The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

150 - A Promise of Fealty

"Celeste-sama, we are ready to head out."

I look behind me to find the group of people I decided to bring along to the capital. Asher, Darius, Felix, Arven and... Mike. That's right, Eric and I are bringing two non-combatants with us instead of sending them home. Neither Arven nor Mike are currently fit for fighting. Of course we could ask for Claire, but apparently she and some of Wolfram's escorts left immediately after the meeting as had the demons set their shoes aflame.

Then why are we still bringing them? Well... Mike kept insisting that he would go to the point to nearly turned to pleading when he gave the point that our group would look a lot less threatening this way. After he said that Arven added in that it would show that we had taken losses too... in other words, to send small messages without saying anything.

Eric agreed and here we are.

Vitis and Spence will stay behind with the army. Spence for his humor which is more amusing to the knights and soldiers than me, and Vitis because he's the most competent leader of the men I lead into war this time. He will be acting as a second in command until we meet up at Ice-Claw Keep.

Eric rubs the neck of his horse with a somewhat somber expression. He doesn't appear to have calmed down from what happened after our family meeting...

You see, apparently one of our maids died shortly after the meeting. She had snuck away from her duties and had gone to the castle, ending up 'falling' out of a window. The thing is, the wind apparently caught her and carried her just perfectly onto a weapon rack, before a small tornado ripped the broken pieces of the rack apart... the 'tornado' is gone now, but apparently none of the wind mages can use wind magic right now.

If I remember right, then it would've happened shortly after the wind gods finally left me alone. I doubt that they would have gone for the maid, but had she been a wind user with a wind fairy nearby then she may have gotten caught up in the fury of the wind gods. They'd been rather angry after the meeting. Not that the maid was reported to have a fairy blessing in the first place.

Though of course it is possible for her to be a spy. Though, I'm not really worried about the spies. Most of the knights in the room were old and well paid and have known my secret since the siege, and Wolfram was using wind magic to keep any sounds from slipping out of the room as one of the many things that ended up angering the wind gods.

For now... I'll make a note of what is possibly the wind gods taking vengeance upon the faeries..

"Augustus. Wolfram asked for permission to talk with Sir Vitis Njord regarding transport to the Tepet lands. Is this a problem?"

Eric looks back to the castle one last time with furrowed brows.

"No... it shouldn't be."

Still... it's a bit odd. Though, really, it's probably just something along the lines of 'protect that man no matter what'.

"Let's go."

—-*—-

It took a while to get to the capital partly due to the lack of horses. They need to be used for any units traveling to the Tepet lands.

As a somewhat 'coincidence' a 'merchant' that saw us about to leave asked to travel together with us... a 'merchant' with an awful habit of listening in on our conversations.

At least he left once we entered the capital.

"We are currently on schedule so we should be able to get an audience either tomorrow or the day after."