Did Adelaide lie, like a fox masking tracks in snow?

No; every word she spoke before the crowd rang true like an iron bell in cold air.

When the forge-hammer slammed down and the mountains shivered, a sliver of silver flicked through her peripheral like a fish under moonlight.

Their long trek’s true aim, Isilia’s Glow, whirled up with that sky-scattered wealth like spilled constellations, and her briefly loosened heart drew taut like a bowstring.

Unlike Varie and the others, Adelaide hadn’t come chasing the saintly freeing of Nacha souls; her goal was a relic to win the second Flower Dancer trial, sharp as a prize blade.

So when she saw it, she snapped a blood-thread upward like a spider casting silk, trying to catch that little gooseneck vial mid-flight.

After that, same as she told her team, she and the vial fell into a rift belched by the Soul Devourer Sormaidon’s breath, like a furnace cracking earth.

Midway she struck a jag of wall like a gull on a cliff-face, and darkness folded over her like a tide.

So, technically, she hadn’t lied, the way a razor keeps to the line.

Pure fabrications fray like cheap cloth; she didn’t care for naked lies that rot like fruit in the sun.

She’d done what she always did—trim the tale and stash the thorns, like a gardener hiding nettles under leaves.

For instance, she didn’t mention waking in the rift to a blood-sweet scent, thick as candied haw and warm as spiced wine.

“Mi…la?” The name left her like a breath on frost, desire rising before thought like a spark before the flame.

Before she opened her eyes, the sweetness crawled into her like smoke, and the thirst of a Blood Mage lit her nerves like dry tinder.

But the reply wasn’t her sister’s cool bell of a voice; instead a stranger’s tone slid in like a knife through silk.

“Oh, darling, forgive me, but I fear you’ll be disappointed,” a man said, smooth as lacquer and cold as a river at night.

She snapped her eyes open, and red flooded in like dawn over a battlefield, relentless and total.

Yes—red, and only red, that singular bloom only blood and viscera can paint, glistening like fresh lacquer under a hidden sun.

Veins and muscle pulsed like tide and drum, life and death braided in impossible poise, tugging at the deep instinct of a Blood Mage like a hook.

She stared and wanted to press her palms to it, to feel the texture like rain on stone, to recall ash slipping her fingers after sacrifice like sand.

Yet amid all that, the brightest lure was the man before her, a figure cut from blood like a statue carved in cinnabar.

Not Kabos’s inherited copper-red; his hair looked rinsed in a bloodstorm, dry yet gleaming like wet silk steeped in crimson.

That tone stained everything on him—long strange brows, pupils bottomless as wells, leather jacket and boots sewn from some beast like a hunter’s trophy.

“I’d love to replace her in your heart, but sadly, I’m not your little sweetheart, Adelaide,” he said, palm opening like a flower in bloom.

Danger hit her first, cold as winter wind over a pass, and her fangs flashed like a wolf’s as her fingers sketched a warding array like swift birds.

The lines of power hummed; deep within them, a maw crouched like a deep-sea fish, ready to swallow everything before it like night.

He didn’t even lift a guard; he only shrugged, easy as drifting smoke, as if rain couldn’t wet him and knives couldn’t nick him.

“What a scene, theatrical as thunder on cue; you hate my presence even if I came to help,” he quipped, voice light as falling ash.

He flicked his wrist like a conjurer, and his bony fingers pinched a gooseneck vial whose moonlit gleam pooled like frost beside Adelaide’s white hair.

“Look at you, careless little darling; without me, this would’ve kissed the magma like a moth to flame,” he purred, smile bright as a cut.

“Isilia’s Glow…!” Adelaide’s breath hitched like a snagged thread. “Who are you, really?” Her words floated like arrows seeking a mark.

“Ha! A classic, aged like old wine—I adore it,” he said, tapping his temple like knocking on a lid before pacing like a cat.

“Names multiply like weeds and mean less the more you pluck; too many introductions turn to mud,” he sighed, then clapped once like a spark.

“Oh, wait—one you should know. I’m the Follower of Pleasure—Krus,” he declared, bowing with flourish like a stage curtain swooping low.

“That’s impossible… you should have already—” The doubt scraped her throat like grit before a wave.

“Been executed by High Inquisitor Tatapuchi with the Sacred Spear of Judgment?” he finished, amusement curling like smoke from green wood.

“Oh, don’t mistake me; I adore the Imperial Theater’s Chronicle of Justice,” he said, eyes bright as lamps. “I even cried the first watch, like a child.”

‘Oh! Evil Follower of Pleasure! You stole my wife, my angel! By the Scales of Justice, I’ll call God’s verdict upon you!’ he declaimed, stance balanced like a scale.

He shaped his hand into a pistol and went, “Bang,” like a cork, grinning as if savoring the line like honey.

“Compared to the new trash from so-called playwrights, classics are evergreen like pines,” he sighed, then smiled again, sharp as a sickle in wheat.

“But as you now see, scripts bow to drama while reality keeps its own teeth,” he said, words cutting like sleet.

“You… didn’t die.” The conclusion felt absurd, yet the thought rose like a bubble from deep water.

She remembered Rockridge, and a puzzle that had sat in her ribs like a stone—how did he break the seals on those Blood Magic scrolls?

She knew two doors only: brute-force with Sacrifice Domain and apex Blood Magic talent, or the sealer himself lifting the lock like a key.

The first mirrored her own once-in-an-era blend, rare as a qilin’s step; the second was laughable, a tale spun like straw into gold.

Common sense in the Empire said the Follower of Pleasure was bones and dust, scattered like chaff—she’d believed it as one believes winter.

Right up until now, when the notorious shadow behind Chronicle of Justice stood before her, not only alive but flashing a thumbs-up like a red flag.

“Correct! Sadly, I didn’t die neatly for catharsis like on the stage,” he said, wagging a finger like a metronome. “Not because Tatapuchi was weak, mind you.”

“He remains the strongest High Inquisitor on record, a mountain in a field of hills; swap him for another, and, oh, darling, trust me,” he cooed like warm syrup.

“They’d have become comfortable chairs before they fired,” he finished, and sat with a flop onto a chair woven of ribs and small intestine like a macabre wicker.

He peeled back his jacket like lifting a curtain, revealing a black hole where his heart should be, round as a moonless well.

“That shot, paid with his life, carved this mark like a brand and laid a curse like frost—one that bars me forever from the Empire,” he said.

“So thank him; without him, the Empire’s children wouldn’t sleep so sweetly, like lambs under watchful stars,” Krus concluded, smiling as if telling another’s tale.

Revulsion crawled over Adelaide’s skin like ants; the chill ran her spine like meltwater down stone. This madman, she thought, like a hiss in reeds.

She cut him off, voice steady as a drawn blade. “A riveting story, Mr. Krus, bright as theater lights—but why help me, now, of all storms?”

Krus blinked, stunned, hurt painting his red eyes like rain darkening lacquer, disbelief falling from him like petals.

“Heavens, what a merciless question; it stings like salt,” he said, clutching his hollow chest as if it truly ached like a wound in frost.

Then, grand as a banner in wind yet casual as a sigh, he dropped the line that froze her like glass in winter.

“Does a man need a reason to help his beloved fiancée?!”