The Capital was an odd mix of older noble buildings and newer buildings built by the trades and the artificers. Then, high above it all, overlooking and watching over all, stood the Stronghold.

“They live there.”

Vienna’s head tilted back. She gazed in awe and consternation. Her mouth gaping, her father closed it.

“It’s enormous.”

She looked back at her father, whose tan features were expressionless, yet in his eyes was a tale only he could tell.

“We almost did not capture it.”

Vienna looked down the hill at the lively city. Her father’s horse stood upon the road leading straight to the castle’s moat.

The relief that must have been on the people’s faces, when they had been free to live their lives at last.

The small girl looked down at the horse’s mane. Her little fingers ran through the dense hair as she let out a breath. If only things were that simple.

Round brown eyes looked back up at her father.

“How did you?”

“That, my dear one, is a secret.”

She looked away, her mind drifted to her own secret. Her hands tightened on the mane in her hands. Her heart ached. If Pop knew, he wouldn’t love her, for she wouldn’t be ‘his Vienna’ anymore.

King Wolfau and Queen Sevelle Basilius were not what Vienna expected.

They did not dress in lavish finery. They wore the simple linens that their people in the city wore. Only the golden thread that decorated the edges of their tunics and the noble crowns upon their heads distinguished them as royalty.

The ‘game’ from her old world had been wrong.

The Fortress had several knights who patrolled the borders.

The royal personal knights escorted Pop and her to the throne room.

One of the knights stepped forward to announce their arrival. “Duke Winden Thorne and Lady Vienna Thorne.”

Her father nodded his head in respect toward both the rulers. It was nothing like the stately bows she’d seen in the media of her old Earth.

Vienna glanced back at the royals, who returned her Pop’s nod before looking at her.

The king was quite an imposing figure upon his throne. His graphite features resembled the large floating isles of the Wilds. His rough exterior showcased how his russet eyes shone in the light.

She had the sudden desire to hide in her father’s embrace.

Vienna trembled before saying, “Hello Your Majesties.”

Her little head bobbed, and a small wave of brown, wavy curls fell forward. She felt her father’s chest shake when he chuckled behind her. When she looked, he shook his head with a small smile.

Vienna sought out the royals with her eyes to find the strangest sight indeed.

The king’s scar that ran across his face, that stopped at the tip of his lip, crinkled as his entire mouth twitched.

Vienna gazed at the queen. The queen resembled the warriors of the desert, her dark brow broad and shimmering like the moons hovering above Terra. Her nobility shone through across the distance that separated the Thornes from her.

The queen tilted her head. Her midnight and gold entwined locks fell to the side as she scrutinized Vienna’s features.

“Where did you learn such addresses, Lady Thorne?”

Vienna flushed at the official title.

“I read them somewhere.”

Sükömi sand eyes narrowed and lightened, a small smile coming upon the queen’s lips.

“You may need to address others by their titles, little one. Your father is our dearest friend, you needn’t do so.”

Then, as if the queen read Vienna’s mind, “You may call us Aunt Sev and Uncle Wolf. Your mother made us promise to watch over you. Your father, yet, has not let us meet you until this day.”

The queen’s voice turned hard as the rock that could be found in the rumored secret caverns of the desert lands.

Vienna looked up at her father’s features, which were expressionless even when the queen glared at him.

“I’ll take the little one if you like, Duke Winden.”

Vienna jumped when she saw what she had thought was a wall move by the side of the royal thrones.

Instead, as it drew closer, she found it was a male being. He was tall, but not as tall as her father. His frame was bulky, with muscles on each arm that were the size of her head. Her eyes widened, and her small hands tightened on her father’s tunic.

The being seemed almost made of stone and had shoulders that were rigid in his frame, supporting his bulbous-looking head. It was quite larger in proportion to the rest of him, but after blinking a couple of times, Vienna decided it suited him fine. He had long scars running down his face, several others decorated the top of his head like a crown of scars.

Vienna pursed her lips while her eyes glanced at the king and then back to the being. It was the first time she had seen such evidence of the Great War. She took a deep breath as her roving eyes reached the male’s beautiful azure-toned eyes that peered at her.

The queen spoke up from behind.

“Tarin has already heard what needs to be said. You should know, Winden, no harm will come to her while she’s in his care.”

Her father was reluctant to let her go.

After some cajoling from his ‘old friends’, which included the being named Tarin Roark, he, at last, let her go.

He had conditions.

Of course, Roark would carry her to their next destination and then she was to always be in Roark’s eye line.

Once they left the throne rooms, Roark’s eye creases crinkled as he looked into Vienna’s gaze.

“My name is Tarin Roark. I have known your father for some time.”

Vienna nodded. “What do you do here?”

He tilted his head as if to ponder her question, or why she asked it. Vienna herself stared at his large head, wondering how he kept his balance. She shook her head mentally at the thought.

“I am the Prime Minister of Wofford.”

“Wow!”

Nothing, it seemed, was like the ‘game’.

Her curious eyes gazed at the prime minister.

He quirked his lips as he humored her.

“Where would you like to go, little Lady Vienna? Would you like a tour of the Stronghold? Or see the only remaining courtyard garden?”

She shook her head, her hair swished on either side of her.

“No, thank you. I would like to see the library, please.”

This time it was Roark, whose eyes widened in surprise.

“You are quite young to be able to read already.”

Vienna was looking up at the wide stone corridors. They were sparsely decorated. Tan columns supported the hallways with stone archways that they walked through.

“Not really. I’m already four.”

They passed through several more stone archways before Roark shifted Vienna onto one arm to open a door.

“What are you looking for, Lady Vienna?”

“I would like to read anything about the Great War, the history of the Continent and of Terra please.”

She could feel his steady gaze on her, but she smoothed down her tunic. It wasn’t the first time she’d surprised someone with her desire to learn about the world around her. Vienna doubted it would be the last.

“Few children would seek to gain knowledge at your age. They would prefer playing outside.”

Vienna narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin up. “I don’t want to be ignorant.”

Vienna knew that some in her place might have played it safe and acted like a child her age. But, she didn’t believe she had that luxury.

It would always be a risk for how ‘smart’ she would seem for her youth, but she would take it. To survive, she had to learn.

Roark led her into the library.

The library held no comparison to her old world’s European palace libraries or even the ones in old fairy tale cartoons. It was a modest size, having about a dozen bookshelves lining the walls that created a couple of aisles by the library’s door. To the far right of the entry, there was a table with chairs circled around it.

A flash of a 3d animated memory from the ‘game’, of a dark-haired prince studying in a much grander library version, came to mind.

She had shivered from the memory, causing Roark to look at her in concern.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m alright.”

The prime minister nodded while he pulled out a chair for her with one arm. She could feel him peering over her features while he set her on the table.

“Don’t move. Your father would have my head if you fell. We have some dusty, thick volumes on the botany of a rare kind of weed. Not even our court artificer uses them.”

Another memory from the strange parallel ‘game’ she’d played of a man with ice-blue hair and a cold gaze.

Roark was back with two thick two tomes that were both a quarter her size each, one in each hand. He situated them up on a chair with armrests so that she wouldn’t fall off.

Being small was such a hindrance.

“Thank you, Sir Roark.”

His thin lips twitched as if he were fighting off a smile. He reaffirmed she was tucked in before he went through the aisles searching for the texts she requested.

Vienna rested her elbows on the edge of the table and her chin in her hands. The day had not been what she expected at all. Things had not been what they seemed.

They had been right. This world was the original and the ‘game’ was inspired by it.

In comparison to the vibrant world she was finding out about, the ‘game’ had given only the bare details. The world-building was basic and the main characters’ backgrounds were only skin-deep.

Which led Vienna to worry about how much of the ‘game’ story was actually accurate.

Was she even in danger?

After all, the infant she became was Lady Vienna Thorne, the future villainess of an otome game known on Earth.

[Special POV of Tarin Roark]

Tarin Roark had lived eight hundred years.

In all his years, he had never been so curious as he was the day little Vienna Thorne read through the driest of the history books in the Stronghold.

Her little dark eyebrows furrowed while she whispered through certain sections. Her eyes gazed off into the distance when she seemed to process the information she had read.

One of these moments he asked, “When did you learn to read Vienna?”

“Pop allowed me to start at two and a half.”

His eyebrows rose at her answer, for it hadn’t actually answered the question.

Then he pondered, “Could you read before?”

She was quiet, reading the text in front of her.

The Prime Minister of Wofford tried again, this time waiting until she was dazing off into the distance, “Could you read before?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

Yes, Tarin Roark was most curious indeed.

[End of special POV]