Chapter 1

Kazuya lay on his back on the floor. Completely stunned.

That his room was now in shambles, all lights and lamps shattered, most of the furniture hopelessly wrecked and many of his precious figures broken into pieces—none of that was of any consequence now.

The woman that had appeared out of thin air into his room with a blast of lightning and thunder was.

Pale-skinned, her golden hair impossibly tidy, silver and gray dressing her slender frame, thin silver loops piercing her long, pointed ears, her hands holding an intricately carved ivory staff crowned by a long blade.

Deep violet eyes staring piercingly at him in the penumbra.

The woman’s lips spoke imperiously words he did not understand. A question.

The young man could not believe his eyes.

“Rionne-sama…?”

The newcomer’s gaze became even more piercing.

And she spoke again questioningly, again imperiously.

Kazuya raised his hands defensively. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Irritation flashed briefly in the woman’s eyes, then she reached for the strand of delicately woven silver girdling her neck and held it tightly as she closed her eyes and chanted.

The young man’s eyes were already wide with shock, but now they grew even wider as he saw how the strand of silver glowed brightly for a second before the woman opened her eyes and spoke again. “This incantation is crude, but it should suffice for the time being. Can you understand my words now?”

The barest hint of a nod. “Y-yes…”

“Then answer me. What is this place? How do you know my name?” Her gaze dissected him. It was not a hostile glare, but it still made him flinch. She was full of authority and confidence and purpose, absolutely not like his mother, or any of his former classmates, or any girl he knew for that matter. “And why do you dress in such strange clothing? What land is this? What era?”

“What—what—” Kazuya tried to keep his stutter under control. “What would you—like to know first? Rionne-sama?”

“That’s twice you’ve pronounced my name now. And correctly accented it to boot. How do you know it? And what’s this ‘sama’ fragment you keep attaching at the end?”

Very slowly, the boy got to his feet and looked around, searching for something. “Sorry, it was, uh—the book—”

“Oh.” The elf shook her head. “My arrival has thrown your dwelling into disarray. Let me address that.” This time there were no words. Just a circular motion in the air with her left index finger leaving behind a trail of light, and as if in a movie being played backwards, every piece of furniture and every object in the room returned to the place and state they had been prior to her arrival.

Which was not to say the room was tidy. She looked with visible disgust at the now well-lit bedroom, to give him a final disapproving glare. “You should strive to keep your dwellings tidy. Harmony without, harmony within—”

Abruptly she stopped. Teleportation mishaps were nothing new for her, but this… so many things just did not fit. Strange glowing rectangles, devices whose purpose she ignored, materials she was unfamiliar with. Even the very air itself tasted strange.

Then she held her breath for a moment. “What—… is that…”

Her eyes narrowed as she raised a hesitant index finger to point at a figure inside a glass display case. A slight gesture, and the display case opened on its own to let the figure float towards her.

“An effigy of me?” She studied it closely. “Who sculpted this? To what purpose?”

Kazuya tried to answer and failed miserably. “It’s—it’s a, um, a—”

“Control yourself.” A voice so delicate had no business being so compelling. “If you cannot articulate coherent speech, dawn will come before I obtain anything meaningful from you.”

The boy tried to obey. More successfully this time. Two deep breaths, then he answered: “It’s a—collectible, Rionne-sama. I just received it today.”

The elf gazed long and hard at him. “A ‘collectible.’”

“Well, yes, Rionne-sama. Like the others around.” He gestured at the display cases and shelves around.

The elf approached one of the display cases with a slight frown, and carefully examined the figures there.

She pointed at two large dragons, an even bigger walking tree monstrosity, and a cloaked and hooded figure whose contours seemed to glow with fluorescent light. “I assume you are familiar with their names.”

Kazuya nodded. He gestured at the large walking tree. “That’s Tealoth, Ancient of the Purple Hills—” her eyes flashed at that, but she did not interrupt him, so he continued. His shock was slowly receding, enthusiasm starting to bubble inside him. For whatever reason, Silver Archsorceress Rionne herself stood before him. She herself. “The gray dragon is an avatar of the Scalewalker; the red one is Rokyyr, the Endless Thirst. And the figure with the hood is an elder threadwight.”

She stared at him. “And how come you know about them? And to what end are you ‘collecting’ effigies of them to begin with?”

Kazuya grinned nervously. “It would have been a total waste not to get them, Rionne-sama. It was a special release featuring the Twentieth Battle for the Ashen Graves—”

A frown, more irritated and angry than puzzled now. “‘Special release’? You’re spouting nonsense.”

“Yes, Rionne-sama. This figure was also part of that collection.” Kazuya forgot his nervousness to point proudly at another ‘effigy’ depicting Rionne.

The elf paled a bit, her memory jolted by what she saw. The figure was clothed in the same delicately majestic dress she was now wearing, except that it was in tatters. The figure’s teeth were tightly clenched, bloodstains all over it, and it wielded the same naginata-like staff now in her hands, but soaked in blood.

“I have yet to hear how did you come to know about all of this.”

“Hold on, I’ll—I’ll show you.” Kazuya walked to his desk and searched the bookshelves above it. He took one and offered it eagerly to Rionne. “Here! This is the special edition for the—”

“I gather,” she interrupted him curtly. The artwork on the cover matched the pose and clothing of the figure depicting her partly soaked in blood. “I am aware I have large and magnetic eyes, but why depict all characters with such exaggerated features?” She asked sharply. “Is this a peculiar art style I am not familiar with?”

“It’s called ‘manga’, and it’s very popular with young people like me. And not so young, too,” Kazuya corrected himself with a chuckle, then gestured at the bookshelves. “See the books on the lowest shelf? That’s all your story.”

Rionne paled further when she counted twenty-six volumes. With a gesture of her hand, the book Kazuya had given her hovered before her; another flick, and it opened. The illustrations inside were drawn in the same style as the two effigies.

And her ferociously keen need to know slowly started giving way to unease. “This is a chronicle of…” She turned a few pages, and she froze in place. “I was sworn to silence over this, never to reveal Tealoth had urged the threadwights to come to my aid. Not even the other Silver Archmasters knew of this.” A few pages further, and she turned completely white before a surge of indignation possessed her: “How dare they put my privacy on display like this! How did they know of Lucern and me? And for the love of the Saint, how did they… invade our intimacy thus?! Not even an avatar of the Tapestry could have pierced the veils I placed to protect that moment! How do they know about all of this?!”

Kazuya raised his hands defensively again, shaken by her outburst. “Eh… check the cover… the author’s name is written there…”

Rionne did as he suggested. “I need to find this Shinichiro Katsumasa.”

“Uh—I can find out,” he offered, sitting on his desk and turning on his computer. The device at once attracted her attention, but right now the urge to learn more about this person who seemed to know so much about her was too strong.

Kazuya looked up the author on the internet. “Let's see… he lives in Yokohama now—that’s a nearby city.” He opened a page. “This picture is from last year.”

She methodically scanned the picture, as if trying to commit the details to memory. “How faithful is this depiction?”

Kazuya blinked. “Uh… that's how he looks, Rionne-sama. This is a photo.”

She blinked in turn. “A ‘photo.’”

“Eh, um—instant pictures of things. You create them with this.” He lifted his phone and turned on the camera. “Could you—just for a second—” He took a picture of Rionne, then turned the device around and showed it to her.

The elf stared at the phone for a moment. “You mean to say—you have an artifact that can create instantaneous illustrations?”

“Almost everyone has a cellphone.” He searched his photo gallery app for a specific image, then showed it to her: “Look at this!”

The picture showed both Kazuya and the person Rionne was interested in. Kazuya was proudly holding the volume he had given the elf. She glared at him angrily: “Why didn’t you reveal earlier that you know this person?”

“Huh? I don’t, Rionne-sama. He just signed my copy of his book. See?” He pointed at the scribbling etched on the cover. “I was very lucky. The meet and greet tickets ran out in minutes! Lots of people were very pissed—”

“‘Lots of people.’” Her voice was very quiet. “Are you implying… how many people know about this?”

Kazuya misread her spectacularly. “Rionne-sama, millions of people love your story! The event where I met Katsumasa-sensei—just that one had almost 200,000 visitors!”

Rionne froze. Her breath was stilted, her knuckles as white as the staff she was grasping.

“Are you implying—thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of men, share your devotion for me? As if I were the Saint herself? Each and every last one of them knows my deepest secrets and vows and failures? And that occurs because they happened to read a picture book relating my tale as if it were an amusing fantasy story?! Do you have the slightest idea of how DEGRADING that is?!”