Click.

The golden gavel fell. Silence spread like frost, and only a silver-haired girl’s voice rang in the chamber.

“Toka Gofar, God granted you every gift a healer dreams of. You bent that grace into evil research, even trespassing into corpse transmutation to feed your own desire.”

A year later, Skela stood again in the Supreme Tribunal. Same highest-profile public hearing, but she wasn’t ragged now. She wore an elegant cream suit and quiet makeup. Eyes gathered on her not because she was a defendant, but because she stood at the plaintiff’s table.

This time, she wasn’t passive.

“As one of the few survivors under you, I charge you with—studying forbidden arts, desecrating the dead, war crimes…”

Each monstrous count dropped from her clear, pure voice. The blasphemy was unchanged; cold sweat pricked the spectators, and contempt mixed with fear in every glance at the defendant’s dock.

Toka himself stayed calm. He leaned back, shackled hands loose on his lap, like this was a formality. He admitted every charge with no defense.

Because he cooperated, the hearing moved faster than last time. When Skela finished, the golden gavel struck again.

“All charges stand. The jury has no objections. Toka Gofar, under His gaze and the balance of justice, I pronounce your final sentence: death.” Chief Justice Paddini’s voice was cold as iron.

After hearing those crimes against humanity, the result felt inevitable. Murmurs rippled, but no one was surprised.

And—like the previous public trial—after the sentence was announced, Paddini spoke again.

“In light of the defendant’s desecration of war casualties for research, the Supreme Tribunal concludes: the March Order has lost its legitimacy. Pending further investigation, the current March Order is suspended indefinitely. Imperial units conducting internal expeditions must return to their stations immediately and submit to review by the Supreme Tribunal…”

No one caught the specific measures that followed. The suspension itself was a meteor into a lake; the crowd exploded, and the roar drowned everything.

Compared to Toka’s buried evil—unforgivable yet far away—the March Order was different. In an instant, people wept; some fainted from joy because their children in uniform could finally come home. Traders gnawed nails and stamped, furious at wartime futures stuck in their hands. But mostly, cheers rose. A year of chaos felt lifted, and relief washed the square.

Life could finally turn back. The crowd boiled over.

Skela stood by the rail. For a whole year, her conscience gnawed her; she dreamed of this scene every day. She had known the result would land like this, but the cheering faces still brought mist to her eyes.

That feeling lasted until the gavel marked the end. The crowd thinned. Skela looked to the jury box at Hazel, who for once wasn’t hiding under a lab coat. She wore a formal dress that matched Skela’s set; her unruly brown curls pinned into a classic bun, at last the image of a noble lady.

They met eyes. It wasn’t the first time Skela had seen Hazel dressed so carefully, but she still drifted for a heartbeat—until Hazel gave a calming smile and shaped words without sound.

“You didn’t forget your lines this time.” Skela read it on her lips. Heat rose to her cheeks. The moment hadn’t lasted half a beat before a thought jolted her—she ducked her head and fussed with her suit, smoothing the creases on her tailored trousers. She checked again and again, making sure the gold-stitched scales of justice on her cuff lay perfect, then stole a glance at Chief Justice Paddini.

A flicker of nerves and hope shone in her gaze, like waiting for him to notice her attire.

But his eyes didn’t pause. Face blank, he left the bench and walked toward the exit corridor.

Paddini wasn’t unaware. He chose to ignore.

The day he saw his daughter and Skela in that heated scene, he left one sentence and never raised the topic again.

“The Paddini family needs people who wear suits, not skirts.”

He had thought his meaning was plain as noon—until Skela arrived today in a suit.

Whether defiance or feigned ignorance, our Chief Justice refused to comment. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; he didn’t know what to say. In the end, he chose avoidance, like just now.

They couldn’t be serious anyway, and their class wouldn’t accept it. A reunion’s impulse—odds of lasting were slim. No need to intervene.

Besides, he had no room left to care.

His steps halted midway down the Chief Justice’s private exit corridor, where light faded to ash and barely touched the floor ahead. It was the only place in the Supreme Tribunal drowned in shadow, and he stood there, face cold and hard as a glacier.

“Does Isabella know her husband planned to set himself against me from the start, even though I’m her only chance to live?”

Rockridge’s aged voice rose from the darkness on Paddini’s left, but he didn’t turn; he kept his eyes forward.

“She knows.”

“I see. She refused to be your burden.”

Rockridge spoke slowly.

“What a pity. If she hadn’t stopped the medication, she might be waiting for you at the end of this hall. Two more steps, and you could take her hand and go home with your daughter.”

“Don’t try to sway me. It won’t work.”

“Sway? No. I lament, old friend—why did we have to end up like this?” Rockridge stepped from shadow, hair a withering gray-white. “An old man wants to taste being a king before dying. Such a simple wish—is it worth the price you pay to stop me?”

Paddini closed his eyes. The storm in him iced over. When he opened them, his pupils were winter-hard.

“You’re not a man of greed, Rockridge. You’re a loyal dog. Dogs don’t turn into snakes to bite their masters—unless the order comes from the master himself.”

He stepped forward again.

“Whatever you and the king are plotting, I’ll stop it.”

In a handful of strides, Paddini walked out of the mire-black and left Rockridge’s breath behind.

He never turned to look once. He had stopped only to leave that last line—a declaration of war to the Regent.

The real clash began at that moment.

Wold Family, Bers Family, Tamillia Family, Kandara Family, Tomis Family—while feigning fealty to the Crown for decades, Paddini courted the great houses in secret. He gathered lethal leverage, offered deals no one could refuse. As Chief Justice, he used every tool and quietly secured over thirty percent of parliament’s votes. With the ten percent of fence-sitters who shifted to the Red Orchid Society last year, Rockridge couldn’t force the March Order to continue with parliament alone.

All those years of swallowing pride were for today. The parliament was no longer his toy; Paddini had the weight to bind his hands and stop reckless moves.

Of course, Paddini knew better than anyone: this was just step one. The hard part had only begun.

In the days ahead, he and the Supreme Tribunal would endure the Regent faction’s full pressure. They’d throw scapegoats to scrub Rockridge clean of the underground institute; Toka’s death sentence would be fouled by their most shameless interference, reduced to life, then put to work for them in prison.

Worse, the true war would be seats—like the Crown’s recent move to amend Samir’s marriage pact. They would do anything to expand, trying to reclaim control of parliament. A game fought in sun and shadow; and the worst ending wasn’t one side losing, but a fractured nation torn by turmoil.

Paddini knew that even the smallest misstep could plunge the Sarman Empire into a greater disaster—exactly what he’d warned Hazel about.

That foreseeable future piled on him like mountains. He had sacrificed too much to reach this point. No one but him could shoulder the weight.

Heel to stone, his footsteps rang in the narrow hall, each beat heavier than the last.

That was when he heard voices from the exit.

“Don’t you sugarcoat it. Be honest, okay? …My dad didn’t look at me at all. Is it because wearing trousers on me just looks weird?”

“You’ve asked like ten times,” the reply came with a sigh, and a soft pause. “Have some faith. You look cool today.”

“Really? Heh—wait! I said don’t comfort me!”

The corridor’s half-closed acoustics carried the distant words. Paddini lifted his head slightly.

Still too late.

He had wanted to leave ahead of his daughter, but while he spoke with Rockridge, the two had already looped to the exit.

The more you want to avoid, the less you can. As always.

Paddini walked out and saw the familiar pair. Skela stared at the floor, nerves knotting her up, while his daughter reached up to pat her head in comfort.

From afar, they looked like close friends. That was what he’d always believed. But after that scene the other day, every motion had a different meaning—not just for him, but for them too. If they were only friends, they wouldn’t yank their hands back the instant they met his eyes, and step apart like guilty thieves.

The air went awkward. Hazel flicked Skela a look and drifted away to give them space. Skela blinked awake, then marched stiffly forward, step and swing out of sync.

Watching the silver-haired girl come closer and literally trip over her own rhythm, Paddini’s ice-hard face showed the barest ripple.

“G-Good morning, Chief Justice Paddini! This isn’t our first meeting, but I haven’t formally introduced myself. My name is Skela—”

Paddini didn’t let her finish the speech that screamed of a line Hazel helped her write. He cut it off.

“In this generation, the Paddini family has only one daughter. Hazel.”

He didn’t want to waste time. He figured a blunt, negative stance would make her retreat.

Instead, Skela’s eyes lit up. She lifted her chin and patted her chest.

"Yes. I'll be devoted to her, single-hearted. I won't let the Padini family down."

Padini stared into eyes clear as springwater, and fell silent.

"You aren't Elves."

"Elves…? What about them?"

Skela blinked, blank as a clean slate. She seemed not to grasp why he suddenly brought up Elves, or what she had in common with them.

His wavering showed like ripples on still water.

He meant to speak, but half a minute locked in those innocent gold eyes washed the words away. He only turned his head.

"Wait—please wait!"

Her voice came from behind. Padini refused to look back. To him, anything further felt pointless, like words scattered to the wind. Better to walk away as before—

"This admission badge is the one you left in the Ha-10 Parish, isn’t it?"

His steps halted mid-echo.

Behind him, Skela raised the badge that had granted her admission, along with several yellowed letters that fluttered like autumn leaves.

"The Mother Superior told me everything, Your Excellency, High Judge."

Padini turned. The letters snapped in the wind like pennants. Though overlapped, he knew every line on them: a silver-haired girl's twisted origin; the reason her survival had to be hidden from the world; and the script for her seventeenth year—give her Holywell Academy’s badge, force her to choose between quiet peace and cutting truth.

A handful of letters. A badge rimmed with rust. Together they sketched her whole life before she returned to the capital, Balad.

He knew, because he had written every word.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because I arranged your fate on my own," he said evenly, his gaze sliding away from Skela. "Don't you hate me?"

"How could I? If you hadn't given me a way back, I might never have seen Samir again—"

"But you nearly died for it," he cut in, the word sharp as flint. "Because I guided you, you now stand against the most powerful people in this country. Do you regret it?"

Skela froze, then lifted her chin. The blush drained; she met the deep eyes that made most people flinch, like staring into a night sea.

"Your Excellency, you pulled me from that river. You brought me to the safe border of the Sarman Empire. You gave me a second life. That life itself is a debt to the Padini family. If you need it, returning it is only right."

She closed her eyes. Her right hand touched shoulder, shoulder, and brow, like tracing a small constellation.

"Under His gaze, I swear: whatever comes, as long as you stand with justice, Skela will stand as your companion."

She finished in one breath—and silence pooled around her. The hush made her uneasy; her face wound tighter than the day she stood in the defendant’s dock a year ago. She felt like a prisoner awaiting a final verdict.

Then her tension flipped to surprise. The reason shone in the reflection in her pupils.

Padini’s expression had changed.

Unlike the hidden tremors from before, this one was almost invisible, gone in a heartbeat. But his mouth did twitch—just a touch.

…Companion?

Padini studied the silver-haired girl. She wore a suit. The cut was for men; her face was a little round; her height ran shy of average. The overall impression wasn’t dashing. It was like a little corgi in a tailored tux, an offbeat sort of cute.

No doubt—like his daughter—Skela was still just a child. Maybe capable in certain lanes, yet before the darkness he would soon face, they were tender shoots—too green, too trusting.

A cool, rational man, he knew how little they could help. And yet, when she said “companion,” the word slipped through his guard like sun through cloud, and the corner of his mouth moved on its own.

A little irony. A little self-mockery. And a clean, simple gratitude.

The faint arc faded. He turned away.

"Live hard, Skela. Don’t let my daughter cry at your funeral."

He left that behind, flat as a blade laid on a table, and it struck harder than everything before it combined.

Skela didn’t react at once. She only stared at his receding back. Even when Hazel returned to her side, she couldn’t come back to herself.

"What just happened? Did he say something over the line again?"

Hazel shook her shoulder. Skela stared at Hazel’s worried face like studying a portrait. After a beat, she said, "You really are like your dad."

"Huh? What are you even talking about?"

Hazel waited, baffled. Skela thought, then chose to keep her future father-in-law a measure of dignity, tucking that last, too-sappy line away.

"By the way, did you see Lady Adelaide today?"

"That topic change was stiff as a sword edge…" Hazel rubbed Skela’s head, a little annoyed, then let the question go with a soft sigh. "She didn’t come today either."

"I see…" She had started the topic, yet Skela’s mood dimmed like dusk over water. "Feels like we haven’t seen Lady Adelaide in forever…"

On another day, Hazel might’ve gone sour at that. Today she only frowned.

"She’s been locking herself in her room. No idea what she’s doing."

Worry outweighed everything in Hazel’s voice. The day after they returned to the surface, they’d tried to check on Adelaide themselves. At the Douglas Family manor gates, they were turned away with a line that smelled like varnished wood: "The young lady is unwell and cannot receive guests." A pretext anyone could spot at a glance.

Adelaide was clearly caught in something. Toka kept his lips sealed about that night as well. The knot in Skela and Hazel’s chests pulled tighter.

Thinking of the last look on Adelaide’s face, Hazel’s fingers clenched on their own. Her nails pressed crescents into her palm.

Get out of that damn room already. Even if it’s not to explain yourself to us, you should show up for Mira.

Don’t tell me you still don’t see it. She’s about to become… a royal consort.