Faced with the princess's impassioned words, Faust had yet to respond when Mephisto's voice surfaced in his mind, barely containing her amusement.
"Pfft. Lian certainly has a gift for high-minded speeches to keep the children in line. She really is tender-hearted."
Faust thought back at her: "What do you mean by that?"
"We both know the Wheel of Fate cannot be opposed. It is something so far beyond comprehension that it cannot even be touched, let alone defeated.
How would anyone topple it? I haven't the faintest idea how, and that goes double for Lian. She only falls because she loves someone. All she wants is to be with a Child of Men. Everything else is beside the point."
What an obsession with romance.
Faust nearly said it aloud, but then it occurred to him that the Fae were probably all afflicted with some version of that same obsession.
The ones who fell were the most extreme of all. Without being moved and shaken by the love and grief of mortals, no one could possibly abandon the identity of a Fae, plunge downward, and shatter themselves against the earth below.
"But Children of Men have a gift for giving meaning to things that have none, and they will give everything for the sake of that meaning. So Lian simply went along with what her children wanted to believe.
The rallying cry sounds grand enough, but knowing her personality, she's really just taking things one day at a time. Surviving counts as winning."
Having learned the truth from Mephisto, Faust looked again at the princess's blazing, heaven-defying resolve and found it suddenly rather ironic.
So he nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"Well said. I couldn't agree more."
"Ha, naturally. You awakened on your own from this hollow, cyclical farce. Of course you have the conviction to match."
Seraphina smiled with easy composure, entirely unsurprised by his answer.
After all, Faust was a rare find, an ally Lord Lian had personally designated worth recruiting. As far as Seraphina was concerned, he was obviously a man of ambition who would never bow his head to fate.
The princess even sighed, as if offering counsel.
"What a pity that most of my kin never grasped Lord Lian's true intent. They raised arms against our dynasty's age-old protector, forcing us into fratricide that left the Empire awash in blood.
No matter. It was worth it. To secure humanity's freedom, one must walk a road paved with mountains of corpses and seas of blood."
"If it comes to that, shattering the entire old world is a price worth paying."
That was unsettling. Faust could only fall silent in the face of words so charged with killing intent.
He was drawn to dominion, yes, but he was not a man who thirsted for blood. Building and conquering brought him genuine satisfaction, but pure destruction and slaughter gave him nothing.
Seraphina placed both palms flat on the table and leaned in close, her brilliant glassy eyes swirling with something caught between ice and fire.
"Why not come back to the Imperial capital with me? Let Lord Lian grant you a place among her chosen as well."
Faust's brow furrowed slightly at that. Something was off.
Seraphina apparently did not know he was already bound to a Fae by contract. Otherwise, she would never have said something like that.
"Of course Lian would never mention my existence. For any number of reasons, I'm better kept out of the spotlight."
Perhaps that was for the best. A Fae contractor attracted far too much attention. At present, only those within the royal household and Mistoria knew of Faust's contract with Mephisto. Letting it become common knowledge would not serve him well.
A Fae contractor would draw endless scrutiny and covetousness.
The tree that stands tallest in the forest is the first one broken by the wind. And since Faust intended to stand alongside a dragon as well, making any of it public was out of the question.
He took a measured sip of his coffee.
"I'll pass on that. I'm more comfortable staying in familiar surroundings. Besides, Lord Lian almost certainly has different expectations of me."
That much was easy to deduce. Without Mephisto in the equation, a mere Awakened would never be worth dispatching Imperial royalty to recruit.
The level of attention being paid to him made it clear that Lian had told her children something rather different about his role.
Seraphina settled back into her seat and wound a strand of hair around her finger, smiling.
"You're right. Lord Lian did speak to me about this. For this alliance, the Empire will extend every effort to support you. Funds, provisions, materials, technology — anything the Empire possesses can be shared and offered freely. The collaboration has no ceiling."
"Because Lord Lian believes you are the key to dealing with the Hero."
Faust raised an eyebrow. "The Hero?"
"Yes, the Hero. Or rather, the Dragon-Slaying Hero."
At the mention of the Hero, the moving flame in Seraphina's brilliant eyes seemed to settle and cool. Even her voice dropped.
It was a complicated subject for her, given that she was the direct descendant of a true Dragon-Slaying Hero.
"As an Awakened, you must already be aware that Fated Roles exist in this world. The sovereign enthroned high above treats ordinary mortals as pieces on a board, moving them at will, writing them into a predetermined script. A Fated Role is the part each piece is assigned to play."
Faust raised a hand, cutting her off, signaling that he already knew all of this.
The Imperial Princess curved her lips and laughed with disdain.
"The encirclement closing around us is nearly complete. Those mediocre, pitiful figures, every last one of them a rabble. Under Lord Lian's guidance, no obstacle will give us pause. What could they possibly know of a dragon's might?"
Faust actually believed that. A true dragon was simply too powerful. The entire framework of mortal cultivation could not contain or describe one.
Setting aside the great catastrophes and mass extinctions that wicked dragons had unleashed throughout history, there was the recent Imperial civil war to consider.
The dragon called Lian had never once acted directly. She had merely existed, bestowing the faintest edge of her power as a blessing upon her followers, and the Dragon-Slayer faction had collapsed in disarray.
If it looked like a stalemate, it was mostly because the Second Empire had chosen not to press for total annihilation.
The Fae were not gods, yet mortals revered their power and worshipped them as such. In truth, without permission granted, the Fae could do nothing beyond the bounds of their rules — less free than any Child of Men.
But once a Fae fell into a dragon, all restraint was gone. Then the world would learn what it meant to have a god walking among them.
"However."
Seraphina's tone shifted, her voice turning cold.
"Judgment from fate itself is a different matter entirely. Ordinary enemies can come in any number, and it makes no difference. But someone bearing the Fated Role of Hero, that wretched puppet pulled by fate's strings, is something even Lord Lian cannot fully contend with."
"The Hero. The Dragon-Slaying Hero."
Thanks to years of Mephisto's influence, Faust understood Fated Roles far more deeply than the Imperial Princess sitting across from him. He knew well enough that they were not all equal.
The Hero, in short, stood at the pinnacle of them all.
To defeat the Demon Lord, to lay waste to calamity, to sweep across the furthest reaches of the world.
Even if the Hero was nothing more than an ordinary boy from a rural village, he would march forward without pause, shattering every obstacle, performing miracle after miracle, forging a legacy of supreme achievement.
Roles like Overlord, those second-tier Fated designations, were little more than stray dogs to be kicked aside by the Hero in passing.
Faust pointed at himself. "You want me to be the one who kills the Hero?"