The desert heat enveloped us like a burning shroud, an almost tangible presence that infiltrated beneath our clothes and dried each breath. The air shimmered above the undulating dunes, transforming the horizon into a flickering mirage where sky and earth seemed to merge. The sand stretched as far as the eye could see—not as a simple expanse, but like an ocean frozen in the midst of a storm, its waves of ochre and amber captured for eternity beneath a sky so pale blue it appeared almost white.
The wind, that patient sculptor of dunes, carried grains of sand that pricked my skin like countless tiny needles. It played among the sparse rock formations, tearing out faint moans that sometimes resembled whispers, sometimes laments. In this immense territory, silence reigned like an ancient and jealous god, broken only by the muffled sound of our mounts' hooves sinking into the sand and the discreet clinking of armor and weapons from my escort.
It was a landscape of brutal beauty, stripped of all softness—immense, relentless and, I felt in every fiber of my being, mortally dangerous for the unwary.
To my left, Greta sat upright on her mount, a figure of severe elegance who seemed to defy the overwhelming heat. Her face betrayed no sign of discomfort, as if the surrounding furnace was merely an abstraction to her. Her amber eyes with golden reflections constantly swept the horizon, attentive to details invisible to me. I wondered what she truly saw—what subtle signs she could detect in this apparent monotony.
To my right, Frieda displayed a different but equally fascinating posture. Seemingly more relaxed, her body naturally embraced the movements of her mount as if she were one with the animal. But this nonchalance was deceptive—I perceived in her a constant vigilance, an invisible tension running through her slender muscles, ready to transform into action at the slightest alert. Her profile, cut against the immensity of the desert, had something wild and untamed that troubled me more than I cared to admit.
It was Greta who finally broke the oppressive silence, her calm voice cutting with supernatural clarity through the still air.
"These lands are not empty, Your Majesty," she said, her gaze remaining fixed on a particular undulation of sand some thirty meters away. "The subsoil is alive. The Giant Centipedes of Valora are ancient and formidable creatures."
She paused, as if to let me absorb this disturbing information, then continued in a voice that could have been describing the weather rather than evoking nightmarish monsters.
"They move beneath the surface, undetectable until the moment they emerge to attack. Their carapace is almost as hard as tempered steel, and their venom can paralyze a horse in seconds. The escort is specifically trained to spot signs of their presence, but vigilance must never waver in these expanses."
Giant centipedes. Beneath our feet. At every moment.
The image of enormous arthropods with multiple legs, suddenly emerging from the sand to drag us into its depths, imposed itself on my mind with horrifying clarity. An icy shiver—which had nothing to do with the ambient temperature—ran up my spine, raising the hair on the nape of my neck. The sensation of being watched by invisible predators, lurking beneath this seemingly harmless sea of sand, suddenly gave the landscape an oppressive dimension.
This was my first glimpse of the tangible dangers of this strange world. Until now, everything had been a matter of politics, ceremony, adaptation to my new status. But now appeared the raw and threatening reality of Aerdenreich—a world where death could emerge at any moment from beneath your feet.
A lump formed in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it. I was the Emperor now, not a frightened high school student. I straightened my shoulders almost unconsciously, trying to display confidence worthy of my rank, even if internally my stomach was knotting like a frightened snake.
"Ah, but we have nothing to fear, Greta," I said in a voice perhaps a bit too loud, betraying despite myself a nervousness I was trying to conceal. "We are well accompanied, after all."
I made a gesture encompassing the impressive escort that followed us.
"Six hundred of Valora's finest Succubi protect us. And Sergeant Frieda..."
I turned my head toward her, who was already looking at me with an expression that mixed curiosity and disdain.
"...She seems particularly capable."
I turned back to Greta, adding with what I hoped was a confident smile:
"And of course, yourself, if need be."
Greta slowly turned her face to me. A fleeting smile, almost imperceptible, touched her lips before vanishing like a drop of water on a burning stone.
"My role is analysis and strategic counsel, Your Majesty," she replied with a gentleness that did not diminish the firmness of her words. "I am not... exactly equipped for direct combat. My abilities lie in another domain."
She delicately tapped her temple with her slender index finger, indicating that her strength was intellectual rather than physical.
I felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the desert heat rise to my cheeks. Obviously. Greta, the "genius" as she had been introduced to me, was the strategist, the gray eminence, not a warrior. My pathetic attempt to reassure myself by including her in my combat forces had just crashed miserably like a sandcastle under the rising tide.
Frieda emitted a contemptuous sniff that immediately drew my attention. Her ice-blue gaze, of an almost painful intensity, pierced me like a blade.
"An army of six hundred elites..." she began, her voice charged with barely veiled disdain, "...and yet a king so perverse needs to be protected like a child in the cradle?"
She shook her head slightly, her blonde hair catching the relentless sunlight.
"It's shameful," she concluded, the word cracking in the air like a whip.
Her frontal attack caught me off guard. Barely a few hours after my coronation, and already this sergeant with brutal manners was openly questioning my worth, linking my supposed weakness to this "perversity" she seemed determined to remind me of at every opportunity. It was of unheard-of audacity. Or suicidal stupidity. But coming from her, the sergeant with devastating frankness, it simply seemed to be her way of being.
Instead of taking offense or trying to regain a dignity I knew was lost in advance with her, a crazy idea germinated in my mind—a flash of inspiration perhaps born from the last vestiges of my former life, an attempt at provocative humor to regain the upper hand in this verbal duel.
"Shameful, you say?" I replied, pretending to meditate on her words while letting a smile slowly form on my lips.
I turned my gaze directly to her, staring at her with a new intensity.
"Then, Sergeant Frieda," I continued, my voice dropping an octave and taking on a tonality I didn't know I possessed—a mixture of challenge and intent that surprised even myself, "if you personally protect me against these... centipedes... perhaps I could reward you adequately?"
I deliberately paused, savoring the nascent confusion in her gaze.
"Let's say... a kiss on the lips?"
Time seemed to suspend in the burning desert air. Frieda's cerulean eyes widened as if I had just struck her. A wave of color invaded her ordinarily pale face—a deep red that spread from her cheeks to the nape of her neck, contrasting violently with the almost white blonde of her hair. Her mocking expression vanished, replaced by a stunning mixture of shock, disbelief, and a more complex emotion that I could not identify.
"You... You..." she stammered, visibly searching for words, an experience I guessed was rare for her.
Then, like a dam giving way under pressure, words gushed forth in a disordered torrent—but not those I had prepared myself for.
"Monster! Pervert! The most audacious... the most insolent..." She almost choked on her own words, the redness on her face intensifying further, if that were possible. "I'm going to... How dare you?!"
She was now fidgeting in her saddle, her fists so tight that her knuckles were turning white, her body tense as if physically restraining herself from hitting me despite my imperial status. Her embarrassment was as obvious as it was delectable, an unexpected flaw in her armor of insolence.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Greta observing the scene with what suspiciously resembled amusement. Once again, an ephemeral smile crossed her usually impassive face before she returned her attention to the desert stretching before us. The escort behind us continued to advance in silence—either through impressive military discipline or from habit in the face of strange exchanges between their Emperor and their provocative sergeant.
I could not suppress a genuine smile this time, an unexpected satisfaction warming my chest. Frieda's explosive reaction, this mixture of anger and manifest embarrassment despite her insults, was a delight I would never have anticipated. She was intimidating, magnificent, of an almost unbearable confidence... and yet, visibly destabilized by such a direct suggestion.
The balance of power had just shifted, subtly but undoubtedly.
"Relax, Sergeant," I said, returning to a more measured tone, though a note of teasing persisted in my voice. "It's just an idle proposition. Let's focus on the centipedes for now."
I deliberately paused before adding, unable to resist the temptation of this final blow:
"But know that I never forget my debts... nor my promises."
The look Frieda gave me could have set fire to the sand beneath our feet. She breathed in slight gasps, the color refusing to leave her cheeks. Without another word—perhaps for the first time at a loss for a cutting retort—she abruptly turned her attention away, staring at the horizon with exaggerated intensity, her tense profile drawing a line of almost painful beauty against the immensity of the desert.
We continued our progression eastward, plunging deeper into this sea of sand. The sun, merciless, poured its white fury upon our heads. The dunes succeeded one another, apparently identical but subtly different to the trained eye. Greta still carefully observed the invisible signs of danger lurking beneath the deceptive surface. And Frieda, the sergeant with the sharp tongue, now rode in silence by my side, her cheeks retaining a rosy tint that was not solely due to the heat.
The desert stretched before us, infinitely mysterious and threatening. And yet, despite the dangers it harbored, I found myself thinking that the journey promised to be much more... interesting than I could have imagined.