Royal Decree

The royal palace. A location bearing much familiarity to any history aficionado or fantasy-loving people. Of course, with there being so many different countries and cultures in the world, the structure of one would be much different depending on where they were from — unless, of course, you happened to be in a cheap literature work of the modern day where everything was vaguely medieval European.

At least with this one, however, I could guarantee that it was a first experience for me.

It was one large building of pure white marble. Its roof wasn’t just pointed on the top, but rounded at the bottom as well, bearing the shape of a water droplet — a pray for rain in the land, perhaps? The towers along the sides weren’t terribly tall — only around the same size as the building itself. Those certainly wouldn’t help as watchtowers, but then again if your kingdom was in the middle of a desert like this, there’d be little worry about things like ambushes.

The roads leading towards the building itself weren’t some rosy-red carpet, or a path of gray cobblestone either. Instead, it was the same kind of white marble, just less polished as a way to reduce friction for mounts and carriages.

As soon as we entered the building, a wave of cool air hit me. The white marble had done a wonderful job at isolating the heat from outside with the interior — no wonder they had chosen white as its main color.

Inside were lines of soldiers standing firm, their hands ready the same kind of half-spear, half- halberd weapon that was about twice as long as their bodies — the fact that they had the strength to keep these still for an extended period was a feat in itself, not to mention their ever-unemotional faces while doing so.

After the long hallway at the start with the soldiers, we arrived at our destination — an incredibly large room with nothing but another line of soldiers to the side, as well as an empty throne in the middle.

“Wait, empty?” My thoughts slipped through.

At the same time as I opened my mouth, Arja slowly ascended the throne. And as my mouth froze agasped, the soldiers on the side, another line of what I assumed to be other generals and officials considering their silk wear on the opposite side, as well as Hava next to me, all kneeled and bowed towards the man now sitting on the throne resting his face on his palm:

“All hail great Emperor Arja!”

“You are dismissed,” Arja sounded, though his voice was clearly dissatisfied with the whole ordeal.

“Hold on, Arja. I thought you said you were the Crown Prince?” I asked. “Doesn’t this mean you’re king?”

“Insolent!” The generals on the right shrieked in anger. “How dare you speak with such…”

“Stand down,” Arja raised his hand before any could continue. “I give him a special exemption.”

“But, Your Majesty…”

“Am I or am I not ruler of this land?” Arja’s eyes gleamed with threat.

“… Y-Yes, Your Majesty.”

Waiting a second for everyone to settle once more, the young man on the throne continued.

“I never succeeded. In order to be formally crowned King, I have to be a man of wed. I wanted to keep being called Prince, but the old farts over there…”

“Y-Your Majesty!”

“Again, am I or am I not ruler?”

“O-Our apologies…”

“I swear, every time…” Arja rubbed his temples in clear discomfort, before continuing with his tale. “Anyway, so I devised a new title, Emperor, for these guys to shut up. Oh, but feel free to call me Prince whenever I’m not on the throne, of course.”

“I see…” I mumbled. Never had I realized I had gotten an even more powerful connection than I had expected.

“Now, down to business,” with a clap of his hands, Arja said.

Gesturing downward, his voice sounded.

“I, First Emperor Arja, hereby appoint the title of “Hero” to Ren, as a reward for his valiant display in the recent incident, both in the battlefield on the border as well as the monster attack in the grand market! As Hero, Ren now has access to all facilities in the palace, as well as the privilege to be answered any wish without fail!”

Already there were murmurs around. Though, to be precise, there had already been murmurs as soon as I came in the palace — even if the people here had been used to the presence of these Stigma armors, I wouldn’t be so sure to say that there hadn’t been any cases of someone so brazenly equipping themselves with such armor while presenting to the king. And now said individual was suddenly given privileges, no wonder they’d be worried.

But this time, no one dared to oppose the decision anymore. They had known better to cross with Arja — perhaps it was all his plan to go forward with an intimidation tactic from the start.

And that wasn’t all that he had in store.

“I want every one of our news outlets to spread the word of the Hero. Make sure no citizen of Drought has not learned of his name and appearance. Vizier, can you do this?”

An old man shakenly stepped forward and bowed. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“Good. Now, as for my final decree today…”

The air turned tense all of a sudden. Even Hava next to me had started to shake his head in disappointment.

“I hereby reopen the decree of sparing Kana from all her crimes.”

“Objection!” Immediately, everyone else in the room, Hava included, stood up and cried out. With all due respect, Your Majesty, we won’t back down from this decree, even if it would cost our heads!”

“Figured… Fine, you win this round. All of you, dismissed… Oh, right, Ren and Hava stay.”

“Long live Your Majesty.”

With a quick bow, the rest of the generals left the room, leaving only us two behind.

And when we were all alone, the man beside me had already voiced his subdued opinions:

“Arja, how many times do I have to mention this again? We can’t pardon that woman! Not after she turned on us to join the enemy! Even if she’s your bethrothed…”

“Bethrothed?” I sounded.

“I told ya before, right?” Arja let out a bitter laugh. “I was never ‘officially’ crowned. But I was going to be. When my father, the previous king, died, my marriage with Kana was already planned. After all, what could be a more fitting pairing? Childhood friends since our birth, as well as being both elite warriors fighting against the forces of Drizzle…”

The young man paused, letting out a sigh.

“But on the day of our wedding, she…”

“The woman slaughtered all of the guests and ran off in her Indra armor.” Hava continued, seeing his lord was unable to. “To this day, we still don’t know what came over her. But when we saw her commanding Drizzle forces, the answer was all too clear. She betrayed all of us.”

“She didn’t!” Arja screamed, grabbing Hava by the collar. “I’ve been with her long enough to know!”

“Clearly not long enough, then.”

The burly man’s cold words cut through Arja like a knife.

“Arja…” I sighed. Who knew there was such a history between them. But that wasn’t all that mattered for me.

The problem was that Kana wasn’t “just” Kana. She also had the exact same face as Reiko.

“You were looking out for me, right? If for some reason we find Reiko here, and she happens to look like Kana…”

“Don’t sell yourself too high, kid,” Hava shook his head while smacking Arja’s. “This guy has been trying to pass that decree since the day that woman left.”

“Hey, at least I was reasonable enough to back down! I don’t want all of you to lose your heads! And Ren’s right, too; I did have a part thinking about his conditions!”

“What about the other nine parts?”

“… No comment.”

“You punk…!”

As the two men wrestled with noogies on the throne, I had no other reaction but to facepalm. To think that this was the ruler of a country, and probably my only source of information was… not reassuring, to say the least.

“Look, guys, can’t you save the arguing until later and focus on the matter at hand? Better known as mine?”

Hearing my words separated Arja from Hava for just a while. As the young man still desperately held back his childhood friend and comrade away, he continued:

“Of course, of course. We’ll send our best intelligence forces to track both yer sister and Kana. Meanwhile yer free to look for anything in our library or outside. In fact, I encourage ya to go outside! Gotta let the people know of yer position, after all!”

“Gee, thanks for the caring words,” I let out a sigh and shook my head. Of course, it was better than nothing, but it was less than ideal.

However, it seemed like our luck was nowhere near rock-bottom just yet. As in, it just descended even further with a news report from a panicked man rushing into the palace:

“Your Majesty! General Duna has returned!”

“Huh? Duna’s back?” Even I failed to notice when Arja had assumed his dignified position along with Hava. “Then just let him in. Why bother to announce?”

“Your Majesty, General Duna is back… along with the traitor.”

Our eyes converged before the news. Immediately, we all came to an agreement.

“Lead us there!”