by Brandon Chen
While all of this was wonderful and luxurious, Keimaro couldn’t help but wonder. If all of these nobles were living large and could afford extra things like golden doorknobs, clearly the money wasn’t being distributed evenly. He remembered that starving old man that had looked like practically undead in the lower city. Judging from these buildings, there clearly was enough money to go around to everyone. Clearly enough food as well. Yet, it wasn’t being distributed, and the economic system was definitely flawed. It bothered him that there were people here living like this while the others in the lower city were suffering. He supposed that, by assassinating the king, perhaps things would change for the better. At least, he hoped they would.
But Keimaro had yet to see the final building at the end of the pathway. He wasn’t even sure if it could be called a building, for it was the size of ten of these mansions put together. A hulking citadel stood before him, towering high into the sky. It consisted of buildings that stacked upon one another, creating layers to make the castle look massive. Gargantuan towers were placed on top of lower buildings and stretched even higher up until Keimaro saw that at the very top was a single tower. All of the other buildings that were combined to create this single castle led up to this final tower that seemed to pierce even the heavens, so high that one could stand on top of it and perhaps even touch the clouds.
It was clear that Judal could see the disbelief painted on the boy’s face. He chuckled lightly to himself as he nodded to two guards at the door, and they continued walking forward.
Passing a courtyard, which seemed to have many different plants and trees, Keimaro drew his attention away from the size of the castle to see a single tree that he recognized immediately. An apple tree. Right there, on the courtyard in front of the castle. Glistening apples that reminded him of that single day. He remembered the first time that he had met Aika underneath that tree. Haha, she was practically unconscious. Yet, she reached for that apple anyway. And the next day, she ate another. Keimaro was about to see her once more. He couldn’t help but wonder how she had changed.
Massive doors that were the height of ten men slowly swung open, allowing for Keimaro and Judal to walk in. They stepped into a long hallway that was filled with soldiers on both sides, positioned perfectly. Their posture was flawless, their backs completely straight with their swords held out two inches before their face, unmoving and emotionless. They stood and made no noise as Keimaro and Judal moved forward through the hallway along a blue carpet.
Keimaro noticed many side doors through the hallway that probably led to a variety of different rooms. He wondered how many rooms were in a place as large as this. Surely over one hundred. Maybe even a thousand. Ah, that number seemed so high, but he knew it was true! Hundreds of candles illuminated the dark hallways, and Keimaro watched as the door to the throne room was slowly opened.
Gleaming gold shined in his eyes, and he found that he was looking at three great thrones, two of which were filled while the last stood empty. The perimeter of the room was lined with Royal Guards that wore the same attire as Keimaro and Judal. Through a convenient window in the ceiling, glowing moonlight shined and bathed the king, who was mounted upon the centered throne. Then Keimaro’s eyes flickered to the figure sitting on the second throne.
A beautiful girl—no, a woman—sat upon the golden throne. The light in her royal blue eyes was enough to shine through the room, brighter than any fire or any amount of gold in the entire world. Her long, flowing hair came down past her shoulders in a straight, perfect descent, cascading down to her lower back. Her full lips were pursed together as if she were pouting, having just spoken to the king. Her soft skin was untouched, pure, and delicate, as if a single rough tap would be enough to shatter it like glass. She wore a long, tight blue dress that matched her eyes, wavering past her ankles to reveal her glass slippers that shined with fragile heels that touched down softly upon the marble floor. She batted her long eyelashes a few times and opened her mouth when she saw Keimaro as if she had seen a ghost, but she said nothing.
Keimaro did his best to hide his surprise, but he could already feel the heat rising to his cheeks. His heart was skipping beats, pounding excitedly at the sight of the girl he had long forgotten. She truly was beautiful. In fact, for a moment, Keimaro forgot where he was entirely. Everything else in the world had been completely locked out except for her and her elegancy. Their eyes met, and he gave her a slight smile. Then, he realized where he was and hoped to god that she wouldn’t give away his name if she happened to recognize him.
“Ah, Aika!” the king exclaimed with newfound excitement, clapping his hands together as he indicated Keimaro with an extension of his hand. “We have found our newest member of the Royal Guard, and without doubt one of the strongest at our disposal as well! His talent must’ve been hidden all of this time, for I never heard of such a prodigy until I saw him in action today!” Aika gazed over the Royal Guards wearily, tired after the long day. But when she looked at Keimaro, she seemed to prop up straight.
Keimaro smiled. He bowed his head lightly as he and Judal walked to the center of the room and knelt before the thrones. “Milord, you are too kind. The adrenaline and threat of death were what drove me. That is all.”
“Ah, but in combat, your life is always at stake. Therefore, you will always be a triumphant warrior, Riku!” The king clapped his hands a few times with a chuckle, nodding his head toward Aika. “This is my daughter. Your job, when you begin in two days, is to be her escort. Judal will accompany you. Understood?”
“Yes, milord.”
“Judal, show Riku to his quarters. I think I’ll be heading to bed soon.”
Judal stood back up and nodded for Keimaro to follow him. They walked out through a side doorway in the throne room toward a long hallway. Keimaro couldn’t help but glance back over his shoulder to look at Aika, and for a single moment, their eyes met. A spark ignited between the two of them, but Keimaro immediately broke eye-contact, his face growing hot. He continued to follow Judal through the hallways of the castle, candlelight lighting their path. He couldn’t believe Aika was really there.
The shadows crept along the corridors, and Keimaro raised an eyebrow as he saw squads of guards patrolling through random hallways. There was a long blue carpet running straight through each corridor. Every hallway had candles, thousands of them, lit for illumination. Sometimes there were torches, but they ruined the elegancy of the castle, according to Judal. Every hallway had about three doors on each side and maybe a few interesting paintings and some sculptures to differentiate each corridor from the next. Other than that, they were all the same.
Keimaro would undoubtedly get lost in a place this big. They had taken random twists and turns in the castle, and he hardly could recall how he had even gotten to where he was. But before he knew it, he was standing in a room with Judal, who was apparently going to be his roommate. Interestingly enough, the room was humungous. Two individual beds flanked a table set up on the far side of the room with a basket of fruit in it. Each bed was well made and completely lacked wrinkles with the smoothest white sheets that Keimaro had ever seen. This truly was the definition of luxury. The window had a view from the upper part of the castle, which indicated that they were well above the first floor.
Keimaro walked across the room to the window and brushed aside the red curtains. The translucent window refracted the moonlight onto the table, making the fruit gleam brighter. He looked out the window at the glowing moon and whistled as he saw the gardens outstretched below them. But, what fascinated him was the beautiful view of the city beyond. He could see it all. The thousands of buildings each gave off its own tiny glow in the night from small candles or torches. Millions of small lights in the city crawled all the way up to the walls that surrounded Bassada. Simply amazing.
“Nice place,” Keimaro said with a small nod to Judal. “So, I’ll be reporting to you in two days’ time, correct?”
“Yes,” Judal said casually, lying down
on his bed. He had his arms crossed behind his head and yawned, clearly exhausted from the long day. He closed his eyes. “Meet me at the front of the stairway at first dawn two days from now. I’ll help you learn the princess’s schedule.”
Keimaro nodded and turned, opening the door from whence he came. He stepped through and closed it behind him, looking at the hallway before him. He gave a heavy sigh. How was he going to escape this maze?
The young boy wandered, taking random turns in hallways, clearly without any idea where he was going. He eventually turned into a massive room that seemed to stretch three stories high. The room was divided into layers, all of which were overrun with huge books. Shelves were stacked upon one another and stretched up to the ceiling, filled with thick books of all varieties. As if the entire castle hadn’t been a maze enough, the royal library seemed to be even more so. Hopefully there’s someone here who can help me find my way out of this place.
Keimaro walked forward, weaving in between bookshelves, not sure where to go. There were ladders with wheels at the bottom that leaned against the tall bookshelves, which towered over Keimaro. He walked about, realizing how late it was, and noticed that many of the candles were actually going out. Soon the entire library would be filled with darkness, making it all the more difficult to navigate—that is, without using the Shokugan. But if he used the Shokugan here and someone saw him, he could blow his cover almost immediately.
After a few minutes, the entire library was dark, and Keimaro found himself stumbling over stray books that had been left on the floor and tripping over the bottoms of ladders. How much worse could this get? His eye caught sight of a small light coming from ahead of him, and he blinked a few times, walking slowly in that direction and making sure not to make any sound. He saw that the light was coming from behind the shelf. He reached for the shelf and grabbed a single thick book. He slid it out, revealing a small hole that he could peer through. He looked through the opening and, to his surprise, found Aika sitting there at a table with a lantern and a book in her hand, unguarded. She was alone.
Keimaro couldn’t believe that someone so important would be alone. A part of him wanted to go forward and confront her, to speak to her, but his heart was fluttering and almost a thousand excuses popped into his mind. I’ll blow my cover! I’m sweaty after that fight earlier today; I probably smell bad. She’s a princess; I’m just a simple undercover guard.
Damn. Where were his guts? He felt completely powerless over his own actions and sucked in a deep breath. He wasn’t afraid when the tip of a blade was pointed against his throat, yet he was like a little child in the face of a beautiful woman. How ridiculous. He ran his hand through his hair, toying with the pages of a book. All right, I’ll go and talk to her. Keimaro made a quick nod to himself and went back to looking through the hole, only to find her on the other side, looking straight back at him.
“Looking for something?”
“Gah!” Keimaro exclaimed, completely surprised. He stumbled, tripping over a book. His head hit the shelf behind him, and dozens of books rained from the sky, burying him. Kill me now. He heard shuffling and sighed as he lay there, a pile of books on top of him. He was so embarrassed that he just didn’t want to move at all.
“You’re Riku, right? My new bodyguard?” Aika asked curiously, getting down on her knees as she began to help take books off of Keimaro.
Keimaro blinked a few times, leaning forward so that some of the books fell off of him. She didn’t recognize him. Well, it was for the best. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” He scratched the back of his neck and began to scoop books up. “S-Sorry about that! I was just getting used to the job. One day you’re off escorting cargo through a forest, and the next you’re the princess’s bodyguard.”
Aika giggled lightly and picked up some books as well. She began to set them on the shelves neatly in perfect order. “Well, you moved up the ranks quite quickly, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Keimaro said, raising an eyebrow as she continued to organize the books on the shelves, knowing where each one went. “It seems that you spend a lot of time in this library, princess. You know where everything goes?”
“Ah, yes,” Aika said, slightly embarrassed. “I spend a lot of time in the library. There isn’t much to do since I’m the princess and my father won’t really let me do anything. Weird, right? I just managed to escape my other guards and come here to have a good read. It’s much better when I read without my guards staring at me for hours.”
Keimaro began to put some books on the shelves as well and chuckled at the image of guards staring at her as she read. “It sounds quite irritating, your highness. But it seems you have yet to escape me.” He flashed her a warm smile and could see her blushing.
“I suppose so. And what are you doing here? Spying on me?”
Now it was Keimaro’s turn for his cheeks to beat bright red. “N-No! It’s not like that, your highness. It’s … uh, well, I got lost on my way from my chambers to leave the citadel. I don’t actually live here until two days’ time, you see.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously, averting his eyes from hers. But he could tell that she was smiling.
“Call me Aika.”
“Er … yes, Aika.”
“Now, would you like for me to show you the way out?”
“That would be the reverse of what should be happening. The princess escorting a common guard,” Keimaro grinned. “What an interesting twist of events. Sure, but your father would be unhappy to see you unguarded.”
“Ah, I’ll show you a special way out. As long as you promise to keep it a secret, okay?”
Keimaro blinked a few times, knowing that Aika hated to be confined to the castle grounds. But, did this mean that she knew a secret passage and was able to sneak away? Surely not, the guards must’ve had an eye on her. But then again, here she was in the library, completely vulnerable and alone.
He nodded to her, and she swiftly took his hand and began to lead him away. He blinked, not sure when the last time a girl had held his hand, and stumbled after her. “Whoa!”
She led him out of the library maze with ease, walking out into the hallway. She looked both ways, making sure that one of the patrols was not walking by, and quickly began to move down the corridor, dragging Keimaro behind her. She took another turn into a hallway before grabbing the doorknob of one of the many doors and turning it, walking through the entrance into a new room.
Silence reigned as Keimaro blinked a few times, looking forward at something he had never expected to see: a greenhouse containing an incredible amount of exotic plants from around the world. He recognized a few of them. One was the Phoenix Heart, a small edible flower with red petals that were completely engulfed in flame. When the flame went out, the flower would die. It usually didn’t coexist with other plants because it typically created a forest fire, so Keimaro thought it was smart that this plant was isolated from the rest.
Some plants had frosty mists circulating the stems. Others gave off different aurora colors that reflected off of the glass ceiling above. The moonlight shined down and gave all of the plants a glow, making them all the more magnificent to look at. It must’ve taken years or even decades to collect so many exotic plants of this rarity. Keimaro couldn’t help but stare at some of the flowers in awe but soon realized that the princess had walked past the rows of plants to the very back of the room. He walked quickly after her and frowned when she moved a rather large pot that contained a fake plant, revealing a secret hole underneath. Who would’ve guessed?
Keimaro blinked a few times as he peered into the pitch-blackness of the hole and whistled. “Uh, Aika, as your future bodyguard, I really don’t advise you to go down there. You don’t know what’s in there and—”
“Oh, don’t be a poor sport, Riku.” Aika sighed, gripped a ladder that had been concealed in the shadows of the hole, and began to climb down. “I showed you this because I trust that you would keep it a secret. After all, you are my age. You know that a
girl has to have a night out every once in a while, right?”
“Y-Yeah, but if you are found out of the castle….”
“It’ll be my fault, not yours. I won’t let any punishment come to you,” Aika said, disappearing into the darkness. “Besides, I’ve been through this tunnel already. It’s safe. Coming?”
Keimaro rolled his eyes, not particularly sure what he had gotten himself into. He felt something ominous from the hole, but he ignored his intuition and leapt down, landing in soft dirt beside the princess. It was extremely dark around them, and it took a few moments for him to adjust to the blackness that engulfed them. Aika, however, seemed perfectly able to navigate her way through such thick shadow, her hands guiding along jagged stone walls as she began to progress through the tunnel.
Keimaro slowly unsheathed his sword and shook his head in disbelief that the princess was leading the way through a potentially dangerous area. Why wasn’t he stopping her? He watched her closely and smiled to himself, knowing exactly why he wasn’t stopping her. She reminded him of himself back in the day when he had wanted to search for adventure. The castle grounds were the same as the barrier that had confined him to Bakaara. And now she was out searching for adventure, just as he and Yata had done.
The tunnel led out, and soon he could make out the shape of a ladder. His eyes were squinted from the minimal amount of light that cracked from the ceiling above. They were definitely underneath the castle. Why was this tunnel even here? Perhaps it was a secret tunnel for the king to escape in case of an invasion? Maybe. Who knew?
Aika was climbing up the ladder and began to move something above, keeping one hand on the ladder as she did so. Keimaro made sure to position himself below her in case she were to slip so that he could catch her. He blinked a few times when the moonlight shined through the ceiling as she moved whatever was blocking the hole. He glanced away, making sure not to look up Aika’s dress, a crime worthy of capital punishment. When he looked back, the princess had already climbed out of the hole and was motioning for Keimaro to follow.
