PROMOTION noun

pro·mo·tion | \prəˈmōSH(ə)n\

: the act of replacing a pawn that has reached its eight rank by a queen, knight, rook or bishop of the same colour.

The day her stepmother was crowned queen of Granorg, Eruca allowed herself to hope, if only for a moment.

She was not aware of all the background political manoeuvring that had granted Protea the seat that should have rightfully gone to her, the last blood relative of the previous king. Eruca only knew that a great deal had been made of her young age, of her inexperience. Of course, it helped that she had always been something of a nonentity, even in the days of King Victor's reign. Eruca had been born as fodder, and she had been raised accordingly. Protea's coronation was for Eruca's own good—and for the betterment of Granorg itself.

Or so Protea had told Eruca. The young princess had accepted her stepmother's self-aggrandizing lies without a word; still, she had raised one crucial argument when she had been finally blessed with Protea's silence.

"What about the ritual?" Eruca had said. "Will you step aside to allow me to perform my duty to the world when the time comes?"

Protea, oddly enough, had replied with a laugh. "Such a serious girl! You needn't worry your pretty little head. Just let the adults handle the thorny matters, hmm?"

"But—"

"Move along, child, move along." There had been something ugly in Protea's smile, something that had left Eruca staring at her feet miserably, cheeks aflame. "I have other important tasks to attend to."

Eruca had been disappointed, but not surprised. As someone who had spent her entire life ensnared within the web of deceit spun by her father and his cronies, she was used to irritating, inconclusive answers. She knew she had to play along with her stepmother's delusions—at least for now. It was true that Eruca was indeed nowhere fit enough to be her father's successor. She was a thirteen-year-old girl with no education or political connections to speak of, one who had been blessed with all the self-assurance of a frightened mouse.

(And Eruca was a murderer. Her own two hands had held on fast to the Black Chronicle as its dark powers had severed the link between her brother's soul and his body. Her weak mastery over her own magic had allowed the rebound spell that had killed her father that dreadful day. Every night Eruca returned to the Royal Hall in dreams; every night she heard their whispers of condemnation, their subtle words of hatred.)

Yes, she had concluded, this arrangement was all for the better.

Eruca kept turning these thoughts over in her head as her stepmother's guardsmen escorted her to the throne room. Today was the first time Protea would hold court. Despite her outward poise, Eruca felt a lingering sense of dread. Often, she had been present when her father's subjects had come to petition him. And often, she had been privy to the grim consequences that had befallen those poor souls. King Victor had heard dishonesty in every plea appealing to his good heart—oh, he had seen treachery etched on every despondent face turned toward him.

Worse of all, he had seemed to derive a sick pleasure in twisting people's fates, in holding their lives hostage to his whims. Even at a young age, Eruca had known this to be true.

She took a nervous swallow, feeling a sudden chill. Protea would surely not be as harsh as her father once had been, would she? She had been born a commoner, the daughter of a simple merchant. Sure, she was on the frivolous side, having spent much of her time as Victor's consort throwing extravagant balls and buying expensive dresses. But that didn't mean she would be needlessly cruel… right?

The throne room was filled to burst with guards and gossiping courtiers. Despite her high station, Eruca was shunted to the sidelines, left on her own without a tutor or a chaperone. That was the height of impropriety, of course. Still, it meant she could watch the proceedings without interference from not-so-well-meaning adults. It was a simple blessing, really, but Eruca welcomed it all the same.

She recognized a few faces from her father's time, but most of the courtiers were unknown to her. When she had ascended to the throne, Protea had elevated most of her favourites to high positions, casting aside some of the previous king's oldest allies. The two most prominent of these newcomers had been given places of choice today: one stood to Protea's right, clothed in a ceremonial uniform covered in glittering medals, while the other was seated in the upper deck along with the other members of parliament.

The first of the two was an officer named Dias who had seen a meteoric rise through the ranks of the royal army. Eruca had heard some rumours that he was of low birth, however, and as such his recent successes had drawn the ire of many of the old guard. His close confidante was a young nobleman whose family held some distant ties with the royal line. Eruca had met Count Selvan several times in her youth, but he'd never made much of an impression on her. He didn't look so self-effaced today; he watched over Protea with a hawkish gaze, one hand tightly grasping a glass of wine.

Eruca's initial unease eventually started to subside as petitioners went one by one to her stepmother. So far, their requests had been reasonable, and Protea's responses had remained measured and graceful. Eruca was ashamed to admit it, but she was surprised by her stepmother's composed manner. Still, Protea often spoke as if she was repeating something she'd learned by rote. Throughout the proceedings, Dias and Selvan's cold gazes remained fixed on her. Something about their expressions made the hair on the back of Eruca's neck stand on end.

Eventually, there was no one left to lay their burden at the queen's feet. Before anyone could move, however, the captain of the royal guard approached Protea on her throne.

"Your Majesty," the guardswoman said. "The prisoner is ready to be escorted to await your judgement. Should we…?"

Protea waved an impatient hand. "Yes, yes. Bring her here, as I have previously ordered."

Count Selvan put down his glass of wine. Across the room, Dias met his gaze, brow furrowing slightly.

A murmur passed through the crowd as a ragged-looking woman was dragged in front of Protea. Eruca wrinkled her nose. The unfortunate recipient of the queen's attentions stank, reeking of piss and blood. Several courtiers put handkerchiefs in front of their mouths, their faces turning a not-so-delicate shade of green.

The prisoner was thrown at Protea's feet, none too gently. The guards hovered about her, clearly uneasy. Their hesitation was understandable; the previous king would have never committed the social faux pas of bringing someone as filthy as this woman into the throne room. Eruca's father had dealt with his enemies behind closed doors, the better to keep up appearances.

"So," Protea finally spoke, "you're one of those wretched rebels. You and your little friends were quite the thorn in my dear Victor's side, you know that?"

Eruca frowned. Rebels? What was she talking about? Not to mention, was she implying that they had been active during her father's reign as well?

"I trust that you've been enjoying all the amenities of my royal hospitality, haven't you?" Protea continued.

Again, her words prompted a series of whispers from the crowd. Eruca herself was too stunned to react. Torture had been common under her father's reign, but he had pointedly tended to act ignorant of that fact. Protea had no such qualms, apparently.

Eruca found herself staring at the prisoner. Under all the grime and dried blood, her features appeared almost young. She seemed barely older than Ernst had been. Was she really a rebel? It was almost impossible to believe. Eruca then frowned. Was it just her or did the young woman seem somehow… familiar?

The prisoner tried to speak. Protea edged forward, a smile twisting her painted lips.

"G-Go…" the woman said, "go t-to… hell…"

"Oh." Protea leaned back into her throne. "Still acting uncooperative, are you? I've been told that some of my trusted collaborators have asked you a simple set of questions—so simple, in fact, that any witless child could have answered them. Why is it that you've made no effort to graciously fulfill our demand?"

The woman stared at the ground with unfocused, glassy eyes. She said nothing.

"It is common courtesy," Protea said, baring her teeth in a grimace, "to answer when royalty asks something of you."

The woman's head snapped toward Protea, and she spat at the queen. The crowd gasped.

Protea glanced at the spittle now marring the train of her gown.

"You little bitch!" she hissed. She strode over to the woman and slapped her, hard, across the face. "How dare you, how dare you!"

Instinctively, Eruca took a step backward, blood icing in her veins. A tense, taut silence seized the crowd. Protea's face was getting redder and redder, and soon she was bellowing at the top of her lungs. The guards remained frozen in shock as Protea screamed obscenities at the prisoner.

"Kill her, kill her!" Protea shrieked. "Cut off her head!"

"Your Majesty, not here, executions are supposed to—" said the captain of the royal guard.

Protea jabbed a jewelled finger in her face. "You will do as I command! I am the queen!" Her voice had gone up a notch at the last word. "You have a sword, use it!"

Eruca's head went blank from terror. Fighting hard to ignore the bile rising to her throat, she gathered her skirts and pushed into the crowd to make her escape. No one moved to let her through. Eruca whimpered, trying to will the tears away. In the distance, she heard a strange, dull noise, then the sound of… something bluntly hitting the ground. It was soon followed by a series of screams. The now panicked crowd swarmed around Eruca, pressing against her, making it impossible for her to move forward.

Finally, she managed to slip away to a secluded corner of the throne room. Eruca sank to her knees, hugging her small frame, wishing desperately that no one would see her as she rocked back and forth on the ground. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

She'd been wrong to hope.

Eruca woke up the next morning with a headache and hundreds of thoughts buzzing in her mind.

Once she had reached the safety of her room, she had cried herself to sleep. Now, she found herself unable to weep, as if she had already wasted all the tears her body could muster. The poor woman's face kept floating back to the forefront of her mind. Protea had called her a rebel; why then, did Eruca feel as if she had known her? A certain suspicion kept nagging her, but it would be hard to test her theory. Still, Eruca knew she could not let this matter rest, especially not if her hunch happened to be true.

Thankfully, no one in the castle cared much about her daily activities, only that she kept herself out of trouble. The following week, Eruca locked herself in her room and practised in front of her mirror, changing her demeanour and trying on various costumes in an attempt to come up with a suitable disguise. The exercise was grueling, and more than once Eruca nearly gave up. Ernst had made it look so easy. With a cocky, drawling accent and just enough of a slouch, he had been able to blend into any crowd. He'd made a hobby out of it, even.

Several days after the execution of the supposed rebel, Eruca finally decided to act. When the sun started dipping over the horizon, she stuffed a bag with old clothes she had found in the servants' quarters and left her chambers. She made sure to keep her face void of all expression as she made her way around the castle. When Eruca's father had been alive, her every move had been closely watched, but things had changed when Protea had been put in charge of her stepdaughter's wellbeing. Now, with a few well-placed lies, Eruca could escape the guardsmen's mindful stares rather easily.

Neither Protea nor King Victor before her knew that Eruca and her brother had learned how to sneak out of the castle from their uncle, long ago. Prince Heinrich had enjoyed gathering secrets the way one collected priceless artefacts; Eruca suspected he had enjoyed the power it gave him over other people. Unlike her brother, she had always been wary of their uncle. Indeed, the man whose memory Ernst had cherished so was not the one Eruca remembered. All she could recall when she pictured her uncle's face in her mind was someone with a smile about as charming as the screeches of a rusted door hinge.

Once she was in the relative safety of the secret passage that led to the castle sewers, Eruca discarded her pretty dress and put on her commoner's clothes. She could not help but scowl as she tried to fit all of her unruly curls underneath her cap. Finally, she managed to bind that thick mane of hers into a tight bun, which she then promptly hid under her hat.

Eruca used the broken shard of a mirror to inspect her appearance. No, she thought, biting down a wobbling lower lip, no one would be fooled by this childish attempts to look like someone she was not. A dreadful coldness washed over her as she imagined all the horrible things that would happen to her if she was caught. Distantly, Eruca remembered Ernst—broken, battered, half-dead—when he had been brought before her in the Royal Hall. For a moment, her memories of that day threated to engulf her—it seemed as if she was caught in a rising tide, in a torrent so sudden it was all too difficult to keep her head above the water line.

If only, she thought, if only it had been her instead—

Eruca squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling loudly to keep herself from sobbing. If she allowed herself to cry, all would be lost.

Because all those horrible possibilities were still better than the reality she would face if the reins of power remained in Protea's greedy hands. Because being held ransom by unscrupulous outlaws or worse, being condemned as a traitor as Ernst had been, would be nothing next to the death of the world.

Eruca could not help but let out a sigh of relief as she left the sewers, arriving in a darkened alleyway. Muffled sounds came from the street ahead. More importantly, she spied a few silhouettes gathered in front of the building closest to her. She had been here with Ernst only a handful of times, and she racked her brain trying to remember what he had shown her. That place was a tavern, wasn't it? Moreover, it was the tavern she sought, right?

She moved forward with timid steps, trying to banish any sense of self-consciousness. Of course, it would have helped if she hadn't happened to smell like raw sewage. Eruca grimaced, cheeks growing hot from shame. Now that she was closer, she could see two men talking together in front of the tavern. They were young—only a few years older than Ernst had been when he had died.

One of the boys laughed raucously, startling Eruca. She stopped, a lifetime's worth of meekness—of being taught to know her place—freezing her in her tracks. No, no, no. She could not do this. She'd been wrong to think she could.

Before she could move, however, the taller of the two young men sniffed the air. "Ugh, what's that stench?"

To Eruca's great horror, the two young men turned toward her. They both gaped at her, seemingly driven silent by the sudden and unexpected apparition of a filthy, foul-smelling young girl.

Finally, Eruca cleared her throat and found herself saying, "Is something wrong? Why are you staring at me?"

"Where the hell did you come from?" the younger of the two boys said. "That's, that's a dead end!"

Eruca shrugged, adopting what she hoped was a nonchalant attitude. "Maybe you should be paying more attention to your surroundings, then." Before he could place another word, she strode off, wishing desperately they would not hear just how loud her heart was beating. Under their bewildered stares, she pushed the door open and entered the tavern.

Her appearance caused consternation amongst the patrons. The barkeep stopped wiping the glass he was holding. Eruca noted his dark, slicked-back hair and the impeccable cut of his clothes. Yes, she had met him when Ernst had brought her here, some months before his death.

"Hey!" someone said behind her. The two boys who had been waiting outside had followed her. The youngest scowled at her, and Eruca looked away, wondering if he would eventually recognize her. "You're too young to be here, you know?"

Eruca nearly rolled her eyes. From her calculations, Ernst hadn't been much older than she was now when he had started associating with these people.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm looking for someone, and I thought I would find him here. I guess I was wrong." She mustered all of her strength to give him a disdainful look; back at the castle, that sort of attitude would have earned her a horribly painful punishment. "I'll wait for him here. They must serve food as well as alcohol, right?"

By then, the barkeep had walked over to her, a wooden bowl in hand. "I've got soup," he said. "That's good enough for you?"

Eruca smiled at him, surprised by the quick service, before sitting down at the closest table. "That looks delicious. How much do I owe you?"

"Anything you're willing to pay," the man said with a shrug. "I'm not one to extort money from hungry kids."

"Thank you," replied Eruca.

Still, she was slightly relieved when he returned to his spot behind the counter. Eruca took her time as she ate, carefully keeping watch over her surroundings. The evening went by, and soon, most of the older patrons had gone, leaving only three young men playing cards at a nearby table. Among them were the two boys she had met outside. Though they had tried to be subtle about it, Eruca knew they had watched her all evening. Had they realized who she was? Eruca hoped so.

Eventually, she found herself staring at the bottom of her bowl. Eruca stifled a yawn, fighting to stay awake or, at least, make it so she still appeared keen-eyed. She startled, however, when someone took her empty bowl from right under her nose. She looked up, and saw the barkeep giving her an expression torn between worry and amusement.

"You've been here for a while," he said to her. "We're about to close. You sure everything's gonna be alright?"

Eruca blinked at him, then glanced toward the remaining patrons. She opened her mouth to speak, only to find that the words were dying in her throat. She thought these people were Ernst's friends, the ones he had introduced to her that time they had gone to the city together, but what if she was wrong? She was just a stupid little girl, she always had been, she'd been wrong to hope, she'd been wrong to think she actually mattered—

Eruca stood up in a precipitated manner. "Let's drop this charade, shall we?" she spoke in a rush, before the last of her courage failed her. "You know who I am and I know who you are."

She felt some movement from behind her. She turned and saw that the three young men were also rising from their seats. One was gaping at her in a rather undignified manner.

"Wait, what?" he said, giving a nervous chuckle. "What that's supposed to mean?"

Eruca peered closed at him. He had messy light brown hair and small, squinting blue eyes. "Will, was it? I've heard that you're something of a fencer."

The young man sputtered in response. Next to him was the boy who had spoken to Eruca outside the tavern. She recognized his short stature and the smattering of freckles on his nose.

"And you're Otto, aren't you?" she told him, smiling. "You're the one who always comes up with the plans." Her expression then grew thoughtful. "You were close to her, right? The girl who was killed some days ago."

Otto looked stricken. He seemed unable to answer.

"She was his cousin," the third member of their group replied. He was the taller boy who had also been waiting outside. He wore green, and his face was long and placid. Pierre. That was his name, if Eruca remembered right. "I… I still can't believe she…"

"Wait a minute!" Will interrupted him. "Who the hell is she? How comes she knows all of us?"

His words prompted groans from his friends. Even the barkeep rolled his eyes.

"How thick are you, Will?" Otto said with a scoff. "That's—"

"—someone who definitely shouldn't be here," completed Pierre. He began to push Eruca toward the door. "You're lucky that there's only the four of us remaining. Some people wouldn't have been… as kind as us, if you catch my meaning."

Eruca turned to face him, digging her heels in. "That's what I was counting on! Why do you think I waited so long?"

Pierre frowned. "You… wanted to speak with us?"

"Seriously," said Will, "what's going on? Who is she?"

Eruca ignored him. "Yes," she told Pierre. "I have a proposition."

In response to her words, the barkeep went to the entrance, giving furtive glances outside the window. Offering them a decisive nod, he finally locked the door.

"Wait, wait, wait," Otto said. "You remember us? You remember our names and everything! How freaky is that? Didn't we meet like, just that one time?"

Eruca felt her cheeks reddening. She tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "I don't know… it just seemed important to me." She had been ignored and neglected all through her life. It felt unfair to subject other people to the same treatment.

Soon, she was surrounded by the barkeep and Ernst's three friends—the members of a burgeoning rebel movement, if she understood correctly. One that must have been spearheaded by her brother, no less (she had to keep herself from scoffing—planning an insurgency in his spare time, that was just like him). They were looking at her expectantly (or, in Will's case, bemusedly).

"I came here because we have a common goal, and a powerful enemy," Eruca continued. "I believe you need me." And I believe I need you, she added in her mind, unwilling to show them any hint of the desperation just brimming beneath her words.

All she got in response were gazes filled with skepticism. And wariness. Eruca could understand why they were so hesitant. Their loyalty to Ernst and his ideals had earned its toll in blood already. A sort of hopelessness was threatening to overpower them—one that Eruca felt all too well.

It was daunting to keep the dying embers of hope alive in her heart. But Eruca had to do it, for their sakes—and for the very survival of their beloved country.

Even if it meant pretending she was something she was not.

Pierre crossed his arms. "Is that so? What do you have to offer?"

What does a naïve little girl like me has to offer, you mean, Eruca thought. Her father had ignored her existence since her birth. Her stepmother had all but cast her aside. And now even Ernst's friends refused to see her potential.

Eruca straightened her spine, lifting her chin. She was almost glad that they doubted her. It would be easier to prove them wrong than to live up to their expectations.

"The chance to save the world," she said, voice never wavering.