Princess Takiyasha's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

By morning the crown sat heavy in Takiyasha's hands. The alligator army was gone. The throne waited across the marsh in her father's hall. But when she called the frog folk to march, they did not move. They squatted in the mud along the water's edge, over a hundred of them, and stared at their swamp. Krogg spoke for them. He crouched beside the shrine, his great blade across his back, yellow eyes steady. "They fought for this water," he said. "Not for a hall they have never seen. Ask them to leave home, and they will melt back into the reeds by dusk." Takiyasha understood. The relics had rallied them to defend the swamp. A throne far away meant nothing to a frog. She needed to give them a reason to follow her out. A shape climbed from the water then. It was Kazuto Infernus, the man she had marched all this way to earn. His blue horns swept back from his brow. His hand rested on the black-wrapped hilt at his hip. He did not smile. He had come from her father's hall to see if the princess of stories was real. "They say you killed a king in the mud," he said. "I came to watch you lose the ones who did the killing." His words stung, but Takiyasha did not flinch. She turned from him to the frog folk. She lifted the naginata, then the crown, then set the crown down in the mud before them. "I will not drag you from your home," she said. "I will build your home there instead." She knelt and drew in the mud. A castle. Tiered roofs. Frog banners. Gates carved with their own faces. "My father's hall will be yours," she said. "A frog castle. Your shrine moved stone by stone to sit at its heart. You will not follow me to a stranger's seat. You will follow me to your own." Krogg looked at the drawing a long moment. Then he stood and slid his blade back. "A castle of frogs," he said. He almost smiled. "That, they will march for." One frog rose from the mud. Then a dozen. Then the whole bank shifted and stood. Croaks rolled across the water like drums. They lifted the shrine stones onto their backs and turned toward the far marsh. Kazuto watched them form ranks behind her. Something in his stern face changed. "You bought an army with a promise," he said quietly. "Now you must build the castle you drew, or they will remember you lied." Takiyasha took up the crown and mounted her runed toad. She had her army marching at last. But she had promised them a home she did not yet hold, on ground where her father's true hall still stood empty and unclaimed. Whoever reached it first would decide whose castle rose there.