According to the legend, at the tail end of the dark age, Eris, daughter of the late and much feared Demon King, who at the end of his reign of terror had rebelled against him and aided the legendary hero in slaying her father, married the hero’s youngest daughter, Levanna. It is unknown exactly how it happened; some ancient sources claim it was due to the half-demoness’ access to dark magics, others went in a more pragmatic way and instead were of the opinion that the child must have been adopted or Levanna must have had it with someone else, but the point is that the fruit of their union was a young man they named Severinu.

  At the age of 20, once the hero had finally ascended, and the golden city and prosperous empire he left behind were collapsing before the advent of the Lady of Light, Severinu was given one of the hero’s swords, and with it he crossed the seas and ended in the small, fractured kingdom that would eventually become Lastria. There he was offered the hand of one of the king’s daughters in exchange for killing a terrible black dragon by the name of Wynthart. Severinu, of course, succeeded in his quest, married the princess and founded the city of Wynthart at the feet of the mountains were the dragon had its lair and in which he built his castle. The land was given to him and his descendants became the House of Wynthart; that is until one Strear Wynthart, some three hundred or so years earlier, whose buffoonish acts even in battle, his spending, which was so high it bankrupted his feud, his horrible acts regarding women; it was said that of the thirty children he fathered, only one had been with any consent from his partner, and the enduring rumor that he himself was practicing some kind of dark sorcery, that caused the family’s downfall.

  The Wynthart’s lost their title and were reduced to near nothing until Rose’s father, who managed to rebuild their castle, making it more beautiful than ever, he made friends with the late king, rose inside the Lastrian armies until he essentially ran them, became one of the main hands in the kingdom’s democratization process. He was in many ways hailed as a hero for the common people, and in the little time Rose knew him before his tragic death alongside his Majesty, he seemed to be someone who was more than larger than life, a living saint who taught her nearly everything she knew outside of how to be a lady, that was her mother, who unlike him, had been a Wynthart by birth.

  Rose’s short trance upon seeing the sword, something that happened some times and she couldn’t figure why, was broken when Maran spoke.

  “This is Dexcalibre, is it not? The third of the Swords of the Hero.” Maran turned to look at her, what looked like a smile on her face. Rose could tell it wasn’t real, for the first time in a while. Something inside her chest dropped heavily. “It is quite rare to see relics from that time not only out of a handful of museums or cathedrals, but so far away from the Holy City. Quite a peculiar blade, too.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Most swords of the period, including those that were of the hero’s party, and even the others that belonged personally to him were quite different. Dexcalibre had a long silver blade, slightly curved, a round golden guard and an extremely simple handle. It was undecorated, like the sword of a soldier far from the looks of a relic, and yet it gave an air of being completely out of place.

  “I did not expect you to be interested in weaponry, Miss Rabineau.” Rose asked, trying to disguise the fact that she had noticed, but she didn’t do it properly.

  Maran’s smile faltered and soon felt, her face became a mask of what Rose could read as worry. “I am not, but I have read my fair amount of old folklore and while I knew that it may have ended with the family, it came as a bit of a shock to find it here once I entered this room.”

  She could tell that it was an excuse and not the real reason she was worried. Rose thought against pressing it, after these past few days in which she had grown to be almost fond of the girl, so unlike what she thought of her months ago, she didn’t want to make fer feel unwelcome, specially after that discussion with her mother moments ago, and yet, she needed to know.

  “Miss Rabineau, I know that you are not telling the truth.” She saw Maran stagger, taking a poorly disguised step back away from her. “I ask again, you may answer or not, as you wish, I aim not to put any pressure on you, specially given how my mother is treating you all of a sudden, but… Is it that sword which worries you for some reason unknown to me, or is there something tangible that you’re worried about?”

  Maran looked at her and then gazed somewhere else. She was breathing heavily, and the sight made Rose immediately change the subject as she began chatting, absentmindedly about how, as Maran may know if the prince told her, she won a couple of local fencing tournaments, and while it isn’t much given the scope of things, she was named one of the best swordsmen of the whole region, which would make her one of the best in the country, not to brag too much, and she kept practicing while at the Academy, even if her studies and the time that being his Highness’ fiancee demanded of her. That last one was punctuated with a nervous laughter.

  “Both.” Stated Maran, finally. “I know that you, like Lady Agatha, think that me being unable to contact the palace for a couple of days is not a reason to actually worry. And you may be right, but something tells me, whatever you may want to call it, that something is deeply wrong, enough not to send you to the palace just yet. At least until I can confirm it.”

  Rose tilted her head and blinked, in silence. She could understand her, it was out of worry, even if she thought it was a bit paranoid.

  “And then, there is the problem of the sword. It does not bother me, exactly, but seeing it in person gives things a kind of finality.” She was speaking in a low tone, quiet enough that if she was only a step behind, Rose wouldn’t be able to hear her. “There is no hiding it, the fears are real, you cannot really hide it and pretend it does not exist, because it is right here.”

  There was a moment of contemplating silence.

  “What fears?” Rose asked, her voice as small and quiet as Maran’s had been.

  Maran looked at her, there seemed to be pain in her expression. Her lips moved, it felt like she was going to say something rehearsed, something that had been said a few times already, that detestable excuse of it sounding insane that she had heard of both her and the prince; but her lips trembled shut and she let out a long sigh, one full of a weight that she was about to get out of her shoulders.

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  “Lady Wynthart, what do you know about the hero who was once the master of this sword? And I do not mean the venerable founder of your House, but the one who according to the legends slayed the Demon King.” Maran asked.

  Rose arched an eyebrow. “I have read the stories, like everyone. Although I have read quite a few texts of the Dark Age due to my studies. What is there to know?”

  Maran sighed. “How about the part in which it is said that he came from another world.”

  Rose let out a small giggle and immediately excused herself. But who could blame her? This lady seemed to be so extremely worried about a detail in some old legend. Sure, many of the old heroes in the various ages, from the one who slayed the Demon King to the Lady of Light, who brought the world out of the entire age nearly a millennium earlier were all said to have come from other world. And sure, there was folklore of other people, mostly successful farmers or small lords, all across the world and history, who were said to have been originally born in other realm before dying there and being reborn here. But scholarship on the subject always coincided in that those stories were self-deprecating excuses for the changes that they brought to the world through their success.

  “I would recommend you, Miss Rabineau, and please, I do not intend to cause any offense, to read Chareson’s ‘Lost Ones from Beyond: The otherization of great historical figures as means of cultural pessimism’, it is a fantastic essay, if far too dense for my taste, on this very topic.” She said.

  “That sounds wonderful, milady,” Maran answered, a smile slowly forming in her face. “Does it perhaps explain me?”

  Rose staggered. “What do you mean, Miss Rabineau?”

  “Lady Wynthart I have memories of being someone else before I was born as Maran Rabineau, in fact, I have memories of having died, there, in a world rather different from our own.” She said, fast, taking an almost-menacing step forward towards Rose. “And so does his Highness.”

  What?

  She wanted to say that was absurd, and to scold her for joking after seeming so grave, but it suddenly struck her that nothing of Maran’s body language gave out that she was lying in any way. It sounded just as insane as they had both been telling her. Her mind went blank for a moment thinking on the implications that both of them having somehow come from another world would have, an idea there mere entertainment of which was utterly ridiculous in ways that Rose, understandably, could not accept.

  “You’re serious.” Rose’s register suddenly dropped, for the first time since the age of fourteen. All her noble way of talking was gone, and Maran blinked in surprise, then nodded.

  “But that cannot be, how? Would they not be dreams or wild imaginations that your mind may have thought of as real?” She couldn’t believe it, asking questions at a high speed, walking towards the shorter girl at a speed faster and more threatening, even if she wanted no harm to her, than she had done towards her earlier. “You and him were right, I do think of you as insane now.”

  She didn’t, but it was good to get her to explain herself.

  Maran sighed and put a hand on top of her scalp, lightly scratching it in the same manner the prince did when in thought.

  “If you do not believe me, Lady Wynthart, maybe everything that stems from this fact, which it is true, does not actually concern you. Including the very reason why high Highness, on my advice, lied and made a public show of a false breakup with you.” There was venom in Maran’s voice, it seemed like calling out the insanity of her statement had in some way hurt her. Something understandable. Rose regretted it.

  “I apologize.” She bowed. “I am quite sorry for calling you insane, even if I cannot accept it, which is something I hope you can understand, it was going to far from me.”

  Maran sighed again. “You need not apologize, Lady Wynthart. I do understand it, and I understand how chaotic your thoughts regarding that incident are. It was regrettable and as I told you, I intend to make amends for it as much as I humanly can.”

  She continued, “Now, the explanation for everything may be a quite a bit hard to comprehend, so telling it to you, who still takes it as something absurd, may not be the most advisable thing to do.”

  Rose leaned in and grabbed Maran’s hands in hers. The smaller girl flinched. Her hands, while small and soft, had a couple of barely noticeable calluses, of the kind that those in clerical work tend to get. Rose’s, meanwhile, while still very much those of a woman, were hard and strong hands, not visible to the naked eye, but the hands of a warrior.

  “Tell me.” It wasn’t a friendly suggestion, or any kind of reassurance, the intensity in the villainess’ eyes told the shrinking Maran that it was, by all intents and purposes, a command to her.

  They stayed that way for what felt like at least half an hour, in silence, as the shorter girl worked as hard as she could to avoid the gaze of the Lady. Finally, Rose let go of Maran’s hands, who in turn rubbed them together, letting out small complaints about how a noble lady isn’t supposed to be that physically strong.

  After a while, when she recomposed herself, they had walked out of the training room and into the library, sitting on plush chairs. Wynthart Hall’s library wasn’t a large one by any means, but it had books on a large enough amount of topics to feel as lived in as the rest of the castle. On the way, by the way, Rose realized that her sister was already attending the visitors. The fireplace was on and making the whole room feel cozy in the unseasonably cool weather.

  “Very well,” Maran started, “This may get long. If any of what I say sounds objectionable to you, place take it in face value, due to the sheer insanity of it. I must assume, that all the good favor I have garnered to you in these pasts weeks is about to fall apart.”

  She gripped the fabric on her lap, waiting for Rose to give the go ahead. Once she did, with a gesture of her head as a maid came in and served them two glasses of a cold juice that greatly surprised Maran, as she couldn’t figure when her host had ordered it; Maran began:

  “I guess it will be simpler if I explain this in theater terms.”