The word, that unspoken threat, hangs over the motor carriage.

  Retaliation…

  Guardsman Mori Fushimi speaks up to break the silence, measured and calm. “Sophia’s right, you two just crossed a line. That Mayor-Prefect’s a fool if he lets you sit with that threat. He’s probably going to do something drastic… and he’s going to do it as soon as he can.”

  There’s a reason why Mori’s the commanding officer of Zai’s guardsmen, and she keeps going on with her line of thought. “We’ll probably be seeing something happen within the next few days.”

  The ceramic demon stiffens at the word, lifeless through its facemask. “Is there any danger present?”

  “Probably, yes.” And this Guardsman doesn’t coat her words with any honey. “But I doubt it’s anything… violent. We don’t know what this Mayor’s dug up from Jin and Sylvia’s falsified records, for all he knows these two are from a criminal syndicate that he can’t get any dirt on. If that’s the case, he can’t actually assassinate these two…”

  There’s a long pause as she considers it, before Sophia interrupts her with her vast experience in crime, enemies-to-lovers genre novella. “Why wouldn’t he try to assassinate us? It does, considering all possibilities, the simplest solution. Make it an accident, like a house fire?”

  Some archivist deep within the Fourth Princess’ memory pulls the half-forgotten plot line of the penny novel for the Consciousness Committee. Yeah this was the plot of ‘Crimson Rose: My Lover who I’ll Kill.’ It’s that novel that we disliked because it had the two main characters have the big seggs in the first 10 chapters? Fast burn our ass, that was an incendiary bomb of a pacing. And we also may have read it twice…

  But those two guardians take her words with absolute seriousness, and they turn to face one another as they consider that possibility.

  “We should be prepared for anything.” Mori answers. “They could come under the disguise. Alongside the house staff, or even compromise just one. We’ll need to audit all employees for the foreseeable future.”

  Because if just a single compromised soul slips through the cracks that’s the threat of a bomb in the east wing, a slip of cyanide into a cup of tea, or even a mono-molecular blade during breakfast around the dining table.

  The Impericutta gives its answer too. “Or a night raid with heavy weapons and armored vehicles.”

  Because if things did get serious, any number of hastily armored cars could come to burn this place to the ground. Autocannons made to shred armor cutting through plaster and wood construction, with the current short anti-tank armament (this ceramic demon did bring five thermite grenades in its arsenal) this mansion would easily fall against a full mechanized assault.

  Ok maybe both theories are a bit too outlandish. Sophia mediates in her head.

  And Zai speaks up with a slight hesitation, reading his wife’s mind. “Those are quite outlandish. Perhaps this Mayor will be more… discrete in his response?”

  Any number of responses could come. Sophia follows that line of thinking. Probably some sort of squad of goons come to threaten this place with words and a show of force.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  And very shyly, Sophia makes her analysis known to the world. “It will most likely be a small group, melee weapons and maybe a firearm or two. We intimidated him, that Mayor-Prefect will need to intimidate us… I think?”

  Both the guards take a moment to simmer on that much more realistic concept, and the two silently fall to agreement with one another.

  Mori takes the carriage on a right turn, now on the main road back towards the Tianci Summer Residence. “So… doll. What do you people do when uh… faced with a squad of goons like that?”

  And the dead, lifeless voice comes from behind the facemask without any hesitation. “We kill them.”

  As they always have.

  Because they signed the Julus Compact.

  A thousand years ago, when the first Elise Emperor sat atop a throne of cobbled silver in a small castle overlooking the vast reaches of the Capital Valley, the warrior-monks of that mountain bowed their knee to a new faith.

  Born in their very halls and brought down from the peak by an exiled, and later exalted preacher, the faith of this new Goddess was something unlike anything the world had seen before.

  When this young woman, who was declared a raving madman from the clerics in the mountain’s inner sanctums, came with fistfuls of scrolls and the words of a divine inspiration the villagers at the foot of the mountain’s corpse listened.

  When at the time a majority of these tribal beliefs told tales of ancient ones, of wars between old gods and humanity, came a message not of obedience or the worship of some self-declared prophet but of something more personal.

  This was a story of a Goddess who came to the world, who loved the world and the people beneath her, who betrayed her own kind to save humanity in a sacrifice of pure love. How, in her five fragments that were broken were once again brought together by five crusaders in a broken heaven far far away, lay a new salvation for all humanity.

  And they signed their souls to it.

  Service for the sake of love, aestheticism for the sake of love, violence for the sake of love.

  The Impericutta were love: in all its emptiness, in all its violence, and in all its dedication.

  And love always ends in death.

  It’s almost as if they wait for permission from these two royals, an almost preemptive strike against what could be a threat to their already soft compromised state in this town.

  Zai takes a glance at Sophia, that cold yet longing look in his abyss almost begging her to answer for him. To give that order under the authority of that cruel Imperium of blood, of aerostatics and fire—spare this vast oceanic soul the responsibility of death and destruction.

  Like those ships over Kotimaa, like every single assault coming with the signature of that Empress, she is one of those monsters.

  Sophia Elise gives the political maxim without any flair, an almost naive innocence to her tone as she shrugs. “If they come, I trust your judgement, Legionnaire… and Mori.”

  The Dominion Guardsman is flattered at that, holding a surprised gasp and smile. “You do? Your highness, I’m… honored!”

  Even Sophia can cut through that slight sarcasm and into that actual meaning behind those words.

  Mori excitedly asks her actual master. “Zai, if I can…”

  The Crown Prince of Tianci exhales as calmly as possible, watching as they crest the hill and back into visual range of the mansion. “Please follow Sophia’s suggestion.”

  “Yayyyy!” Mori celebrates with an almost comedic level of delight. “Thank you. And Sophia, I shall follow your orders To. The. Letter~!”

  The Fourth Princess is uneased, a knot tightening in her stomach at the Guardsman’s seemingly joyous facade.

  There’s something really wrong with her. The internal monologue reads with an insane precision. You just gave her something that you shouldn’t have. You just gave a pyromaniac the keys to the armory.

  And there’s the look on Zai's face, an almost deep guilt that he pulls towards him.

  Guardsman Mori Fushimi is the captain of his royal guards. She is the Primus of his personal legion if he had one.

  Someone does not make it this long in the Dominion without getting their hands soaked in the mud, the blood, and the ichor of civilizations.

  Never ask her what she does for a living.