The next morning, as the sun was starting to reclaim the moonless night sky, Adan’s eyes popped open. Her gaze was clear and energetic as she glanced up and down the corridor she had slept in – or rather hibernated in.

“Night report,” she commanded, and several log entries flashed by in front of her eyes, giving a detailed description of what had happened during the night.

“As you can see, Sai has nothing significant to report. Duke Kimba’s visit is of most interest, but he left when he saw that you were sitting in the hallway. His vitals indicated that he felt relieved.”

“And our cross-dressing princess?”

“Still sleeping. Sai detects no lasting damage from yesterday’s incident.”

“Good.”

Adan got to her feet and quietly walked away from Lynn’s door. She headed down the stairs and was not the least bit surprised to find Colonel Dallas standing stiffly in the main dining area. Spread throughout the room were the rest of her men, who were even stiffer in their body language. It would seem that the night had been a dramatic one for the guards.

“Good morning, Colonel. Fellow bodyguards.” Adan greeted them with a smile.

“Why are you not guarding Her Highness?” the woman asked back, ignoring the cheerful greeting.

Unfazed, Adan didn’t even pause her steps as she continued towards the kitchen. “Are you telling me she isn’t safe at the moment? You’ve already emptied the inn of all other guests.”

Surprise flashed by in Dallas’ eyes. She had indeed cleared out the inn during the night, but she had also seen Adan sleeping deeply outside of Lynn’s room. At the time, Dallas had instructed some of her soldiers to casually bump into Adan, but the latter had not reacted at all. Since it was still so early, the lack of movement in the inn should not be enough for Adan to guess what had happened, so how had he realized the change?

Adan herself didn’t care about Dallas’ reaction and briskly walked into the kitchen. She made a show of scanning the interior with her eyes, but Adan’s sense of smell had already told her what she needed to know.

Dallas, who had followed Adan into the otherwise abandoned kitchen, frowned as she watched Adan pick out a couple of fruits and a white powder she normally associated with removing odor from garbage. Adan crushed the fruits and mixed the juices with the powder.

Before Dallas could say anything, the mix was poured into a wide pan and placed over the open fire.

“What are you doing!?” she eventually managed to ask.

“A variation on breakfast.”

---

Everyone started their day differently. For Lynn, sleeping was rarely peaceful and waking up even less so. Today seemed no different, yet something was off.

When Lynn woke up, he did so to a sweet scent that he hadn’t smelled before. Although he was momentarily dazed by the smell, Lynn was quick to realize that he was no longer alone in his room.

Purely on instinct, Lynn tightened the grip on his sheets, pulling them over his face, and swung one of his pillows with full strength towards the unknown presence in the room.

“Scoundrel! How dare you enter a wo-mph. . . !” Lynn’s hysterical cry was cut short when the pillow he had just thrown away slammed into his face. The impact was strong enough to knock his head against the bed’s headboard.

“No need for the theatrics, Princess,” an annoyingly amused voice chided him, and instantly Lynn remembered what had transpired the day before. A slight, pulsating headache started to form at the back of his head.

“Brute,” Lynn grunted, unconsciously relaxing. “Did you have to be so forceful?”

“Oh, so you wanted the entire royal guard to come barging in here, seeing you like that?” Lynn looked up at Adan just in time to see the latter glancing pointedly at the foot of his bed.

Lynn followed the gaze and realized that while his earlier blanket maneuver and pillow toss might have successfully distracted attention from his face and chest, it had also uncovered his not-so-feminine legs. Lynn quickly rearranged his covers; make-up and mannerisms could hide his true gender while dressed, but his muscle tone would force the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

“Didn’t think so,” Adan laughed. “Come, have breakfast. Your personal guard dog is waiting downstairs, but I figured Your Highness’ stomach should take precedence.”

Lynn clicked his tongue disapprovingly, but that peculiar, sweet smell made him hold back the critique he had intended to give. He quickly got to his feet, not bothering to tighten the loose garment he had been sleeping in, and approached the table. It was barely two meters to the table, but the sweet scent got even more intense as he approached, causing his stomach to growl with hunger.

“This is . . .?” Lynn didn’t finish his question as he eyed the slightly green disks that lay covered in a pink sauce on a worn plate. His nursemaid had been a big lover of odd food, so Lynn was rather surprised that he didn’t recognize the dish.

“Pancakes with syrup.” Adan explained, as if the foreign words should mean something to Lynn. “Of sorts, anyway; the ingredients are different, but the taste should be the same. Try it.”

Lynn could feel his mouth watering. Yesterday, he had been too tired to care how hungry he was, but now that he had slept, Lynn’s stomach refused to be ignored. Without thinking, Lynn reached for the small knife and fork by the plate, and was just about to cut himself a piece of the so-called pancake when he hesitated.

“It’s not poisoned, is it?” he asked, giving Adan a suspicious glare. The young man blinked in surprise and Lynn instantly regretted asking.

As if anyone would answer yes to that question. . . .’

At first he though the youth would be offended but suddenly Adan started laughing. It was a merry and heartfelt laugh that somehow made Lynn feel very embarrassed.

“Don’t you think I would have killed you by now if I wanted you dead?” Adan asked between laughs, and Lynn could feel his face heating up a bit.

“Do . . . do not misunderstand me!” Lynn snapped. “Who has ever heard of a mercenary who can cook? You might have poisoned it by mistake!”

“Since when am I a mercenary?” Adan asked, still having trouble containing his laughter.

“Y-you were hired to protect me, but you are not in the military, thus you are a mercenary bodygaurd.”

“Is that so. . . .” Adan paused and pointedly scanned Lynn’s body. “Well, I guess a future queen can never be too careful.”

Lynn followed Adan’s gaze and found that the robe he was wearing had parted, showing much of his bare chest underneath. With a start, Lynn tugged at his clothes, quickly covering his exposed self. When he looked up again, he was met with Adan’s intense stare.

Lynn swallowed.

For a moment, he forgot who he was looking at. All he could think about was those golden eyes, which shone with unbridled mirth, yet had a profound depth to them that seemed to see all of his most hidden secrets. Eventually, it was Adan who broke eye contact first.

“Eat,” he said, his tone suddenly commanding. “I will wait outside.”

Lynn had barely snapped out of his daze when the door to his room clicked shut behind Adan’s departing figure. He shuddered, once more wrapping himself tighter in his robe. Glancing down on the slowly cooling greenish pancakes on his plate, Lynn’s lip twitched slightly before he finally let out a heavy sigh.

“To think I would have to rely on such an odd . . . country bumpkin! I might act feminine, but Adan he . . .” Lynn sighed again. “I wonder what father and mother will say when they hear how badly our initial plan failed.”

Lynn sighed. He didn’t really need to wonder. He knew them well enough.

“Father will say I lacked resolve. Mother will say I should have stayed home. Brother would ask to spare with him—that reckless, golden-eyed forest dweller!”

Feeling melancholic, Lynn absentmindedly poked around the strange-looking food on his plate.

“Is it really safe to eat this?”

---

Outside Lynn’s room, Adan was already long gone. The moment she had closed the door behind her, Adan had almost done a U-turn and swiftly entered the room next door. With soundless movements, which were difficult for the naked eye to follow, Adan slipped out through the window and swung herself up onto the inn’s roof.

She perched low against the sloped roof tiles, one knee bent for stability, the other foot anchored against a chimney brace. Wind data flickered on her HUD—6.3 km/h south-southwest. Humidity high. Good. Dust would cling better.

The sun had yet to breach the tree tops of the forest surrounding the small town, but the hazy, light-blue sky still made it quite bright – especially by Adan’s standards.

“Current location?” she asked, calmly surveying the still scarcely populated streets below.

“Sai has the location for three of the persons-of-interest, but another two have moved beyond your detection range. More could be approaching”

On the street below, three people gained a yellowish glow in Adan’s eyes; two males on the main street and a female in an alley. These three, and their two missing companions, had been logged several times as they passed up and down the street during the night, detected through the sound of their gait, their smell and other factors.

It had seemed as if they were either searching for something or aimlessly wandering, but by now their passes had become much more frequent, and they had even started to move more blatantly towards the inn where Adan and Lynn were staying. Looking at them more closely from above, it was clear that neither of them had friendly intentions. If anything, the three of them had an almost manic look in their eyes, as if they were prepared to fight to the death.

“It’s odd that none of Colonel Dallas’ soldiers have noticed them yet. . . ,” Adan mused as she nonchalantly flicked loose a worn tile from the roof she was sitting on. Using her nails, Adan started splitting up the tile into smaller, coin-sized pieces.

“Incompetence is abundant in many places,” the A.I. responded, cautioning Adan from drawing hasty conclusions. “Sai must remind you, taking action if Lynn’s life is in direct danger will be a breach of your protocol. You gain no new knowledge from helping him now”

“Will be? You speak as if I will fail,“ Adan objected, but a smile formed on her lips. “Have you no faith in me, Sai?”

“None.”

“How harsh.” Adan made an effort to pout, but the humor in her eyes still shone through. “I’m just going to practice for a bit; if I happen to scare off a few mice in the process, is that really on me?”

“Sai knows that you are uninterested in a correct response to that question.”

Adan chuckled. “Now that is the correct response I wanted.”

She split a second roof tile in silence, fingers moving with muscle memory. The fragments were just dense enough to carry force, just brittle enough to create the burst she needed.

“Target One is circling back,” Sai noted. “Stress pheromones spiking.”

Adan smiled faintly. “Let’s give him a reason to turn away.”

She flicked her first tile chip. It snapped through the air like a wasp, hitting the stoney path with a crack right under the man’s leading foot. Dust exploded upward—dry, gray, clingy. The man staggered back, coughing violently, momentarily blind.

He recovered faster than she liked. His head snapped up, and this time, he reached for his hip. A small ball of fire shimmering to life in his hand. Warnings flashed in Adan’s vision.

[Threat response detected. Magical signature: Fire-based. Combustion level: Low. Likely projectile.]

“Irritant level upgraded to hazard,” Adan muttered. “Permission to escalate?”

“Negative,” Sai replied immediately. “Containment advised. Do not initiate fatal force as practice.”

“Tch. Fine.”

The man whipped his arm around, sending a compact ball of fire arcing upward—straight at her perch. The move was sharp, practiced.

Adan launched herself sideways, dropping low just as the flame blasted past her head.

“You dodged well but Sai notes a 0.0001% loss of hair,” the A.I. remarked, somewhere between dry humor and worry. “Pay more attention.”

“He’s trained,” Adan muttered. “That throw had form.”

“Probability of ex-military: 73%. Unknown allegiance.”

By the time the man scanned for a second shot, Adan had repositioned. Another flick of her wrist, and two chips flew—one struck the gourd in his hand, shattering it, while the other slammed into his knee with a sharp crack.

The man crumpled with a grunt.

At street level, the other two figures—previously lingering in half-shadows—began to react. The woman in the alley produced a small blade, and the taller of the two men crouched low, preparing what looked like a low-slung dash.

“Escalation confirmed,” Sai warned. “You may now apply kinetic suppression within 60% lethality margin.”

“How generous.”

Adan lined up her third shot, but then paused—voices floated from below. A soldier from Dallas’ patrol was making his rounds. If he looked up…

Adan activated her BioArmor’s low-level cloaking—her form shimmered and merged with the roof’s coloration. Only her eyes remained uncovered, their gold flecks gleaming faintly as she tracked the remaining hostiles.

“Now,” she whispered.

With surgical timing, she released four projectiles in a rapid-fire flick, each one accompanied by a microscopic explosive charge released from her BioArmor. They enhanced projectiles struck like hammer taps—not fatal, but destabilizing. The charging man staggered as his heel slipped out from under him; the woman’s knife went flying from her hand as her wrist was struck with a snapping crack.

The air seemed to still.

They hesitated.

“Look, Duke Kimba is approaching! Blessed be your morning, honored Duke!”

Adan’s voice was pitched just right, amplified ever so slightly by her vocal implant.

The reaction was immediate. Panic twisted their faces. They turned and ran, half-fleeing, half-stumbling, melting back into the alleyways like rats startled mid-theft.

Adan waited. Listened. She tracked their footfalls long after they disappeared. Only once she was satisfied they were retreating did she deactivate her camo and breathe out.

“That worked better than I thought. They bolted at the name alone.”

“Correlation with Duke Kimba: Elevated. Sai recommends follow-up investigation.”

Adan nodded, wiping roof dust from her hands.

She lingered for only a moment longer, then turned, slid down the tiles, and slinked back through the window into the adjacent inn room, her movements liquid-smooth. As she closed the door behind her, the world had already returned to calm.

Just in time for Lynn’s door to creak open.

The young man gave Adan an odd look.

“What?” she asked, momentarily wondering if he had realized where she had just been.

“You are an unexpectedly good cook,” Lynn said after a moment’s pause. “Thank you for the . . . pankaxs.”

Adan blinked.

‘Pankaxs?’ 

She chuckled softly. She wasn’t sure what would irritate Lynn more; if she corrected his pronunciation or if she pointed out that he had just complimented her “country bumpkin” cooking.

She decided to let him keep his wits. For now.

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