Episode 78

The weather was perfect. The autumn sky was high and blue, and the breeze was pleasantly cool.

Once I stepped outside the fortress, I noticed it wasn’t as large as I’d anticipated. It didn’t seem like it was built as a fortress, nor was it suitable as a residence, located as it was in the middle of a dense forest. Who would choose to live in a place like this, except perhaps a spirit of the woods?

Under the intense surveillance of Lian’s men, who glared at us from every corner, Lian and I walked a loop around the fortress. Rounding the back, I found a view that was invisible from the terrace of my room. Although, granted, it was still just more trees and trees.

But then, a familiar sound reached my ears.

“Lian, I hear water.”

Among the rustling of leaves in the wind, I heard the gentle sound of flowing water.

Lian gestured in one direction. “There’s a small stream over there. The water is clear enough to use as drinking water.”

I walked toward the spot he indicated, and Lian followed without comment.

What I thought was a distant sound turned out to be a stream flowing quite close to the fortress. And it was deeper than it seemed—narrow, but deep enough to reach one’s waist if you went in. It appeared they had built the fortress here with this water source in mind.

After following the stream a bit, I changed direction, noticing a large carriage that seemed to be used for trips outside the fortress. I approached it, and though one of Lian’s men tried to block my path, he stepped back at Lian’s signal.

“No matter how much you search, you won’t find any hidden escape routes,” Lian commented with a smirk from behind me as I inspected every inch of the carriage, from the driver’s seat to the wheels.

“I could always try hitching a ride by clinging to the bottom of the carriage,” I replied with a glare.

Lian chuckled, saying he’d be sure to check beneath the carriage thoroughly from now on.

And thus, my first outing ended, neither too short nor too long. After Lian escorted me back to my door, I closed it behind me.

My heart had been pounding like mad from the start; hopefully, he hadn’t noticed. I pressed a hand to my chest and sat before the mirror, steadying myself. Thankfully, my face showed no signs of change.

No, he wouldn’t have noticed. After all, I’d learned how to lie and feign innocence from the master of deception himself, Lian.

When I found the stream behind the fortress, I’d nearly shouted in joy. I might not be able to leave this place, but the water flows on. I had no idea where it would go, but if I was anywhere close to Lake Beryl, the stream might lead there.

And near Lake Beryl was the Imperial Summer Palace.

Even if I couldn’t reach anyone from the palace, I could at least try to get a message to someone…anyone.

I already had some paper set aside. I’d shredded a few sheets after drawing on them, so no one would notice they were missing. And I still had a piece of colored pencil, one I’d managed to sneakily save by snapping it into several fragments.

I tore off a piece of paper and, using the colored pencil, wrote a simple, direct message that Aiden would understand.

[The Empress is here.]

Please, come find me.

With that message written, I planned to seal it in a milk bottle and send it adrift.

The next morning, I casually noted to Amy, who brought my breakfast on a tray, “No milk today, I see.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. They went out to get some, so it will be available from tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Amy, still a bit timid but warming up to me, kept her promise and brought milk every day after that. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice when a milk bottle went missing every two or three days.

Then came the matter of Lian.

From the day after our first walk, I started accepting his invitations to dine together, using the excuse of needing a walk afterward to aid digestion.

It seemed he thought I was finally showing him pity, willing to share meals with him.

In deceiving the master of lies, I’d become quite the liar myself.

On a chilly evening, I draped a shawl around my shoulders and concealed a small bottle in my sleeve, strolling around the perimeter of the fortress. Some days, I walked in the opposite direction from the stream to avoid suspicion; other days, I went without taking anything, only to wash my hands in the water as if by chance. Sometimes, I had the milk bottle in hand, ready to send it downstream, only to find Lian watching, forcing me to hold back.

I did my best not to rush, taking every precaution. And, at last, I managed to send three bottles drifting down the stream.

* * *

The first to find a bottle washed ashore was a maid working at the Summer Palace. She had little to occupy her time now that summer was over, and her idle curiosity led her to pick up the glass bottle with a piece of paper inside. It could have easily been dismissed as trash, but boredom made her retrieve it.

When she opened the bottle and read the note, she was startled.

She remembered the gentle and elegant Empress who had briefly visited the Summer Palace last season and knew of the chaos that had swept the Empire after her disappearance.

The maid took the bottle and note to her long-time colleague, recently promoted to chamberlain, thanks to the Empress’s influence. With the bottle in hand, he rushed to the Imperial Palace.

And that glass bottle soon found its way into the hands of the Empire’s own furious hound.

“Where exactly did you find this?”

“T-the lakeside…”

The chamberlain and the maid trembled under Aiden’s fierce gaze, pointing to Lake Beryl as if afraid he might bite.

As Aiden turned toward the lake, the maid mustered the courage to call after him, “There’s…another one, my lord!”

“What?”

“We found a second bottle after sending the first to the palace.”

The maid squeezed her eyes shut, answering without looking at Aiden.

The second bottle had been floating in the middle of the lake. The maid and chamberlain had even launched a small boat to retrieve it. Holding the second bottle with the same message inside, Aiden turned back once more.

This wasn’t coincidence or a prank.

It was a message, unmistakably deliberate.

From someone.

Perhaps…from Sione.

“How many tributaries flow into this lake?” Aiden asked, walking on as if he’d leave without waiting for a reply. The chamberlain hurried after him.

“T-there are six tributaries. The lake is large, so many small streams flow into it.”

“Are all six deep and wide enough for a bottle to float through?”

“I believe so.”

“Bring me a map of the lake and surrounding terrain. Mobilize all the palace staff and search every tributary. Find where these bottles came from.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The chamberlain shouted his orders and dashed off.

Continuing his swift pace, Aiden turned to a White Shadow operative who had arrived at the Summer Palace around the same time.

“Tell Erik to send reinforcements here.”

“Understood, Commander.”

One agent sprinted back to Brincia, while the rest followed Aiden to the shore of Lake Beryl. Groups of palace staff began combing the tributaries, joined by Aiden and the White Shadow operatives.

It was a small glass bottle—there was a chance it had broken along the way, or filled with water and sunk. Maybe there had only been two bottles from the start.

But they had to search.

If there were two, there could be three. If they didn’t find anything on the surface, they’d search the lakebed.

This was the first real clue they had.

As the day faded, torches lit up the shore. They combed the frigid waters until their lips turned blue.

Then, just as dawn began to break, the chamberlain, who had been following the tributary farthest from the Summer Palace, let out a gasp.

The maid who had found Sione’s first bottle held her torch aloft and asked anxiously, “What is it? Did you find something?”

“Th-this! Isn’t this it? Isn’t it?”

The maid angled her torch, revealing what the chamberlain held—a broken glass bottle, its top half cracked as if it had struck a rock on its way down the stream.

The paper was missing, but the bottle was unmistakably identical.

The maid and the chamberlain hugged each other in triumph before running off to alert Aiden, who was still searching the other tributaries.