The Holy Vault had always been one of the Glarmes' best kept secrets.

Located in the central keep's basement, the chamber was older than the rest of the castle. The knights had built it since the days when they first found the Sacred Source and raised Promesse stone by stone to protect these two areas. The secret of what it contained was known only to the order's Knight-Commander and his designated successor, though rumors said that it housed an inheritance that stretched all the way back to the order's roots as Valentine's royal guard. Its heavy stone double doors and crown-shaped enchanted lock had resisted both the test of time and the fly invaders' attempts to break through it.

This detail bothered Victoire. Only the Knight-Commander could open the vault, or so her trainers taught her, and Lord Raymond had spent days under the Lunarian's control. Why didn't he help the evil god break inside?

She could only think of one explanation.

"It was a lie," Victoire guessed once she and Lord Raymond faced the vault's doors. Neither wielded torches, nor needed one. Lord Wepwawet's newest sorcery empowered both their weapons with light bright enough to clear the darkness on their own. "The Knight-Commander cannot open the vault by themselves."

"Yes," Lord Raymond confirmed. "In fact, only you may open it now."

"But why?" Victoire squinted at her former superior. He had insisted on bringing her here alone, not allowing Kale or any surviving Glarmes to descend into the basement with them. "What aren't you telling me, Lord Raymond?"

Her old mentor stared at the magical lock for a moment before answering. "What I am about to tell you must remain between us. Loose tongues are the death of secrecy."

Victoire knew Lord Wepwawet could hear and see anything happening in these halls, but she kept that detail to herself. While she trusted her god to at least do the right thing, her old mentor required time to reach the same conclusion.

"Do you remember what I told you about your origins?" Lord Raymond asked. "That your parents left you with us to raise you as a knight because they could not take care of you?"

Victoire frowned. She was long over that story. "I remember."

"We lied," Lord Raymond replied bluntly. "I knew your parents very well. We simply covered up your parentage."

Now that came as a surprise. "What?"

"Do you recall my squire, Alain, or that young scholar, Celestine?" Lord Raymond asked. Victoire nodded sharply, knowing that they had both perished during the flys' takeover of Promesse. "They were both your distant cousins, among others. The heirs of Valentine."

"The heirs of…" The more she heard, the less Victoire understood. "What are you talking about?"

"This is a secret known only to the Glarmes' leadership," Lord Raymod explained. "Our order's original purpose was to protect the royal family of Valentine, and we held true to this vow."

"Until the king's heirs all perished during the exile, whether killed by assassins or natural causes," Victoire reminded him. "The order settled Promesse once the last heir was dead."

"That is correct. King Lefou's trueborn children all died during our exile." Lord Raymond took a deep breath. "But they left us plenty of bastards."

Victoire's eyes widened in shock as a terrifying prospect formed in her mind. "Bastards?"

Lord Raymond nodded sharply. "My predecessors had sacrificed too much during their exile to simply give up when all of the king's trueborn heirs perished, so they created a different plan: the Glarmes would bolster our forces, secretly collect all of the royal family's bastards, and then raise one of them as Valentine's newest monarch once we retook our country. That is why we originally founded Promesse. We would raise a new kingdom to retake the old."

Victoire finally put two and two together. "You're kidding."

"I am not, Victoire. Though your ancestors were born on the wrong side of the sheet, royal blood does flow in your veins." Lord Raymond met her gaze. "Why do you think that dragon kept trying to kidnap you, specifically?"

Victoire's jaw dropped, and then the vault began to tremble all of a sudden. A bellowing sound echoed through the roof above with the strength of an earthquake.

"What is that?" Lord Raymond asked.

"A god's laughter," Victoire replied, her jaw tightening so hard it hurt. Someone will pay for this! "I can't be a princess! That is ridiculous!"

"You're not, but you descend from one," Lord Raymond replied. "My predecessor obscured your and many other children's parentage with the hope of selecting one of you to take the throne once we had rebuilt our army. Alain was deemed our best candidate, since your affinity for werelings and… unconventional ideas… put you at the bottom of the list."

"That is insanity," Victoire protested. "There was no chance a few thousand Glarmes could retake a country with an army a hundred times our size!"

"I know," Lord Raymond conceded. "The more time passed, the less the prospect of retaking Valentine appeared feasible. Its people had grown to like their republic and the monarchy had lost all popular support. The original plan was long dead by the time I took command."

"Then why keep it a secret?" Victoire's mind struggled to accept this, this, this utter insanity! "Why keep our parentage from me and the others?"

"Because of this." Lord Raymond waved a hand at the locked doors. "Only individuals with Valentinian royal blood in their veins can open this vault. This is how we intended to prove our chosen monarch's parentage to the people. Another of these chambers is buried beneath the kingdom's former capital, and its content puts this one to shame. We feared that ill-intentioned individuals would seek to capture you or the others to steal the royal treasures we were honorbound to protect."

Victoire's hand gripped her spear when she fully grasped the implications. "Alain and the others are all dead."

"Yes," Lord Raymond confirmed with deep sorrow. He had been very close to his old squire. "As far as I can tell, you are the last living heir of Valentine. The flies… ate all the others without realizing their importance."

She was the only person alive who could open this vault, if what Lord Raymond had told her was the truth. Victoire still struggled to accept it. She walked up to the doors and pressed her hand against the golden, crown-shaped lock.

Victoire immediately sensed warmth radiating from the ancient metal. Her divinely-enhanced senses picked up on the flow of mana traveling from her fingers to the doorway, like a sentry checking for a seal of passage.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She heard a click, followed by the noise of grinding gears as the lock shifted. The doors opened to reveal a cavernous vault of ancient stone. Metal braziers magically lit up along its walls with blue, ghostly flames to illuminate the path ahead.

So it was true… the vault recognized me, Victoire thought with a heavy breath. She wasn't sure how to take this revelation. "Who were my parents, Lord Raymond?"

"Your mother was a woman called Destra, and a great-great grandchild of King Lefou himself. Your father was a Glarmes knight called Joseph. I'm afraid both are long dead, though we kept detailed records of them."

"I would like to consult them," Victoire said. While she had long moved on from growing up without parents, learning more about them would at least provide her proper closure. "What next?"

"The treasures within are your birthright, and yours to dispose of as you see fit," Lord Raymond replied. "I have little knowledge of what you will find in this vault. Much of its contents could only be used by the royal family."

"I will check it myself then." Victoire cleared her throat. "Could you give me a moment of privacy? I… I need to ponder what you've told me."

"Understandable. I remain at your disposal whenever you wish to consult our records." Lord Raymond walked back up to the stairs with a final word of encouragement. "Good luck."

Victoire heard his footsteps echo into the distance until the basement turned silent. She didn't remain alone with her thoughts for long, though. Lord Wepwawet's spiritual projection manifested at her side in the blink of an eye, looking fit to gag.

"Aahaha!" he laughed while holding his sides. "Ahaha!"

"Oh, shut up!" Victoire snapped at her god, forgetting all decorum. "This isn't funny!"

"It is though!" Wepwawet replied in between fits of laughter. "I told you there was no better royalty hunters in the world than dragons, Your Majest–"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence!" Victoire blushed in embarrassment. Why did the dragon even pick her over Celestine, unless… unless she slept with Kale, as Victoire always suspected! "I hate it!"

"What, being a princess?" Her god finally managed to calm down, though he continued to smirk at her. "Most mortals would be happy to find out they were secretly royalty."

"I'm not!" Victoire growled in annoyance. "I hate the idea that I came so far because of a magical birthright rather than my hard-earned skills."

"Oh, that?" Wepwawet shrugged. "Don't worry then. You stand here today because of your own merits, not your birth."

Victoire scoffed in disbelief. "Would you have chosen me as your Champion had I been born a peasant?"

"Duh, of course I would have," her god replied nonchalantly, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. "Do you think Grudu wore a crown once? Or that Mistouffe descends from an ancient line of Saturn Cats?"

"That word means nothing to me," Victoire pointed out with a frown.

"Point is, one's origins have zero impact on a mortal's potential to become a Champion. A prince is no more entitled to that honor than a farm boy. Only their will, strength of character, and deeds matter." Wepwawet met her gaze. "We gods only care about kings for political reasons, usually because we want to put a specific mortal in charge or to reassure people that things will remain stable. I didn't know about your origins until today, and they never factored in my choice."

Victoire stared at him, searching for any hint of deceit. She had grown a sixth sense when it came to seeing through her god's lies or self-aggrandizement, but he sounded utterly sincere this time. This reassured her somewhat.

"You swear you're being truthful?" she asked him, a bit quieter than she would have liked. "That you're not saying that to make me feel better?"

Her god gave her a bemused look. "Victoire, you fought a wyrm head-on when most would have fled, and you left the order that raised you in the name of what you knew was right. That's real strength. That's why you were chosen."

"Thank you, I appreciate that." Victoire couldn't help but crack a smile. "You can be a good and wise god when you want to be."

"H-Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Lord Wepwawet protested. "Are you implying I am unwise?"

"Anyway," Victoire said, changing the subject before it veered into uncomfortable territory. "Anything interesting I should pick in this vault?"

"We will resume this conversation, Victoire," her god warned. "Otherwise, I sense a few potential Artifacts worth picking up and…" Lord Wepwawet frowned at the vault. "What the…"

"What?" Victoire asked.

"I need to check something," her god replied as his spirit floated forward. Victoire followed him into the vault with her hand clutching her glowing spear.

The Holy Vault was a bit smaller than she expected, being a little over seventy feet in length. The wall to the left showcased a mosaic showing key milestones of the Glarmes Order's history—from its founding to its exile and the discovery of the Sacred Source—while a statue of an austere king whom she assumed to be either Lefou or his son overseeing the right one. Multiple closed chests lined up the chamber, and dusty weapons stood on display.

One of them immediately caught her interest: a long spear of blue-colored metal, whose curved tip resembled a red-orange tooth longer and sharper than a sword. Gilded inscriptions Victoire didn't recognize glowed on the shaft. The weapon breathed mana.

Her god whistled at the sight. "Now that's a magical spear! Enchanted alloy and a dragontooth for a tip!"

"You had me at dragontooth," Victoire replied upon seizing the weapon. She sensed the magic coursing through the shaft the moment she touched it. "Permission to kill Insupportable with it?"

Lord Wepwawet strongly considered it before deciding against it. "No, that would sadden Bernard and he did help liberate this city."

That didn't even begin to make up for all the trouble the dragon caused her in the past, but Victoire didn't argue the point. She waved the old spear around and found it lighter than her current one. "This weapon feels stronger than your gift, Lord Wepwawet."

"It is." Her god waved his hand at the spear and flames immediately surged from its tip. "Moreover, only an individual with Valentinian royal blood can use it. It will return to your hand once thrown, cut through most armor, and produce flames in a pinch."

"Sounds like a clear-cut improvement then." Victoire scowled, her gaze lingering on her old spear. She couldn't argue that the sight of it filled her with conflicting feelings. "This weapon though… it holds a special place in my heart. You trusted me with it above all others."

Lord Wepwawet seemed somewhat touched. "I appreciate the sentiment, Victoire, but don't hesitate to switch. I would rather see you perform at your best than hold yourself back, or worse, dying because you didn't use your best equipment."

Dead. Victoire recalled all the people she had known in Promesse and who had now perished, devoured by Beelzebub's minions. "If… if I may ask… Do you know what happens to us mortals after death?"

"Yes, I do." Wepwawet crossed his arms, his expression filled with uncertainty. "My teachers said I should fit that in my personal branding, but…"

"I don't want a sweet lie," Victoire replied. She always feared there was no afterlife anyway, so any answer would fit. "I just want to know whether I'll see some people again."

"Yes and no?" Lord Wepwawet hesitated a moment before providing her more details. "The truth is, it depends. A god always has a special connection to their Champions' souls, so if you and the others die, I'll be able to keep your spirits from passing on. This will allow me to revive you one day with the right Miracles."

Victoire scoffed. "Even marriage is until death do us part."

"Hey, I was a god in charge of protecting souls on the way to their afterlives, thank you very much!" Lord Wepwawet protested. "I'll let your soul pass on if that's what you truly want!"

Victoire's heart skipped a beat. "So there is an afterlife?"

"Not yet," her god replied, though he quickly cleared her confusion. "Unless we gods create one, souls return to the mana from which they were first created. They change, forget their past life, and then reincarnate endlessly."

"But you could create an afterlife," Victoire insisted. "Why haven't you?"

"Because it requires a ton of mana. So much, in fact, that it usually takes multiple deities working together to create one." Lord Wepwawet scratched the back of his head. "It is, like, a very big and very late class project."

Hearing that her god considered how to deal with her immortal soul to be a 'class project' of all things immediately left Victoire in a sour mood. A question found its way to the tip of her tongue. "Can gods die?"

"Not really?" Lord Wepwawet replied, confirming her suspicions. "It can take us a long time to reform if we're roughed up badly enough, however."

Victoire's scowl thickened further. "That's why this looks like a game to you," she muttered under her breath. "You're not actually risking anything yourself."

Her god scowled back. "That's not what I meant, Victoire."

"No, but that's how you feel." She shook her head. Her spear felt heavier all of a sudden. "It doesn't matter. I can't do anything about it. You're too big, and we're all too small."

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the vault after that, with neither god nor Champion uttering a word; if there were any words left to be said. Lord Wepwawet looked away from Victoire with an embarrassed expression on his face. His gaze lingered on a glass bottle on display among the other treasures, within which a thick, viscous yellow liquid swirled. Its texture reminded Victoire of honey.

"Is this what caught your attention earlier?" Victoire asked. She was eager to change the subject. "Some kind of alchemical weapon?"

"No, Victoire." Her god squinted at the liquid. "That is a Champion."

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