Adon’s limbs snapped back to their normal positions in a second and then resumed their normal visibility.

  Meanwhile, Rosslyn and William froze in position for a moment as Sir Jaren called a halt to the bout.

  William’s face was stuck in a shocked expression, and his posture remained noticeably off-balance, while Rosslyn still held her teeth in a sort of battle snarl.

  Then, with an almost simultaneous pair of exhales, they both seemed to relax. Rosslyn stepped back, and her bared teeth shifted to a small, slightly nervous smile. William stepped back, still apparently somewhat shell-shocked by the outcome of the battle. His hand shook slightly as he put it forward for Rosslyn to shake—a handshake being the only way he could acknowledge her apparently superior performance in the fight, since he had been disarmed and could not salute.

  Rosslyn looked down at William’s hand, apparently slightly surprised that he was reaching out to her, and her eyes widened. Adon sensed that she had looked past William’s hand and seen the damage to the floor.

  The place where Adon had broken and slightly raised a chunk of flooring to trip William up.

  Adon, did you do this? Rosslyn’s thought came out as a shocked whisper. Adon saw her swallow down a lump in her throat. A strange, uncomfortable look flashed across her face for a split second.

  Then she had shifted her weapon to her left hand, and she was shaking hands with William. Adon sensed that the motions were mechanical—she was almost as stunned as William, now that she had apparently noticed what Adon had done—but William seemed to be too caught up in his own emotions to notice anything in her reaction to the duel’s sudden end.

  Rosslyn also had a fairly good poker face; Adon only knew what she was feeling because of his increasingly powerful Telepathy.

  Adon turned to face Frederick, still seated beside him, and began making conversation.

  So, Frederick, who all is coming into the dungeon with us? he sent.

  It was small talk, from Adon’s perspective. William was apparently too out of it to notice the way Adon had sabotaged him, and Rosslyn had already seen but wouldn’t say anything, at least not right now. Not without giving Adon a chance to explain why he had done what he’d done. So, Frederick was the next natural person for the butterfly to worry about.

  Luckily, the younger brother was happy to talk. He began bragging about the quality of the “Branden Guard,” an elite force of knights who had accompanied the Duke’s sons across the country as they made their journey to Wayn. Adon dimly recalled that he had already heard this story over dinner when he first met the brothers, but having asked for it, he listened well enough to Frederick to be able to respond appropriately when the young lord paused for breath.

  In the edge of Adon’s field of vision, he saw Sir Jaren had emerged from the edge of the fighting ring and moved into the center of the room. Adon was relieved to see that as Sir Jaren stepped up, he seemed to place his foot so as to block the damaged area of flooring from view.

  “Congratulations to both combatants on an excellent bout,” Sir Jaren said, projecting his voice so that the whole room could hear him.

  “A most excellent bout by Princess Rosslyn,” said William with a grudging, very forced looking smile.

  “Um, thank you,” said Rosslyn, smiling back weakly.

  “Yes, well, um, now that your, er, friendly duel is over, all parties intent on journeying with the knights into the dungeon this afternoon should probably perform any last minute preparations,” said Sir Jaren. “Such as bathing. If anyone was interested in that. We will all be trapped underground together for an unknown length of time, and there will probably not be fresh water inside the dungeon besides drinking water.” He cleared his throat and looked back and forth between Rosslyn and William, both of whom glistened with thick sheens of sweat.

  “Thank you, sir,” said William. “I suppose I will take advantage of that opportunity.”

  “I would ask that my young lord and any others be quick, if possible,” Sir Jaren added. “The knights have all been prepared for departure for the last hour or so, and we are losing daylight.”

  “Sir Jaren,” called Frederick, breaking off his chat with Adon suddenly, “surely you know that there is no day or night inside a dungeon. You taught us so much when we were children, I thought you knew everything. Dungeons have no natural source of light besides the stones that make up the structure. So when we enter—”

  “Still matters,” interrupted Sir Jaren insistently. “Time still flows. I think you and everyone else present is aware that regardless of what time of day it is right now, we are all laboring under the pressure of a slowly moving hourglass. Once the last grain of sand is gone from the top, we will have no more time.”

  Adon immediately gathered that this was the old-timey version of a ticking clock analogy. The party needed to get into the dungeon and back out as quickly as possible. The reason was obvious.

  The Demon Empire is coming. Right. Adon had already known about it, but the sense of urgency in Sir Jaren’s tone sent a slight chill through him.

  “We will moving quickly, Sir Jaren,” William said. He looked Rosslyn in the eyes. “See you soon, Princess.”

  He walked toward Frederick, and Adon heard the first bit of loud, clearly perceptible thought from William that the butterfly had noticed since the duel ended.

  I tripped over my own feet, William thought. How did I do that?

  Frederick rose to meet his brother, and the two of them walked, arm in arm, out of the training room and back into the main part of the palace. They were chatting quietly about the fight as they walked, and Adon was probably the only one who could actually hear them besides each other, thanks to his powerful Telepathy.

  But he only listened to verify that they were not discussing the strange floor malfunction that the butterfly had caused, which seemed to go unmentioned.

  I might be in the clear now, Adon thought.

  Then Rosslyn took a step toward him.

  Or not.

  “Adon, perhaps I could have—” Rosslyn began.

  “Uh, Princess,” Sir Jaren interrupted.

  She turned around and faced the man-at-arms again. Though her back was to Adon, her posture blared a signal of impatience.

  “Yes, sir?” Rosslyn asked, her breathing and the energy around her conveying the same haste.

  Sir Jaren lowered his voice. “You will go and quickly, um, bathe yourself, will you not, Your Highness?” He wrinkled his nose as if he could smell her—and did not quite like the odor.

  Given how sweaty she was, Adon realized that Sir Jaren probably could smell her. And she probably did have kind of a funky aroma to the knight. It was only weird creatures like butterflies that found the smell of human sweat oddly pleasant. Or, at least, Adon had observed before that Rosslyn’s sweat smelled good to him.

  “Sir Jaren?” Rosslyn sounded surprised by his question.

  “You were planning to go and bathe in this short window of time that we have, correct, Princess?” Sir Jaren repeated. “We will be underground for an unknown length of time, as I said before. We will be trapped in close quarters with the young lords and their knights. I assume that Your Highness would not want to embarrass herself by being the only one to, um, smell of vigorous exercise from the moment we arrive there.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Rosslyn made a slight move of the arm, raising her elbow, then forced herself to be still. The body language would have been insignificant if Adon could not also read minds. The Princess had been about to raise her elbow and sniff her armpit, but then she had remembered that there were people around. Specifically, she had remembered the mystic beasts behind her back.

  “That is—” Rosslyn snorted quietly and then chuckled. “That would be quite impertinent if anyone else said it, Sir Jaren. Anyone who did not have your many years of familiarity with me.”

  “I am grateful not to be anyone else, then, Your Highness,” he replied, bowing his head slightly.

  “Please do not repeat anything similar in front of the Duke’s sons,” Rosslyn added.

  “There was a reason I waited to bring it up until after they had gone,” Sir Jaren replied.

  The pair shared a laugh, and Adon felt some of the tension in the room deflate.

  Thank the Goddess for Sir Jaren, he thought.

  Then Rosslyn started to turn back around to face the arthropods.

  “I will just take the mystic beasts back to their room—” she began.

  “Please, Your Highness, I can take care of them,” Sir Jaren said quickly. “You have only limited time, and I have nothing to do. Are they coming along on the journey with us?”

  Rosslyn looked at the spiders and Adon directly for the first time since she began questioning whether Adon had caused William’s slip in the duel.

  “Well?” she asked. “Would our distinguished guests like to make their way into the dungeon with us? It would be an opportunity to consume unique prey, but it is dangerous. I would discuss the matter at greater length, but I have been repeatedly reminded that I am in a rush—” She shot a look at Sir Jaren—“so I can only tell you what I have told you. Perhaps Sir Jaren will tell you more.”

  She looked at Adon specifically and added a quiet, silent addition.

  We will discuss what happened in the ring later, Rosslyn thought. Her expression was sober.

  Then the Princess strode out of the room.

  She managed to look regal, strong, and dignified even while tired and sweaty.

  Wearing armor really suits her, Adon thought.

  “Adon, is it?” Sir Jaren asked as the door closed behind Rosslyn.

  Oh, um, yes, sir, Adon began formulating his thought, but he kept it from sending. He did not want to seem weak and ineffectual in front of Sir Jaren, who Rosslyn seemed to hold in high regard, and who would apparently be with them in the dungeon.

  That’s me, Adon replied after a moment of gathering himself.

  “Would you take a quick walk with me while I make certain that I have packed all of the equipment we need?” Sir Jaren pointed at another door in the room that Adon remembered Rosslyn had used to change before.

  Is there equipment in there? he questioned.

  Happy to accompany you, Adon sent, still trying to put on a front of confidence. He practically puffed his body out as he spoke.

  Goldie looked at him curiously from the seat beside him, but Adon did not turn to look at her, lest he start laughing at the slight absurdity of what he was doing and ruin the effect.

  Sir Jaren walked toward the room and opened the door, and Adon fluttered after him.

  What should we do with my little brothers and sisters? he heard Samson ask before Adon moved through the door and into the changing area.

  Then Sir Jaren had closed the door behind him.

  Adon took in the whole, small room at a glance. It was just a medieval version of a locker room. There were sinks with faucets, from which presumably water flowed. Candles provided lighting. The walls were lined with storage lockers for equipment.

  But Sir Jaren did not move toward any of the equipment. Instead, he turned where he stood, placed his back to the door, and faced Adon.

  Instantly, the butterfly’s guard went up. He was trapped in a small room with the knight who had trained Rosslyn through her entire childhood and sparred with her into the present day. If Sir Jaren wanted to do violence to Adon, the man-at-arms would not be a pushover.

  But then Adon took a moment to feel out the haze of emotion surrounding Sir Jaren.

  The result of his analysis relaxed him instantly. The cloud of feeling around Sir Jaren was less familiar to Adon than some of the other emotions he had already tasted, but it had a pleasant, sweet feeling.

  Gratitude?

  “You are some sort of guardian spirit for the Kingdom, correct?” Sir Jaren said, staring Adon in the eyes. “You periodically reincarnate to protect Claustria from foreign threats and protect the Royal Family.”

  The truth is something like that, yes, Adon managed.

  He was still wrestling with whether his Telepathy could truly be accurate in interpreting this cloud of emotions.

  Gratitude? Really? he questioned. What for?

  “So, you must have had some reason…” Sir Jaren allowed his voice to trail off, giving Adon an opening to explain himself.

  Adon was afraid that any semi-honest explanation he could give would sound self-serving.

  I try to have reasons for the things I do, he sent after a moment. The vague phrasing sounded feeble even to his ears, so he braced himself for some harsh condemnation.

  But Sir Jaren only nodded.

  “I assumed you would have the best interests of the Royal Family at heart, noble creature,” he said.

  How did you know? Adon asked. About the, um… He chickened out of finishing the sentence. It felt too much like giving a confession to the police.

  “About your interference?” Sir Jaren asked. He chuckled.

  Yes, Adon replied.

  “This little facility is my responsibility,” the knight replied, pointing a thumb back at the other room. “It has been for almost half of my life. I train the local knights and the Royal Family here. And I also supervise maintenance. As you can imagine, I watched that last duel closely. During the spar, at the very end, I saw something that I could not explain to myself. A chunk of the floor between Princess Rosslyn and Lord William broke and then shifted its position. It caught my eye, because other than the piece of flooring, only the two people I was watching were moving in the whole room.”

  That was enough to know that it was me? Adon sent.

  Sir Jaren shrugged. “Who else could it be? I considered for a moment whether the Princess or Lord William might have broken the rules and used magic, but I had been watching them closely, and neither of them knows a school of magic to hide the use of mana. Breaking the rules would be out of character for Rosslyn—and yes, probably for William too, though I had not seen him in years until recently. Even if I had not seen the floor break, dueling does not normally damage it so severely. The last time we had to make an actual repair—” He began to quietly laugh. “William was there for that, too, actually.”

  That’s not good, Adon thought. That increases the odds that William figures out that I sabotaged him, if he knows how durable the floor apparently is…

  The knight continued speaking, a nostalgic haze leaking out all around him.

  “When Princess Rosslyn and Lord William were this high—” He gestured with an open hand to indicate roughly four feet tall—“I taught them both their first real bits of swordsmanship. The day they first started working mana into the routine, that little brat—I mean the young lord, not the Princess—tried to carve his initials into the floor. That involved mana too. The floor here is otherwise fairly tough.”

  I see, Adon sent. He almost sent the same words a second time, because he couldn’t think of more to say. But then he figured he might as well ask the burning question on his mind.

  Will the Princess be angry about this, do you think? Adon transmitted. He knew as soon as he sent it that he was blowing any cover he might have maintained as an aloof, above-it-all mystical beast, a creature who worked in mysterious ways to accomplish the Goddess’s ends and safeguard the Kingdom.

  “Well, she is certainly not going to thank you for what you did in there,” Sir Jaren replied after a moment. “Her life was not at risk, and you spoiled her bout. She may give you a hard time about it, and with good reason. A royal is taught that their word is their bond, and she will have probably lied less than a hundred times in her entire life. The fact that the duel ended in the way it did impugns her honor. You know that?”

  I had suspected as much, Adon replied glumly.

  “Our Princess is a fierce, proud chil—young woman,” Sir Jaren corrected himself mid sentence. “You probably know well enough what she is like. She has always been quite a personality. High spirited but obedient to her father and stepmother. Reverent toward the Goddess but much less concerned with social norms than an average person of her social rank. She makes a lot of humble people feel important and forces important people to be humble. She is a very special young lady.” He shook his head and smiled wistfully. “I wish I could have seen her lead during normal times.” Sir Jaren’s eyes took on a faraway look, and he seemed to age slightly before Adon’s eyes. It was just the wrinkling of a middle-aged man’s brow, but the effect was transformative. “It feels as if she came in so damned near the end of something…”

  Adon found himself replying without having even consciously willed himself to. Something within the butterfly responded to the knight’s feelings.

  You will see that, Adon sent. She will lead the Kingdom during more normal times than this. Fight for that, and it will happen.