Adelaide swallowed, shallow as a bird drinking. The blade kissed her throat like a strip of winter ice.

Why? Her chest tightened like a drumskin. Was Mira cashing the debt for that kidnapping now? Rahman’s matter still hung above them like a storm cloud. They should at least end that first.

No—wait. Her mind went blank as mist. She hadn’t heard Rahman’s voice for a while.

She opened her eyes, slow as a dawn bloom. Blood foamed across the floor like scattered scarlet frost, a smear streaming to the window like a river. The iron center where Rahman should be was empty, a hollow tooth.

A headache throbbed like a black hammer. She groaned.

She had been careless. Victory’s sweetness fogged her head like incense. She forgot that a dragon was one of the strongest offerings. In the short lull while Mira stanched her bleeding, Rahman had healed and fled, smoke through bars.

Now their shared enemy was gone. The next arrow in Mira’s quiver would point at her. Her thoughts jammed like reeds in a current. Mira had told her, Don’t speak. She wouldn’t want a single defense now.

Mira stood behind, in her blind spot like a moon behind clouds. Adelaide could still picture her sister’s face, ice-blue eyes like winter sea. Cold sank through Adelaide’s ribs.

Usually she clawed at hope first, even in a cliff-edge night. But the thought of those blue eyes, heavy with disappointment and scorn, turned her mind to white ash. Emotion bucked in her chest like penned horses. She waited, a defendant under the judge’s shadow, for Mira to speak.

Mira’s next words weren’t for her.

“Stop.”

Her voice slid back to its academy tone, cold as a polished bell.

“Take one more step, and I’ll open her throat,” she said, the steel soft as snowfall yet sharp as lightning.

Uh?

The blade forced Adelaide’s chin up like a hook. She saw the lounge’s far side rising into a second tier, a corridor door yawning open like a dark mouth. Shadows pooled there like ink.

“calya—Light.”

An old voice creaked like an ancient hinge. Several Magic Crystal Stones flared in the center like pale stars. They floated, their chill light washing the shadows thin.

Faces stepped from the ink. Grand Duke Vidu of the Principality of Tamia, stern as a winter cliff. General Slandor, commander of the northern army, gaze like iron. Ms. Matilda of the Ingmair Consortium, jeweled and watchful. Names every household knew rippled through Adelaide’s mind like flags in wind. Guests of the financial summit, gilded and grave.

Mira’s gaze locked on the one she warned. The white-haired elder at the front, face wrinkled like dry bark—Rockridge.

“I thought you’d show us a dragon’s severed head, Your Grace the Regent,” General Slandor said. His thick robe hung like storm clouds. He cocked his head, brow arched, voice cutting like steel.

“Once, yes.” Rockridge’s eyes slid to the enormous empty cage, a hollow moon. “But you arrived a breath too late.”

“What a pity. I hoped to glimpse a legend’s face.”

“Indeed. But if your goal is to see a ‘monster,’ tonight won’t disappoint.” His tone was mild, like tea that hides fire.

His cane thumped the floor, a dull drumbeat. Magic Crystal Stones pivoted with the sound, spotlights on a cruel stage. Light fell on Mira and Adelaide, pinning them like butterflies.

“Princess Belior, may I ask what you are doing?” His words were silk, edges like knives.

“Seems you need reading glasses more than that cane.” Mira’s laugh was thin, like a blade’s smile. Her sword lifted a breath. It pressed Adelaide’s neck, drawing a red line like a thread of cinnabar. “In case your eyes truly fail you—if I move this blade one inch, Adelaide’s warm blood will spray this room like rain. Do you hear me?”

Rockridge nodded slowly, like a tree bending in wind. “Oh… so you’re threatening me.”

“Exactly. She’s my hostage. If any of you breathe a word about tonight, she’ll die in a burst like a dahlia, glorious and red.”

…Hostage?

Confusion fogged Adelaide’s head like morning dew. What was this? Why had Rockridge brought a crowd of unrelated people? And hostage—what was Mira saying?

Before Adelaide could ask, a heavy crack shattered the air like a split log. The other door slammed open. Neprah burst in like a hawk, and Samir followed, breath hot as sparks. Their eyes locked at once on Adelaide and Mira under the lamps.

“Mira, what did you do…?”

Mira tilted her head, finger at her chin, thoughtful as a cat. “Let me think… Honestly, not much. I invited everyone’s beloved Ms. Adelaide here. Then I gave her a friendly lesson.”

“This…” Samir stared at the wrecked hall, chaos strewn like a storm’s debris. His mouth trembled. “All of this…?”

Mira shrugged, shoulders light as reeds. “Fine, I’ll admit, I rushed it a bit. But overall…”

Her hand slid to Adelaide’s wounded shoulder like a shadow. Adelaide felt the tremble at Mira’s fingertips, a pause like a skipped heartbeat. Then pressure. The sealed wound screamed open with needles of pain. It crushed a cry from Adelaide’s throat, a soft “uh,” shame scattered like fallen beads.

“I’d say our exchange was pleasant enough, Adelaide.” Mira wiped Adelaide’s cold sweat with a gentleness that stung like frost. Her smile was demonic and real, honey over poison. Adelaide almost wondered if she had dreamed it all. Then their eyes met. Mira’s gaze said the same thing as at the start—Don’t speak.

On the other side, Samir’s hesitation burned off like fog. He glared at Mira, anger bright as a flame. “Why?”

“Why?” Mira echoed, voice rising like a tide. “Because you’ve said fewer than ten sentences to me in public? Because everyone thinks I’m an uppity shrew, not the gentle, darling first daughter of the Douglas Family? Because I don’t deserve a king?”

Her volume climbed, madness staining it like wine. “I’m your betrothed, yet everyone acts like that’s absurd. Why? You tell me why. Why should I, soon to be queen, be compared every day to this—this cripple who can’t walk without a wheelchair?”

“None of that is Adelaide’s fault!”

“Is it?” Mira laughed behind her hand, brittle as cracked porcelain. She whispered, voice like a broken music box. “I don’t think so. This wasn’t my first warning. She kept sidling closer to you, shameless as ivy. So, on the eve of our wedding, I chose to teach her. Thoroughly. To show her who the King’s fiancée is.”

Neprah bared her teeth, fury sharp as flint. She had understood enough. “You crazed woman…!”

“Thanks for the compliment—” Mira’s reply slid like a needle, mocking as a toast at a poisoned banquet.

Adelaide drew breath to speak, but a crisp spell syllable snapped across the air like a twig.

A bullet-sized earth-aspect magic bolt streaked toward them, fast as gravel slung by a sling.

Clang!

Steel met mana, sparks like fireflies. Within arm’s reach, Mira flicked the bolt aside with a twist. It smacked the wall and left a faint ochre bruise.

Everyone froze, faces pale as wax. Their eyes swung to Rockridge like compass needles. The regent who had slain a dragon—had he miscast?

It wasn’t the bolt’s meager form. Even without a support array, a condensed mana sphere could break ribs like dry sticks.

They were stunned because that bolt wasn’t meant for Mira.

Its target was Adelaide, the hostage.

Mira lifted her head. Her gaze turned storm-dark and fixed on Rockridge. His face was flat as a shut ledger.

“You seem to be protecting her,” he said, voice cool as rain.

Mira set the sword back on Adelaide’s neck. “Because she’s my hostage. I’ll say it again. If any of you speak of this, I’ll kill her.”

“I don’t think so.”

Rockridge stated it, old face wrinkling like folded paper.

“In truth, I think you want the world to know.” His words fell like stones in a well. “That King Samir’s malicious fiancée, out of jealousy, held a blade to her former sister’s throat before foreign guests. Then you’ll ‘slip’ and let Adelaide escape. You’ll storm the royal sanctum in a show of rage, steal the Sacred Heart, then vanish like smoke. Months later, you’ll secretly deliver it to Adelaide.”

“Don’t joke! How could I possibly do that?” Mira’s sword trembled like a plucked string. At the words Sacred Heart, her swagger cracked like thin ice. Rockridge kept speaking, pace steady as rain.

“Hasn’t it always been so, Princess Belior?” He stared, pupils dull as old coins, cold and mocking.

In that instant, Adelaide understood what he would say next. Insight struck like lightning behind fog.

“Since entering Holywell Academy, you’ve used that arrogant, unhinged mask to set off your sister’s gentle charm like a lantern beside a storm. You aimed to ruin the name ‘Princess Belior,’ to force the crown to hand her the queen’s seat. Now that your sister stands under public light, you use the same trick. You try to shift the gaze, to hide that she’s a monster.”

With those words, everything Adelaide had wrestled with slid into place like tiles. It fit, terrible and clean. Before she could feel what that meant, Rockridge drew a scroll from his coat like a blade from a sheath.

He let go. Parchment unfurled and hung like a banner. Elegant Elvish script flowed like vines. The title at the top read Starte nas, meaning “Takus Point-Needle.”

“This is the magic scroll Duke Douglas seized from Ms. Adelaide’s room the other day.” Rockridge’s gaze landed on her like a weight. “It records that legion-grade Blood Magic, the one that speared up from hundreds of meters underground to the surface like a crimson drill.”

He pointed at Adelaide, finger steady as a compass needle. “So, Ms. Adelaide, care to explain why your room held a hidden chamber filled with human organs and such scrolls? And why every scroll bore your handwriting?”