Chapter 82

The mood is heavy from what we’ve just seen.

Emma and I hurry quickly before the guards take notice, a mild fear taking hold of me as the unlit path is barely illuminated by the small candle I hold.

“I don’t suppose you know where Julian’s tent is, do you?” I ask Emma after my tent has disappeared from view behind us. I feel like a naughty teenager who has just snuck out to hang out with my friends and wrap my earth-colored shawl around my shoulders tighter in the hopes it will make my white nightgown a little harder to see in the night.

“Yes, your highness,” Emma says with her infuriating one-word answers. Without a warning, she instantly starts marching ahead, leaving me scrambling to catch up.

“One of these days, you and I are going to have a nice, long chat about-,” I mutter under my breath at Emma, until she whips around and gives me a look that shuts me up as I smile innocently back.

The blanket of darkness is slightly less frightening with Emma leading the way. Scarcely two minutes later, we arrive at a red tent similar to that of Augustus and I.

Seeing the guards standing in front, I curb the instant frown that had cropped up and step forward to greet them with a smile.

.....

“Excuse me, is my brother inside?” I request politely. I would’ve gladly ignored and avoided Julian for the rest of my involuntary vacation but circumstances no longer allow it. My foot taps away like a hummingbird with a flower, so intense is my impatience to chat with the only other transmigrator I know.

“Your highness, his highness departed for a meeting a half-hour ago,” One obediently responds after they both greet me.

“Spreading lies about me again?” Julian crosses his arms as he grins at me, Felix standing at his back with a lantern. In the flickering light, I can spy a little panic in his eyes, which further spurs my own fear.

“Your highness!” Both guards drop onto a knee and thump a fist on their chest in sync. I’d marvel at their synchronous moves if it weren’t for the fact that we may be dealing with a potential world war inducing problem.

I roll my eyes, my little hands grabbing the cuff of his white undershirt and dragging him inside. “You. Me. Talk. Now.”

“Emma, please make sure these men don’t eavesdrop,” I throw over my shoulder before my older brother and I disappear into the tent.

The leftover remnants of the afternoon’s boiling weather lingers in the heavy tent, an oppressive warmth hanging in the air. I dump my shawl on his bed and plop myself down unceremoniously afterwards.

“So, what are the odds that the Sarsavalian army somehow got ahold of a transmigrator who knows how to make explosives?” I ask, the bead of sweat beginning to drip down my back most definitely not from the warm interior.

Julian, doesn’t have his sad puppy look nor his otherwise cocky expression, the uncanny seriousness tacking on years to his 12-year-old face.

“Very, disturbingly high right now,” he leans onto his desk, a little bit of panic manifesting between his furrowed brows.

I purse my lips. “How is this possible?”

“Same way you and I arriving here is possible,” Julian answers, as perplexed as I am.

It’s so rare, almost a one in a million chance, that someone could transmigrate into this antiquated world and not only know how to construct explosives, but also willingly use them in warfare after knowing our modern world’s ugly history with bombs.

I flick my eyes up at Julian and ask, “Speaking of which, how did you come here anyways? Did you-”

“Did I die?” he finishes smoothly. Something flashes through his eyes. “Yes, I did.”

“How?” I skip the false condolences, since the same fate befell the both of us.

“How did you die?” he counters, turning it around on me.

“A stupid mistake of combining alcohol with pills. Now you spill.”

“A stroke.” Julian bites out the words through clenched teeth, a deeper story hiding behind his tense figure.

“Seriously? But strokes don’t usually... kill people, do they?” I was in college for political science, not biology.

Julian smirks bitterly. “They don’t. But if you have a stroke and don’t receive immediate emergency treatment, you can easily suffocate from a slack tongue or have a heart attack triggered by the stroke.”

He hasn’t given the whole story, but I can piece out a little bit of his past life behind his words.

“Gosh, that sucks. How old were you?” I ask, recalling he did not disagree when I called him middle-aged during our very first meeting.

“I would’ve been 55 in a week.”

“Can I call you old man then? Alright, I will.” I answer my question myself, ignoring the irritation that flits across his face momentarily. “For me, I was 21, finishing up my major and definitely came into this world without any useful skills other than baking and being my typical charming self.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Julian doesn’t even crack a grin, delving straight into my past. “What major? Where are you from?” He pauses for a second and then goes for his true question. “And what do you get out of being the promised child, Winter?”

“If you’re so curious, you can start by telling me a little bit about yourself. What kind of life did you have that you could drop from a stroke without anyone noticing? ” Neither of us are willing to show our cards though, an awkward silence permeating the air after my charged question.

“Hmph. That’s what I thought,” I roll my eyes and return to the most important subject at hand. There was never any trust between us anyways, just guilt and mutual interests.

“Now tell me about the other Travelers in this world you know. I think I deserve to know at this point since we may be blown to kingdom come before I even get a taste of puberty. Hell, I won’t even have the chance to laugh at your stupid voice cracking in a few years.”

“It’s not that easy and I told you the first time we met that I don’t know much.”

“But you do know something, I can tell.”

“Look at the world we’ve been reborn in, we could get burned at the stake or executed by the Holy Church if our existence got out. Even you and I being within the imperial family wouldn’t be safe.”

I snort in disbelief. “I know I’d be the first on the chopping block, but your mom is the empress, your granddad is the chancellor, and your uncle is one of the 4 bishops of the Holy Church. You will be just fine, I can assure you.”

“There is much you don’t know, Winnie.”

“Convenient time for you to remember that stupid nickname.” I don’t think I’ve heard it in years. “You are House Duvernay’s only shot at ruling the empire. So pray tell, why do you think you wouldn’t be granted immunity?”

Julian feels rawer today, like an onion that has been peeled back a layer to reveal more of his character. His head tilts side to side, his cropped blonde locks swaying as he deliberates how much information he wishes to divulge. There is no showboat prince who could talk circles around me, nor the guilt-ridden one who doled out occasional favors as recompense for looking the other way regarding his mother’s actions. Somehow, this new person before me throws me for even more of a loop, the aura of desperation and unreadability hanging around him

But one thing that stands for certain: there are many key secrets within House Duvernay. For the thousandth time, I curse the webnovel for being a love story that didn’t focus on the politics of the world.

“Ugh, never mind. We’re off-topic anyways,” I scoff, knowing I won’t get any answers out of him tonight. He’s given me enough information as it is today, and it secretly feels good to be the one who can read Julian like a book rather than him toying with me the way he did in the shrine two years ago.

Quite frankly, it is Julian, not Augustus or Julia, who raises my hackles the most from my siblings. In the webnovel, he was wicked clever and hid his actions under schemes designed by others, so much so that you wouldn’t realize you fell into his trap until it was too late. Quite frankly, I even believe that the main leads’ halos wouldn’t have withstood his attacks if it weren’t for webnovel Julian’s crush on Clara. What a tired cliché, am I right?

“The situation is grave,” Julian says, jumping right back into the topic at hand. “I’ve been in the strategy tent with Father and Augustus. Everyone is stumped. And as for me, I can’t come out and say I know about bombs, especially since I don’t know how to detect and disarm them. The battle mages don’t have a clue on how to detect-”

“Hold on. Battle mages?” I stare at Julian like he’s speaking a foreign language.

This time the you-are-so-ignorant look is absolutely unmistakable. “You didn’t just think that the Holy Church’s power and influence simply comes from the religion, right? Anyone with magic in the empire, save for those who choose to go into medicine, is required to join the Holy Church. Narrow battles have been won simply because of their presence.”

And just like that, another critical puzzle piece into the crazy game I’ve been forced to play is acquired.

———-

Most people would feel awkward standing alone outside with three grown men in the middle of the night. But with one glance, one can easily tell that Emma is not ‘most people’.

With her shoulders held firm and her back as straight as a board, Emma’s standing position was reminiscent of theone beaten into new army recruits. Her short and skinny stature in comparison to Felix and the two guards was easy to dismiss however, to Emma’s advantage of course.

In a world that did not pay enough attention to women, Emma’s courtesan mother had long taught the little girl how to take advantage of it. But even without her mother’s calming tutelage and the street’s brutal lessons once her mother passed away, spying unabashedly at the three men was an easy task.

So easy, that when the tall, slimy-looking fellow who doggedly followed Prince Julian around slithered away around the corner of the tent, Emma trotted after him diligently.

Emma acquainted most people with animals, a childish game she played in her head though she would never admit it in a thousand years. Her mistress and sister was a parrot, who could talk for hours about mundane matters. Jake was a lion, as he had always led their crew with unmistakable authority despite being her age. And Julian’s manservant, Felix, was a snake.

Emma was not fond of people who reminded her of snakes. She’d killed the last person who reminded her of one.

Felix was light on his feet, but Emma was lighter. With hands clasped behind her back, she watched as Felix slipped out of the guards’ line of sight with a lousy excuse of searching for an outhouse. He looked both ways before falling to his knees and attempting to dislodge the tent’s weighted edges so he could perhaps peek into or listen in on the conversation going on within.

Emma would not have cared if Winter weren’t inside the tent. Anyone raised within the West Bend adhered to a silent rule when it came to illegal actions: pretend you didn’t see it as long as it doesn’t affect you. It kept the smart ones alive and culled out the nosy do-gooders quickly.

But Winter was in the tent. And even if Emma was temporarily annoyed with Winter, she was not about to sit back and watch a snake slither into her mistress’ tent.

Emma cleared her throat. Felix didn’t budge, so devoted was he to freeing the edge of the crimson tent from the weight. Emma sighed, a cute little sound, but rather sinister to those who knew her. Inside her hidden pocket, she twirled her dagger around in a steady circle, ready to draw at a moment’s notice.

“What are you doing, good sir?”