Chương 246: 45. Undeclared War 2

The corridor outside the chamber was far quieter than the room we'd left. Quiet enough that stepping into it, I had the strange sensation my ears were still ringing. The Dragon Kingdom's entire shift into wartime, the declaration of war, the alliance, the first wave of reinforcements, and that one word — husband — more than enough by itself to keep the whole capital awake tonight — had all been crammed into my skull at once. For a moment I genuinely didn't know which piece to try processing first.

Ignicia didn't stop. She walked ahead, her pace steady, as if she already knew I'd follow. Of course I followed. What was the alternative — crouching in the middle of a corridor to hold my head and contemplate my life choices? This was the royal palace of the Dragon Kingdom. If I actually tried that, tomorrow's rumors wouldn't stop at the Princess's husband — they'd come with a free supplementary note reading questionable mental stability. She led me to a side room not far from the chamber and pushed the door open.

The room wasn't large, but it was far quieter than I'd expected — none of the council chamber's relentless, high-speed pressure. Just a long table, a few chairs, and early-afternoon light slanting in through a high window. The kind of room built specifically to drag a person's mind back out of wartime mode by force. The door closed behind us. Only then did Ignicia turn. The razor-sharp, near-glacial composure she'd worn in the council chamber had eased back, just a degree.

Not gone — simply shifted into the version of her I knew better. Still herself. Still a fire dragon with a notably short fuse. Just no longer required to phrase every syllable for an audience of ministers. She looked at me.

"What?"

"... What, what?"

"That face." She folded her arms, one eyebrow lifting.

"You look like my father just boxed you up and shipped you straight to the front." I was quiet for two seconds.

"Not like," I said, honestly.

"I believe that's precisely what happened." She actually laughed. Very briefly — barely a flicker at the corner of her mouth — but enough to confirm that, in this room at least, I was temporarily free of a second Emperor-grade pressure source.

"You didn't lose out," she said, as if this were self-evident. I very nearly choked.

"Didn't lose out?"

"You're now the nominal commander of the Dragon Kingdom's first wave of reinforcements," she said, flat.

"My father just elevated you to that position in front of the entire council. Most people couldn't get themselves sold like that even if they begged for it."

"... You call that elevated?"

"What else would you call it?"

"I was leaning toward kidnapped onto the wagon."

"Weren't you planning to go back to Eckhaus anyway?"

"I was. I'd just imagined something more like discussion followed by a decision, not standing there and suddenly being informed I'm already leading an army home." She actually nodded at that.

"Mm. That does sound more like something my father would do."

"You're agreeing with me?"

"Because if you'd given him time to consult you properly, he'd have decided you weren't yet qualified to be used directly."... Fine. That logic tracked perfectly with Dragon Kingdom reasoning. The truly alarming part was that I was starting to find it almost sensible. That, in itself, was worrying. Ignicia walked to the table, tapping her fingers lightly against the wood, as though laying out her next set of arrangements one by one.

"Cedric."

"Mm?" Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"For the next few days, you start with the basics of Riding." I blinked.

"The basics?"

"You were only formally recognized yesterday." Her gaze flicked to the back of my left hand, where the scale sat quietly against my skin, its presence impossible to ignore.

"The bond has begun, but you have almost no idea yet how to use it, how to withstand it, or how to keep yourself from becoming a liability during actual flight and combat." I had no argument for that. If being a Rider genuinely wasn't just a title, my current state amounted to being told yesterday that I could swim, and being pushed out to sea on an expedition today. Her voice dropped, just slightly, as she went on.

"... I'll come find you again tonight." I paused. Oh. I understood. Or rather — I wasn't entirely certain which layer of meaning I'd understood, but I was quite sure the sentence carried more than I'll check on your progress. Especially since, the moment she said it, her gaze slid half an inch to the side in a manner distinctly unlike her. I cleared my throat and did my best not to sound like a man whose thoughts had already gone sprinting in the wrong direction.

"To do what?" Her eyes snapped back at once.

"To stabilize the bond," she said, fast — fast enough to sound rehearsed.

"Your condition isn't steady yet. If today brings a significant emotional swing followed immediately by formal Riding, it's very easy to lose balance."

"Ah."

"... What does that ah mean?"

"Nothing." I looked at her with complete innocence.

"I simply feel that if you'd waited half a second longer to add that explanation, I'd already have been finished off by whatever my own imagination was busy constructing." Her eyes narrowed.

"Cedric."

"Yes."

"You'd do well not to waste effort on strange ideas at a time like this."

"I'd rather not, but some people have a talent for phrasing things in ways that make misunderstanding nearly compulsory."

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"No. I'm simply being honest." She glared at me for a full two seconds. In the end she didn't actually explode — she only let out a short, dismissive sound through her nose, as if deciding I wasn't worth the further expenditure of effort. Then she pulled the conversation back on course.

"There's one more matter." She said.

"Before we depart, we need to visit the Ancestral Grounds to pay our respects." I had only just sat down, and nearly stood straight back up.

"Ancestral—?"

"Yes."

"Wait — is that the 'old custom' your father mentioned?"

"More or less."

"What does 'more or less' mean?"

"Because it isn't only a custom." Her expression, for the first time in this room, turned genuinely serious.

"It's also a rite the royal line must observe before departing to war — especially when a Rider is leaving the realm on his first formal campaign." I was quiet for a moment. Wonderful. I already knew those four words weren't going to mean anything light.

"So what exactly is the Ancestral Grounds?" I asked. Ignicia didn't answer right away. She looked at me first, as if checking whether I was capable of treating what came next as an actual matter of importance, rather than tossing in another cheap joke the way I'd been doing a moment ago. Once she'd confirmed that, she finally spoke, slowly.

"It is the sanctum where the Dragon Kingdom keeps the souls of its past Emperors." Her voice wasn't loud. But when that line landed, the air in the room seemed to still along with it. I frowned.

"... Keeps?"

"Mm." She nodded.

"A dragon's death isn't the same as a human's. Especially for the line of Emperors. Before they fall, each of them leaves a core fragment of their dragon-soul behind in the Ancestral Grounds. Not a complete consciousness. Not a lingering shade that can sit and chat like a living person after death." She paused.

"More like... fire." I watched her. She lowered her gaze slightly, as if searching for a way to put it into terms I could understand.

"It's the will, the memory, the judgment of the past Emperors — and the oldest root of the Dragon Kingdom's crown," she said.

"Most of the time, it lies dormant and doesn't interfere with the outside world. But whenever it concerns royal blood, a major decision of the royal house — especially one tied to a campaign, to succession, to a Rider, anything that shakes the very foundation of the Dragon Kingdom — it answers." A chill crept down my spine.

"When you say answers..." I asked.

"You mean—?" She looked at me, the corner of her mouth moving just a fraction.

"That's exactly why I wasn't keen on my father throwing you at it quite this soon."

"Hey."

"Don't panic." She sounded almost unreasonably calm.

"You won't be bitten to death by the ancestors the moment you step in."

"That has to be the strangest form of reassurance I've ever heard." She ignored that and went on.

"The Ancestral Grounds isn't a graveyard. It isn't a place you visit, burn a few sticks of incense, and walk back out of," she said.

"It is where the past Emperors sleep — and where the royal line must first be watched before they're permitted to carry certain weights."

"And the name of that place—" Her voice stayed soft, but it came through clearer than anything she'd said before.

"—is dragon soul." I stared at her and said nothing. Whether it was only my imagination, in the instant she spoke those words, even the light slanting through the high window seemed to go quiet for a moment. The Soul of the Great Dragon. The name alone carried a weight that felt like it belonged nowhere near mortal hands. I suddenly wanted to take back every uncharitable thought I'd had about the Emperor's "small trial" comment back in the council chamber. No. Not take back. I couldn't.

Because nothing about this sounded even remotely small. Ignicia must have read the thoroughly inelegant thought running across my face, because — in a rare gesture — she added something that almost qualified as comfort.

"At least I'll be there." She said.

"You won't be facing it alone." The words were light. For some reason, precisely because of that, and because of the way she said them, they landed heavier than half the formal oaths I'd heard in the Twilight Audience Hall. I looked at her and finally let out a breath.

"... Fine.""'Fine' meaning what?"

"Meaning," I rubbed at my brow and gave her a helpless look, "I'm apparently going to go poke at something else that sounds like it was never designed for human contact." She finally laughed. More visibly this time, as if the firelight in her eyes had finally broken through.

"Cedric."

"Mm?"

"You stopped being an ordinary human yesterday."... Fair. That one stung. It was also, unfortunately, entirely accurate. I glanced down at the scale lying quietly on the back of my left hand and realized that from the morning she'd bitten me awake, my life had already stepped fully onto a road that wasn't going to turn back.