The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 371: Out Of Uniform

Chapter 371: Out Of Uniform

Lapins Van Montmorency sighed as she stepped from the platform of her ship, followed by a pair of angelic guards as she bundled herself against the slight chill of the wind.

She cut a princely figure in a uniform of deep black edged with Montmorency red - a color made from using dye made from the kingdom’s cherries. Silver buttons completed the look, as well as a cloak of silver-grey lined on the inside with black mink fur.

She sighed because she’d held out some hope that she’d be able to put off getting summoned back home from the Academy, but the assassination attempt had put her parents on edge, and the disappearance of Kordia and Kassin had been the straw that broke the dragon’s back. So as soon as the equinox holiday ended, she left her friends and colleagues behind to take a boat back home.

Her parents had even gotten Heaven’s ambassador involved. She’d spent the last couple of days in the company of the man’s odious nephew, Jasiel, who insisted on talking down to her about the superiority of Heavens armies. A large contingent of that army was presently "peacekeeping" the operations strip-mining the hills and fields in search of the soulstones of dead spirits, for which Montmorency was surveyed to be a graveyard of such.

"A carriage, how quaint," Jassiel sneered as the vehicle, towed by destriers, came to rest. Emblazoned on it was the escutcheon of the Montmorency family, three lines of gold against a black backdrop, with a golden sun, a green and a red moon atop the three lines. A cherry tree grew in the center, a glowing sword stabbed into the ground before its trunk.

"Not all of us are so blessed as to have wings, good Angel," Lapins said diplomatically, a subtle hint that if he was riding, he should put emerald green wings away.

"Serve well and perhaps Heaven will remedy that for you," he reached over and brushed her chin with his thumb, like she was some sort of pet.

"With respect, I prefer to remain a princess," Lapins replied.

She wanted to slap the man, but she put up with it and pulled away toward the carriage, greeting the Captain of the Guard, Lacelotte Cidetty, a monkeykin woman dressed similarly to her but with the addition of weapons, including a knife at the tip of her tail which was sheathed. A childhood memory of discovering that her tail had a finger at the tip brought a slightly embarrassed blush to Lapin’s cheeks as she accepted the woman’s bow.

"Princess Lapins, you have grown," the Captain said.

"Thank you Captain Cidetty. You look stronger than ever," Lapins complimented. In physical terms, Captain Cidetty looked the same as she had three years ago, but through manasight, Lapins finally had a gauge for the Captain’s dense, orange strength.

"It is uncivil to peek," Cidetty smirked, her eyes focused on Lapins’ own.

"Apologies, my good friend Kordia keeps her manasight on at all times, and I have discovered that it is quite useful for many things." Like peeking at the otherwise-blank tablet that Jasiel spent most of the trip poking. Scowling and complaining because it was "out of range" of something.

The angelic guards behind her were both giantkin Elevated, Jassiel’s personal squad, and they had no trouble with her things as they loaded the trunks atop the carriage. Mercy, Lapin’s maid, had an impassive face as always, but had quickly moved to open the carriage for Lapins while giving Jassiel the most diplomatically cold regard Lapins had only seen twice before.

Most recently when Lapins had shortened her hair and the other time she could recall when she had given her regard to the demonkin boy whose statue decorated the atrium of the girl’s dormitory back at the Academy.

In the carriage, the Head Butler, a human named Spens, waited, scooting aside to allow Captain Cidetty her seat.

"Princess Lapins, you’ll be pleased to know that your room is as you left it," the kindly, round-faced human man said, his mustache reminiscent of a norhtern Lakelands walrus as it hid his lips. "And your parents have provided a selection of new furnishments, based on the interests you have described in your letters home..."

Lapins sighed as Jassiel put away his wings to squeeze in as well, displacing Mercy, who she could feel climbing up to sit by the driver. Given the weights that Mercy wore, at all times in conjunction with her specialty in bodily enhancement magic, Lapins was surprised the wheels didn’t snap.

As the carriage took off toward the castle, a tripartite citadel with three great halls that met in a circular middle, Lapins only half-listened to Spens’ sharing of kingdom gossip. As the carriage rose on its way up toward the castle, she looked out over the hills beyond the city walls. The orchards nearest the city and the farms were all intact, but the hills east of the green-coated sides of Mount Moren looked brown, broken, and ugly. She remembered them being covered in red-pink blossoms around this same time three years ago, when last she’d seen home. But the only such blossoms were visible around the walls of the city.

I wonder how much the angels are paying for us to destroy our own home...

They could have just hired adventures to search the hills, but somehow her parents had been talked into taking advantage of a surplus of slave labor, acquired as a result of the Ghostheart Crises that had plagued Montmorency’s chief rival, the Amritans, to the south, and the mesa-states of the Wolf Plains to the southwest.

And it wasn’t like the capital wasn’t suffering either.

The River Moren was clogged with silt and waste, washing south from the mines.

"And after the last flood, the King has seen fit to begin shaping the river to prevent such things in the future. A canal to link Lake Chanur to the Grand Lake, passing right through the city! I think the north is about to open up for us in unprecedented ways, thanks to Heaven’s will turning in the Kingdom’s favor."

"Thank you, Spens. I am rather exhausted from my trip though." The carriage rolled to a stop at the double doors leading into the central court.

"Will you be able to attend tonight’s dinner with your parents? There is talk of a ball to be held. A celebration of your return," Spens asked.

"I’ll make an effort to attend, but first I must rest. Thank you." She returned Spen’s bow with one of her own and made her way, Mercy falling into place behind her.

Jassiel, meanwhile, engaged the Head Butler to ask after the local Ambassador and what there was "to do in a little place like this."

"Fucking tourist..." Lapins muttered, receiving a quizzical eyebrow from Mercy, who looked before returning her gaze with an understanding nod. It infuriated Lapins to hear her future queendom referred to like a backwater when it was one of the three major powers on the continent, and the primary source of iron, even if Norneau had unseated its production of steel these last two years.

She barely got three hours’ sleep before a furious knocking on her door revealed a panting servant. "Princess Lapins, your parents have summoned you."

"What’s going on?" Lapins stood and spread her arms to let her maids start to dress her, as the birdkin woman caught her breath.

"I cannot say. There is worry that it will cause a panic," the messenger replied.

In short order, Lapins was dressed and led to the grand hall, where her father stared sternly at a map of the Kingdom while one of his generals, an older, bearded elf named Khayem, pointed off to the east side of the hills by Lakebarrow.

"What are you wearing?" Lapin’s mother, Queen Linda Van Montmorency, scowled at the sight of Lapin’s princely garb. She was sitting next to her father, King Lambert, who had his fingers over his lips as he looked up to regard her.

"Thank you, Khayem," he said. "Let us pause for a moment."

He stood, looking more tired than Lapins recalled ever seeing him, though the last time she saw him was years ago. "Father, what is going on?"

"War, Lapins. Demons are invading from the east. Heaven, it seems, did not move fast enough to contain the threat that destroyed Nyandor, and now it is here."

"Who is here?" Lapins asked, knowing that soon she would be tested to see what she could contribute to the battlefield.

"Kainur Satanos," General Khayem replied. "Based on the direction the demons are coming from, they must have attacked Isegart right after the sacking of Nyandor... meaning his vendetta against the Valrians must finally be fulfilled."

"The Valrians are fallen?" Lapins’ mouth dropped open with shock. She’d read quite a few Valrian tales, and thought the Knights of a long lost empire invincible, in their own tragic way.

"No army marches with an enemy at their back if they can help it," her father answered.

"Where do I come in?" Lapins asked. "I’m ready to fight."

Her fathered opened his mouth to speak, but it was her mother who spoke first.

"Your battle is here, Lapins. In a proper dress." She stood. "I understand you arrived with an Ambassador’s nephew. It would suit us well if you were to influence him into providing a favorable report. Something to help convince Heaven to commit more soldiers, so that we don’t lose more people than we can sustain. The winters are coming sooner and longer, and-"

At that moment, the door to the hall burst open and Jassiel entered, the head of a demon in his hand for the moment it took him to roll the grotesque trophy onto the table.

"I caught a demon’s messenger flying to deliver lies. I trust you mortals have no qualms about my rendering of Heaven’s justice?"

Lapin’s fists tightened at the sight. Not just because it was grotesque, but because she knew that Heaven had taken the right to negotiate out of their hands before they knew they had it.

"Of course, Angel. Please let the Ambassador know we stand ready," Lapin’s father replied.

"Will you be coming to the ball tomorrow night?" her mother asked.

The only thing Lapins could think, right as Mercy placed a comforting hand on her back, was, So this is what madness feels like...

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