Chapter 1: The Morning After the Nightmare

The dawn of April first, in the year of 1234, found Pierre Corneille stirring from a sleep troubled by ill omens. A chilling realization struck him: he had failed in his sworn duty.

He, who should have stood unwavering guard outside the Duke's chamber till morn, had succumbed to slumber. More alarming still was the sound from within – soft, unfamiliar footsteps that sent a shiver down his spine.

A knot of dread tightened in his chest, urging his hand to his sword. Cold steel sang as it left the scabbard, and with a shower of sparks, the heavy padlock on the Duke's door splintered under the blow. He plunged into the chamber, his left arm thrust forward, the folded buckler upon it snapping open into a ready shield.

Azure light flared in Corneille’s eyes, a sorcerous gleam that sought out enemies. Yet, the room held no assassins, no lurking threat – only a young maiden, perched on the edge of the great bed, her form trembling, head bowed low.

She was a fragile thing, her skin like moonlight on snow. Through a chink in the heavy velvet curtains, a spear of dawnlight pierced the gloom, igniting her long hair. It cascaded down her back like a river of molten gold, pooling onto the rich bedclothes.

"Pierre," she whispered, her voice quavering. "Am I caught in some enchantment? If this is no dream… then what, by all the gods, is happening to me?"

The maiden lifted her gaze, and a single tear, like a liquid pearl, traced a path down her cheek. Her face, so achingly familiar yet subtly altered, struck Corneille with the force of a physical blow. A horrifying suspicion, cold and sharp, began to crystallize in his mind.

To give his fear a name, or to banish it, he raised his sword, its point aimed at the heart of the trembling girl. But before the steel could touch her, shimmering golden script blazed into existence in the air between them, an invisible force pressing his arm down.

The Golden Oath. A binding of potent magic, unbreakable, that forbade him from ever bringing harm to his master, his charge.

The terrible truth crashed down upon him. Corneille felt his stomach churn, a bitter, acrid bile rising in his throat. He drew a ragged breath, struggling for composure. "Permit me to be certain," he said, his voice hoarse. "You are Dias de Toledo, Third Duke of Alva – my employer, and my most cherished friend. Is this not so?"

The maiden dashed away her tears, her arms wrapping around herself as if to ward off a chill. "Oh, Pierre," she choked out, her voice laced with despair. "I… I know not how. I simply awoke… and I was a woman."

The chamber seemed to tilt around Corneille. He prayed this was but a lingering fragment of his nightmare, or perhaps some monstrously cruel jest conceived by his friend.

Both Corneille and Dias were sons of the Hathor Federation, a realm currently fractured by the ambitions of two great powers: the staunch Royalists and the formidable Tri-State Alliance.

Dias's father, Fernando de Toledo, the Second Duke of Alva, had been a man who danced on the razor's edge of politics. He pledged fealty to the Royalists, yet took a bride from the heart of the Tri-State Alliance, his plans for his lineage as convoluted as his allegiances.

Dias, his firstborn, was a youth plagued by ill health, a gentle soul with a spirit that seemed too delicate for the harsh world, his growth stunted. Fernando, a man of pragmatism, had deemed him unfit to inherit the ducal coronet. Instead, arrangements were made for Dias to be schooled in the distant State of Waite, a decision laden with unspoken implications.

At that time, Fernando boasted three hale and hearty sons and a daughter born outside the bonds of marriage. Later, the Duchess, his legitimate wife, gifted him another daughter, Beatrice. These children had bolstered his belief in his own virility.

But fate, it seemed, had other plans. After Beatrice, no more children blessed the Duke's line. Desperate to reclaim his youthful vigor, Fernando had fallen prey to increasingly outlandish remedies, his pursuit of vitality ironically leading to the ruin of his own health.

In the cold January of 1234, the Second Duke of Alva breathed his last within the stone walls of his ancestral manor. Following the somber rites of mourning, his eldest son, Dias, was formally invested with his father's title, becoming the Third Duke of Alva.

The path to this succession had not been without its thorns, yet Dias's mother, Angelica, the Dowager Duchess, had skillfully navigated the treacherous currents. But no sooner had the dust settled than Angelica, citing Dias's tender age and persistent frailty as rendering him incapable of shouldering the ducal mantle, seized the reins of power as Regent. With swift efficiency, she enacted her late husband's will, dispatching Dias to his scholarly exile in Waite.

Angelica, it was clear, viewed her son as little more than a pawn, a stepping stone to her own ambitions. Bolstered by the might of her maternal kin, she had systematically bought the loyalty or silenced the dissent of most within the sprawling Toledo clan and its influential retainers.

Corneille, a man whose loyalty to the Second Duke had spanned a decade, stood as one of the few unyielding pillars of support for young Dias. Yet, his voice was but a whisper against the storm of Angelica's influence within the ducal court. The Duchess, in the end, had her way. Dias was sent to Waite.

Bound by a friendship forged in shared adversity, Corneille had gathered a loyal retinue, personally overseeing their journey to the State of Waite. They had arrived in Merida, Waite’s capital, on the twenty-fifth day of March, securing a secluded villa on the city's outskirts.

While others in their party busied themselves with the mundane tasks of establishing a new household, Corneille had already immersed himself in the shadowed world of intelligence, seeking every scrap of information he could find about their new, and potentially perilous, surroundings.

The State of Waite, whispered in hushed tones, was the Land of Witches. Here, magic was not mere legend but a tangible force, capable of weaving wonders that defied mortal understanding. A desperate hope flickered within Corneille: perhaps, amidst these arcane arts, a cure for Dias's afflicted body could be found.

And beyond that, a sliver of a chance remained to reclaim what had been lost in the Toledo power struggle. That chance, however, rested entirely on Dias’s status as the "male heir of the preceding Duke."

This catastrophic shift in gender was more than a mere complication in the line of succession. A young, vulnerable Duchess would not be viewed as a peer or an ally by the grasping lords of the realm. Instead, she would be seen as an opportunity – a prize to be claimed, her title and lands ripe for the taking, her very name a target for usurpation or manipulative claims.

The devastating weight of Dias's transformation settled upon Corneille. If not quite the cataclysm that shattered worlds, it was, without doubt, the sound of his own world beginning to fracture and fall apart.

Seeing the thunderous darkness on Corneille’s face, Dias mistook his shock for disbelief. A fresh wave of agitation washed over her. Tears shimmering in her eyes, she reached for the fastenings of her silken nightgown, a desperate blush staining her cheeks a feverish crimson.

The sight of his friend, so utterly distraught and on the verge of baring her soul – and body – to prove her impossible truth, jolted Corneille from his grim reverie of political ruin. Of course. If he, a hardened warrior, reeled from this, what unimaginable torment must Dias, the one ensnared in this bizarre fate, be enduring?

With a newfound gentleness, Corneille sheathed his sword. He offered Dias a square of linen. "Hush now," he said, his voice softer than he intended, his gaze meeting hers. "There is no need. I believe you. This… this calamity is due to my own failure to protect you. I will find a way to amend this. I give you my word."

Dias’s small hands clutched at the edges of Corneille’s larger one, her forehead resting against his calloused palm. The rough, warm contact seemed to anchor her, a small island of solace in a sea of turmoil. "It is not your fault, Pierre," she murmured, her voice barely audible. "My mind is a whirlwind… but I trust you. Implicitly."

Corneille’s resolve hardened. "I will seek out a physician, one skilled in matters beyond common ailments. Until then, not a word of this must pass these walls. Forgive me for the necessity, Dias, but I shall inform the household that the journey and the new climate have taken their toll. You require absolute bed rest, and none are to disturb you."

Dias nodded, a flicker of her old self in the gesture. She sank back against the pillows, and the portrayal of a patient was one she slipped into with unnerving ease. For fifteen years, after all, sickness had been a far more faithful companion to her than health.

Corneille adjusted the heavy quilt, tucking it around her slight form. He closed the chamber door softly behind him, then issued crisp, new orders to the household steward. In this small, isolated domain, in this moment of crisis, it was he, Pierre Corneille, who wielded the authority of the Third Duke of Alva. His word was law.

Once outside the villa’s gates, Corneille purchased a token for passage on a public carriage – the lifeblood of Waite’s citizenry. These lumbering vehicles, drawn by a pair of sturdy horses, featured a double-decker design: an enclosed lower cabin for privacy, and open-air benches above. Including the grizzled driver, they could accommodate a dozen souls.

Corneille was a man built to draw the eye. His features were sharply chiseled, his frame tall – a full head and shoulders above most at 187 centimeters – and corded with the muscle of a seasoned warrior. His dark coat and breeches were a stark backdrop for the cold gleam of the weapons and armor he bore.

His raven-black hair, a rarity in these lands, and his sun-kissed complexion, a testament to a life lived largely under open skies, made his entrance onto the carriage an event in itself. The chatter amongst a group of women seated within ceased abruptly, their heads turning as one to fix upon him.

In any other province of the Federation, such scrutiny might have been tinged with apprehension, perhaps even fear. But this was Waite. After a beat of charged silence, Corneille felt their gazes upon him, no longer merely curious, but alight with a raw, almost predatory hunger.

The demographic imbalance in Waite was a stark and unsettling reality: for every man, there were ten women. To preserve their lineage, the state's matriarchal administrators had enacted a host of radical measures. The inescapable consequence was that men, particularly those young and virile, had become commodities of immense value.

This, then, was the unspoken truth behind the old Duke’s decision to send Dias to Waite. In a land where men were pearls beyond price, even an "useless" son, as Fernando had deemed him, might fetch a handsome sum, or forge a powerful alliance through marriage.

Furthermore, the witches of Waite, enigmatic and aloof, held little interest in the tangled politics of the Federation. Thus, there was scant risk of the gentle Dias being manipulated, his title used as a lever against the Toledo family.

This "transaction," as Corneille had once bitterly thought of it, had filled him with a quiet sorrow. Yet now, standing on Waite’s soil with a Duke who was no longer a Duke in the way the world understood, a pragmatic, even ruthless, thought took root: to find his transformed charge a witch bride – and a powerful ally in the dangerous games to come.

"Begging your pardon, Monsieur Corneille," the elderly driver’s voice quavered, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. She spoke the common tongue, but with the thick, melodic accent of Waite. "'Corneille the Flash,' they call you. Your reputation precedes you, even here. To avoid… entanglements… with the authorities, you understand… you must be escorted. Either by a Guardian Officer, from the Men's Administration Bureau, or an Instruction Officer, from the Waite Preservation Bureau."

Corneille’s jaw tightened. He had always despised that flamboyant epithet – "the Flash." He let his fingers rest meaningfully on the pommel of his sword. The driver’s face paled, her eyes wide with terror. "I know, sir, I know! You are more than capable of defending yourself, a warrior of great renown! But it is I who will face the wrath of the Bureaus! And their enforcers… they are a fearsome lot, sir, truly fearsome!"

"Enough," Corneille said, his voice flat. "I will alight."

A collective sigh of disappointment rippled through the female passengers as Corneille retrieved his token. He was already scanning the bustling street for an alternative means of transport when a voice, cool and melodious, spoke from directly behind him. "A most fortuitous encounter, Monsieur Corneille."

Corneille turned. Before him stood a young woman of striking grace, her figure slender yet poised. A disarming smile played upon her lips. Her hair, black as polished jet and shimmering like silk, was bound in twin pigtails that cascaded over her shoulders. Eyes the color ofdusky rubies regarded him with an open curiosity, yet held a shrewd, appraising glint.

Behind her, the tell-tale shimmer of a teleportation spell was just beginning to fade into the mundane air. Corneille arched an eyebrow. The maiden, however, betrayed not a hint of discomposure at her transparent deception. "Anne Geneviève de Longueville," she announced, her voice smooth as velvet. "And if the word 'fortuitous' does not please you, Monsieur Corneille, then let us simply say that our meeting was… inevitable."