It was a cold night. In her room, sitting at her desk, was Princess Henrietta. She looked down at multiple letters. The Tristain Academy of Magic, Karin Duchesse de La Vallière, Jean-Jacques Francis Viscount of Wardes and others.
Henrietta had read each letter multiple times, and each one had stains from her tears.
"What do I do? Wardes is all but declaring he'll go rogue if I don't send him after her. The Duchesse is requesting I let her handle it, with no outside influence. I don't even want to think about what the Zerbst's and Germania in general are demanding. And I have no clue if Gallia's silence is good or bad."
There was a knock on her door. She knew who it was.
"Enter." She droned.
Agnès entered her chamber.
"I will sleep soon. Just stand there and be quite, please." Henrietta palmed her face. Her loyal servant made not a peep.
Dirty little heretic
Murderer
Scum
Peasant
False god
Poor excuse of a noble
"I hate you, you arrogant zero!" Zerbst screeched, flames spewing from her lips and eyes, her corpse twisting into itself.
From behind her, she could somehow see Tabitha, also a burned mess, but somehow emitting a blizzard. So cold it was hot. So empty, it drained all of her warmth. The girl said nothing, didn't move, there was nothing but an empty stare.
An ear rupturing roar shattered her world.
"I'm sorry." Louise prayed. While her soul remained tormented, her magic grew. Or perhaps, it was more fitting to say her control increased.
The physical torture Sasuke put her through was still a work in progress, but Louise had a respectable control over how little or how much destruction she wished to cause with her spells.
She had developed enough control, that Sasuke had her working on tampering the amount of sound her explosions caused. Personally, Louise believed that this new training goal was just an excuse to punish her more. She had zero success with changing the volume of her casting.
"Louise, we have company." Sasuke told her, before disappearing. Louise wanted to complain, but they had already talked about these types of scenarios.
A group of 12 slowly made their way to her. They had a carriage and 8 independent horses. They looked the rough sort. 2 of them walked ahead of the others, giving her a wave. She waved back.
"Hello, young lady, I know this a little way off from the road near here, but we needed some water. What are you doing all the way out here?" The man talking to her was maybe 5'10. He wore light, but definitely combat ready gear. His weapon were far better maintained than the rest of his equipment, a short sword.
"I'd rather not explain why I'm out here. Just go on about your business, it's no concern of mine, unless you're selling items from that carriage in exchange for meat?" Louise asked.
"No, we aren't, we aren't hurting for food, this area has a great animal population balance." The other man said. She saw some of strangers further back start to shuffle around. Soon after, she saw multiple of them be hit by shuriken.
Louise jumped back and pulled out her wand, but barely managed to dodge to the left as the man who just talked, threw a dagger where she previously stood.
"It's the rouge noble!" The short sword user bellowed. Launching towards her. He was kicked in the chest, sent flying into the other man.
Arrows were shot towards Sasuke and Louise. Sasuke knocked each arrow away, and Louise pointed her wand at the carriage.
"Explosion!" The entire group was engulfed. There was no debris left, the horses ran, and all the men were on the ground, unconscious.
"They don't look to burned up." Sasuke said
"I'd hope so, killing them wasn't my intention. I can't believe this! Those weren't bandits, they were looking for me!" Louise ranted.
"The cons of being a wanted person. Keep your wand ready, no clue if there are more. I'm going to interrogate these two." Sasuke moved the short sword user off the dagger thrower. The man was short than the other, being only 5'6. He groaned.
"Can you understand me" Sasuke asked.
"Yeah." Was the short guy's simple response.
"We doing this the easy way, or the hard way?" Sasuke asked, grabbing the man's wrist and applying pressure.
"The easy way!" He yelled. Sasuke lightened his grip, but kept it firm.
The man was not hard to get seemingly truthful details from. News was spreading of a hefty reward for the live capture of Louise. A less known reward was being offered by Germanian sources for her dead or alive.
"We need to leave, now." Sasuke said.
"Yeah, I know. I'll miss this river." Louise said.
"You have my complete permission to make finding Louise your priority, Wardes. I don't think I can trust anyone else to actually want to bring her in alive." Henrietta said
"Thank you, Princess. It pains me, but I will ensure she faces the righteous decree of her highness's judgment." Wardes responded.
'I was this close to doing so with, or without your permission, child. That void mage is worth more than your pampered hide could ever understand.' Wardes thought to himself.
'I hope Wardes isn't as loyal as he looks, it would be so much easier if he found her, and they ran off together.' Henrietta thought.
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