The jewelry shop’s pricey glass door flew inward and smacked the wall with a bell-crack, scattering chatter like startled sparrows as every gaze arrowed to the black‑haired girl.

Like the veiled lady before her, she was beauty cut from a painting, yet this time no one savored the curve of her healthy figure; her eyes flashed like drawn steel.

At her hip hung a very good sword, the hilt bare of gems, needing none; layered, intricate grain spoke of costly, slow forging like rings in ancient wood.

Which meant the mirror-bright blade itself was worth more in ruin than rubies; its cold promise clashed hard against a face fit to wear the shop’s jewels.

So what drove a girl who could enter high society by face and form alone to carry a killing tool? Love or hatred like storm and sun?

Some rake’s betrayal, perhaps? Fantasies bloomed like smoke through the room, but the girl’s gaze swept past jewels and faces like wind, then snagged on dull Magic Crystal Stone shards.

“Where is she?”

The black‑haired girl turned to the eldest man in a different uniform, the boss, and her glare struck like frost; he flinched like a leaf in wind.

“S‑She…? Do you mean…?”

Impatience surged like a drumbeat. Mira took a step, almost said “white hair, red eyes,” then bit it back; her sister would never go out barefaced.

She pressed down her jittering heart like a lid on a boiling pot, recalled Adelaide’s carriage-day clothes, and sketched the disguise with clipped, steady words.

“Ah.” Enlightenment lit the boss like a lantern. “If you mean the brown‑haired young lady, General Slandor just came and took her away—”

The name tightened Mira’s pupils like a snare; two months ago in Rockridge, that guest had seen everything. She cut him off like a knife.

“—Where did she take her?!”

“Uh… the General said she was inviting the young lady to sit awhile at the general’s manor…”

Mira spun on her heel like a released arrow. The boss found his breath and called after her like a frayed bell rope.

“If you know the young lady, please tell her—the Heart of the Ocean she wanted, we’ll hold it for her, at ninety percent off—”

She was already gone, a rush of wind through the door. A jewel’s name and a giveaway price fell flat like rain on armor; she never slowed.

Even if she weren’t this frantic, even if the boss handed over the shop’s treasure for free, she wouldn’t have paused half a heartbeat for it.

Long ago, her heart had narrowed to one person and one vow, like a river entering a canyon and refusing every side stream.

Everything else had no weight for her, like chaff in a winter wind.

“Before we talk, allow me one impertinent question. What betrayed my trail?”

“Not ‘you.’ ‘You two.’” The other woman waved bluntly, impatience flicking like a horse’s tail. “Don’t probe. I know your ‘kidnapper’ shares your room.”

Adelaide sat in the general’s manor. The waxed wooden chair was hard and angular like its owner, the North’s blade‑bright commander; it bit at her back and hips.

“If so, then you didn’t just spot me by chance on a street,” Adelaide said, eyes weighing the woman. “Was it the medicine my ‘kidnapper’ bought for me?”

Slandor’s brow ticked like a flint. She wasn’t one for circles. “Close, but not the medicine. Mainly, your taste was heavy.”

“Taste?” Adelaide blinked, a beat of still water. “We’ve been ordering local dishes…”

“Northern folk don’t eat spicy. Our weather won’t grow chilies.” Slandor’s glance cut over like a knife.

“You two love food as cure; I’ve seen that. First time I’ve seen rich folk pay that much and still demand heat, though. So I had them tailed.”

“Sure enough, I netted two sneaky walking gold mines in my lands,” she finished, smoke-dry humor in her voice.

Adelaide sat there, struck dumb for a breath. Such a random expose left her empty of words, but one line hooked deeper than the rest.

If spiciness isn’t a Northern trait, then all those fiery dishes… did Mira ask the cooks to add heat for her?

Yet Adelaide had never asked. Where had Mira learned that…?

Did Anisa tell her? But Adelaide had never told Anisa clearly… Wait—does she also know about the dream?

The thought hit and tangled like thorns. Confusion swarmed; the crisis faded to a blur, until Slandor’s hand cut the air like a fan.

“Hey. You listening? Do you know how many zeros hang off the bounty on your head?”

The jab snapped Adelaide back like cold water. Not now. Not that detail. It must’ve been Anisa. Mira couldn’t know the dream.

She set that verdict like a stone and forced down the ache that lifted like smoke.

She raised her head and met Slandor’s eyes. “Those zeros are there for a reason,” she said, calm as ice.

“You know that, General. You won’t choose to fight a ‘monster who slaughtered the entire underground lab’ in your own manor, will you?”

The Regent’s faction had fed every corpse the Blood Puppet made into her legend, painting her a devil who never blinked at killing; crude, but effective.

She wore that mask now to loom, to cast a shadow over Slandor’s resolve like a stormfront.

The general only drew a cigarette from her cloak, lit it, and took a drag like claiming a hill.

“Drop it. You won’t swing,” she said, blowing rings like slow coins. “Start here, and you’re exposed. Then you run for the rest of your life.”

“Strange argument, General. Am I not exposed already?”

“Who knows. If you ask me, it depends on your attitude.” She drew again, eyes steady as iron.

Adelaide’s eyes narrowed like shutters. Magic stirred in the room, answering the spark between them; the air thickened like syrup and clung.

Before either moved, the door opened. A cool wind slipped in like a blue ribbon through heat.

“Don’t be so mean, Xiao Lan. Miss Adelaide isn’t a bad person.”

A woman in a nun’s habit entered, her voice warm as tea. Peace lay on her face like sunlight, and when she met Adelaide’s gaze, she made the church’s sign.

Northern lands, a nun’s habit, that motherly face… A shape from a dream rose like mist, and Adelaide spoke without thinking.

“Abbess Manni…?”

Manni’s eyes widened a touch, surprise like a lifted brow. Adelaide realized they’d never met in the flesh and hurried to bridge the thin ice.

“Skela speaks of you often,” she said, the name soft as a bell.

“I see.” Manni nodded and inclined with gentle formality. “I’ve read the letters that child sent. Under God’s gaze, my sincerest thanks for what you did.”

She turned to Slandor. The general clicked her tongue like a pebble. “Which is why I say Miss Adelaide shouldn’t bear your unreasonable testing. Don’t you agree, Xiao Lan?”

“It’s part of the game. If I don’t draw hard lines, what if she won’t compromise?” Slandor glared, bristling like a cat. “And don’t use my nickname here—”

She didn’t finish. Manni was already before her, hand taking the cigarette with a gentle, irresistible motion like tide.

“T‑That’s part of the game, too. I need the mood—”

Manni ignored the excuse and doused the ember with a curl of water magic, steam wisping like a sigh.

“—Clause three of the Same‑Pillow Covenant. Remember?”

“…No smoking…”

Slandor palmed her forehead, a small collapse like a tent sagging, then, after a long sigh, she turned back to Adelaide in surrender.

“What? If you want to laugh, laugh.”

“Uh…”

For a heartbeat, Adelaide had no words. Even a shred of embarrassment pricked like a pin. Their clash now felt like a staged quarrel, hard to take seriously.

All because Abbess Manni sat there, easy as a hearth, watching over them with a calm that gentled the room.

Adelaide was grateful for the cooling of the air, yet being seen like that stung in its own way, like salt on a thin cut.

She opened her hands and moved the talk along, resigned as a leaf to current. “The ‘compromise’ you mentioned. What is it?”

Slandor was silent a few seconds, then pulled a parchment map from a cabinet and spread it, the crackle dry as winter grass.

“Here.” Her finger traced from the Empire’s border, the Far North Range, and slid outward, leaving a curve like a river, ending at a village mark.

“I want you, and the Princess of Belior, to go there.”

Adelaide frowned, a shallow crease like a drawn thread. “You want us to leave the country?”

“Yes. A convoy leaves in half a month. I want you to escort it and make sure it reaches that place safely.”

Her eyes stayed on the map, sweeping that isolated village mark like a lone firelight in dark.

“You picked the two of us because this convoy is special?”

“Relax. This isn’t your tragic play in Balad, no skeletons under our floorboards.” Slandor shot Adelaide’s guard a dry look like a tap on a shield.

“The convoy’s bound for an independent village that used to trade cotton with us. They’ve gone silent. Word hints at plague. We’re sending aid.”

“We need them back on their feet, or winter will chew us,” she said, meeting Adelaide’s eyes head‑on like steel to steel.

Adelaide held the look, thought a moment, silence pooling like ink. “How long will it take?”

“Two months to reach them if all goes well. Past the Far North Range you hit desert; if things go wrong, it’ll drag longer.”

“In other words, there and back, plus time on site, we’ll be gone at least half a year.”

“That’s right.”

Adelaide brushed the corner of her eye, as if dust from a long road had settled there like fine sand.

"A girl's springtime only lasts a handful of years, and you're asking us to spend a slice of it scoured by desert wind and sun..."

Sorrow pricked Adelaide's voice like a thorn; her words earned a monumental eye-roll.

"Save it. It's not without pay."

Slandor leaned forward, her gaze cooling like steel in shade.

"That guy Rockridge wants to cast a super-massive spell."

"A super-massive spell? What even is that...?" The lazy name dropped into a grave moment; Adelaide couldn't help the jab.

"It's fine you haven't heard of it. I made the name up—its true name and effect got swept down the river of history. What we know is its range is huge."

As she spoke, Slandor's finger circled the empire’s borders on the map, the nail carving a pale trail. Adelaide paused half a beat, and the meaning clicked like dawn.

"Looks like 'super-massive' fits."

"Range: the whole Empire. Effect: unknown. It's likely the largest magic circle ever recorded. As payment, here's extra: a circle that big can't rest on one back. It needs multiple people with razor‑sharp talent as supporting nodes to keep it stable. Inside the Rockridge faction, those nodes are called 'Mediums.'"

Adelaide's eyes flew wide, shock ringing through her like a struck bell. Toka and Rahman had hammered that word again and again, and now its spine showed. For a breath she couldn't swallow it, yet threads began to knot. From Rockridge moving the plan up, to his tries at caging Skela, me, and Mira—fog thinned, gears meshed, and the once-snarled events locked into a clean loop.

She sat there blank as winter water. After a long moment, she surfaced and looked at Slandor, puzzled.

"What else do you know?"

"That's it. I caught it off one of Rockridge's secretaries. Shame he blacked out drunk before I could pry more."

Adelaide's brows knit tighter. "And you just told me all of it at once? What if I don't go with the convoy?"

"Honestly, I don't care if you accept or not."

Slandor shrugged, the motion light as a breeze, the eyes still watchful.

"If you accept, great. If you don't, I have other escorts for the convoy. But I'll let word of you spread, and you won't be able to stay here. I don't give a damn about the Empire's dog-eat-dog politics. I just want you off my turf, so the wildfire doesn't lick my doorstep. If you help while you're at it, I've no reason to refuse."

She said it and held out her hand, palm steady as a blade.

"So. What's it going to be?"

Adelaide was silent for several seconds. Unease and calculation surged first, then settled like dust in sunlight. Most paths pointed to yes. True, she had few cards left. Even so, with nothing much to wager, she didn't take Slandor's hand yet.

"I have a few conditions."

"You're not shy at all, are you, milady."

Adelaide didn't blink. She met Slandor's eyes. "First, I want you to look after Miss Michelle. We should repay her kindness in person. But since we'll be gone from the Empire for a long while, I hope you'll give her what help you can."

"Well now. So you're not like those nobles from Balad," Slandor said, nodding. "You remember a debt. Fine. I'll keep an eye on her."

"Second, I set out today to buy a piece called Heart of the Ocean. Your sudden 'invitation' sank that plan. If I go back now, I'll draw eyes. So I want you to buy the gem in your own name."

Slandor glanced over her plain desk and the bare room, her look asking if she seemed flush with coin. Adelaide slid a red card onto the wood like a lacquered leaf.

"Tell the shopkeeper my face, and he'll sell it to you at ten percent. Settle it with this card."

"Ten percent...??"

Adelaide ignored the shock. She took Slandor's hand and gave it two firm shakes, sealing the deal like a knot pulled tight. Seeing that, Slandor could only shrug toward Mother Superior Manny, still seated to the side.

"All right, if you insist—"

"—Besides that, one last tiny request."

**

Mira sprinted all the way to the general's manor. Just then, General Slandor stepped through the front gate. Her armor flared in the sun like a blade of light, and Mira's racing heart kicked harder.

That woman... She's the one who took Adelaide...!

Mira's fingers found the hilt at her waist. Heat surged first, then calculation cooled her mind, sketching every line of approach. A frontal break was fastest. Her sword was halfway out when her body froze.

Slandor had turned. She offered her hand like a practiced gentleman, guiding another lady out the door.

A blond wig. A wide-brim hat to shade the eyes. And those irises, deep as amber.

Adelaide stepped past the threshold. She and Slandor faced each other, a soft chuckle shared like rain on tiles, while Slandor kissed the back of her right hand.

Less than a few yards away, Mira watched, rooted like stone, and couldn't move at all.