Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter: Volume 12 E-Book

Riku Nanano

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 293

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Mere days remain until the church’s designs on the city of water reach fruition. With no allied army on the way, Allen and Lydia prepare to fight alone against an array of deadly foes: a vampire who nearly killed them once before, a master of taboo sorcery, a lethal swordswoman, and two noblemen who hold the city in their grip. Behind them all looms the enigmatic Saint, who always seems to stay a step ahead of her opponents. Even victory on the battlefield may prove meaningless if Allen fails to unravel her schemes. But just when the odds seem insurmountable, the cavalry arrives in the form of Allen’s young students. Fresh from storming an impregnable fortress, the girls can’t wait to prove their worth and save their tutor. But how much difference can they make in this clash of legends? And can Allen bear to send them into battle, even with his own life on the line?

Leseprobe

Prologue

“What a nuisance! Any respectable assailant would have the decency to let that slow her down a little!”

I, Regina Rondoiro, clucked in irritation as every one of the Divine Water Spears I’d set along the spiral staircase leading underground evaporated harmlessly in the face of my pursuer’s potent barrier. The last rays of the Lightningday sun fell through a window on the sneering face of my attacker—an attractive woman in a black dress wearing a broad-brimmed black hat and carrying a black umbrella.

Despite the fury her scorn inspired, I tightened my grip on my staff and took off down the stairs, strengthening my limbs with all the magic I possessed as I continued ever deeper into the earth. The flight took its toll on my old body.

I ruled the Principality of Rondoiro in the south of the League of Principalities. This ruined church towered atop a cliff on the outskirts of my capital. The league was currently embroiled in a fruitless war with the Wainwright Kingdom, and three other southern marchesi who desired peace had met me here in secret to set it back on the right path. But while we had discussed our march on the city of water, the Church of the Holy Spirit had struck.

I never expected them to steal a march on us before the Committee of Thirteen meets on Darknessday!

Our foes numbered only two. They should have posed no problem. Old though we were, we had fought our way through two of the Southern Wars, and we’d trusted our strength to turn the tables on any ordinary assassins. But that confidence had frozen solid the moment we’d laid eyes on the beauty in black and her attendant—a girl in the distinctive hooded gray robe of a church inquisitor.

The woman’s crescent earring had glinted as she turned her silver eyes and the tarnished-silver hair that fell to her waist a bloody crimson.

“I am Alicia ‘Crescent Moon’ Coalfield, the one and only lieutenant of the great Shooting Star,” she had announced to our rattled assembly. “I must insist that you die. The Saint’s word is law.”

Crescent Moon! A monster to match her fellow lieutenant, the Emerald Gale! Who could have imagined her working with the church, let alone rendering herself a vampire?!

Pierced by her elated crimson gaze, we had immediately understood. If we stood our ground, we would all die. And if we fell, the Church of the Holy Spirit, pulling the strings of our pro-war peers, might well shatter the league itself. So while our few guards risked their lives to stall the attackers, the other three marchesi and I had chosen to part ways and retreat at once. Thus, only the fearsome vampire pursued me now.

I made for the lowest level, seeding the stone ceiling, walls, and stairs with water spells in passing. I sensed them going off behind me in rapid succession as I dashed into an empty, windowless subterranean hall where hundreds had once gathered in prayer. A jolt from above shook the mana lamps on the walls and the seven great columns carved in the likenesses of the World Tree and seven dragons. My three peers were battling the gray-robed girl on the upper levels.

“Old age does no one any favors,” I grumbled, scowling. “I get winded in no time at all. I should have dumped my title on Roa and retired early.”

Thinking of my granddaughter in the city of water, I raised my staff and stealthily cast a spell.

I can’t afford to die here. Not when I have so much left to teach her.

Part of the ceiling came crashing down, and the umbrella-wielding woman in black dropped into the hall. I’d planted more than a hundred spells in her path, yet there wasn’t a scratch on her.

Monster!

“Are you done playing tag?” she asked. “In that case, I suppose you won’t mind if I kill you.”

“Big talk,” I said. “But you won’t find that so easy!”

Carvings covered one whole wall. The World Tree spread its boughs over a lone man. I glimpsed a winged whale with the water and flower dragons as well. The mural recounted the city of water’s ancient past. Mentally, I recited a prayer that the head of my house had taught me when I was young.

May the elementals and the dragons bless my old bones. O World Tree, give me courage to surpass that of the last principe.

“You leave yourself too open to call yourself Crescent Moon,” I taunted the freak. “Do you think I’ve just been running? Or that you’re invincible? You’re in for a rude awakening!”

“Me, leave myself open?” The woman’s lips curled in a chuckle, and she raised the brim of her hat. Her crimson gaze held scorn. “I think you mean I know my own strength, Marchesa Regina Rondoiro the Impaler. Now, won’t you make your peace and die quickly? You’d spare yourself pain.”

Vampires had no weaknesses worth mentioning. The Hero and Dark Lord were their only natural enemies. And to make matters worse, night was closing in to magnify her already bottomless mana. Her bare hands would shred me if we fought at close quarters. But what of it?

“You don’t say. But Scarlet Heaven wouldn’t bother chasing us down—she would have finished us with a Firebird before we knew what hit us,” I said, pointing my staff at her. I needed to buy time. “And your old comrade the Emerald Gale would have lopped off my head before I left the council chamber.”

The woman paused. “Your point being?” she asked coldly while her dusky crimson mana swelled. No ordinary spell would pierce her defenses.

“Simple, Miss ‘Living Legend.’” I gave my staff a twirl, my spells complete. “Your mana, strength enhancement, and combat techniques all strike fear. But no truly skilled warrior, much less a veteran of the War of the Dark Lord, ever lowers her guard, even for a moment. You don’t strike me as someone with two centuries or more of combat experience. So, who are you?! And I hope you won’t say, ‘The Saint’s dog.’”

“I am Alicia ‘Crescent Moon’ Coalfield,” she replied in tones reminiscent of a freezing blizzard. “Are you quite done now? Then die!” The beauty kicked off the ground, the tip of her black umbrella flashing a dull gleam.

She’d taken the bait.

“You die!” I shouted, fortifying my old limbs with all the mana I could muster as I swung my staff in a wide arc. An instant later, all the magic I’d woven into the underground hall activated at once! More than twenty dark-gray casts of the advanced spell Ocean Orb closed in on the vampire from all sides.

“You’re wasting your time!” Alicia snapped. She must have placed absolute faith in her barrier because she continued her charge, not even trying to dodge and making a mess of her uncanny crimson-silver hair.

I read you like a book!

I slammed the ferrule of my staff onto the stone floor, and the vampire gasped in surprise as every orb burst before touching her defenses. Leaden water splattered everywhere, filling the hall ankle-deep. Confusion slowed the monster.

I curled my lips, gave my staff another wide swing, and roared, “Consider this a lesson, nameless vampire! On the battlefield, complacency invites death!”

No sooner had Alicia’s eyes widened than the water formed countless razor-sharp spears. Concentrating on a single point, they finally broke through the monster’s mighty barrier and skewered her heart. She coughed blood, but I didn’t let up.

“There’s more where that came from!” I shouted, running the vampiress through with over a dozen more spears.

Seven elements of magic saw common use in the present day: fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, light, and darkness. The addition of ice completed the eight classical elements. Yet many more had existed in the ancient world, and this magic invoked one of them—the element of steel. I called it Sable Stream of Steel Spears. I had studied ancient spell books passed down in my house to develop and then perfect the composite spell, whose fearsome penetrative power had earned me the nickname “Impaler.”

My magic finished, and I fell to one knee, gasping for breath. Pushing my mana so hard must have taken years off my life. Before me, the beauty in black hung still and limp from my spears, drenched in her own blood.

“It looks like your lack of combat experience came back to bite you,” I gloated, standing with the help of my staff. “I’d love to know who you really were, but now’s not the time.”

At some point during our clash, the jolts from above had subsided. The other three marchesi wouldn’t give up the ghost easily. Still, I frowned and muttered, “I can’t fight another church assassin in this state. The Nitti boy’s warning was right—this is no time for squabbling about whether we make peace with the Leinsters. I’d better speak with Pirro and Nieto soon.”

I glanced at the vampiress, but she didn’t so much as twitch. Only her fresh blood moved, running down my spears into a growing pool on the floor.

Should I withdraw at once or return to aid my allies? I deliberated only a fraction of a second before tightening my grip on my staff. Regina Rondoiro would never abandon old comrades!

I walked toward the partially collapsed entrance, whipping my heavy limbs into action. The vampiress didn’t move. Then I sensed someone land behind me. I turned to see a girl in a hooded gray robe, her right hand gripping a long sword of a type I’d never seen before. Sinister, fiendish mana rose from the crimson-stained edge of its gently curved blade. No mortal hand could wield such a weapon.

“Since you’re here,” I said, raising my staff and glaring, “I’m guessing they’re dead.”

“Yes. They fought bravely,” the girl answered calmly. She was younger than I’d thought—maybe even younger than my granddaughter. And I couldn’t read the flow of her mana.

She pointed at me. “And you will soon follow them.”

“Ha! For your information, I won’t—”

A terrible chill shot down my spine. I threw myself sideways, trying to cast a spell. But while I narrowly avoided a blow to the neck, searing pain in my left arm drew a startled cry from my lips. My magical defenses tore like paper, and my scrawny arm flew through the air, shriveling before my eyes as the mana was sucked out of it. I tumbled to the floor, then raised myself to one knee and swiftly cast a fire spell, gritting my teeth while I cauterized the wound. Vampiric attacks impeded healing magic.

Alicia lapped the remaining blood from my left arm with an elegant smile. The spears still impaling her cracked and crumbled. Crimson mana writhed over the vampiress, instantly closing the holes in her chest and gut. It even mended her coal-black dress.

“Splendid,” she said, clapping politely. “I enjoyed the bout at Seven Dragons Plaza, but dueling a veteran sorceress has charms all its own. Don’t you agree, Viola?”

“Perhaps milady could stand to take a little less pleasure in every battle,” the girl replied stiffly.

“Oh, really. What a horrid suggestion.” The vampiress giggled, then opened her umbrella and twirled it, for all the world like a cruel little girl. Revolting.

I stood, leaning on my staff, and groaned, “You ate my spears and my mana? You really are a monster.”

Before Alicia could answer, the girl called Viola slowly shook her head. “You displayed truly magnificent technique,” she said with respect and pity. “Doubtless you would have survived had you faced anyone except Lady Alicia and me—Viola Kokonoe, servant of Her Holiness the Saint. Though you do not share our faith, I do not wish to make you suffer. Please cease resisting. I will give you a painless death.”

The ridiculous offer hung in the air for a few moments. Then I gave a snort and began deploying my next spell. The pain in my left arm dulled as my analgesic magic finally kicked in.

I can do this!

I struck the floor with the staff that had stood by me through decades of fighting. Drawing on the last of my mana, I sealed off the entire subterranean hall. A magic circle emerged.

“What have we here?” the beauty asked, cocking her head.

The girl gave a start. “You laced this into the spells you cast earlier?!”

“Did you think taking my left arm sealed your victory?” I scoffed. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

After killing me, they plan to do something horrible in the city of water. So, as a marchesa of the league, I have a duty to stop them!

As all the mana I could muster converged, an image of my dear granddaughter’s tear-streaked face flashed through my mind, though she must have been fighting the good fight in the city of water.

Sorry, Roa. Try to take it from here.

“I am Regina Rondoiro, ruler of Rondoiro, a principality of the league. I can’t suffer threats to my homeland to live, so I’ll make sure you die with me!”

The next instant, a light like I’d never before experienced engulfed my view.

✽

The elderly sorceress’s spell had barely begun to activate when Lady Alicia grabbed my hand and pulled me behind her open umbrella. The sorceress must have gambled her life on this final blow, but Lady Alicia’s barrier defied comparison, so her power broke against it.

By the time it all ended, half of the disused church had collapsed. Even the underground hall had lost most of its ceiling and floor, and I could hear crashing surf from the ocean that filled the pitch-dark expanse below us. The aged sorceress could never have survived that fall after losing an arm.

“I thought she would entertain me by fighting to the bitter end,” Lady Alicia said, resting her left index finger on her cheek in puzzlement. “Did I get my hopes up for nothing? I wanted to enjoy myself a little longer. But for now...” She gave me a smile so gentle that I could hardly believe she had been raging moments earlier. “Well done, Viola, dear. I see you’ve improved again.”

I nodded and sheathed my blade.

“I was so pleased to see that ōdachi shine again after such a long time,” Lady Alicia mused, waxing nostalgic as her hair and eyes returned to silver. “Kōkoku is a masterpiece. The way it gleams seems to suck me in. I remember how close it came to killing me during the War of the Dark Lord.”

I didn’t know how to respond. The ōdachi had supposedly been in my family since gods had walked the world, but I didn’t know my own parents, let alone my extended family. I had no idea how Her Holiness had come to possess it and bestow it on me, and I didn’t care to find out. I would simply defend the Saint and slay Her Holiness’s enemies, nothing more.

“Now no one from the League of Principalities will stand against us,” Lady Alicia stated. “The only ones who might try...”

“Are the defective key and the Lady of the Sword,” I said.

“I can hardly wait!” The formidable legend who ranked so high in Her Holiness’s confidence let out a cheerful laugh.

I would have preferred to avoid fighting difficult opponents, but I held my tongue. I had joined forces with Lady Alicia on direct orders from Her Holiness, and I didn’t want to antagonize my partner.

I heard wingbeats. Looking up, I saw a small bird made of black flower petals alight on Lady Alicia’s shoulder.

“Well now,” she murmured.

“What does Io say?” I asked, feeling sick as I spoke the name. Her Holiness had chosen Io Lockfield as the second-highest-ranking apostle of the Church of the Holy Spirit, yet the self-proclaimed “greatest sorcerer on the continent” lacked any reverence whatsoever.

Lady Alicia lowered the brim of her black hat and replied, “He’s done the minimum work expected of him—killing Robson Atlas in the Fortress of Seven Towers. Having lost its last support, the Principality of Atlas will break from the league, just as she planned. None of the northern principalities have the strength left to interfere in the city of water, and the Leinsters will be too busy dealing with them to spare many troops. That leaves Carnien, Pisani, and Nitti, but the forces they can field won’t amount to much. The scary old Hero and the dragons are what we have to worry about.”

Alicia “Crescent Moon” Coalfield was strong. In terms of raw combat prowess, she might even have been the mightiest on the continent. But even so, she would be hard-pressed if the Hero and a dragon arrived at the same time.

I dismissed the thought and said, “We’ve achieved our objective—eliminating the four southern marchesi who formed the core of the pro-peace faction. Now their supporters won’t obstruct us next Darknessday. I suggest we return to the city of water and—”

Another bird landed on Lady Alicia’s shoulder—a gray one this time.

“Oh?” she said.

A stone bird? I pondered. Ah!

No sooner had my dim wits reached the answer than I dropped to one knee and lowered my head. Looking up would have been blasphemous, so I waited there while Lady Alicia’s voice came down to me.

“She says she’ll visit the city of water as well. To unseal the black gate...and because she ‘wants to see his face.’”

I looked up at the black-clad beauty with a start. I couldn’t grasp her meaning, but it didn’t concern me anyway. I would defend Her Holiness—the savior to whom I owed my life. Nothing else mattered!

Lady Alicia gazed up at the starry sky through a hole in the ceiling. A comet and a crescent moon twinkled overhead. “The new Shooting Star and the Lady of the Sword ignored my warning and lingered in the city. What naughty children! Just as she foretold. Still...” Intense envy crossed the black-clad beauty’s face as she spoke of those she was bound to kill. “They wouldn’t be worthy to inherit a champion’s legacy otherwise. Let’s pay them a visit and settle the score.”

Chapter 1

“So the title ‘principe’ did exist here, but almost no documents in the city preserve details of the last person to hold it, and even speaking of them is taboo? Their sentence went beyond execution to damnatio memoriae?”

“Yes. Apart from that, I remember only an old prayer that goes, ‘Give me courage to surpass that of the last principe.’ Does that help at all, Allen?” Niccolò asked nervously, his eyes downcast. The second son of the league’s vaunted House of Nitti had pale-blue hair and a build so slight it seemed girlish. His lovely companion, Tuna—a part-elven girl wearing an aqua maid uniform—looked equally worried.

“Of course it does,” I said. “Between this and that memo from the archive you deciphered, I’m constantly putting myself in your debt.”

“N-Not at all. I rely on your protection.” The boy in the church’s sights looked cheerful, although he still fidgeted. I wished that his older brother, Niche, would learn from his example.

We sat in the new city, in a nameless hideaway amid the ruins on the outskirts of the beastfolk settlement Cat Alley. Water burbled up in the center of the tree-ringed courtyard. Butterflies and small birds flitted about a profusion of blooming flowers. The stone building itself seemed to have served to lodge distinguished visitors before it became half submerged, and it possessed the stately dignity of a temple. Moss grew over its timeworn walls.

Two days ago, on Windday evening, we had repulsed an attack by church inquisitors and the Nittis’ revenge-mad old steward, Toni Solevino, at the Nitti archive in the old city. We’d been at a loss for where else to go until Zig of the otter clan, leader of the city’s beastfolk, had offered us this refuge.

For the past little while, the spacious courtyard had been playing host to a mock duel between a scarlet-haired young woman—my partner, Lydia Leinster, the Lady of the Sword—and the Leinster Maid Corps’s number six, Cindy, whose long milk-white hair fluttered around her. I could hear them now.

“Lady Lydia, h-have you considered restraint?”

“Whining won’t save you, Cindy!”

A few days earlier, we had clashed with Alicia “Crescent Moon” Coalfield—a lieutenant of the War of the Dark Lord’s greatest hero, Shooting Star, now fallen into vampirism. Although we had narrowly succeeded in fighting her off, Lydia had overexerted her mana, leaving her in no condition for another battle. She was currently whipping herself back into shape.

“Let’s go over local legends next,” I said, returning my gaze to the boy. “Atra read a picture book in the Grand Library. It showed two dragons, one blue and the other with a body and wings made of trees, that—”

“E-Excuse me, Allen, sir! I have a favor to ask of you!” Niccolò jerked his head up and fixed me with an earnest stare.

“R-Really, you don’t need to be so formal with—”

“D-Don Niccolò?!” Tuna cried as an errant surge of mana knocked the boy into a daze.

Perhaps this exercise was too intense for him.

I was still watching Tuna nurse Niccolò back to consciousness when a little fox-eared girl with a violet ribbon in her long white hair dashed out of the house and hopped into my lap. Atra the Thunder Fox, one of the Eight Great Elementals, seemed delighted to be wearing her hair in pigtails for a change.

“Atra, who—?”

“Saki!” she chirped in her musical voice.

“Saki did your hair?” I said. “It looks great.”

Atra beamed.

Saki, who shared Cindy’s post as the Leinster Maid Corps’s number six, was guarding the house’s perimeter for us. The gray plumage mingled with her own gorgeous black hair was her most striking feature.

I was savoring the warm fuzzies when a violent gust blew up in front of me. The air shook as Lydia gleefully drove her enchanted sword, Cresset Fox, against the grimacing Cindy’s pair of black knives. I went back to admiring the child, who held her hair down, before lifting a glass in both hands and gulping down ice water with gusto. Then Cindy let me have it.

“No more maid abuse! I demand better working conditions! Mr. Allen, the least you could do is sweep Lady Lydia off her feet and put a stop to her tyr—”

The maid’s wail turned into a shriek as she failed to endure the onslaught and went flying. Lydia, meanwhile, stood languidly in her swordswoman’s attire, not bothering to press her advantage. She looked the very model of a young Leinster lady.

Four mighty ducal houses occupied the north, east, south, and west of our homeland, the Wainwright Kingdom, and the royal blood in their veins earned each duke and his offspring the style “Highness.” At the moment, I felt Lydia lived up to the honor.

While wiping Atra’s mouth with a handkerchief, I probed for mana. Saki had erected wards of concealment so flawless that not even the church’s apostles would discover us anytime soon. Our problem was the jamming of magical communications that blanketed the whole city once again. The Fortress of Seven Towers had fallen, securing our ability to contact the Leinsters, yet we remained isolated in enemy territory.

The child made to curl up on my lap. I was stroking her when a desperate wail rent the air.

“H-Hello?! Please stop taking it easy and help meee!”

Cindy had held her own against Toni two nights ago. Now, however, she raced around the courtyard as fast as her legs would carry her, pursued by Lydia’s fusillade of fireballs.

“A-Allen,” a pale-faced Niccolò pleaded on her behalf.

“I suppose you have a point,” I said. “Niccolò, please look after Atra.”

The child on my lap piped a happy note as I cast a levitation spell on her. Once she was safe in Niccolò’s hands, I gripped my enchanted rod, Silver Bloom, and stood up. No sooner had the butt of it touched the ground than...

“Hey! Do you mind?” Lydia snapped.

“Take your complaints to Cindy. She asked for help,” I said as magical beasts crackled into being around her. My lightning lions pounced on the noblewoman en masse.

“I knew you’d come through, Mr. Allen!” Cindy cried, readying her knives for another round. “As an older woman, I’d be happy to—”

“No, thank you. I value my life.”

“Oh, you big tease!” The maid laughed merrily as she kicked off the stone wall that surrounded the house and engaged Lydia again. Joining in the lion’s assault, she locked blades with the Lady of the Sword.

Saki amazes me, but Cindy is no slouch either!

While I stood in awe, Atra tugged on my left sleeve from her spot in Niccolò’s arms. “Allen, Allen!” she cried, pointing excitedly at the lions, which stuck to hit-and-run tactics, staggering their repeated strikes at Lydia. The child’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Lightning was hardly the safest element. So, recalling the princess’s familiar from our time together at the Royal Academy, I conjured a pure-white wolf. Atra charged the moment Niccolò set her on the ground and buried her little face in its furry belly.

“Fluffy!” she cried.

Simply, utterly adorable. I won’t hear a word to the contrary.

Tuna broke into a smile as well, and a commotion broke out among the maids watching from afar.

“Ah! My heart.”

“What a little darling.”

“My fatigue is just melting away!”

“Please look over here, Miss Atra!”

“We must show the girls standing watch later!”

I wondered if their unified response to cuteness stemmed from a certain head maid’s instruction.

In the midst of the clamor, Niccolò muttered something under his breath. (“Magical creatures of light are notoriously difficult to control, yet he made it look easy while conjuring creatures of another element at the same time.”) Boys his age must have no end of worries.

I was just about to resume my seat when Cindy, keeping her distance from Lydia, turned and called, “Mr. Allen! Mr. Allen!” My lions seemed a touch nervous too.

“Yes?” I replied.

“Well, you see, I c-can’t exactly defend against this spell, so...”

A great bird of flame wheeled over Lydia’s stately head, flapping white-hot wings. The supreme spell Firebird was the Leinsters’ trump card, and this one boasted enhanced power, tuned for our rematch with Alicia. By all rights, she should have needed several attempts to keep it stable, even considering the boost that our shallow mana link gave to her magical control. But to my continued consternation, my partner was an honest-to-goodness prodigy.

“Don’t worry,” I said lightly. “I know you can do it, Cindy! At least, I’m fairly certain. Call it fifty-fifty.”

“You mean you won’t mind if I inform the other young ladies how you and Lady Lydia spent your time in this city?” the maid responded.

I pictured my students and my sister, who must have been in the southern capital at the moment. With a sigh, I dismissed my lightning lions.

The milky-haired maid gave me a perfect salute, then withdrew and threw her arms around the fox-eared child, crying, “Oh, Miss Atra!”

After a cold glance at their frolicking, I returned my attention to the young woman with short scarlet hair. “Don’t you think that’s enough, Lydia?” I chided, dispelling her Firebird with a wave of my left hand.

“What? I thought you were tagging in,” she said, eyes blazing like a predator spying its prey.

Oh dear. She wants to keep going.

We’d been partners since our Royal Academy entrance exam, but I shrugged and said, “Surely Your Highness jests. We’re expecting visitors at any moment, Lady Lydia Leinster.”

“Silly.”

The next instant, she was on me, swinging her sword. I grunted as I blocked with my rod.

“How many times must I tell you that I’m Lydia Alvern now?” she cheerfully corrected me, scattering plumes of pale fire all the while. “You left me behind the day before yesterday. I’d say you need a lesson!”

She unleashed an onslaught of classic Leinster swordplay. Overhead slash into horizontal sweep into thrust.

“I wish you wouldn’t say that while swinging your sword around,” I countered, parrying with my rod. “I mean, I’m but a humble private tutor, hardly fit to spar with the Lady of the—”

“Who are you fooling?!” chorused Niccolò, Tuna, Cindy, and the other maids.

An inexpressible feeling came over me as I trapped the enchanted blade in vines of ice. Lydia had seen it coming and immediately countered with fire, incinerating them in time to jump. She landed behind me with a merciless spinning slash. I couldn’t dodge it, so I cast a hurried spell.

Her blade struck a makeshift Azure Shield and stopped just in the nick of time.

“Lydia,” I said, scowling at the happy noblewoman, “you cut it awfully close just now.”

The scarlet-haired young woman chuckled. “I knew exactly what I was doing.” She gracefully sheathed her sword, then strode up and prodded my cheek, evidently delighted that she’d forced me to draw on her mana.

“Buck up,” she said. “Why the long face?”

“I always look this way.”

“A likely story. How much time do you think I’ve spent watching your face?” Another chuckle. “Victory is mine!”

I groaned. For some unfathomable reason, Lydia liked to make me use her mana. Remembering that she had a birthday next Fireday, I decided to voice my concerns.

“You seem recovered, but are you really?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” she replied. “So...”

“Whoa there.”

Lydia pressed closer, leaning against me. I wasn’t actually in her embrace, but a sweet, floral aroma tickled my nose. The maids burst into ecstatic squeals. Niccolò babbled, and Tuna cautioned him not to look, but Lydia ignored the pair’s amusing banter.

“You can link our mana more deeply without worrying,” she cooed at close quarters. “What are you waiting for?”

“No.”

“You always hold out on me,” Lydia pouted, turning on her heel. The maids immediately formed a line. “Bring tea. And Cindy, you haven’t gotten over your exhaustion yet. The church will make its move on Darknessday, the day after tomorrow, so rest up before then.”

Cindy stopped frolicking and quite literally jumped to her feet. “L-Lady Lydia, I’m not the least bit—”

Lydia dismissed her protest out of hand. Then she turned her glare on me. “Ignore fatigue, and you’ll slip up when it counts. I refuse to lose loyal Leinster servants for such an idiotic reason. Right now, you have a duty to recuperate—and to reflect on how you could possibly have considered sacrificing yourself twice. Am I wrong? Well?”

Cindy and I pressed our hands to our chests to suppress a pang and avoided her gaze. We both knew all too well what she meant.

My ears caught measured footsteps from the house. Saki had arrived. She must have been listening via communication orb because she made a deep, elegant bow and replied, “As you say, Lady Lydia. I will reprimand my younger sister as well.”

“Oh, come on, Saki! No fair!” Cindy protested, marching up to her fellow number six. Atra ran over and hugged the newcomer in imitation. “I know you’d have done the same thing in my shoes! And I’m the older—”

“What I would have done is beside the point. But I believe we decided I am the older sister. Now, what do you have to say for yourself, Miss Took It upon Herself to Guard the Retreat at the Archive?”

Cindy staggered back with a groan, then went off by herself, squatted down on the ground, and started writing with her finger. “You’re all awful,” she whined, adding a loud sniff. “Fine, then. I’m just a hopeless, hotheaded maid who runs off on her own at the drop of a hat.”

Her dejection seemed genuine, but Saki and the other maids ignored her, filing back inside to prepare tea. I glanced at Lydia, who said, “They’re used to it.”

“I see,” I said slowly.

Still, where have I seen someone sulk like this before?

I happened to glance down, and the bracelet on my right arm caught my eye. Lily, the Leinster Maid Corps’s number three, had given it to me in the eastern capital. She and Cindy must have been close.

While I mused, Atra threw her arms around the sulking milky-haired maid. “Cindy! Squeeze!”

“Oh, Miss Atra! You’re my only friend!” Cindy cried, returning the hug. She stood up, spun in place, and then set the child back on the ground with a lovingly tender pat.

“Well then, I’ll help get ready!” she called, saluting before she took off like a shot into the house. I overheard her chatting merrily with Saki, who seemed to have waited alone for her.

A few moments later, the blue-haired boy rose too. “W-We’ll go back inside as well.”

“Please excuse us,” added Tuna.

“Of course,” I said. “Oh, but first, Niccolò...”

Niccolò Nitti gave me a puzzled look.

“May I call you ‘Nick’ from now on?” I asked casually.

“P-Please do!” The boy flushed and nodded repeatedly.

“All right. Nick, I’d like you to continue deciphering that note. You’re my only hope on that front. I’ll call you when our guest arrives.”

“Of course! Let’s go, Tuna!”

“P-Please, Don Niccolò, not so fast,” the girl chimed in as he took her by the hand and left the courtyard.

So her stepfather’s betrayal hasn’t changed the way he treats her one bit. That boy might go places.

Once we were alone, Lydia jabbed her slender finger into the tip of my nose. “Just so we’re clear, the same goes for you. No more overblown self-sacrifice. None!”

“I know,” I said.

“You do not. Oh, honestly.” She puffed up her cheeks slightly and folded her arms. At long last, her mental state seemed to be recovering from the Algren rebellion and the other shocks that had followed.

I repositioned her crooked hair clip, combed her scarlet locks, and said, “How’s the Firebird?”

“Not bad. I’d like to test it out a few more times, but they wouldn’t miss that.”

“No,” I agreed. Saki and her fellow maids had done splendid work laying wards of concealment around this mansion, but if Lydia fully cast a supreme spell, some mana would inevitably leak out. I hoped to avoid more sneak attacks from the church wearing us down. When Lydia and I returned to the battlefield, we would face the fallen legend, Crescent Moon.

I went back under the roof and took a chair. My white wolf howled and then vanished.

“Theoretically, it should work better than it did last time,” I told the young woman sitting on my left.

“But not well enough to win outright,” she said. “We can’t count on even a supreme spell dealing that freak a decisive blow.”

“No, we can’t. So let’s do a little something extra. For instance...” I projected the mana-control formula and battle plan I’d come up with into empty space.

Lydia darted her eyes over them and nodded. Then, dispelling the projection with a dainty finger, she let the faintest hint of unease show on her face. “Not bad. Probably the most powerful blow we can muster right now. But can I—?”

“You can,” I declared. “I know that Lydia Leinster can pull it off.”