‘It’s probably news about Lucas.’
The heads of the northern noble houses had seen him in person. Word of Lucas’s existence had already spread through the social circles of Frozen, and Duke Foss—who kept closer tabs on the Kingdom of Frozen than almost anyone—could not possibly have missed it.
‘Or is it about the madness-amplification compound?’
I recalled the Creature that had displayed such erratic behavior. That compound had clearly originated from House Foss. I wasn’t sure how Marchioness Lilis had come to acquire it, but word of the Creatures’ strange symptoms would have spread as well—and Duke Foss would have pieced it together.
Lost in these tangled thoughts, just as I was about to sink further—
“Chiik—!”
Little Chik’s signal of completion pulled me back. I opened my eyes and looked down at the ground.
The message Duke Foss had sent me was about neither Lucas nor the madness-amplification compound.
It was about me.
[Why are you at the Queen Consort’s palace?]
“…Grr…”
“Baby?”
Before I could even register the shock of those words, baby—who had been sitting quietly in my arms—began to growl low in her throat.
Something was off. Baby’s nose crinkled deeply, and from deep within her small body rose an eerie sound—seeping outward like smoke curling from a fire.
It was a sound I could not believe came from a kitten. A beast’s cry, bone-deep and spine-raising.
Was something displeasing her?
No. This was undisguised, open hostility.
“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden—baby!”
“Kyaang!”
She leaped from my arms before I could catch her, and bolted.
What to do?
I scuffed quickly at the message in the dirt with my shoe until it was nothing, then looked back and forth between Mai in the distance and the direction baby had run.
I felt terrible for Mai, but—
“Baby!”
My own affairs had to come first.
* * *
At that moment.
A frigid stillness had descended over the tearoom.
Knox pressed his fingers hard against his temple.
‘…This actually happens in reality?’
The story spilling from the Queen Consort’s lips was more chilling than any ghost story he had ever been told. He was not the only one who thought so. The three others present were sitting in perfect silence as well, unable to speak. All of them seemed to have no idea how—or where—to begin.
‘Damn it all.’
Knox exhaled a long breath and dragged his palm down his face.
“Let me try to organize this. So—the cat attached to Lady Aisha is not merely a cat, but…”
Knox’s head ached.
“…something capable of conversing with humans and simultaneously with Creatures…”
“A Half-Fiend.”
Grace supplied the word.
“Yes. A Half-Fiend.”
“Creatures have extraordinary senses of smell—they instinctively distinguish the weak from the strong. To a Creature, a Half-Fiend is neither fellow Creature nor foreign species.”
She didn’t so much as pause for a breath.
“They see it as their sovereign.”
“…For the love of—”
At her words, Knox muttered involuntarily under his breath.
The sovereign of the Creatures.
Taken on its surface, one might imagine something like the alpha of a pack of wolves or monkeys—an ordinary animal leader. That would be a catastrophic error.
The sovereign of the edge of the world. Beyond the ice wall.
It meant that the Creatures—humanity’s age-old terror—were capable of organization. And organization meant an army.
‘Creatures standing in formation, taking up a battle stance.’
A chill ran the full length of his spine.
Creatures beyond the great ice wall, devising plans to annihilate humanity—crafting tools, laying strategies?
House Krost had held firm all this time, but it had been largely thanks to the ice wall raised by the Ice Affinity. But what if Creatures who had learned to think began devising a way to bring that wall down?
Knox turned the thought over carefully, then asked.
“Why did no one know such a being existed?”
It was not an ordinary existence—most people could be forgiven for not knowing. The majority of the population outside House Krost’s territory had no idea what a Creature even looked like. But Knox was deeply invested in the subject.
‘I should have come across it in a book somewhere.’
“Because it is not classified as a Creature.”
At his remark, Grace retrieved a book.
A thick volume, hard-bound in leather—Knox looked at it strangely.
“Is this not the Scripture of Rune?”
Rune was a religion invented by old-fashioned mages to explain the existence of those with Affinity powers. Those interested in magic had heard of it at least once, but Knox—who managed an Affinity-holder in his household—found its tendency to deify such individuals deeply uncomfortable, and had never read a word of it.
Grace tapped the cover and spoke.
“Yes. The Half-Fiend appears in this Scripture.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And in the Scripture of Rune, the Half-Fiend is described as a minor deity—a small divine being created by the same god who made those with Affinities.”
“Are you telling me the fabrications of a handful of mages have become reality?”
“No. It means the mages wrote the truth, not fiction. Though I never imagined I would see a Half-Fiend in the flesh.”
Grace set the book down and fell back into her chair with the quiet weight of someone bearing a complicated thought.
“The Scripture of Rune says a Half-Fiend that cannot adapt to the world in its infancy will die.”
“…Then why—”
“Why? Because Aisha saved it. That is all there is to it.”
Perhaps that was how history was always made—from these small, accidental accumulations. Compassion, for instance. Or love.
Grace let out a rueful, thin smile.
“When they are young, a Half-Fiend takes the form of a beast. To gather the energy needed for transformation into human form, it must attach itself to a single human for one month and draw sustenance.”
That human was Aisha.
Grace could accept that much, she supposed.
Truthfully—even that should have been sufficient grounds for immediate isolation, to prevent the Half-Fiend from completing its transformation—but the real reason she had sent Aisha away was something else entirely.
“The problem is—when a Half-Fiend desires to become human, it will drink the blood of those around it—”
Crash!
It happened in an instant.
Knox’s chair overturned with a tremendous bang and clattered backward to the floor. Lady Maria, seated beside him, went wide-eyed.
Because Knox—who had shot to his feet—had gone completely, utterly bloodless.
“…What did you say? Drink the blood of the people around it?”
It was unlike Knox to lose composure so thoroughly. Grace gave a quiet shake of her head.
“So you do know how to care for a person after all.”
“I am not joking.”
“I know. That is precisely why I told you to separate them. If you do so within two weeks, everything will be fine.”
“Two weeks.”
Knox sat back down, hollow-eyed as a ghost.
“…I see.”
Two weeks—that was more than enough time.
‘Now that I know the kitten’s true nature, we can depart for the estate today and leave her behind.’
He could probably leave the kitten in Grace’s care.
Knock, knock.
An abrupt rapping at the door made every member of Creatures Anonymous look up at once.
Without waiting for permission, the knocker opened the door and stepped inside.
“I apologize for the urgency. May the sun of the world shine upon the Kingdom of Frozen.”
The knight, having extended proper courtesy to Grace, held out a folded paper toward Knox.
“An urgent dispatch has arrived.”
An urgent dispatch?
Under normal circumstances, a message traveling from House Krost to the Kingdom of Frozen took over two weeks. An urgent dispatch arriving now could only have come through the portal, mere moments ago.
‘Something pressing enough to warrant that?’
Knox, heart sinking, unfolded the dispatch and read.
[A portion of the ice wall has collapsed. Creature incursion underway. Hold your position at the capital with Aisha until further word is received.]
“……”
No matter how many times he read it word by word, he could not make himself believe it.
In all the recorded history of the Kingdom of Frozen, the ice wall had never fallen. This was unprecedented. Something that had simply never happened before.
“What does it say?”
When Knox showed no response, Grace—alarmed—reached over and plucked the dispatch from his unresisting hand.
And at that very moment.
Mai came rushing through the still-open door, struggling to catch her breath.
“May the sun of the world shine upon the Kingdom of Frozen. Knox—I am so deeply sorry. Lady Aisha has disappeared.”
“……”
The vacant gaze of Knox grew—slowly, very slowly—wide.
Out of the fire and into the flood.
* * *
