Prologue

General Araina

My eyes tracked the kitsune’s tail as it swayed back and forth. The hallways were full of distracting things, like paintings and vases and girls, but my eyes stayed glued tight to this one fluffy appendage. Not because its sway was hypnotic—though it kind of was—but because staying focused on one thing was quite frankly the only thing keeping me from getting absolutely overwhelmed.

We were supposed to be walking towards Queen Devilla’s throne room. That’s where she’d always be, when I came visiting—where she’d meet me, every single time I delivered my reports. Which was why I knew the path like the back of my hand, and knew just as certainly that we weren’t on it. 

I didn’t get it. My job was very simple; spying. Not on the outside world like a proper spymaster General, but on our own people. And not for any sort of wicked plots, either! No. My job was to send my spiders out through the tower, tap into their senses at random intervals, and listen for any mention of Devilla. It was terribly inefficient, but my spiders could spread a wide net and usually I’d get something by day’s end. Usually something terrible but innocuous, like how they hoped their kids wouldn’t turn out to be as bratty as her, or how they’d rather die than grace her bedchambers because she was bound to be such a selfish lover… things like that. Things I’d write down on a slip of paper, and push through the slit of a locked wooden box, with maybe a note on where the spider had been when I heard it. It’s not like I had a way of recognizing everyone my spiders were spying on or anything, so that was usually all I could do. Devilla didn’t seem to really care about that, anyway. She just wanted to know what people were saying for some reason, even though it was all bad. Which was why, every week without fail, she’d call on me to deliver that locked box to her in her throne room.

Except, in the week and a half since Princess Devilla had become Demon Queen, she hadn’t called me in even once. The slips of paper were actually starting to pile up without anyone to read them! To the point where it was actually sort of a struggle for me to fit any more of them inside the box… Usually I’d maybe hear a tidbit or two a day, but lately she was all anyone wanted to talk about. 

Even weirder were the things I’d been hearing, though. I mean, there was still a lot of the usual stuff: ill wishes, angry mutterings about how she didn’t really care for her people, and a lot of talk about how disappointed Queen Grimmilla would be if she could see her daughter now—a point I very much agreed with, by the way. Queen Grimmilla may have been before my time, but from the stories I’d heard the difference between her and Devilla was like night and day. That was a queen who really cared about her people!

We weren’t being ruled by Queen Grimmilla, though. We were being ruled by the selfish and bratty Queen Devilla. Who, according to the rumors, had apparently left the tower for the first time in her life… in order to bring back a new type of food? Something I honestly had trouble wrapping my head around. It wasn’t like Devilla to do any work, let alone something that would help others. It was true that a new type of vegetable had been introduced to the dryads’ growth rotation on the lower floors, though… Not only that, but apparently salt had begun to appear in large quantities on the market, and once again Devilla’s name was the one on everyone’s lips. 

An even less believable rumor said that Queen Devilla had somehow befriended one of her servants. It was true that she’d picked a personal maid, but there was absolutely no way in hell or Solla that Devilla was friends with the poor girl! In order to befriend someone, you sort of had to see them as your equal—or at least worthy of your time! Most people were thankfully sane enough to realize that Devilla was probably just using the poor girl, of course, but the fact that anyone would believe otherwise was honestly kind of mindboggling.

What I really couldn’t figure out was why Devilla was doing all this. Getting food for the tower, publicly treating this servant—Abigail—like she mattered…. Was she trying to change how people viewed her?

No way. Mostly because I was pretty sure she lacked the brains for that, but even if she had them then she’d definitely have ordered me to turn in my findings, right? I mean, how else was she supposed to know if her trick was even working?

Well, in the end, I didn’t think thinking about it was going to get me anywhere good. Hence why I’d chosen to take the proactive step of requesting an audience with the Demon Queen in the first place. Of course, at the time, I hadn’t expected it to be approved quite so quickly… Now, here I was, supposedly walking down the halls for the hundred-and-first floor on my way to meet her, without an idea of where I was really going or what the hell was going on.

“We’re here,” the maid declared, bringing me to a forced halt at the end of the hallway. Before me stood a thick-looking wooden door, trimmed with gold. I didn’t know what was beyond it, but I did know one thing—it wasn’t the throne room.

“Uh… Where is here, exactly?”

“The Queen’s bed chambers,” the maid replied matter-of-factly, before rapping on the door.

“Wait, what‽”  I was supposed to be meeting her in the throne room! You know, where I always met her‽ I wouldn’t say I was comfortable there, but at least it was familiar territory! How the hell was I supposed to interact with the Queen in her own bedroom‽

The doorknob turned before I could even turn my complaints into proper questions. I hastily put on a smile, ready to meet the personal maid I’d been hearing so much about, but when the door opened it wasn’t a servant standing on the other side. 

It was Queen Devilla.

…Or at least it looked like Queen Devilla. She was wearing a hell of a lot more than she usually did, though - a green top that fully covered her stomach and barely showed any cleavage, as well as a black skirt that actually went down to her knees. It was a weird look for her, but a quick glance confirmed that everything else about her was the same. Her straight white hair looked as shiny and well conditioned as ever, not to mention long enough to go down to her well-cushioned ass. Her violet eyes were pretty distinct, too, alongside with a glint of intelligence that I’d never actually seen her put to good use. She was even wearing her favorite pair of open-toed platform heels, colored black to match the tint of her nails. Every General knew that Queen Devilla would never be caught dead in anything less than three-inch heels… and that she absolutely hated it when anyone brought up her real height of five foot four.

“General Araina,” she said, greeting me with a strained smile. “I apologize for the informality of our meeting. I’m on something of a tight schedule, at the moment.”

“…It’s fine,” I assured her, hoping my shock at her apology wasn’t too obvious. It wasn’t like the Queen to admit any sort of flaw on her part, but then, I never thought I’d see her opening her own door either. What the hell was going on here? “I only came by to deliver my weekly reports. They’ve been building up…?”

“Re…ports…”  The Queen’s eyes flicked to the box I was holding, and then back to me. The smile on her face widened slightly, but somehow seemed even more strained than before. “Right. I’d actually managed to forget about those, for a bit… burn them for me, would you?”

“B-burn them?” I echoed, unable to contain my shock.

“That’s right. And I’m ordering you to stop your surveillance while I’m at it. I’m afraid I need to give some serious thought to your position…”

“S-stop the surveillance?” I mumbled back, barely able to form the words. What was happening? Was this part of Queen Devilla’s attempt to change her image? Surely she knew it was futile, right? She wasn’t going to discard me just because having a spymaster was a minor inconvenience to her already doomed plan of appearing reformed… right?

I-I needed this job! It was all I had left! My friends all abandoned me when it came out that I’d been spying on our own people for Devilla. Even the girl I was dating at the time called me scum to my face and broke up with me… I was probably the second least popular demon in the tower, all because Queen Devilla had pressured me into taking this position, and now I was at risk of losing it?

It felt like the whole world was spinning. There was a tightness in my chest and a churning in my stomach. Queen Devilla was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear her. The only thing going through my head was that I was going to lose everything I had left…

“I… I need to get out of here,” I muttered, backing up from the door.

“Are you alright?” Queen Devilla asked, frowning up at me. “Do you need healing?”

Did she really think she could just pretend to be concerned about me, and that everything would work out fine? That I would just fall for whatever trick she was trying to play on the masses? Surely she realized I knew her too well for that…

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Peachy. Great!” I spun away before the tears could fall from my eyes, and raced down the hallway, not bothering to wait for the kitsune maid.

I needed to get out of there. I needed to plan. If I wanted any chance at a future… well, I wasn’t really sure what to do, but… I wasn’t the first person Devilla had discarded. Ex-General Alira still had a pretty serious grudge about it, too…

Maybe  she’d be willing to help me?

***

Devilla

***

I watched Araina run off, a frown upon my lips. “I would have thought her happy to be removed from spying on her own people… not to mention my offer to set her up with the Arachne Communication Network…” She’d certainly been vocal enough about disliking her work in Tower Conquest. I could still recall her pre-fight dialogue, full of complaints about how terrible it was to work for me.

“Some people can’t be helped,” Abigail said, from her spot behind me. “More importantly… are you sure you have everything? The gems you wanted to sell? The emergency food supplies? Your tent?”

“I have everything,” I promised, trying not to roll my eyes. Abigail was only acting this way out of concern for me, after all. As strong as I was, even I might be in trouble while all alone in human territory. If I was being absolutely honest, I was perhaps a touch nervous myself.

Still, this was a journey that needed undertaking. My people had been pushed to the brink of extinction thanks to the humans’ war against us. Our only chance at survival was making peace, and our only chance at doing that was to make a connection with the Heroine.

Technically, I still had three days left before my promised date with Lucy. I could stay if I wanted to, perhaps even try to do work for the sake of my people, but honestly I couldn’t see a happy end in that… If I tried stepping in to do governance now I’d only be getting in the way of those who knew better. No, I’d be of more use to them if I kept my hands out of government and focused on solving things with the Heroine herself. Besides, I needed to make a pit stop before heading to Rendra City.

“What about teleportation magic?” Abigail pressed. “Have you mastered it?”

“Enough to cast the spell at least,” I assured her with a smile. It felt good knowing that I’d no longer have to depend on others to activate the circles for me. “I’ve already set up a teleportation ring in the closet. Though, actually, I’m not sure it’s completely necessary to have one. There are some things I’d like to try out when I have a moment.”

“Devilla,” Abigail said, her tone flat. She narrowed her pitch-black eyes at me. “Please tell me you aren’t planning to mess around with magic that fucks with the very fabric of reality?”

“Well, it sounds a lot more dangerous when you put it that way…”

“Devilla! No experimenting with teleportation magic! What if you get trapped on the other side of Solla, or something?”

“I suppose I’d have to figure out what went wrong and try again.”

“Be serious!” Abigail snapped, pointing angrily at me. “What do you think will happen to the rest of us if you just disappear like that? There’s no guarantee things will go like they did in your ‘game,’ you know. We could all end up getting wiped out without you!”

“I wasn’t entirely joking… but I do understand your point. I’ll keep to traditional teleportation magic so long as I have a choice.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Abigail complained, cradling her head in her hands.

I didn’t bother responding, too busy staring down the hallway Araina had previously occupied. It was obvious that I’d upset the woman, though I still wasn’t sure how. I really would have thought her happy to be relieved of the burden of spying on her own people. It wasn’t a job she’d ever sought out, and if she hadn’t been buried in debt when I’d first met her, I doubt she would have accepted the position at all. I certainly hadn’t made things easy for her, considering the fact that I’d made no effort to hide who was doing my spying.

Something odd was going through that girl’s head, no doubt about that. It didn’t seem like she was in the mood to discuss it, but I’d have to find some time to talk to her soon about her potential new duties. I just hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid in the meantime, such as trying to peek in on me or Abigail… I knew there were countermeasures against spider spying, of course, but I wasn’t sure what they were, and if I had to go as far as to find out then things would already be getting out of hand. This was one of my own people after all.

Perhaps I could warn her away? Just in case? Though if she wasn’t planning anything after all, it would only make things more awkward… A half-step, then? A warning she would only come across if she tried spying? Some sort of spider repellent, perhaps?

Jacob’s mother had been—or perhaps still was—rather terrible with spiders. She’d also had a bit of a trick for keeping them away. It wasn’t anything that could truly deter a spider under an arachne’s control, of course, but if Araina came across something that was obviously meant as a deterrent she’d hopefully get the message…

“Abigail?” I called out, closing the door. “While I’m gone, could you perhaps lay down some peppermint oil?”

~~~Many thanks to my beta readers - including ByteOfBrie, Julx, Wildfire Darkstar and (the newest recruit) Pendragoon! Hope you enjoy :)