Finley Cai Aies Hall April 18th, 20XX

“Am I so scary, your highness?”

The cockiness in her tone was unbearable, but she was so close to me I could feel my mind going blank with panic.

What exactly was this plot development?

Wasn’t she the strong, cold and silent character type? Why was she suddenly acting like the male lead of an R18 romance novel?

An unreasonably strong palm held my head in place and forced my face still, compelling me to look her in her large bronze eyes. At such a close distance, I couldn’t help but notice that they had dulled, almost to the point of becoming brown or amber, and had lost the volatile metallic sheen they had borne before.

“Who’s scared of who?”

The childish response escaped me before I could think it over. The general rewarded it with a low chuckle but maintained intense eye contact. Her wings rhythmically slapped the wall around me and created a fragile prison.

I could have pushed her away, but I stopped myself and evaluated my choices.

What would be the right thing to do here?

Even if I overpowered her and escaped, I wasn’t sure how long it would last if she got serious. I could use magic to tie her up and make sure she couldn’t chase me, but that would be as good as completely giving up on joining the Ruan clan to the Royal family.

As well, while I had confidence in escaping her, that would be as good as announcing I’d received training from outside the castle. Esmeralda would insist on me telling her how I’d overpowered a general, but that was the least of my worries.

Theodulus had told me to hide y capabilities for now, so I could surprise them if I even needed to run away. I didn’t think things were bad enough for me to reveal my hidden card.

The general had trapped me in more ways than physical.

In the end, I only had one option left to me.

After a deep breath to convince myself of my decision, I closed my eyes and raised my face towards hers. The general was about the same height as I was, but she was flying while I was standing.

My eyes were half-closed, so I depended on my other senses to dictate what was going on around me.

I felt the warmth from her face and the gentle stimulation of her breath brush against my chin as she leaned into my face.

I took one more shallow breath in preparation, but that was when things went off-script.

Her grip on the side of my face suddenly loosened and slammed into the wall right beside my ear.

The sudden sound startled my eyes open enough to see her body fly across the room and slam into the opposite wall. I turned to the side and saw a deep indent in the wall. Proof of the brute strength she’d used to push herself away.

I could see the remnants of magic and realized that she’d used a spell in those split seconds.

She rolled onto the floor like she was recovering from a fatal attack, despite having done it to herself, and her wings helplessly twitched from the impact.

Before I could get over there and make sure she was okay, the general suddenly looked up at me with a fierce expression. The metallic sparks that had previously dulled now sparked and shone with an uncomfortable and intense mixture of hostility and confusion.

“You dare use a bewitchment spell on me!”

…...What?

Now it was my turn to be confused.

I hurriedly shook my head and subconsciously stumbled closer to her to explain myself. I hated how choppy and awkward my explanation came out sounding, but I was so bewildered.

The contrast between now and five seconds ago was so drastic that I couldn’t keep up.

I didn’t even know what a bewitchment spell was, but the excessively unfriendly expression on her face told me it was a big deal.

“No! Wait, calm down. I didn’t cast anything!”

A sharp stinging pain suddenly erupted from my cheek, and I could only lift a trembling hand to my face to feel a slight surface cut on my face. It wasn’t deep enough to bleed, but it certainly made enough of an impact.

“Don’t move another step. I can hear whatever you have to say from where you are.”

In contrast to her previously warm and heavy tone, she now sounded cold and aggressive.

She sounded regal, even as she stayed crumpled on the floor. I swallowed the saliva forming in my mouth and slowly wiped off the cold sweat forming on my brow as I began.

I stayed completely still, not daring to move a single step as I struggled to clarify myself.

I’d learned that using a spell on another fairy was as good as declaring a will to fight. Even before, when she had extended her strands of magic towards me, they had not actually touched my person and had instead hovered just close enough for me to catch and break. It was only because of my sensitivity to magic that it had felt as invasive as it had.

“As I was trying to say, I haven’t cast a single spell! I can swear it on this queendom as my mother built it!“

Even after such a severe vow, she still carried a wary expression on her face and growled her next words at me.

“Lies! If you didn’t cast anything, then why would I act in such a way on our first meet-”

A dreadful expression quickly replaced the icy look she carried, as if she had just considered something extremely odd. Her lips slammed shut into a straight line, and she looked at me like I’d just ruined a project she’d worked on for a decade and a half.

At this point, I’d given up on following her pace and just stayed still. Hopefully, she’d let me catch up when she reached her ultimate destination.

The general muttered a few nasty words to herself as she pulled herself onto her feet. She executed a full bow by pulling in both wings, getting down on both knees and pulling her chin toward her chest.

“Wait-”

Before I could say she didn’t have to do all that, she got up and flew out of the room at the speed of light.

I wanted to chase after her but eventually decided not to, in case that just made things worse.

The cat yowled in my arms and had me resume my petting, but my mind was in a completely different space.

What… just happened?