“There was one thing I wanted to tell you before I forget,” Rosslyn said, watching as Adon pulled his proboscis from the neck of the dead—and now very drained—kobold.

  Go on, Adon sent.

  “I saw you used magic to reinforce your wings when we were fighting the monsters, and then you slashed at them with the edges of your body.” She lowered her voice meaningfully. “I would be careful about using your body as a weapon in this place.”

  Why? Adon sounded surprised. I appreciate the advice, but my body is the main thing I have right now.

  “True. It is not as though we made special armor for butterflies. Even if we had, you have repeatedly grown to a larger size as your body matures and strengthens.”

  Adon’s wingspan was now slightly wider than Rosslyn’s shoulders, which left his surface area in his base form similar to the surface area of Rosslyn’s breastplate. The visual reminder that he was only growing more powerful and still likely at a relatively early stage of his development was striking.

  “The problem is that, while humans mostly do not have access to mana, and these kobolds seem to have been insufficiently intelligent to use it, many monsters in a dungeon will be able to use mana.”

  So I should expect them to throw fireballs my way? Adon sent in a lightly humorous tone.

  “No—well, maybe—but I mean that you should expect that they may be able to infuse their bodies, or parts of them, with mana. If your butterfly wings imbued with mana collide with something else that is similarly imbued with mana, I would expect your wings to get shredded unless you have made some other modifications to them with your Transformation ability. I know those thin membranes that butterflies have are among the most delicate organs that exist in nonhuman species.”

  It would be a shame if something were to happen to them, she added silently in her own mind, hoping Adon would read it there. She was trying to put a slightly funny spin on it, but Rosslyn suspected that permanent injury might be possible if he were to damage his wings badly enough. Mystic butterflies and a wide variety of other insects, including some non-magical ones, had a natural ability to shed their exoskeletons and frequently could heal, including regrowing entire lost limbs.

  But she had no confidence that Adon could regenerate from something as major as, say, a decapitation or, less dramatically, a severed wing. As Rosslyn came from the land that revered the mystic butterfly, and she had been interested in bugs as a young girl, she had studied butterfly anatomy closely at that time. She still remembered much of what she had learned.

  I would not want you to end up losing something that you cannot get back, she thought.

  Then the Princess lowered her hand. Without thinking about it, she had reached up to adjust her eyepatch—something like a nervous tic.

  You’ve got it, Rosslyn, Adon replied in a serious tone.

  And she knew that he had fully absorbed her subtext.

  Adon often seemed to be nervous about communicating with other people—as if he worried that he would not understand or be understood. But Rosslyn had found that once the two of them got to know each other, he was the equal of anyone she had met outside her family for reading her signals.

  She gave the butterfly a parting nod and then excused herself. It was time to coordinate next steps.

  Turning back, she saw the knights. Some of them stood in readiness, disciplined, prepared for the descent to the next level of the dungeon. Most of those were Claustrians.

  A significant chunk of the Dessian knights, while probably in some sense technically ready for descent to the next level, were busy bloodying themselves by carving up the kobolds—either trying to harvest some of the meat, which was understandable considering that they would be descending further into this underground world—or peeling off bits of armor and skin.

  These latter items could be sold for decent profit in the surface world—assuming that one made it back to the surface with them. That caveat was important, because many adventurers had been reported missing presumed dead in dungeons, and on the occasion that a body was found, the picked-clean skeleton was usually still wearing a pack full of loot.

  We are better than this, Rosslyn thought. Well, the Claustrian knights actually were better than that. They were not acting like common adventurers, wasting energy on pillaging corpses when they were on a time-sensitive mission. Rosslyn was a little disappointed in the unprofessionalism from the Dessian knights, who generally had a good reputation for their conduct in war. Especially when she considered that these were elite knights.

  Perhaps I need to offer an incentive to get their minds focused in the right direction. The Claustrian crown had many problems at the moment, but a shortage of gold was not a significant issue in recent decades.

  But if she wanted to present a bounty for the destruction of the dungeon core or something, she would need to discuss that with William and Frederick. These were their Brandon Guard, bodyguards directly in their employ, so to do anything else would be insulting and a major faux pas.

  As Rosslyn approached the young lords, however, she sensed a tension in the air.

  The way they looked at her as they turned—it was not quite hostile, but she could not put her finger on the feeling that it gave her. The Princess had to resist the urge to turn back and face Adon, who was undoubtedly draining another poor dead kobold of its bodily fluids. She would have liked to have a mind-reader sitting on her shoulder right now.

  Maybe… Rosslyn raised her inner voice to a shout. Adon! Could you help me out? I need to know what the brothers from Dessia are thinking about.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  It took Adon a minute to respond. Despite consciously walking slowly, Rosslyn was almost within touch range of the brothers when the butterfly gave his answer.

  William resents that you gave the troops orders without consulting him, Adon finally transmitted. Since the bulk of the forces are his, he believes that he should be in charge. There was an unmistakable distaste in Adon’s tone, and a little part of Rosslyn wanted to smile; Adon was the mind-reader, but he was also an open book.

  She suppressed the impulse to smile, though. The brothers were right in front of her. Now, at least, she knew exactly what she wanted to say.

  The Princess put on a deliberately grateful expression.

  “Thank you both,” she said, making eye contact with William and Frederick in turn. “The expedition has started off very well in my opinion. Your knights have done great work already. Living up to their reputation.”

  Rosslyn saw the right corner of William’s lip turn up slightly. He had gone from prepared for an argument to fighting the urge to smile. Good. I can manage you after all…

  “I took the lead on this floor, but I wonder if either of you might like to take charge through the end of the next level,” she continued. “If we rotate the command structure, the men will be prepared in case any one of us is injured and rendered unable to give orders. It also helps in case any of us grow fatigued.”

  This was meant to be a sort of olive branch, and it worked. Frederick and William glanced at each other, William gave a quick nod, and then the two of them agreed to her plan. William would take command on the next floor.

  If either or both brothers were ticked off about Rosslyn ordering the charge at the kobolds, neither of them was willing to bring it up after she had defused the situation in this way.

  Thank you, Adon, she thought. We should be doing this sort of thing all the time…

  Now all she had to do was segue the conversation into getting the knights to move a little more quickly now that they were within sight of the exit from this level.

  As Rosslyn guided the conversation with the two brothers in that direction, she also thought not just of this dungeon and managing the small-scale politics of this international joint expedition, but of palace politics generally, which had taken a back seat lately to invasion concerns. She thought of foreign diplomacy and courtly life. She thought about the future peace process with the Demon Empire, assuming that Claustria survived this invasion as it had survived previous attacks.

  There was so much that she did not understand, and she considered that almost everything she did, virtually all of the larger missions in her life, would benefit if she had Adon beside her.

  This moment was just one of many that demonstrated that.

  She also liked him a lot.

  Then she considered her doubts.

  They were mostly a product of two things: first, Adon had made the almost inexplicable decision to interfere in her duel with William. That had been unnecessary as well as dangerous, to both Adon himself and, on a macro level, the entire Kingdom of Claustria. That might seem exaggerated, but it was a very deliberated view of the facts.

  Rosslyn was willing to see William leave, if that was William’s choice, but she was far from eager to push him away just now. The contingent of knights he brought with him was large and would be a significant asset if he happened to be inside of the city of Wayn when the Empire undoubtedly attacked.

  Was Adon truly that insecure? Well, I know he has some reason to be. But he should trust me…

  The other source of doubt was more practical.

  Adon had thus far been unable to make a humanoid Transformation work, which suggested he might have a different life path ahead of him than staying by her side. One in which he behaved more like a butterfly and less like the person that she knew he was on the inside. There were some precedents of that kind in their history. Not every mystic butterfly remained in Claustria for its whole life and formed deep connections to the Royal Family.

  If Adon decided to go with the nonhuman side of himself, he would probably migrate once the war was over, perhaps with the changing of seasons. In that case, Rosslyn would almost certainly never see him again.

  She felt a little queasy at that thought.

  Imagining him floating up into the wind, literally never to return, felt like she would be letting something important go.

  Rosslyn had the emotional intelligence to recognize that part of this feeling was that Adon had arrived at a time of high emotion for her already. First, she was dealing with Lord Baranack trying to match her with whoever and undermine her ability to secure a good marriage for the future of the Kingdom. Then she had been betrayed, almost killed, and deprived of one eye. After that, things took a downward turn when she learned her father had been poisoned and had to begin worrying about becoming an orphan. On top of that, the poisoner was the maid who was her closest human confidant outside her family.

  It would have been enough to drive a lesser woman to despair.

  So, it is possible that I am forming an attachment to him just because he has a nice, comforting presence, she acknowledged in her own mind. When I am in the middle of losing everything that matters, having someone who seems to be on my side without having any obvious ulterior motives is a powerful feeling. But still…

  “We should get moving,” William said, nodding.

  Rosslyn dimly recognized that he was agreeing with what she had just proposed, about proceeding to the next level. She smiled mechanically.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  William smiled brightly in response. She could tell he relished being in the position of command.

  And what about William? Rosslyn asked herself. Where is his place in my future? In the future of my country? Does he have one? Am I going to get his help here and then discard him like an old menstrual rag?

  Rosslyn felt sick about that too.

  “All Dessian knights, finish what you are doing in the next ten seconds and return to formation!” William ordered in a commanding tone. He was clearly used to receiving complete and immediate obedience from men under his command, and this was no exception. None of the knights tested the ten second limit he had imposed. The ones who were skinning the creatures they had slain dropped what they were doing instantly, cleaned off their daggers, and fell into formation.

  Rosslyn’s thoughts turned from the future back to the dungeon. There was still too much blood stench hanging in the air to think about what would happen after they cleared this place.

  Adon fluttered back over to the group and settled silently on her shoulder again.

  At another command from William, the group marched forward. They secured their climbing anchors to the walls of the tunnel that led to the next level. After all, you never knew if the dungeon was going to include a sudden drop into its design, meant to test the unwary who had come to challenge it.

  Behind them, Rosslyn heard a gentle, distant skittering. She did not bother to turn her head. Some kobolds were left alive. Perhaps most of them. It was unsurprising. They had only killed the creatures foolish enough to mass themselves out in the open.

  But that was a problem for another time—or, with luck, one they would not have to deal with at all.

  Eyes forward, the party descended, deeper into the darkness—toward the truly challenging arenas of the dungeon.