by Billy Wong
"That's insane. We've never been close, we weren't even friends let alone ever close to being lovers. How can he hold in such high regard a person he barely knows?"
Keith bowed his head. "He clearly isn't very mentally sound, and seems more in love with the idea of you than you yourself. But he can't tell the difference. It's quite pitiable, really."
"Then if he hasn't been governing, instead leaving it to his underlings, why even come here? Might it not be better to go to the people actually in charge nowadays?"
"He may not be actively exercising his rule, but the final authority still rests with the king for as long as he remains such. Since he made the decision to declare independence from Aerilea, he'll have to be the one to overturn it, and besides I figured seeing you back might return him to a sounder and more reasonable state of mind."
"Not that he's ever of sound mind," she said under her breath, "but I understand what you're saying."
After a while Rudolph returned, clad in flowing red robes with his crown straight but still looking more like a cheap imitator with his lazy posture and sleazy countenance. "I have arrived, my gorgeous guest," he announced, straightening up briefly to puff out his chest before settling back into his usual slouch. "How do I look?"
"You look all right, Your Majesty." The looks weren't nearly the worst thing about him, after all.
"Greetings to you as well, Sir Keith. And to whom else do I owe the honor of speaking to today?"
She decided to be a little difficult with him. "Who would you guess I am?"
He studied her face with growing wonder in his eyes. "My gods, the resemblance is uncanny. Did Princess Julianna happen to have a younger sister or cousin I somehow never knew of until now?"
"No, I'm pretty sure all close family members of the princess are accounted for."
Keith nudged her with an elbow. "What are you doing?"
"Relax, I'll get to it soon." She produced the note Gilbert had written for her from her pack and handed it to Rudolph.
He unfurled the miniature scroll and read, "From Premier Gilbert of Ostuh..." His eyes grew big, and he looked over the paper at her. "Can it be, is it really you?"
She waved nonchalantly. "It sure is. So since I'm back, I think you can stop wallowing in your sorrow and be the best king you can be for your kingdom again."
"Julianna, my dear!" He threw himself down onto the bench next to her, forcing her and Keith to slide over. "Is it really you? You were always beautiful, but even so I had forgotten how much of a goddess you were in your younger days." Gosh, she looked less than half his age... He ran sweaty fingers down her cheek, making her shudder to imagine what he had done with that hand while thinking of her. "My precious warrior, unconquerable even by death. We should share a drink or a few, and-"
"Don't touch her!" Keith snapped, having stood to pull Rudolph's hand back.
He sneered. "You, a mere High Knight, use force against a king? Know your place, crude man, or have it taught to you."
"You call that force? You're never been in a life and death fight in your life. But if you insist on trying to teach me something, go ahead."
Julianna stuck her arms between them and pushed them gently apart. "Now now boys, we're not here to see a battle between the High Knight of Aeriliea and king of Plasbias. Keith, I ask you to forgive His Majesty's quirks. Rudolph, back to the question at hand—will you end your self-imposed isolation now that you needn't grieve over me anymore?"
He squeezed her chest, making Keith growl. She would have punched him in the face, but restrained herself for diplomacy's sake and just pushed his hand away instead. Damn him for being royalty... "I suppose I cannot mourn a person who is right here, feeling so real and soft." She cringed. She shouldn't feel soft with the armor on anyway, but his imagination must do wonders. "I will call my servants back and give my advisors my much-missed guidance."
"That's nice to hear. If I'm not mistaken, didn't you have Plasbias leave the alliance of five nations over 'heartbreak' for me?"
"That, and I do not find Aerilea worthy to stand above me without you at its head." She held back a snort; even taking her specific resume out of the picture, he barely passed for a monarch let alone one who should be regarded as a peer to the ruler of great Aerilea. "What of it?"
A passing sense of faintness made her slow to respond, and Keith replied for her, "With Julianna being back now, are you ready to align yourself with her once more?" What was wrong with her? Was even a near-immortal mage princess affected that badly by a creep of a king? Rather embarrassing if so...
"Of course I wish to be join hands with the glorious Saint Princess again." Rudolph grinned a hungry grin. "To mark this joyous occasion though, we should celebrate with a private talk in my bedroom."
"What the hell?" Keith spat.
Though the lust in his tone and gaze quite disturbed her as well, she held up a hand. "It's fine, we're just going to talk. He can't do anything to me anyway." Especially alone. Too, she almost wanted him to give her a reason to slap this nuisance.
"Call for me if you need me." He glared at Rudolph as he took her hand and led her away, but the king seemed unfazed.
He brought her upstairs to a bedroom smaller and plainer than expected, motioned towards the equally simple bed. "Dear princess, have a seat." She lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress, poised to react at any instant. Despite her power and combat ability, she felt unnerved. What did this man plan to do, taking her here alone?
She wondered too if this might not be his actual bedroom but a guest room, chosen to seem more "intimate" by keeping them in close quarters. "Not very extravagant living conditions for a king," she observed.
"Humble surroundings do well to remind us royalty even we are just men." He poured two glasses of wine from a pitcher on the bedside drawer. Maybe this was his own room after all, if the drink was already there. He handed one cup to her. "Here, my lady. The finest wine made in Plasbias, from its finest grapes. You deserve no less."
She lifted the glass to her lips as he sat next to her, but said, "You know, since my current body isn't exactly human, I can't get drunk from this." And unlike when she drank with Keith, she wouldn't be able to lull her mind into a relaxed state to simulate intoxication while around him.
"It matters not. If nothing else, the drink will help set the mood."
Julianna downed the wine, figuring no harm would be done. He hadn't gotten a chance to slip a drug into it, unless he'd prepared before they came, and besides her magical energy form probably wouldn't be affected by drugs anyway. She'd just store the wine inside her like she did everything else she consumed solely for pleasure, and get rid of it later. "It tastes good, though it's a little strong."
"Indeed, I have been drowning my sorrows in strong drink ever since we lost you. What was it like to die?"
"I don't want to talk about that." It had been frightening, and he wasn't a person she desired to expose any vulnerable side of herself to.
"I'm sorry. I understand it must've been terrifying." He placed a hand on her thigh, hardly the standard location to comfort somebody. "I was very worried about you, Julianna. I imagined that after all the lives you'd taken, your soul might be condemned to an afterlife of suffering, which would not have been deserved at all for the wonderful leader and heroine you are. I'm overjoyed to see the good gods saw fit to reward you, and gave you a second chance."
Really uncomfortable... she wanted to run away right now, and forced herself not to give in to that urge. "I'm not sure the gods had any role in this, but maybe they did. I think I stuck around on my own, though."
"So strong you are, your leg so very solid. How did you form this body so perfectly, if you had to create it from scratch?"
"I guess maybe more detail stays in our memory than we're consciously aware of." She pushed his hand off her thigh. "Listen, can we move on to discussing whatever you brought me here to? I'm a busy woman, and must be on my way."
"Surely a few extra minutes toge
ther won't hurt anyone." When she shot him a harsh look, he raised his palms for calm. "All right, I'll get to the point. It must be difficult for you, a lone woman, to oversee the grand kingdom of Aerilea all by yourself. I propose that in order to renew the bond between our lands, we join hands in marriage."
She recoiled, almost jumping to her feet. "I have a man already! We have a seventeen year old son together no less."
"Yes, but you aren't married. You hid your pregnancy and never publicly acknowledged his son to be yours, the fact only revealed after your death. And that High Knight had not the birth nor refinement to stand as your equal. Let us consider it merely a youthful mistake, and not let it obstruct a bright future for you with a king at your side."
"Don't call my son a mistake."
"I do not mean any insult to the boy himself. But can you not recognize sitting the throne will be that much less taxing with qualified help?"
As if he would make a better partner than Keith, regardless of royal blood. "I love Keith, and expect we'll be married soon. Besides, I'm not quite human anymore, and would be unable to bear you children. Is that really what you want?"
Rudolph smiled warmly. "I have waited this long without having children for you. There is no other for me but you." He really was mad...
"I must refuse. You should move on, there's no future I can see where you and I-"
He suddenly slid into her. For an instant she thought he did it intentionally, wanting to grope her or even foolishly try to force himself on her, but then realized she had slid a bit down the bed too. The room had tilted slightly, tipping him towards her. "What the heck?" she asked.
In a bewildered tone, he replied, "The house is moving..."
She grabbed his arm and ran downstairs dragging him along, not struggling too much with the newfound slope but slowed down by him doing so. "Keith!" she cried when he came into view. "What's going on?"
"I don't know. The mansion seems to be tilting."
Julianna pointed at the front door. "It's sinking in the opposite direction from the main continent. The island might be on the verge of falling, let's get out of here!"
"But my house..." Rudolph moaned.
"It's the house or your life, we have to flee!" They dashed out the front door and for the rock bridge. Just as they stepped onto it, however, there was a loud crack. The bridge broke near the far end and the island fell, dipping sharply away from the mainland so Julianna and the others were flung out into empty air. Dammit... they plummeted down, seeing the rocky side of the continent zoom rapidly by while the isle and attached bridge dropped alongside them. Julianna summoned magical power, but found even less of it around her to be called on than she anticipated. Still, after another mental probe she gathered just enough. She flew upward, grabbing Keith and Rudolph around the waists with one arm each as she passed them. She carried them up over the edge of the continent, then landed with them on solid ground. While Rudolph stood hugging himself with huge eyes, a wave of dizziness hit her and she collapsed to one knee.
"Julianna!" Keith said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She shook her head. "But I read the situation wrong. Before, when I thought I got lightheaded from the awe-inspiring scenery or our, um, friend—I don't believe that was why anymore. It seems the concentration of magical energy here is so low, the energy that makes up my body wanted to diffuse into the environment, hence me feeling weak." She gazed towards where Rudolph's mansion had been and swallowed. "I suspect the magical energy was what kept the island attached in spite of the thinness of the bridge, and might also be holding the rest of this land together and/or up. If this continues, I fear our entire continent might fall. Suffice to say, the consequences of that are not ones I'd enjoy pondering."
Chapter 4
"The whole continent, fall?" Rudolph's voice trembled. "You're not serious, are you?"
Julianna stood up with a sigh, fighting back the dizziness. "I'm not joking. To finish our previous conversation, I won't be marrying you. Now can we escort you to where your most trusted advisors are, and you work out where to stay with them?"
"Y-yes, that's all right."
"He proposed to you?" Keith asked.
"Pretty much." Noticing his fists to be dangerously clenched, she added, "Lighten up, I was never going to accept."
He nodded, then took on a grim expression. "The continent's magic being so low—you don't think your battle against the Father of All Monsters had much to do with that, do you?"
"I don't know. I used a lot of power, but still only enough to destroy something the size of a mountain. Like the Council of Ostuh argued, we can't be totally sure how much of this decrease can be attributed to human activities, and how much is natural. It could be that the whole thing is a natural process. Either way we have to learn the cause, and figure out a way to stop it."
"Couldn't we move off the continent and live on the lower world, if we can't save it?"
"That's a possibility, though it might be hard to get everyone down much less find room for a continent's worth of people. But if this huge mass falls on the lands below from this height, they too would be devastated. In the worst case scenario, the whole world might be rendered unlivable. I imagine the folks down there will already be worried after that island crashes down too."
"Can you not speak of such things in front of me?" Rudolph pleaded. "How am I supposed to get a good night's sleep with such dreadful nightmares looming?"
"Some monarch," Keith said.
Julianna failed to suppress a giggle at the creeper king's expense as she started towards their mounts. The magic decrease seemed worst at the fringe of the continent, so hopefully she'd feel better when they moved away from it. Both men sharing a single horse might be too much weight for extended travel, so Rudolph would unfortunately ride with her. "Get on in front of me," she told him.
"But it is not comfortable for me to sit in front."
She rolled her eyes. "If you're behind me, you'll be fondling my breasts all the time. It's sit in front or you're walking."
"As you wish, my lovely. I will still savor the touch of your bosom against my back."
She sighed, and told herself to be glad she at least had armor to separate her flesh from his.
#
The trio made it without trouble to Tezit, the busy capital of Plasbias where most decisions were made by Rudolph's advisors before submitting them for his approval. He rarely cared enough to challenge them anyway. Seeing them, people in the streets yelled things like "The king is here!" and "Look, Sir Keith of Aeriliea is with King Rudolph!"
Rudolph waved vainly at his subjects. "Indeed, your ruler blessed by the heavens has arrived! Rejoice as you are graced by my presence!"
"He's gotten over losing his home nicely," Keith said.
A plump matron in a heavy dress walked close to them. "Who is that impressively clad young woman behind you, Your Majesty? Have you finally found yourself a lady?"
"No," Julianna replied before he could, "he hasn't."
"Why be so prejudiced, dear princess?" Rudolph asked. "You have not even given me a chance, if you would open your mind I could prove to you-"
She put a hand over his mouth from behind, making the matron stare. "Shut up about it! If you don't I'll let Keith do what he wants to you, king or not."
Though she wasn't really serious, her venomous tone seemed to convince him she was. He paled while nodding, and she released him. They went to the town hall where the royal advisors gathered, and thankfully found Duke Malin who many considered the brains of the kingdom in the main room. A thin man with a receding hairline and razor sharp eyes, he acknowledged his king with what seemed like barely hidden contempt before turning to Julianna. "The Saint Princess fights free even from the grip of death," he said while Rudolph wandered off to greet other advisors at their seats.
"You knew already?" She put away the apparently unneeded letter from Gilbert she had begun to pull out. Becca or one of the councilors from Ostuh must have let wo
rd slip.
"I had wondered how young you'd look. You could pass for your son's sister, a little vain don't you think?"
She laughed. "Everybody says that. Maybe vanity was a bit of a factor. On more serious matters, though, you have to get the word out to everyone living on the outer islands to move away from them." He frowned, and she explained. "The isle on which the king's mansion stood broke off while we were on it, and fell to the lower world. It appears the continent's loss of magical energy is causing such islands to become unstable, and while some with thicker bridges might hold up, it's probably better to be safe than sorry and get everyone off them."
"It's disturbing to think of the mansion falling. I can only assume you saved yourself and the king with your magic? But how do you know it was because of the decreasing energy, and that it will happen elsewhere as well?"
"I felt the decrease more strongly at the fringe, so much so that my magical body wanted to come apart. I actually can't say for sure it'll happen to other islands too, since I haven't been to other parts of the fringe to be certain it's being affected as a whole and not just that specific location. Still, it would be safer to get everyone off them and see what happens. Most people would die if the place where they were fell off the continent, you know."
Rudolph had wandered back over and contributed his thoughts. "Move everybody who lives on the outer islands off them? That seems like an extreme response to a single incident."
"Your Majesty," Malin said, "not too many folks live out on the islands as you do. While it might prove unwarranted, it would not be excessively disruptive overall."
"It, er, slipped my mind not many dwell in as lofty locales as I. Then you have my permission to warn the residents of such about this potential peril."
"There aren't an abundance of people living on the isles in this country," Keith pointed out, "but in Kureau where half of it is a network of islands..."
Julianna hung her head. "That will be a mess. Still, we have to warn them as well. I'll trust you to inform the other nations, Duke Malin, but we'll write our son too to explain the situation in detail."