Satsuki I Refuse to Be Your Enemy! Volume 4

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7183-0186-3
Verlag: J-Novel Heart
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 322 Seiten

Reihe: I Refuse to Be Your Enemy!

Up-and-coming spellcaster Kiara continues her quest to stop Llewyne's invasion and save Prince Reginald from his ever-looming death. The pressure is greater than ever with the news that the king has been killed, but the forces of Farzia persist in pushing Llewyne back. Things are looking up with the recapture of Fort Inion-except Kiara has run into two problems. One: right in the heat of battle, she hits an unforeseen hitch in casting her magic. Two: back at the fort, the enemy spellcaster Ada has infiltrated Farzian ranks, and her determination to woo the prince might be stirring up a little bit of jealousy in our protagonist.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Satsuki, Kanata

Weitere Mitwirkende

Fuji, Mitsuya

Quinn, Tara

Leseproben

Chapter 1: A Formal Introduction and a Reunion with an Oddball

“I did NOT see that one coming.” Worn out from running, I braced myself against the stone wall, panting as I caught my breath.

We were currently west of Évrard—or more precisely, at Delphion’s Fort Inion, which we had just recaptured in order to save a group of hostages. Until a few minutes ago, I had been looking for Reggie because I had something to ask him; I wanted to know how he was going to deal with the ex-Delphion soldiers who had been working inside the fort.

I’d found Reggie in one of the towers. Cain, my bodyguard and a knight of Évrard, was there with him. The prince had been in the process of interrogating Cain about how he and I had jumped into action without any prior warning.

It was no surprise that Cain had gotten yelled at.

I did it because, at the time, I thought the captives were in danger of getting killed before we could go save them. If we had waited until after the Farzian army had broken down the gates and stormed the fort, it would have taken a good bit of time to reach them. In the meantime, there was the risk that the Llewynians would realize they were at a disadvantage and kill the girls.

However, if I had said I wanted to charge in alone, someone certainly would have objected. Cain likewise had come to the conclusion that our only option was to go ahead without notifying anyone—hence why we had stealthily charged in all by ourselves.

I assumed that Reggie had gone to with his grievances simply because it had taken me forever to wake up, what with all the mana I’d used up during the battle. If that had been all they talked about, I would have cut into their conversation and explained that it wasn’t Cain’s fault.

However, when Cain asked why Reggie always tried to stop me from protecting him... I ran away without speaking a word to them. I was too scared to hear Reggie’s answer. It made me think of how Reggie had told me that in exchange for allowing me my freedom, I had to let him be free too, and I could feel my resolve wavering.

In the end, I missed my opportunity to ask what I’d wanted to know.

My shoulders sagging, I looked around to see where I was. Apparently, I’d wandered close to one of Fort Inion’s fortified towers—the one where the hostages were staying. I wanted to know how they were doing, too, so I headed inside.

Before, I’d had the impression of it as a dark and dingy place where I couldn’t make a sound, but today it was brimming with energy, and visitors abounded. Still, while I saw plenty of smiling faces among the crowd, some of the women were crying. More than likely, they’d just been informed of their families’ passing.

For the record, living conditions in the tower weren’t all that bad. Llewyne didn’t want the girls getting sick or dropping dead, for their part. The hostages had been provided with all the furniture and bedding they needed, so it served as a fine place for them to sleep.

When I climbed to the very top of the tower, I found a girl about my age with long, straight hair the color of black ash. It was Emmeline, the daughter of Lord Delphion’s brother, Ernest. She had been held hostage here until just yesterday. Standing beside her was a little girl with dark-brown hair tied back with a green ribbon. That one was the baron’s daughter, Lucille. The two cousins were sitting side by side on a bed, chatting.

I caught sight of them as soon as I reached the top of the stairs. There was a reason it was so easy to see inside the room: all the doors and walls of the corridor were made up of iron bars. Now that the Llewynians were gone, cloth had been draped over all the bars except the doors, but that still wasn’t terribly secure. I wished I could take care of the issue myself, but the only walls I could make were stone. What we really needed up in here was a carpenter.

While I was absorbed in such thoughts, the girls spotted me.

“Oh, Lady Kiara!”

“Please, come in.”

After glancing in my direction, Emmeline stood up and walked over to me.

“As long as I’m not interrupting anything, sure. Sorry for dropping by without notice.”

“Not at all; I’m delighted you came by. We have yet to finish cleaning up after that battle, not to mention that all the soldiers here are men... I’ve been warned that it’s not safe for women to be wandering around, so I haven’t been able to leave the tower. But I wanted the opportunity to have a nice, long chat with you, so this works splendidly.”

“I wanted to talk to you, too! Watching you tell off that Llewynian soldier yesterday was absolutely fascinating.”

Emmeline had leveraged Farzia’s attack on the fort and attempted to strike a deal with a Llewynian soldier along the lines of It was a pretty effective threat, coming from a hostage.

Emmeline blinked at the word “fascinating,” and Lucille laughed. “See? I told you she wouldn’t be scandalized.”

“It looks like you were right, Lucille.” Judging by what they were saying, Emmeline’s actions had a tendency to put people off. Then, she went on to say something strange. “But then again, I knew you were that sort of girl.”

I didn’t quite understand what she was getting at, so Emmeline cut straight to the point. “As a matter of fact, you and I have met before, Miss Kiara Patriciél.”

Given that she was using my former last name, there was no question she knew who I was. But where on earth had we met? I had zero recollection of it.

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember. We never interacted much, and we were only there at the same time for about three months.”

“Where?”

“The boarding school in the southern royal domain—though I was one grade above you.”

“What?!”

I was so astonished that I didn’t know what to say. But that checked out; of course she would recognize my face, and on the other hand, it also made sense that wouldn’t know about her.

“Why did you remember me, though?”

Frankly speaking, I had never done anything of note during my years as a student.

“You were such a strange girl! You doodled in your Bible during the services, remember?”

“Hrk...” I cupped my face in my hands and groaned. Shoot. The sermons had been so boring, I couldn’t help drawing in the margins of the scripture.

“That reminds me! I heard from Lucille. My terramice flocked to you, didn’t they? Quite impressive,” Emmeline went on, delighted.

I really wished she had kept quiet about that particular detail, but the cat was already out of the bag. Instead, I dared to ask, “Say, Miss Emmeline, how did you come up with the plan to breed terramice in the first place?”

Rearing a bunch of monsters wasn’t an idea that would occur to your average noblewoman.

“It doesn’t seem like something a daughter of nobility would do, does it? But as a matter of fact, it was all thanks to you.”

“What?”

“You inspired me to use terramice to take care of the problem.”

When I stared at her in wide-eyed wonder, Emmeline shyly averted her gaze. With a cute reaction like that, I could hardly believe she was the same person who had threatened those soldiers.

“You stuck in my memory because you were a strange girl, but if that was my sole impression of you, I wouldn’t have come to respect you so much. Not long after I returned home from our boarding school, I was floored by the rumors I heard about you.”

“What rumors?”

“Ones about your betrothal. I was shocked to my core! I had never imagined anyone would run away rather than be married. It was thanks to that, however, that I realized I was far from a free spirit. Both I and the people around me believed that we couldn’t or shouldn’t do certain things. We were nobles, after all.”

At the time, Emmeline had a suitor for her hand. The would-be groom was a young man from a Delphion branch family. Ernest had claimed that it wasn’t a bad deal, and Emmeline herself had believed her husband was meant to be decided by her father; thus, it didn’t matter if she herself couldn’t stand the man.

However, after hearing the rumors about me, she’d realized she didn’t have to take it lying down. Moreover, the terms of the engagement hadn’t been all that favorable. Emmeline had been convinced that she could find another man who would better serve their territory, so she’d told her father to leave the matter in her hands. She had sworn she would find a worthwhile partner, both for their land and for the province of Delphion as a whole.

Nonetheless, her prospective fiance had refused to back off. After brainstorming “an audacious plan to surpass even Kiara Patriciél,” her attention landed on some terramice that just happened to have been caught.

Any normal noblewoman would have just negotiated with her father to pick a different man. As I’d assumed, Emmeline had to have been a pretty eccentric girl from the get-go.

“Oh, but you’re always so full of surprises! I...