Part 3 Prologue: Dawn's Meeting

The musky hues of the cloud covered morning sky sat overhead. Below her, flames billowed from the seaside town. The sound of swords clashing against steel, the screams of the resistors, and the destruction of the buildings reached up the mountainside to her ears.

A sinister grin danced across Ruby’s face as she took in the destruction.

“This is their comeuppance for daring to deny us passage across the channel.”

Behind Ruby were two of her advisors. To the right was Alec, his face as stone cold as when they had arrived. He would never show any dissatisfaction with her actions in front of others. Of course, she would get an earful the next time the two of them were alone.

But to the left was the one she aimed her words at. A spineless advisor who was only there because of their prior knowledge of Kyoku. When she first ordered the attack on the village, he was the only one to argue against her. Even now, his hands shook with fury aimed at her. The man hated the carnage he was witnessing in front of him.

“I…” The man was about to speak up, but was cut off by a quick jab to his side from Alec. “But!” He turned to the other advisor. Only instead of Alec, it was Ruby who turned around to face the advisor.

With her attention turned to him, he succumbed to the pressure and flinched, hiding his face behind his arm.

“But what? My orders are absolute for the rebellion. If you wish to deny them… then do you wish to die?”

The advisor, too scared to talk, simply shook his head before racing out of her presence.

Only once he was out of sight did Ruby let out a long sigh. Her shoulders drooped as she let go of the aura of authority she had been keeping together.

The only other person there was Alec, who had long known this side of her. She glanced over at him knowing full well that he had something to say now that they were alone.

“Why attack the village? They would’ve become our people eventually.” Instead of completely bashing her plan like Ruby had been expecting, Alec posed it as a question.

“An example had to be made. If not here, another village.” Ruby looked back out towards the coastline. “Kyoku will never give itself up without a fight. We have to show them that we are willing to go as far as we need to.” If she could’ve avoided a fight, Ruby would’ve. But the reputation of Kyoku’s leader, the Shogun, was well known. He would fight to protect his people, no matter what. He would never simply let them go.

“And this village is the least populated…” Alec had connected the dots and realized Ruby’s true intention. She had specifically chosen this fishing village because it was the newest, and therefore the smallest, of the fishing villages.

Ruby turned around to find Alec looking away from her. At the spot he was looking at, a pillar of light appeared next to an ever growing shadow on the ground.

From each a man appeared. They were nearly identical. The only difference was the color of their hair and eyes. The one that came from the pillar of light had white hair and eyes, while the one that came from the shadows had black hair and eyes. They both wore dark cloaks that covered the rest of their features.

“Ah. Solus, Orpheus. You two are back at the exact same time, huh?” Ruby greeted the two Spirit Kings with a small bow. She hadn’t been expecting either of them back for another day or two. What news had they brought of their respective jobs?

“No need for the formalities, Queen Ruby. You are technically our boss, remember?” Solus waved away Ruby’s bow with a wave of his hand and a quick remark. His quiet companion simply gave her a small bow in return. “Eh, whatever. I got some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?”

“Good first, please.” Ruby was hopeful that the good news was exactly what she wanted to hear.

“Crystal is dead. Injected with her poison.”

For once, Ruby genuinely smiled. There was a sinister tint to it, but for her it was filled with pure joy. While she was a clone of Crystal’s, she had always opposed the Blood Elfs view on how the world and Irradiation should interact. Hearing that her creator was dead lifted Ruby’s spirits immensely. There was nothing that Solus could say that would be able to deny this joy.

“And the bad?”

“Crystallia is still intact. In fact, an Ito was crowned as its ruler now.”

Hearing that, Ruby looked back at the ocean, or more accurately across the ocean. To the landmass that sat there. The mainland for the country of Kyoku.

The Ito’s were a line of famous warriors from that country. They even used to be the rulers of it. For one to be named as the Crown Ruler of another city… Ruby wondered if the Ito’s still in Kyoku knew of this development.

“We should quicken our pace then. Don’t want them ruining our plans.”

As she declared her intent, a loud roar rang out from the mountains behind Ruby. She looked up and saw a large wing disappearing into the clouds high above.

“Was that a prophecy for our future, M’kara?” Ruby whispered into the morning sky.

The rain had lasted for two whole days after Crystal’s death. During that time, Crystallia had worked to rebuild much of the damage that had been done. Rust drowned himself in work, forcing his grief to the side.

With his help, the townspeople had gained much improved housing. No longer were their buildings primarily wood. Stone had taken over the primary material used for buildings and the defensive wall built around Crystalia.

Sarman himself had helped around the town quite a bit. Wherever there was help needed, he had found himself there. It helped him take his mind off of the poison used to kill the former monarch. The same poison that had taken his mother’s life two centuries prior.

Now that the rain had subsided, Sarman found himself in the central tower of the castle. The room he was in was wide and mostly empty besides some royal decorations and a simple throne that sat in the center of the room. Cyril had said that it was the queen’s audience chamber.

But the person that Sarman was looking for wasn’t there.

“...”

A sound came from above him. Sarman looked for a staircase that Nic had told him about. Apparently the queen’s bedchambers were directly above her audience chamber.

“She made it just for you. She was going to give it to you before you left, but… well…”

Sarman could hear someone talking as he ascended the stairs. As soon as he could see into the circular room, he saw the person he was looking for.

Yuuki was standing in front of a closeted dresser. Next to her was one of the castle maids, an elf with fiery red hair.

In her hands, Yuuki was holding an elegant royal purple dress. It looked fit for a queen, but matched Yuuki’s eyes shade for shade. Sarman could realize it just by looking at the dress. He had seen Yuuki’s eyes enough to know what shade of purple they were.

The dress looked to be woven from a fine silk. From what little Sarman could see from it, there were no sleeves and the back seemed to be open as well.

“I don’t know. I can’t accept something as fancy…”

“No no no. It’s yours already. No talk about accepting it. You should wear it when you need to take care of your duties as our queen.”

The maid was trying to push the dress onto the wavering Yuuki. Sarman could tell from her dropped shoulders that Yuuki really meant it when she said she didn’t want the dress. From what she had been telling him prior to Crystal’s death, Sarman was fairly confident in assuming that she blamed herself entirely.

Accepting the dress probably felt like an admission of guilt to her.

That was why, “You should wear it. I think you'd look stunning.” That was why Sarman would give her his own push.

Both Yuuki and the maid quickly turned around at his voice. Yuuki’s face was full of confusion while the emotion only briefly glanced over the maid’s face. Instead, her face got red as a fire ball appeared in her hands.

“Who are you? You’re not allowed to be in here!” She had quickly gotten into a defensive position in front of her queen. The dedication to her job was admirable.

“Linda, it’s fine.” Yuuki tried to get the maid, Linda, to stand down, but was instead met with a barrage of her own.

“Fine? This is the queen’s quarters! You can’t just let some nobody in. Especially a nobody that isn’t even from Crystalia.” Sarman chuckled at the nobody comment. It was even funnier since a flaming lizard was currently sitting beneath the maid’s hand. It had seen the small fireball and thought it was a snack.

Impatient and tired of waiting for the maid to take notice of it, Salamander jumped onto her arm and ate the small fireball in front of her face.

“Salamander, that’s enough.” Sarman called out for the spirit king. Hearing its name come out of his mouth, the maid was slack-jawed in response. Sarman let the spirit jump back onto his own shoulder before addressing the maid herself. “As you can see, I’m not just a ‘nobody’. And, I’m also your queen’s oldest friend.”

Linda looked to Yuuki for confirmation, who simply nodded her head in confirmation.

“I trust Sarman. He won’t do anything to me.” With Yuuki’s reassurance, Linda finally relaxed. Without so much as another word to the two old friends, she scurried past Sarman and down the steps.

Sarman gave her a small apologetic nod as she passed by. Once she was gone, he turned back to Yuuki who had sat down on the large bed in the middle of the room.

“This was your first time up here since that day, wasn’t it?” Sarman walked over and sat next to Yuuki after she motioned to him that it was fine for him to sit. She still had the purple dress in her hands. She barely looked away from it as Sarman spoke.

“I… It’s hard being up here.” Yuuki could barely talk in a whisper. Her voice was stretched too thin as she held back the emotions surely swirling through her heart. “I still can’t believe that Crystal is…”

“Do you blame yourself?” Sarman knew what the silence he got in return meant. She had blamed herself for everything that happened to the city before. Of course she would find herself at fault for the death of the city's monarch. Sarman reached out and pulled Yuuki into his chest. “You don’t need to blame yourself.”

“But!”

“No buts. I can’t blame myself or my father for my mother's death. And you can’t blame yourself for Crystal’s. If you want to blame someone, blame whoever made that poison.” Sarman still remembered what Salamander had said that day. The poison that Crystal had been stabbed with- it was also the poison that had taken his mother’s life when he was still a baby.

Yuuki stayed quiet as she listened to Sarman. She didn’t offer any words of her own, just the quiet sniffling caused by the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“When I find the person responsible for the poison… I’ll let you know and we can kill him together.” It was a vow that Sarman was making in his heart. He alone knew what it was like to lose someone dear to that incurable poison. He alone knew what she was going through. How powerless she must feel. So no matter what, he would let her get revenge as well. No matter who they would find at the end of the search.

Yuuki nodded. She also agreed with Sarman’s personal vow. But she wasn’t going to let it go without her own input. “It won’t be you who finds him. It will be us.”

Sarman looked at her in surprise. She had been named queen of a city. Yuuki wouldn’t have the time to search for herself.

“You’re queen of this city now. Do you really have time to search?”

“Sarman, I can’t stay here. Not now. I need time away from Crystalia.”

Sarman stayed quiet. He could understand her wanting to get away from the place that Crystal died.

Maybe having her stay with them for a bit longer would be best for her.

And it would mean that he wouldn’t have to have that dreaded conversation about her leaving yet.

“In that case I should let you in on our plans…”