Chương 263: 51. Three Days of Preparation 2

"It isn't a term," she said quietly.

"It's the minimum expectation I have of your current lifestyle."... Wonderful. Even Yozora had learned to insult people in the gentlest possible way. War really does change things. That afternoon, Lei Lian took me to observe the Dragon Cavalry's full-kit drills.

"Took me to observe" was technically accurate. What it actually meant was: took me to confirm that what I'd be marching alongside in three days was not some legend suitable for a ballad, but a collection of living people who sweat, eat, and get verbally destroyed by their commanding officer when a buckle isn't fastened properly. Six hundred Dragon Cavalry rotated through in groups. Ascent. Banking dive. Low-altitude sweep. Landing and reformation.

The coordination between ground spear formations and mounted aerial units. And the considerably more complex problem of how everyone else was supposed to continue executing orders in the vicinity of someone like Ignicia — who treated strategic-scale fire projection as a basic daily function — without being incinerated in the process. The most dangerous thing about this unit wasn't individual combat ability. It was that they'd been drilled past the point of panic.

They already knew what to do after the princess had acted — not freeze, not scatter, not stand there staring — just move in and cover. A unit like that was genuinely dangerous. When the drill cycle ended, Lei Lian walked over, a trace of sweat at his temple, his voice still clipped as something struck out of stone.

"Three days. This is the best we'll get it to." I looked at the formation on the field and nodded.

"It's already more solid than I expected." He didn't take the compliment.

"Solid isn't enough."

"I know."

"It'll be less enough once we're past the gates."

"... You could save that line for later." He looked at me with the expression of someone determining whether I was joking or genuinely beginning to flee from reality. Then he dropped one line, hard, and walked away.

"So don't waste these three days." Right. The only person in this entire unit who spoke with any actual gentleness was Yozora. Everyone else either burned you, shot you, or found a way to make you feel ashamed of admitting you were tired — and did it with complete logical justification. On the evening of Day Two, Ignicia finally vanished for half an hour. My first guess was that she'd finally remembered she was made of flesh and blood and needed to sit down for a drink of water.

I only found out afterward that she'd spent the time hunting down the last of the inner court's reluctant stewards, warehouse officers, and stable masters — and burning, I mean, persuading, every single one of them into cooperation. She came back with a foul expression and a streak of ash across her cloak. I was crouched on the steps at the time, gnawing on a ration biscuit hard enough to double as a blunt weapon. The moment I saw her, the first thing out of my mouth was:"Another fight?" She glanced at me.

"No."

"That 'no' sounds like it comes with a body count of at least two, all incinerated."

"I simply made sure they understood the meaning of the word priority." She said it with the composure of someone who'd just returned from a stroll through the garden. I looked down at the biscuit in my hand, then back up at her.

"I'm suddenly very glad my current job is eating field rations, and not managing a warehouse." She made a short sound and sat down beside me. The night wind picked up, tousling her red hair. I was about to say something when she glanced down at the biscuit in my hand first, and her brow immediately furrowed.

"That's what you're eating?"

"What about it? This is the Jessi-approved edition. Apparently it's considerably more edible than the original."

"How bad was the original?"

"According to Jessi herself, somewhere between 'technically fills your stomach' and 'permanently destroys your faith in living.'" Ignicia actually went quiet for half a second. Then she reached into the small pouch at her lower back, pulled out a paper-wrapped parcel still warm to the touch, and dropped it straight into my lap. I caught it, opened it, and found several pieces of properly roasted jerky and a small, sweet-smelling flatbread. I looked up at her.

"What's this?" She looked away.

"Leftovers from the kitchen."

"Your Highness, that sentence is about as believable as 'I just happened to find this lying on the ground.'"" Eat it or don't." Right. At moments like this, knowing when to shut up matters a great deal more than dying with your pride intact. I very wisely lowered my head and took a bite, and genuinely thought to myself — Stolen novel; please report. In the middle of three days that felt like trading your lifespan for clock hours, one mouthful of ordinary food could hit harder than any love confession.

Unfortunately, saying that out loud would probably earn me a look of disgust, so what actually came out, quietly, was:"... Thanks." She didn't look at me. Just made a soft, barely-there sound. For that one moment in the dark, the noise from the training grounds seemed to pull back slightly, and even the wind went a little quieter. Unfortunately, moments rare enough to let you actually breathe never last long. Because the very next second, Jessi's voice came drifting down the corridor.

"Oh my, oh my — did I come at a bad time?" I nearly choked to death on the piece of flatbread. Day Three By the time Day Three began, I had stopped complaining about being tired. Not because I wasn't. Because past a certain threshold of exhaustion, the act of complaining itself starts to feel like a wasteful expenditure of energy. Humans really are remarkably good at adapting to misfortune. By Day Three, all of Latapan no longer resembled a royal capital.

It looked more like a colossal machine about to tear itself loose from its foundations and start marching. The logistics yard was in motion. The stables were in motion. The training grounds were in motion. The field kitchens were in motion. The paperwork was in motion. The armories were in motion.

Even the inner-court clerks and old warehouse officials, who normally preferred to lurk in the shadows pretending they didn't exist, were now darting everywhere at a near-trot, as if someone had finally taken a whip to them. I spent the entire morning bouncing between "being summoned somewhere to confirm something" and "being dragged back somewhere else to sign for it." Confirm dragon gear distribution. Confirm replacement bowstrings. Confirm how the medical supplies were being divided.

Confirm which three points along the march route could support temporary field kitchens. Confirm when the second Logistics Corps column would reach the river crossing. Confirm that once the Dragon Cavalry and archers were merged into a single command sequence, the whole force wouldn't end up tripping over its own orders. Running from one confirmation to the next, I began seriously suspecting that every hero I'd ever read about in books had simply had this part edited out.

Because what bard, anywhere, would stand up and sing: O great Cedric! On this day did he once more confirm thirty-seven bundles of bowstrings, twelve crates of bandages, and the axle-load limits of the second Logistics Corps column!... Too tragic. Tragic enough that I felt moved to compose my own elegy. Before noon, Yozora intercepted me at the pre-departure spellwork checklist.

"My lord. Your hand."

"Again?"

"Again." With the air of someone carrying out mandatory procedure rather than making a request, she pulled me into the shade, re-examined the scale on the back of my hand along with my mental state, and finally tied a very thin knotted cord around my wrist. Ash-grey. Unremarkable to look at. But it carried a faint coolness where it touched skin.

"What's this?"

"A steadying cord," Yozora said quietly.

"It isn't a powerful working. But it should let you hold on a little longer, when you push yourself too far." I looked at my wrist, then at her.

"Have you been unusually kind to me lately?" She looked up, her expression perfectly composed.

"If you collapse before we even depart, my lord, it will cause a great deal of inconvenience for everyone." Right. Very Yozora. She cares — but she always has to wrap it in something functional, so you don't mistake it for simple tenderness. That afternoon, outside the main command tent, I found Jessi crouched on a wooden crate, sharpening a knife. Not a figure of speech. Actually sharpening it. The sound alone did not inspire confidence.

I watched her for a while before I finally had to ask: "Are you planning to go set fires behind enemy lines, or just terrify me to death first?" Jessi looked up, smiling like a woman who had never once, in her entire life, done anything that would keep a person awake at night.

"Those two aren't mutually exclusive, are they?"

"That sentence makes me want to tie you to a supply wagon and make you take the main road with everyone else."

"Where's the fun in that?" She ran her thumb along the blade's edge, admiring the shine with satisfaction.

"I much prefer slipping in somewhere they can't see me, and letting them wake up the next morning to find the granary empty, the horses gone, and a few extra bodies that had no business dying the night before." The woman could say all this wearing the exact expression most people reserve for discussing what's for dinner. I looked down at the short blade, freshly honed and gleaming in her hand, and felt something like sympathy for the Yanxia Empire stir, very faintly, somewhere in my chest. Very faintly.

Thinner than ash scattered by a passing breeze.

"Come back alive," I said. Jessi blinked.

"Well, well — has my lord finally learned to say something like a human being?"

"I always could."

"You could. You simply never bother." She stood, sheathed the knife in one smooth motion, stepped half a pace closer, and reached up to straighten the corner of my cloak where it had slipped off one shoulder. The gesture was entirely natural; her tone remained exactly as sticky and irritating as ever.

"Don't worry. I haven't yet seen what you're actually going to grow into. I'd hate to die before finding out." It sounded completely unserious. But I knew that, from Jessi, that was about as sincere as it got. I didn't call her on it, just nodded.

"Then don't make me pick out your coffin wood."

"Oh?" She grinned, that familiar sharp glint flashing behind her eyes.

"Listen to you, picking up my style of talking."

"Hang around ink long enough, it rubs off."

"Then you've been beyond saving for quite some time." Fair. I really couldn't argue with that one. Before sundown, the final muster began. All six hundred Dragon Cavalry, fully armored. The archers Alvira had selected, folded into the marching column. Yozora's spell-support roster, nailed to the board. The arrival confirmations for the second and third Logistics Corps columns, delivered and logged. And at the center of the main training ground, Ignicia was running through the departure sequence one final time.

She'd changed into her formal battle armor. Not ceremonial armor. The kind that, at a single glance, told you it had been built to take to the sky, meet fire head-on, and come back down stained with blood. Black and red layered over each other, the shoulder plates cut sharp and clean, her waist cinched tight under plate and leather strapping, her hair bound higher than usual. Altogether, she looked even less like a princess and more like a spear of flame driven straight into the wind.

Standing at the edge of the formation, watching her, an entirely inappropriate thought surfaced in my head. This woman really was made for war. Not for romance. Not to hang framed in some palace gallery. Not to inspire some poor man to write agonizingly sour love poetry about her. She was born to stand exactly in places like this — where everyone is busy, loud, chaotic, and might very well be dead by tomorrow — and somehow, simply because she is standing there, the entire situation refuses to fall apart....

Thinking about it, I finally understood why the Yanxia Empire had gone to such lengths to try to contain her. If I were on the other side, I'd want this particular dragon put down first too. Fortunately, I wasn't on the other side. And honestly, right now, I was less "on her side" and more "strapped to her back with no remaining opportunity to reconsider." Ignicia must have felt me watching, because she turned her head.

Across the entire training ground, our eyes met, and she simply tilted her chin up — just slightly. No smile. No further words. But the gesture said everything it needed to. —Ready? I didn't answer aloud. Just nodded once. Honestly, I had no real confidence that I counted as "ready" in any meaningful sense. But war has never once waited for anyone to feel ready. It simply kicks the door open while you're still thinking maybe I should sleep one more night, and informs you: sorry — it's your turn now.

On the third night, the lights of Latapan burned late. I stood by the window and watched the last rows of torches on the training grounds gutter out, one by one, while the night-watch Dragon Cavalry kept their circuit somewhere in the distance. The wind, crossing the palace walls and the high towers, made a long, low sound — as though the entire capital were holding its breath through this last night before tomorrow. I raised my left hand and looked at the scale on the back of it. Still quietly warm.

Not like a warning. More like a reminder. —Time's up. Leaning against the window frame, I let out a long breath, and thought, strangely, that these three days had felt like three years — and also like they'd vanished in the space of a single blink.