――The Selseta Army was beaten by the Urgalia Army, and the King’s younger sister, Mito, was taken prisoner by the enemy.
When Ney heard the news from her father, she felt a deep terror, and at the same time, a deep sense of resignation. Ah, so it really turned out this way, she thought.
Her father, the chief of the Kino clan, had led the men of the village to join the Selseta Army. The Kino troops had apparently shot down a good number of Urgalia soldiers with their prized bows.
But with fewer than three hundred people, they couldn’t turn the tide of defeat, and they were forced to retreat from their position along with Mito.
The Selseta Army, having abandoned their position, took heavy losses on the open plain as the Horned Cavalry (Rongāra) chased them down relentlessly. Because Mito herself led the standing army to serve as the rear guard2, the Kino troops barely managed to retreat-but in exchange, Mito was captured by the Empire.
The men of Kino who made it back to the forest numbered just barely over a hundred.
Some would probably straggle in later, so the number of survivors would go up a bit more, but even so, there was no doubt that more than half of the men who had gone to the battlefield had lost their lives.
For Ney’s father, it was the bitterest thing imaginable. At this rate, even holing up in the forest to resist was looking hopeless.
If at least Mito had been safe, they might have been able to join forces with the surviving Selseta Army and keep fighting. But the Selseta Army, having lost the King’s sister, had scattered in disarray, and not a single officer or soldier was willing to stay and defend the Kino Forest.
”If only this arm were fine, I would have fought to the very end to help the King’s sister escape!” her father spat.
Saying that, her father irritably struck his right arm, which was wrapped in layer after layer of bandages. When escaping from their position, his right arm had been hit by a mounted archer from the Horned Cavalry (Rongāra) at close range, and it seemed the tendons were damaged-he could barely move it.
Her father told Ney to “get ready to leave the forest.”
If the Urgalia Army attacked now, there was no way to resist. The only choice left was to flee to their kinsmen in the Rūgu Forest-that was her father’s judgment.
Having lost half of their working men and driven from their homeland forest, the clan’s strength would drop a great deal. The Kino Clan had been known as one of the powerful tribes among the Silku, but that was only true until yesterday. It would surely take many long years to return to their former standing.
Ney’s father twisted his face, drained of color from his wounds, and his shoulders trembled as if he were enduring humiliation. Seeing her father like that, Ney sadly cast her eyes down.
Receiving the chief’s order, the Kino Clan began preparing to leave the forest. But the preparations moved at a crawl.
For the Silku, who lived together with the forest, the decision to abandon their homeland was not an easy one.
And it wasn’t even certain they would be welcomed in the Rūgu Forest. That worry made people’s movements even slower.
Before long, some began to say, “Maybe we should just stay in the Kino Forest,” If the Empire came, they could just run around inside the forest and somehow manage, they said.
Besides, there was a chance the Empire would ignore Kino and attack Selseta’s royal capital. If that happened, the Rūgu Forest, being close to the capital, would also become a battlefield. And if that happened, there would be no point in fleeing to the Rūgu Forest at all.
Those opinions spread slowly but steadily through the clan. It was probably also proof that Ney’s father was losing his pull.
Of course, there were also those loyal to the chief’s command.
Abandon the homeland forest, or don’t abandon it. Opinions in the clan split in two, and it wasn’t easily settled. If the Urgalia Empire had sent in the Horned Cavalry (Rongāra), the Kino Clan would have had no way to escape, and would surely have been massacred before the day was out.
But luckily, it wasn’t the Horned Cavalry (Rongāra) that came to the Kino Forest. What came was one of the men who had been captured by the Empire’s army, and he had been made to carry a letter from the Empire.
――The Kino Clan is to surrender to the Urgalia Empire at once, and the chief and his family are to present themselves to the Urgalia Army within half a quarter-hour1. If you obey, we will release the Kino warriors we hold as prisoners.
The contents of the letter were short and clear. The fact that it didn’t mention what would happen if they refused was probably a way of saying it didn’t even need to be written.
And the Kino Clan, unable to even decide whether to flee or stay, had no way of refusing the Empire’s demand.
Half a quarter-hour later, Ney, having gone with her father to the Empire army’s camp, was immediately thrown to the ground along with him, and their arms and legs were bound.
Her father tried to protest, but was beaten by several soldiers, and then his face was slammed into the ground.
Seeing her father groan in pain, Ney couldn’t even cry out right away, and her body shook violently with fear.
Right after, two Empire soldiers dragged the terrified Ney into a room in the command post.
When she saw the person waiting inside, Ney realized that the unease that had been clogging her chest all along had become real.
”Long time no see, Ney. Glad to see you’re alive,” Arses greeted.
The voice she remembered was, without a doubt, Emperor Arses’s.
Ney hung her head low and answered in a trembling voice.
”…O-oh, it’s been a while,” Ney forced out.
”I’m pretty sure I ordered you to return to the imperial capital within twenty days when you went home. The deadline passed a long time ago-what have you been doing all this while?” Arses questioned.
Faced with Arses’s mocking question, Ney bit her lip and hesitated.
”Th-that’s…” Ney stammered.
”Oh my, now that I look closer, you’ve taken off the collar too. You didn’t keep the deadline, and you took off the collar-I see. So you’re saying you can’t stand being my slave anymore, and you have no intention of obeying my orders. Is that it?” Arses noted.
”…!”
Ney couldn’t say anything, and could only hang her head.
It would be easy to say “That’s not true,” And it wouldn’t be a lie. In fact, Ney had intended to return to the imperial capital within twenty days.
But the fact was that Ney hadn’t returned to the capital, and she hadn’t tried to stop her father from removing the collar. Whatever she said now, she probably couldn’t convince Arses.
Then, Arses spoke in a gentle voice unlike anything she had heard from him before.
”Well, I suppose it’s only natural. You were living peacefully in your homeland forest, then the Empire invaded and made you a slave, and on top of that you were torn from your family and made into my plaything. If there was a chance to escape, anyone would take it. I was just a fool for showing you mercy and letting you go home.”
Saying that, Arses walked up to stand in front of Ney.
Just that made Ney’s shoulders jump with fright. Behind Arses’s gentle tone, she sensed a chilling cruelty, and she couldn’t help but be terrified.
Arses continued, saying, “But, unfortunately for you, you’ve been caught by me again like this. For spurning my mercy, I’ll give you a fitting reward. Until now I went easy on you because you were my slave, but this time I’ll torment you until you break. Ah, and of course your father and your people won’t get off easy either-so brace yourself,” Arses warned.
Hearing that, Ney hurriedly raised her face.
There was the figure of a boy, his handsome features twisted ugly.
That expression itself she had seen many times during their nights together.
But there was one thing different from before.
It was Arses’s eyes as he looked at Ney. Those eyes, far colder than before, seemed to Ney like the eyes of someone looking at an object, not a person.
If it was the Arses of now, he really would torment Ney until she broke. He would toy with her father and her people like a child playing with toys.
The moment she thought that, every hair on Ney’s body stood on end.
”――!”
The next moment, Ney threw herself down on the floor and bowed her head to Arses.
Because her hands were tied behind her back, she slammed her forehead hard against the floor, but the Ney of now had no room to feel that as pain.
Rolling on the floor like a caterpillar, Ney desperately raised her voice.
”I’m sorry I couldn’t keep your order! I’ll do anything, so please, just spare my father and my clan!” Ney cried out.
”Even if you say that. If you were my slave, I might have listened to that request. In fact, I did listen before. But you’re the one who ran away from that, aren’t you? I have no obligation to listen to the requests of someone who’s no longer my slave,” Arses dismissed.
”Please, please make me your slave again! This time I’ll absolutely keep your orders!” Ney implored.
”And then you’d run away again if you got the chance, right? I’m not so soft-hearted that I’d trust someone who betrayed me once. It’s useless to act so devoted now-give it up,” Arses sneered.
”I will never betray you! I’ll obey any order! Please, I’m begging you! Please!” Ney shrieked.
Ney screamed as if she were spitting blood, bowing her head again and again and again.
Each time Ney bowed, the floor thundered, and blood seeped from her battered forehead, but even so, Ney would not stop bowing.
Seeing Ney act like that, Arses spoke in a tone different from before.
”…Ney, stop. Your forehead will split open,” Arses commanded.
”Please! Please! Please!” Ney kept pleading.
”Ney!!” Arses roared.
Arses’s whip-like shout struck her ears, and Ney, who had been frantically bowing, stopped moving.
Not knowing what to do, she looked up at Arses in a daze, and he knelt down and peered into Ney’s face.
His face, with brows drawn together in trouble, was the Arses she knew.
”…You’re bleeding from your forehead. Do you want to be my slave that badly?” Arses asked.
”Y-yes! Please!” Ney choked out.
Arses hurriedly stopped Ney as she tried to bow again.
”Wait, wait, okay. I understand. But… words alone aren’t enough for me to trust you. Ney, swear on the thing most precious to you, and on the thing most precious to the Silku. That you will serve me for the rest of your life. That your body, your heart, your future-everything-you will give to me,” Arses bargained.
Ney obeyed that demand without hesitation.
If she hesitated even a little, Arses might go back on what he had said. That fear wouldn’t let Ney hesitate.
”I swear by my father, my people, and my late mother. And I swear by the tree spirit (Pōria)3 of the Kino Forest. I will serve you for the rest of my life. My body, my heart, my future-everything-I give to you,” Ney swore.
”You said it. If you break this oath, consider everything you just named turned to ash,” Arses warned.
”I will never break it!” Ney declared.
Seeing Ney assert it so strongly, Arses nodded, looking satisfied.
For a moment, his gaze turned lustfully toward Ney’s body. But the moment his eyes went to Ney’s forehead, Arses quickly changed his expression.
Then he called a female soldier who seemed to be an attendant from outside the room, and ordered her to tend to Ney.
While listening to the two of them, Ney was vaguely thinking about what she had lost, and what she had protected.
Trivia:
- Arses shifts his tone three distinct times in this scene, from mocking to gentle to cruel to concerned, showing he is always performing a role rather than revealing a fixed self.
- The collar Ney wore was never just decoration, it was the physical symbol of Arses’s ownership and its removal is what he treats as the true betrayal, not the missed deadline.
- Ney’s oath invokes the tree spirit Pōria of the Kino Forest, meaning she binds herself not just personally but spiritually to a place she is about to lose forever.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A traditional unit of time in Japanese and Chinese reckoning, roughly one hour. The text uses “half a quarter-hour” as the equivalent measure, meaning the clan has only about fifteen to thirty minutes to comply, underscoring the impossible urgency of the Empire’s demand.
2 ↩ The rear guard of a retreating army, a position of extreme danger and honor. Mito choosing to lead it herself is why she was captured, and this cultural weight of self-sacrifice for one’s troops is central to why the Kino men feel they owe her a debt they failed to repay.
3 ↩ The tree spirit of the Kino Forest, a sacred being tied to the Silku people’s homeland. Swearing by it is the most binding oath a Silku can make, since it ties the swearer’s soul to the forest itself. Arses demanding this oath means he wants Ney bound by something even deeper than fear.