She could not restrain herself, not with her father.
She ran forward. The duke noticed her, his blue eyes widening. "Clementine, there you are. I just sent Mira to go and wake you up. It's unusual for you to be up so late, darling, are you feeling -"
He was cut off by Clementine throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him close, barely suppressing a sniffle. "Clementine, now really, is everything alright?" the older man asked, bewildered. Clementine just sighed softly, pulling back and wiping her eyes. "I'm fine, father, I am." she said softly.
"No, Clem, you look like you've just seen a ghost." The Duke replied, a slight frown on his face despite the softness of his eyes. He knew his only daughter better than anyone else, and immediately noticed the little puncture in her arm. He gently pulled her wrist close, running a gloved thumb over the scabbed little wound with a sigh. "Now, tell me what has happened. You're pale as parchment."
Clementine wiped at her face again with a sigh. "A horrible nightmare, I suppose. I dreamed of so much sorrow and misery… I suppose I was tricked into believing it was real."
"You mustn't harm yourself again, Clementine, do you hear?" her father asked with a frown. "There is no need to do so. Gods above, child, you really should stop reading those history books so late into the night, if it will drive you to such unhappiness."
Clementine pulled her wrist from his gentle grip with a sigh, sitting down on the garden chair in front of him. "I am not a child anymore, Father…" she said, her soft frown matching his. She carefully subtracted five years from her age in her head. In the nightmare, she had survived until the meager age of 27. She was 22 when the war started, so she supposed she was 22 now. "I'm already 22 years old."
"I know, Clem, but you are still my daughter." her father said with a point of his finger, and she couldn't help but smile. "I know, Father… I suppose it was just a long night for me."
She relaxed slightly, propping her elbow on the table and leaning her head on her hand, closing her eyes as she finally allowed herself to bask in the sounds and smells of the garden. She had never been allowed outside at the Mireu castle, the Emperor supposed it was too dangerous to have his trump card roaming about, so she remained locked up in those dark, damp dungeons.
She had trouble believing - in all honesty - that she had once taken the sweet sound of birdsong and the gentle feeling of a spring breeze on her face for granted.
Her attention was caught again by the sound of porcelain clinking, and saw that her father had handed her a cup of tea. He'd even stirred the sugar in for her. As she brought it to her lips it was too sweet for her now, but she still drank and appreciated his kindness. "I missed you." she said softly. She knew her father loved her dearly, even if he pretended to be stern.
The Duke huffed a soft chuckle. "My, Clementine, was it such a bad dream?" Clementine didn't answer, content to just close her eyes and revel in the freedom she thought she had lost.
She and her father spent the day together afterward, what she had once found to be boring seemed to be all she wanted to do now. They mostly spent time playing chess or speaking about nothing particularly important.
"You have too little faith in your pawns, Clementine." the man said, as he took another of her pawns. She huffed, resting her head in her hands as she moved forward a rook. "What do you mean, Father?"
"You sacrifice them without a care." Duke Frederic said, moving forward a black pawn. "As if they mean nothing."
"They don't," Clementine said with a shrug. "You can barely move them, and they aren't good for much but taking other pawns that happen to stand in their way at the beginning of a match."
"Ah, you see, that is a shallow way to think of a pawn." The Duke said with a smile, moving his pawn forward again when she had made her move with a knight. It sat at the edge of the board now. He replaced the pawn with his Queen, which he had lost a few moves prior. Clementine breathed a silent curse, and her father chuckled.
"Because a pawn is the only piece that can become something greater than it once was on the board. It just needs to reach the other side."
-
By the time evening rolled around, Clementine and her father were in the grand sitting room. Clementine sat on the plush couch while her father sat in his armchair, reading a small book of star charts.
Clementine had gone quiet, one of many quiet spells of the day. To think she had grown up within these walls, and forgotten nigh just about every detail about them in just five years. She had never noticed the delicate leaf patterns painted on the walls, nor the golden sigils of the Levici sun on every windowsill.
At the very least she remembered the mantel. It was a hard sight to forget, after all, the main fireplace was the oldest piece in the Levici manor, a holdover from what was once a great fortress in the Levici name. It was built from grand mossy stones, packed together and held in place. The fire that burnt behind the ancient iron fireplace roared, banishing any trace of cold from the dark sitting room. But the main feature of this mantel was not the grand ancient stones or the intricate firework of the steel grate, but the skeleton that was displayed above it.
It was like the skeleton of a horse, but thinner, slightly taller. The skull was more similar to that of a deer, bar the longer snout. But what made this odd display unique was not the bone structure, no - it was the horn. The single, long horn, curved and dangerous, the length of a short sword, protruding from the skull of the skeleton. It was, if the legends were correct, the skeleton of the last unicorn that had ever lived.
Her father saw her looking at it, after a while of reading. He hummed, looking back down to his charts. "Luriel." He said without prompt. "The last of her kind."
"I know," Clementine whispered, hugging her knees to her chest as she gazed into the unicorn's empty sockets. Luriel, if the legends were true (which they tended to be), was the last unicorn ever to walk this Earth, a creature of the Sun, that found refuge with a young Levici heir and blessed him with healing blood in return for his protection. Clementine supposed that saying that Luriel "blessed" the young heir was a bit inaccurate, the Levici blood had a long history of being exploited, so much so that the line had dwindled to just her and her father. Her father didn't even have the healing blood, but she did.
It was the reason for all her misery… or… she supposed the misery in her dreams. She shuddered. Maybe the legends had lied about Luriel. Maybe the heir had captured and displayed the unicorn, and in return she cursed him and his line to suffer the same fate she did - to always be kept in a cage, their blood drained to be used in healing elixirs. That seemed a little more believable.
Her father sighed, folding his charts. "The Stars predict a rough few months. Maybe we should tell the gardeners not to plant any flowers this spring. It might be a stormy summer."
Clementine hummed, a slight frown on her face. She remembered, vaguely, in the nightmare, that the Stars had warned that the coming years would be unpleasant. She shook off the thought. Maybe the stars were just predicting a stormy summer, like her father had said.
There came a knock at the door. Katherine came into the sitting room, a pale look on her face.
"Katherine? Is everything alright?" The Duke asked, with a frown on his face.
"There were men at the front gate. Men wearing the Emperor's crest."
Both Clementine and Duke Frederic stood up abruptly. The duke walked over to Katherine, noticing the envelope that she had in her hands. The wax was sealed with the emblem of the Mireu dragon. The Duke took it from Katherine gently and broke the seal to read the letter, aloud.
"The Great Emperor Belindo Mireu decrees,
A civil war has broken out between our noble holdings and the Marlanian Rebels. They have banded around their Usurper, a so-called Ryker Marlane, and have attacked several of the outposts and forts on the borders of our Great Motherland, Graria…
To combat this barbaric force, our Great Emperor has decreed that every house from noblest Levici to the humblest pauper's abode must supply, without fail, one male to fight in the Imperial Army. Failure to do so will be interpreted as treason against the will of Emperor Belindo, and will be met accordingly with swift retribution…"
Her father read on, but Clementine's ears were ringing. No, no… this couldn't be. How could it be possible?
This was a replay, word for word, of what had happened in her nightmare. Was it not a nightmare after all? Was she cursed to relive her fate over and over? Is that how her prayers have been answered?
"We have no choice. I must go." Duke Frederic said, his blue eyes steely. Katherine shook her head. "No - my Lord, you are far too elderly to be on any battlefield - you can barely get onto a horse - how can you be expected to fight?" She asked frantically. "No - there must be another way. We can send a servant - or purchase - "
"No!" Her father shouted, causing poor Katherine to flinch. "I will never resort to slavery, not even for this. I will go fight - I still have strength in my body, however old it may be…"
Clementine felt like fainting, her lips tightening around curses. No- she knew how this would end. It was a trap. She had realised it years ago - but it was all a trap.
With Duke Frederic out of the way, it would be easy for the Emperor to send his men to the Levici estate to get to Clementine. The Great Emperor had no use for Duke Frederic - he did not have the Levici gift running through his veins - but Clementine did - and without her father's protection - no…
She had sat idly by, once, naively - stupidly praying to the Sun that her father would live, knowing full well he was elderly and already frail. She had put too much faith into life, believing that if she just kept her head down everything would be fine. No, she couldn't. She had begged for a second chance, and she would use it.
"I'll go. I'll go in your stead."