrong!
She eventually reached a realization: true love was not about taking, but about restraint. “Restraint” was hope and promise; it was a spiritual guide that transcended instinct.
At six years old, she was already an expert in the philosophy of emotion.
She planned to write a book explaining her views on love—how those interlocking mandibles didn’t just cut the lover’s neck, but cut away his qualification to be loved. She would call the book Disqualified from Being Loved.
Her dream was to find a lover who could make her truly want to restrain her own malevolent nature. If they grew old together without her killing him, then he would be her true soulmate. Anyone who died halfway through clearly wasn’t “the one.”
However, a single Oracle, a single cruel command, had shattered her dream to pieces. Her path to finding love had been cut short.
There are many great human emotions, but if one had to choose a winner, it was a cruel process. One could rarely balance loyalty and filial piety; how could one balance dreams and faith?
The girl’s expression shifted several times before she finally dropped her sword. Using her pinky to hook the clasps, she tore off her breastplate, her mirror-guard, and her faulds… The cast-iron armor plates crashed to the ground, kicking up dust.
She tightened her corset, revealing the startling curves of her waist. She pulled her long, envy-inducing legs from her iron boots and stepped with bare, pearlescent feet across the rain-washed street.
She stopped before the boy. Looking at the filthy, dilapidated inn behind him, her brow furrowed.
“You’re getting a room… here?”
