The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 408: Home, One Last Time

Chapter 408: Home, One Last Time

The three princesses ran, fleeing ahead of the mass of mana that had appeared behind them.

For a brief instant, Kordia admonished herself for not noticing it first, but her recriminations fell aside as they approached the bridge.

Confused guards approached, but no sooner had they taken a rough formation than she swatted them aside with a spell of pure force. Only their captain was quick enough to recover as he shouted, "Halt by the order of Queen Fruhe!" before she leaped into the air.

Another wall of force formed beneath her as she turned, ready to help Kassin and Lapins. The latter hopped onto Kordia’s spell, but Kassin’s toe caught the railing of the stowed-away bridge and she started to tumble.

Or he would have, had not Kordia and Lapins reached down to grab her by the wrists.

"Agh!" Sin cried out as a branch bloomed from her leg. Crossbow bolts began to rain down around them, and Lapins put up a shield as Kordia lengthened her floor of force towards the Mora half of the bridge, only to find it folding away as the guards on the opposite side turned the wheel that controlled it.

Lifting up Sin, Kordia and Lapins helped her across as Kordia was forced to expend more mana. They were three-quarters of the way there when she appeared...

"Cease fire or I will throw you in that pit myself!" Fruhe shouted from atop a fiery red fox spirit, edged with black and golden markings.

"Yes, Queen!" half of the border guards snapped to attention while the other half were still dazed from the sudden turn of events. Then, in a single bound, the spirit fox landed in front of Kordia, Sin, and Lapins right as they took their first steps onto Mora territory.

The Mora clan guards, led by a ferrekin captain, looked stunned as their princess and the queen of their biggest trading partner landed before them.

"Princess Kordia? What is going on?"

"Take your people away from here, Captain. This fight is not yours," Kordia advised as she flared her mana, seizing a precious bubble of calm within the inferno that was Fruhe’s mana as she began to heal Sin’s leg. She could feel the difference between her and Fruhe, and that the Queen’s mana was so mixed with the spirit behind her, they might well be sharing. There was no more running that she could do.

The border guards fled as Queen Fruhe dismounted and began her approach. Her half-fox form was voluptuous and lanky, with red fur along her body and seven tails tipped in white. Behind her, the great spirit sat and stared haughtily as his tails fanned out, all nine of them. He was red but with patterns of black and gold.

"The cub has grown, and bares its teeth," Crimson’s thought bloomed in all their minds as the spirit fox chuckled.

"I admit I underestimated you, Kordia van Mora." Fruhe spoke, her eyes and voice as cold as steel, before a mocking smile split her black lips. "Tell me... did you elope with my son just to break your contract?"

The contract! Now that she remembered, there should have been a line of connection between her and Fruhe. But there was none. And that meant there was nothing to prevent them from fighting.

"Sin and I are not married, but we are together," Kordia said, standing as her spell finished and meeting the Queen’s eyes. "And Princess Lapins is with us too."

"Is that what she looks like? Well, mankin all look alike," the Queen shrugged, letting one arm out of her haori as she raised a fan of brilliant gold, edged with rubies. "We have an arrangement. Or were you thinking of taking what is mine hostage?" her face went from a mocking mask to pure steel once more. "I will not ask again. How did you escape the contract?" she snarled. "And why have you absconded with my son?"

"Ask Sin yourself!" Kordia shouted her defiance.

*

Sin shook amidst the familiar feeling of her mother’s wrath.

She’d known about the contract, in the vaguest terms that her mother was willing to teach, but while she doubted any fight between Kordia and Fruhe would be fatal, she also knew that delays could be fatal.

And then it struck her. Throughout their interactions, Kordia had never once identified her by her gender. Memories flashed from two years ago. Sitting up straight as her mother read aloud a copy of the contract. Of course, the agreement had no magical link to her, only her mother, the matron of Clan Mora, the contract holder, and Kordia. And she remembered thinking about that as Fruhe read aloud what her son was obligated to and when her son would marry.

Suddenly, Sin knew why the contract had failed.

As Fruhe finally, finally looked at Sin, the scowl on her face only deepening.

"What are you doing in that ridiculous skirt, Kassin?"

"It’s not ridiculous," Sin said, standing taller. "I like it. And I love Kordia for helping me realize that... I’m not your son."

Fruhe did a double-take, control over her mana faltering visibly as the shock of the statement hit her. "Is this a joke? I lay on my back for days to birth you. I named you. I raised you. You are mine, boy."

"I am not a boy!" Sin shouted, expecting to feel guilt or even regret. Instead, she felt a giddy bubble of courage rising. Her shoulders tensed and relaxed, her heart beat hard in her chest, and her hands unclenched. Even her magic felt more comfortable. Enough that when she pulled mana into her throat, she was able to loudly declare, "I am your daughter!" Gods she felt good. "That’s why your contract broke... because even magic acknowledges who and what I am!"

A smile flickered and crawled up Sin’s lips. She felt, even more than after her first time in the tent, as though a burden had been lifted. The person she’d most feared telling was right in front of her, and yet she’d done it.

A part of her screamed that she wasn’t ready. That Fruhe would kill her. That, if not for the newness of what she’d learned about herself, she might not have been willing to take this risk.

And now there was no going back.

*

There was no going back from this, Fruhe realized as the shock of Kassin’s words finally reached her mind.

Kassin thinks he’s a girl... This is not... no... commoners do this sometimes. Magic acknowledges him as a girl? What a joke-

Crimson’s thoughts chuckled. "I sense no lie in the kit’s words. And look, she has grown a new tail since last we saw her." Physically, the spirit crossed his paws as he lay to watch the drama unfold, echoes of amusement overtaking his tone.

Fruhe, stunned, turned to regard her spirit. "You too, Crimson?" she said aloud. When she felt tears forming behind her eyes but quickly banished them. Then she turned, realizing only then that she’d let go of her mana field from the shock of what felt like betrayal.

This has to be Kordia’s fault... the clever witch... Kassin was Fruhe’s boy. She knew him. Raised him to be smart but deferential - as all men should be. Letting him go to Norneau was meant to begin his courtship with his bride-to-be, and instead, she’d turned him against her within less than a year...

Or maybe it was something more devious... Those with magical contracts and angels sometimes had access to magic that could compel others. This has to be a lie.

"How tragic..." Crimson’s thoughts mocked her. "Some things are not yours to decide, Queen... Oh, but what will you decide? Kill the girl? Take the princesses like a villain? This is far more exciting than what you promised me."

Boredom was Crimson’s bane, a guardian spirit at the heart of her empire with nothing to guard.

Her thoughts flashed hostility toward him, calling him what he was: A lazy, uncooperative busybody who her family had bound as a kit. And one that thought he was the most clever asshole in the world for it.

She would not let him goad her.

"Mother, please," Kassin said. "I promise this is not a trick. Kordia is trying to save... someone important. And even more than that, we’re all in danger. Heaven didn’t just break apart, the pieces are going to fall on us. Everyone and everything will die if that happens."

Forcing herself into a state of barest calm was difficult, but Fruhe managed. Withdrawing her emotions from the situation left her eyes cold, but words, actual words, came more clearly to her as she pondered the politics of what Kassin had done...

What her self-called daughter had done...

"I sense it, Fruhe," Crimson said, for her ears alone. "To all of them, this is knowledge."

Through their bond, Crimson opened his mind, showing her what he saw. The truths hovering on the surface of their thoughts...

*

Lapins was coiled like a spring, her signature four-elemental spell held in her mind as she watched the scene unfold.

The pause where Fruhe released her oppressive mana was the most dangerous moment: when the Red Queen of Gra’Rhuel made her decision.

For just a brief flash, Lapins thought she saw tears forming, and then Fruhe’s eyes went colder than steel. Colder than eyes. They hollowed out into a look she’d only seen on her father’s face before.

It was the void of pure politics. But where her father’s eyes had been couched in the face of a beaten and cowardly man, Fruhe’s was tense but firm; a dagger, searching for where to lay its point. She was frightening, but also more than a little amazing.

When she came out of her thoughts, Fruhe placed one hand on her fan but did not raise it.

"Princess Kordia, are you still intent on marrying my... child?" she asked, her foxlike lips quivering with an unfounded snarl.

"If she will have me, yes, and more," Kordia said cryptically.

"And what is your role in this?"

Lapins realized that Fruhe was talking to her, and so she cleared her throat.

"I have proposed marriage to Kordia and Sin as well. To unite our nations," she stiffened but held herself with dignity. "No doubt soon you will learn of the revolution in Montmorency." It felt a bit wrong, calling her "deal with a devil" a revolution, but power had revolved into her hands, just as she meant it to cycle to those better suited for it.

A laugh burst out of the spirit fox behind the Queen, a strange sound, coming from a fox’s throat. Fruhe raised a hand to her eyes.

"I... don’t know what to do with this..." Fruhe paused, and then. "Go. If you persist with this folly, do not embarrass our clan any further... and do not return until I call for you."

Sadness drooped Kassin all the way up to her ears, but she nodded. "As you wish, mother."

Without waiting further, Kordia ordered the Mora guards to resume their posts and tell no one of their arrival. Then she took both of them by the hands and led them past the Queen of Gra’Rhuel and her spirit fox.

They only relaxed when they no longer felt the mass of pure mana from the two.

A sob broke the reverie she’d gotten into, and she looked to see Kassin crying, one hand clasped to the front of her tunic, above her heart.

With a subtle nod to Kordia, the two of them embraced Kassin, holding her until at last she calmed.

*

As soon as the children left their presence, Fruhe turned to Crimson and mounted the spirit fox, who still wore a cocky smile.

"You handled that better than some," the spirit told her, a hint of concern in his voice. "I personally have never cared what gender my worshippers are."

"No. I didn’t handle it. I don’t know what to do, Crimson. I am betrayed, but no mother would want her child to die."

"It is loyalty that she still calls you mother. Regardless, something is wrong."

"What is it?"

"Silver should have been here by now... we have not crossed each other’s territory since last we fought. I sense her in the trees, but she is... distant. Or perhaps weakened."

Fruhe chewed a claw in thought, dismounting as soon as they reached the Gra’Rhuel side.

"Are we not going back?" Crimson asked, but he knew the shape of her mind. He knew what she truly cared for.

"Follow them," she ordered, her mind still steely. "Keep my- Keep Kassin safe."

"I will," Crimson answered as he turned, smiling as he trained his eyes on the distant woods. "But not because you told me to."

With a flash of flame, he disappeared, leaving Fruhe to contemplate how to save her nation.