Chương 105: “The Dog Left in the Ash”

Celestia heard a voice. It was someone familiar.

"On my way here from the cathedral, I saw families walking home together. Children smiling at their parents." A brief pause.

"I discard this memory." He was walking. She could see that much, a white-haired person moving through the cavern, one step at a time.

"The sight of this Floor was beautiful. Truly a creation of the Gods themselves. The air pure with heat, a scenery the world outside could not hope to replicate." Another brief pause.

"I discard this memory." The same calm tone, but blood was running from the corner of his mouth now, a thin line that dripped onto the white of his cassock. He wiped it with the back of his hand and looked at the smear.

"Even this isn't enough?" Noah kept walking, and he spoke again, "The bread vendor near the market square. The smell of oil when she heated the pan in the morning, the taste of fried bread."

"I discard this memory." Celestia's sight was hazy, and just focusing took everything she had. Noah had reached Sir Ozy. He stood directly beneath the creature, looking up. The pug's body hung in the air above him, its paw still extended forward, its flat face turned toward the ceiling. It had not looked down once since the ascension began. Noah reached up with one hand and closed his fingers around the creature's body. Then he slammed it down. Sir Ozy hit the ground hard, and a yelp came out of him.

This sudden interruption broke his trance, and his paws scrambled against the powdery ground, claws scraping through ash. His mouth found Noah's wrist and bit down. Noah slammed him into the ground again. Sir Ozy yelped. He twisted, trying to claw at the hand holding him. His stubby legs kicked at the air. Noah slammed him a third time, and Sir Ozy finally went limp. The cavern went quiet, and the pressure vanished in the same instant.

"Hmm." Noah continued to hold Sir Ozy in his grip. His breathing was heavier than before, though not by much. He looked down at the unconscious creature. Should he kill it? He had seen what this creature could do. Divinity, however fractured, was not something that he should leave alone. The simplest course of action was to end it here and tell Celestia he had arrived too late. It would take less effort than those three men. Then, he felt movement around him. He turned and saw that Celestia was conscious.

She was looking at him with a glare, one icy and piercing enough that Noah felt a chill run through his back. Don't you dare. Noah looked at her scary gaze for a moment. Then he looked down at the unconscious pug. If he killed the creature now, he would not be repaying a debt. He tossed him towards her. The creature skidded across the floor, limp, trailing dust, and came to a stop barely out of Celestia's reach. Noah looked at her.

"You owe me now," he said.

"Don't forget." Then he turned and walked toward the entrance, his muffled footsteps echoing off the cavern walls until they faded. *"My lady, the designated time has passed and no one has returned." The butler stood in the doorway. His posture was straight, and his expression blank as always. Maribelle set down her teacup, the porcelain clicked against the saucer. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Tsk." She did not look up.

"It's safe to assume they failed. How utterly useless. Even with the support they received, they still couldn't manage it?"

"That seems to be the case, my lady." Neither of them spoke for a moment. The curtains were drawn, and the desk in front of her was covered in correspondence.

"Round up the remaining members of the Sky Guild and dispose of them." She threw the papers off the table.

"And the child?"

"Leave her. She still has some use." The aide bowed once and left. The door closed behind him without a sound. Maribelle pressed two fingers against her temple. An annoyance. That was what this had become. A carefully arranged operation, funded with her support, and she had to resort to a riskier plan now.. Had someone leaked it?

'I thought I already cleaned it up.' She thought it over. And yet. She stood and walked to the window. The city below was lit by the orange glow of evening lanterns, and the streets moved with nobles and servants, walking around. The Reingarde situation had been manageable until recently. Her faction had caught wind, not the Imperial Family directly, but her personal network, that the Duke and Duchess of Reingarde had aligned themselves with the revolutionary movement.

The evidence was thin, circumstantial, the sort that would not survive scrutiny in open court. But it had been enough to justify an arrest when the Duke and Duchess traveled to Summit to visit their daughter. The plan was to detain them on arrival and use the circumstantial evidence to proceed with an investigation. That thin evidence would have thickened soon enough. But the Duke and Duchess had never arrived. An accident? Ha! Like she would believe that was truly the case.

Maribelle did not believe in accidents that convenient. Someone had most likely warned them. And that only meant that her faction had a leak. She had already ordered an immediate sweep. Everyone who had even heard or had been involved with the Reingardes were under scrutiny. If it were entirely up to her, the sweep would be an absolute cleanse, anyone with access or had caught wind of the plan would be disposed of. But that would only cause dissatisfaction among her own people. As for the Reingarde heiress…

Imprisoning her under the pretext of her parents' rebellion would have been a disaster. The Duke and Duchess had just vanished in an "accident." The public narrative was one of tragedy, a young noble girl left without her parents under mysterious circumstances. If, in the immediate aftermath of that tragedy, the Imperial Princess arrested the daughter on charges of mutiny, even if the court were to side with her, the noble circles wouldn't. And on what grounds?

The evidence Maribelle held was tied to the Duke and Duchess, not to Celestia. That was why she had already laid the separate groundwork to remove the heiress within the Tower. And when they were gone, it would've been easy to seize the lands and redistribute the wealth to houses loyal to her. And it would have been hers. Her achievement alone. Her faction, strengthened by the removal of one of the Empire's most entrenched noble families.

A victory that would force the imperial court to reconsider who was fit to lead. Imperial tradition stated that the firstborn son inherited the Empire, but she refused to accept that; her brother was an imbecile whose idea of governance was hosting banquets and delegating to whichever advisor had praised him the highest. Left to him, the Empire would rot from the inside until a rebellion tore it apart. Maribelle closed her eyes.

"Why did you change so much, Celestia?" After Celestia and her brother married, Celestia would have become the perfect puppet Empress. Shallow and easy to steer. Maribelle had spent years cultivating that relationship, sitting through dinners and social events with a woman she found utterly revolting, because it would pay off once Celestia was installed as her brother's wife. But the Celestia who existed now was not the one she had invested in. She opened her eyes and looked at the lukewarm tea.

Time to move to a riskier plan, then. * The last thing Paimon remembered was her lady's throat in someone's hand.

"My lady!" She was upright before she was fully awake, her arms reaching forward into empty air. Her voice cracked against the cavern walls and came back as echo. No one was in front of her. She looked down at her hands. The gauntlets were gone. Her arms were bare from the elbow down, the sleeves of her undershirt pushed up past her forearms. But that was not what made her stop. Her skin was smooth, unnaturally so.

The callouses she had built over training, across her knuckles, along the heel of her palm, were gone. Her hands looked like they had never held a weapon. She turned them over and she could not make sense of what she was seeing.

"Seeing as you're finally awake, stand up. We're leaving." Her mistress's voice came from behind her, with an edge Paimon had not heard before. Following the orders, Paimon stood immediately. Her legs were unsteady, but she managed to at least stand. Celestia was near the cavern wall. Her face was paler than Paimon had ever seen it, and the dress was torn in places, with the armor dented and scratched.

"M-my lady, what about the—""They are dealt with." The words left no room. Paimon swallowed the rest of her question. Though she did not fully understand what was happening, she did what she was trained to do, follow her mistress's order. She immediately scanned the cavern for anything out of place, seeing the aftermath of the battle, until she noticed what was missing.

"Sir Ozy?" She looked around. Her mistress's elemental spirit wasn't anywhere around. Hearing these words, Celestia's face tightened. Something that looked to be of frustration crossed her face, but Paimon was busy looking for Sir Ozy to catch it.

"I'm sorry, my lady. He seems to have gotten lost. I'll go look for him."

"Leave it."

"But my lady, he could be—""I said leave it!" Paimon flinched. She had heard her mistress speak like this to her. She lowered her eyes.

"... Yes, my lady."