Chapter 21 Your Princess is in This Castle

"Demon, I have summoned you for an important mission that cannot fail. I need you, to kidnap the princess" said the fox lady.

*Ok, this is a very different request to the old king. Is there a no option?*"Is there the option to refuse? I'm really not interested in kidnapping anybody" said Kat raising her tail behind her back slightly.

"Curious, for a Succubus to answer my summoning, it seems you are more interesting than I thought" said the fox

"What do you mean by that fox lady?" said Kat. The woman's eyes went wide at the question before licking her lips slightly.

"It seems, you don't quite understand how summoning a demon works, rather amusing if I might say so myself" said the fox

"Ok, well while your amusing yourself could you at least tell me your name so that I can stop referring to you as fox lady in my head?" asked Kat. The fox started laughing at this. Her icy confident and aloof stare breaking into a smile.

"Ok, ok, you win. My name is Chiharu, and I must say I'm rather pleased at the demon I've summoned this time, seems like my conditions all worked." Said Chiharu.

"Anyway I can assure you that kidnapping the princess won't be as difficult or inconvenient as you might imagine. That's because I'm her mother" said Chiharu. *Well that's a bombshell, that means she's the Queen?*

"Wait so that makes you the Queen, right? Then why do you need me to kidnap the princess, she's your daughter can't you just, I dunno ask her politely?" said Kat

"Well, this is actually her plan. Things are rather complicated you see. A nearby nation is trying to pressure me into handing over my firstborn daughter for marriage. That is the kingdom ruled by the beast people, and they've been trying to encroach on our land for some time. Unlike us, they pass the throne down to the strongest warrior after the old King dies, and then have a strategy competition for the royal advisor.

The problem is this time around the winners were twin brothers and one of them set their sights on my daughter. I'm young, despite my five tails, I'm of more comparable age with the beast twins actually, and because of my short reign I don't yet fully command the respect of my kingdom. I took over from my mother a short twenty years ago, though in actuality I was running the kingdom for a decade before that. Sorry, I'm rambling a little. The crux of the issue is that they want my daughter otherwise it's likely war and I don't have a strong enough presence to delay it by myself. That is why you demon who must remain nameless shall 'kidnap' my daughter" said Chiharu.

"The beast kingdom has access to a potent truth spell, and it can even effect someone of my power. Thus, I need someone who isn't one of my retainers, I don't know the name of, and has no connection to the kingdom that I can trust to look after my daughter. This way I can quite easily fool the truth spell and my daughter won't be forced to marry some pompous fool who thinks threats of war are the way to a ladies heart" said Chiharu

"Ah, yeah I see, I'm interested in helping you with that, it's just that I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to help you. I don't really have any major powers to call upon, are you sure that it's safe to go escape with her?" asked Kat

"Honestly it should be fine, my daughter, Shizuka, is more than capable of sneaking out on her own, however I've kept that fact well hidden but she will still need an accomplice for a few things, especially because with some minor application of tracking magic it could be deduced that she left on her own if you're not with her and that would cause all sorts of problems" said Chiharu

"Don't we want to avoid being tracked though? I thought the idea was to escape from the beast king's forces, if they can track us how will we escape for a time?" asked Kat

"Shizuka can easily hide both of your tracks, I just need to provide evidence of a minor struggle and a perpetrator. Your identity as a demon will make a number of people create false assumptions about what's going on just because of your race. Most are rather distrustful of demons though I tend to find that it's because fools summon the wrong ones" said Chiharu

"So, is that enough details for you?" asked Chiharu

"Yes, I am willing to help you" said Kat

"In that case, I, Chiharu, Maemari task the demon before me to protect my daughter and aid her in her flight from the castle until such time Shizuka determines herself to be safe and dismisses you, do you accept" said Chiharu.

"I accept" said Kat, careful not to mention her and ruin Chiharu's plan. Ethereal chains rose up to great the pair but instead of flaming they were coated in ice. These frozen chains rapidly encircled both of them constricting around their entire figure before vanishing from sight.

"Thank you for accepting, I'd love to stay and speak with you more but I have to get back before anyone notices that I've been gone. Once you leave this room just make one left, two rights, another left, a right, two lefts then continue forward until you find a dead end and push the only stone with nothing carved into it" said Chiharu before swiftly exiting the room and turning right.

*Well that wasn't confusing at all. Hopefully I got all the directions.*

Luckily for Kat, she had indeed memorised the sequence of turns correctly from The Queen and swiftly found herself standing in front of a dead end with symbols covering the surface. There was just one problem, the tile she was looking for, the one without a symbol was just barely out of reach of her tail and arms.

*This wasn't how this was supposed to go. How did Chiharu even expect me to press this dammed button. She's shorter than I am so surely, she'd recognise that this is somewhat difficult*

Kat scanned the corridor for something that would allow her to reach the blank square. Kat examined the wall lazily, trying to figure out any possible answers. She tried lifting herself by her tail but that was exceedingly awkward. Despite it's increased strength compared to the rest of her body it didn't provide any kind of purchase and was quite smooth preventing her from straightening her tail out underneath her to provide more height. Kat was about ready to give up when she noticed that a particular brick at eye level had some words on it. When she read it Kat nearly died of embarrassment because in big bold letters, was the word 'nothing' inscribed in stone.

*Dammit, is this a joke at my expense? Or is this supposed to trick people who are impatient. No that doesn't make any sense either. *

Sighing Kat pressed on the tile. It clicked into place and the wall directly to her left opened up to reveal a conservatively but stunningly decorated bedroom. The walls all seemed to be made out of smooth black marble, with the occasional blue flower like crystals that jutted out from the wall and seemed to emit a small amount of light. The bed was a simple frame carved out of wood with a plane white mattress and sheet combination. There was a desk on the closer edge of the room to Kat and at the further side she saw what was likely Shizuka meditating on a slightly raised platform to separate it from the rest of the room. Shizuka was the splitting image of her mother in almost all ways, the exception was that she only had three tails and that she a faint three lined scar running across her left cheek, Additionally, instead of the elaborate outfit of her mother she was wearing a simple white robe likely for training. Surrounding the young girl was several large chunks of ice which orbited her slowly until stopping completely and vanishing.