It has been almost 10 years since she came to these barren lands. Where there was nothing but snow, monsters and enemies.
Looking at the blade in her hands, she wondered how many days it had been since the last time she hadn't held the sword in her hand, or how many days it's been since she didn't color it with blood?
She couldn't bear looking at it, nor could she bear it not being in her sight!
Hating the blade was futile, as it was nothing but a weapon. An instrument that, based on the wielder, could both protect and kill. Just like her.
She awakened her aura when playing with her older brother, Bryan, when she was only 8 years old. Thus, even though Bryan's illness wasn't that severe, she got trained in case there would be a war.
Just two years into her training, a war actually broke out. Upon his coronation, the young emperor had declared war against North, West, and East. Thus, she, as a member of Croft dukedom family, alongside the Croft knighthood, got dispatched to this northern land.
Thanks to her luck and, of course, innate martial talents, she survived and conquered land after land after land, until there was nothing but barren land, ice filled mountains, wild monsters and dark waters. Vast and unpredictable.
From what the knights had heard from the food distributor-the storytellers of the war or the informal association they didn't disclose to just anyone, the ALMIGHTY guild of assassins of the young tyrant-not all the aristocrats dispatched were as lucky as her.
From the high society, Allan's dukedom had lost two sons in south east, the marquiset of Randolph had lost a daughter and a son east battling the , county of Mayer had lost three sons, viscounty of Dallan had sent five sons of whom two were captured and the rest died brutally at the hand of the wilds of west ears being the smallest piece left of each already small postured Dallans, while grand duchy of Golding also battling west had lost both the duke and his successor and now the second son even younger than the young emperor has been in the battlefield for 3 years.
Well, that number was-of course-way too little if compared to the commoners of which barely any able-bodied men were left.
Of course, all of them didn't die at once. Like a family of mice. First, one mouse sent to find food. Then when the mouse doesn't come back another one gets sent, and it continues until one comes back with food or there are no mice left to send.
"The second son has apparently just turned 16 this year!" Said the innocent looking, pretty faced, blond man. Making a sorrowful expression. Briana didn't bother with a second glance.
No ordinary person would ever suspect such a slender man with no muscle to show off to be a cold-blooded murderer, but there were no ordinary people inside the Croft army.
"Watch it." Said the vice commander sitting to the right of Briana, stabbing his huge blade in front of the blond guy, stupid enough to try to lean in closer to Briana across the fire.
"I- I didn't mean to offend- P-p-p-lease your lordship! S-Spare my l-l-l-owly life!"
It was out of Briana's control. Her terrifying aura spread. He was being way too arrogant. Not even trying to conceal the disdain in his eyes.
Though her shining golden orbs behind the helmet remained on Athena, her sword, and her clauses covered hands-indistinguishable from any monsters- never stopped polishing it with a gray-colored rag.
She felt disgusted, but not worried. It wasn't like he was the first rat sent by the emperor -trying to discover who the mysterious distant descendant that the croft had turned into a weapon was beyond the mask or... to just get rid of it regardless of its identity.
Her grip did not clench on the blade, but she knew-this guy too, even if he, by miracle, got through her protection shield that had already burned limbs of friends alike enemy, would die.
"Be careful! Are you trying to get yourself killed and get us starving?"
It was the voice of the young Captain of silver wolves second order-the third son of the croft's vassal family marquisate of Dena, coming from Brian's left.
Holding two feet of distance with pure hate and disgust in his eyes, he and the vice commander-brother of count Hedgon, another vassal of Croft and the replacement vice commander after the death of Old Alvin, were there all the time. Not to protect her, of course, but there to stab the tranquilizer sent by her father into her before she went rampant...
Treated like a beast, she didn't care about it. She was one-if she hadn't become one after all the experiments that would be a miracle, her life never had miracles. Not that it didn't piss her off, but it didn't matter any longer. That the people she saved treated her like a...
The important thing was her survival from the war she thought would never end, but there was no more land now!
At first, the young emperor only wanted the neighboring countries. Then, the neighboring countries' neighbors and then the latter's neighboring countries, a never-ending loop he created with the excuse of some, from Briana's view, stupid oracle. "The power next to us will swallow the empire." AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO CHANGE THE WORDING EACH TIME…
A really never-ending loop. They conquered the countries, but not the people who saw their children, parents and siblings die at their hands. She had gotten poisoned more than a dozen times too. By the chefs, cleaners, and her own knights...
Maybe it was just her hallucinations- their whispers…
Duke of Croft, at least, said it was. That the vassal army that he had sent while retreating their main army to defend Croft's borders, were bound by magic oath. That the forced power came with insanity… That it was an expected outcome since the potions made generation after generation were not meant for females, and even beyond the predecessors only a handful had skipped the insanity part.
She thought so herself too, but with no means to control it. If there was a child or frail woman or able bodied man coming her way, she would touch her sword's handle to make sure it was there.
Briana felt it coming. It was just a matter of time to see which one came first. Her complete loss of her mind or an end to this insanity.
"Commander, his grace has summoned you!" A man in silver armor shouted happily. He was one air headed fella. With a big mouth always blabbering. First son of a farmer's family near the mountains, with a dozen younger siblings and a betrothed, about whom he sang every day, about missing her to death every second. Maybe that's why Briana found her aura swinginging his way to protect his throat every now and then.
They were finally going back home.
While Briana had made sure that they could have a short vacation home, there were still people who hadn't visited their hometown for a long time...
One of them was Briana herself. Looking at the sword in her hand, her eyes had a glister, that of a little girl receiving her favorite doll as a present. No, it wasn't even comparable. She felt way happier than the time when she got her favorite doll.
"Pack everything we are leaving immediately," is what she had said that day.
Not knowing what awaited her, she, without even wasting a day, departed for croft. Taking brief pauses only to replenish the war horses' energies and galloping again.
*
"The Emperor arranged a marriage between our house and the grand duchy of Golding. You are to depart this afternoon." ordered Duke Croft in a monotonous tone.
"But in the letter... You... said Valentina was going to... get married. It's not... even funny."
The duke's golden eyes became dark and cold. "She ran away."
Not intimidated, Briana's eyes turned even colder than his as she responded with an unbelieving expression.
"So go find her!! I have done enough. My obligations. Haven't I? After everything that I have done for our family, is this really how you are rewarding me..!!?"
She looked at her father, angry. Her jaw was so hardened she couldn't even open her mouth anymore or maybe it was the duke's doing.
Despite looking like a beautiful porcelain doll that hasn't aged a day since eighteen, frail and scholarly looking, Briana had seen his demon-like power one too many times to say more.
'All I ever asked of you was a few years older, a soft-hearted husband who faints at the sight of blood! Now you want me to marry a four years younger bloodthirsty man, who also is our house's enemy? Have I not dealt with enough enemies?'
The handsome duke's expression became darker. In fact, the gravest Briana had ever seen it to become after what happened with her mother. What she could read as the pain of betrayal by someone you never dreamed of getting betrayed by. Something she wanted to argue her own to be much larger in scale.
"It is His Majesty's orders. " Soon his face turned to its original icy demeanor. As if he never made that hurt face.
"..." Briana felt it to be quite unfair.
"Did I tell your sister to run away? No! Do you think we should become a family of traitors? Do you expect our entire house, which is at its weakest, to die because you want a cute husband?" He shouted with that very same neutral face and eyes that had a snow storm in them.
He was a father who never lost his temper.
It hurt to be shouted at for always listening, she felt something burst. Yet, she couldn't even get angry since he was right, as always… "Ye--SS I-DON'T-Care!" She shouted back with that bursted bubble. The enthusiasm, even lacking for herself to believe.
"Guards, drag Briana to her room!" He stared at the unfazed Briana. The guards could not move an inch. She knew the meaning of that look.
He would drag her himself if she dared to drag this one second longer. Her body was brain-washed too well, after all obeying the strong held her alive on battlefields all these years.
"Servants! Make her look like a decent lady! Her carriage will be here in one hour!"
Just like that, with a heart heavy with disbelief and a broken trust, she arrived at the grandiose aisle of the grand church of the Golding duchy. Exchanging lifelong promises with someone neither she knows nor believes to be known by.
She saw him, not. Did a kid need seeing too? One thirsty for her blood, especially did not. From the rumors, he was searching for her and in her army were way too many of his men and she had let them be, since they were fighting and dying on the battlefield alike everyone else.
What would he do if he knew the one he was seizing, the hell hound, the commander of Croft army had been sent to his door?
Only when they exited the church did she realize they had married in the dead of the night.
He held her hand with his burning warm ones so subtly it would barely be called holding hands-yet she could feel the warmth and prickly clauses through the silk, it was a hand way more familiar than her own-now soft and spotless hands- and she was led to a carriage.
The painting of the phoenix surrounding a long sword on the body of it had faded quite a bit. Inside of it reflected just that worn out outside too, yet the ride was not more uncomfortable than riding those prickly spiked monsters tamed by her father for their speed and ironelike leather despite how uncomfortable they were compared to griffins or horses.
She felt like laughing, an official wife never married in the dark as it was reserved for the lowly concubines and mistresses. He hadn't even ridden with her, and the one who snatched her hand and dragged her out was none other than a maid in her thirties who looked at her as if she had killed her siblings and children alike… Briana searched the faces in her head as she followed her, she might have.
After all, she was the one obligated to attend royal banquets instead of the supposedly frail Duke and ill heir and while she was at it she had to clear the borders of croft too.
That was too much of a hassle for the duke who didn't even have the mind to care about anything other than the inventory of vines.
Still, even though she could understand the reasoning behind the maid as well as the reasoning behind the manchild father at her home, years of forcing obedience and authority made her aura to want to slip out and rampage out of pure habit... but her distant minded father's words rang in her ear and made her continuous.
This was her new battlefield, and she should remember she is a hostage in a family whose enmity to Croft drags one too many generations and latest is one directly caused by the damned father of hers, and that is if she strikes her mother's aunt and niece relationship with the damned brat on the throne.
If someone so out of touch with morality and common sense like her father who thought it would be good idea to train an eight years old to become a war monster said he did something bad enough for them to hold it against them ten generations after and warn her about them, not only what he did must be something far worse than he mentioned but Golding must be much more intimidating than rumors claimed.