This hairpiece... will my sister like it?

Mira sat at the vanity; her fingers nudged the jade pin holding her bun, and the bell-clipped charm chimed like a moth’s wing on porcelain.

Her gaze flickered; she studied herself in the copper mirror like peering into a still pond, then shook her head and kept fussing.

No tweak soothed her; every strand felt wrong, like grit under skin.

The fault lay not in silk or jade, but in the knot inside her chest.

Right now, Mira’s heart beat like a trapped sparrow against a paper cage.

She tidied again and again, a ritual to bleed off nerves, like sweeping leaves that never stop falling.

She knew it was a shabby dodge, like hiding behind a fan, yet what else could she do?

She’d chased the root—letters sidelong and letters blunt—yet her sister waved it off, like mist brushed by a sleeve.

That couldn’t be true, not in any sky.

On the day they faced the Soul Devourer Sormaidon, from the moment she went to recharge the Firestone to the moment Adelaide tackled her on return, something happened; on that, Mira was stone-sure.

She looked into the mirror’s blue lakes of her own eyes and saw again that tide she’d caught in Adelaide’s pupils, like moonlight dragged by a riptide.

What storm makes a person wear that look, like thunder behind glass?

She didn’t know; her own eyes held ripples of worry, but that fear etched at the bottom of Adelaide’s iris was a scar she couldn’t fake.

One thing she knew: mention those “dream words,” and Adelaide’s breath thinned with the same dread, like frost climbing a window; back when they first set foot in the Elven Realm, Adelaide had even lost control and drunk her blood once.

This time ran deeper; for the first time, her sister snapped hard enough to ignore the room and sink her teeth into Mira’s neck, like a hawk stooping on a rabbit.

Afterward, Adelaide stood like a sparrow on a branch—still on the outside, all wire and watchfulness within.

That tension bled into Mira too, like cold seeping through cloth.

She cared and asked, pressed and probed; Adelaide parried each time, neat as a silk blade slipping through water.

By now, Mira had crumbs at best: Adelaide had asked once if the “Weeping Matis” was a Nuhaman Tribe legend, and Varie, who’d fought beside them, offered nothing solid but smoke.

If anything tied in, it was this: Sormaidon’s dragonheart was never found, like a star winking out at noon.

A dragonheart is the hardest core in a dragon’s body; even a drake’s rivals forged relics, and a true dragon’s is a fortress built of thunderstone—if anything could survive a crush, that would be it.

Yet their team scoured the field, like ants combing sand; nothing, no shard, no glint.

Other pieces lay pancaked and twisted, present like blackened timbers; the toughest part was nowhere—no mark, no scent—as if it had slipped from the world.

It was eerie, the way a lantern goes cold at noon; and a dragonheart is precious craftstock—any Blood Mage would grieve losing it—was that why Adelaide went off-kilter like a compass near a magnet?

No; she had lunged before she heard the heart was gone, and the timings didn’t fit like mismatched gears.

Then why, and where did the Nuhaman tale thread into this loom?

Her thoughts looped like kites in a crosswind, never tying; after a while, Mira let her gaze sink and closed her eyes like a shutter drawn.

One... two.

She drew one long breath; right as she pressed the worry down, footsteps came from behind—the door swung without a knock, and a whistle cut the hush like a pebble on water.

“Oooh, pretty girl’s got a shine today~” The tune was light, laced with subtext, like smoke rings in a tavern.

The newcomer missed how Mira’s face snapped to frost and kept going, voice grinning like a fox at dusk.

“Usually you’re a mute gourd, and today you’re all blossom and flare—so, ready to move to the next stage with dear sis—”

“—And you?” Mira’s word fell like a blade.

“Huh? Me?” The reply popped like a soap bubble.

Mira’s side-eye slid cold as ice. “You and Menglan—what stage are you at? Not going to see her once more before we head back to the Nachar settlement?”

Varie let out a small “uh,” and a plum blush climbed her cheeks like dawn on stone.

“Ha?? Not happening!” She crossed her arms like a barricade and threw her chin high, waiting for backup like a cat posted at a door.

Mira only turned back to the mirror, kept adjusting, and let one syllable fall like a pebble into a well. “Oh.”

...“Oh”? Just “Oh”? Aren’t you going to ask why? Varie’s little ears on top felt hot, as if steam puffed from them like kettle spouts.

She ground her teeth in her head, but the itch to rant swelled like summer thunder; in the end, it broke.

“Tell me, does that woman have a Nachar-level f***ing sickness?” The words snapped like twigs.

Her mouth spilled honeyed barbs again, though to be fair she’d cleaned up a lot; since the Magma Forge, she hadn’t called Menglan “bitch”—at worst, “long-ears,” like a child flicking pebbles.

Her stance had swung wide too—out of thanks for retaking Lama City, or guilt for all the blood and hair Menglan gave; either way, Varie had stopped bristling at her like a dog at a stranger.

She’d even braced to accept the closeness—being bumped and held doesn’t cost you a pound of flesh, right?—she told herself like a lullaby.

Everyone could see it; Hos and Tela even joked to Adelaide that their own pig was finally going to get the cabbage, a barnyard fairy tale told with grins.

The pig readied itself; the cabbage... didn’t, standing crisp and green as ever.

Well, “didn’t” isn’t right; Menglan kept the same playful stride, tossing over-the-line jokes that warmed the air like lanterns and made it hazy and sweet.

So everyone figured she’d set her sights on the Lionheart Hero, like a hunter picking a stag.

Once the target stopped resisting, though, they learned the teasing was just that—teasing, like a tide that rises and then steps back.

For reasons unknown, the whole way back Menglan never truly closed the gap; she’d lure the fish, then stop at the invisible line, like a hand hovering above flame by design.

Fish on the hook, and you never reel—what is that? Keeping me dangling for fun, like a kite left to tangle?

After a road of that, Varie’s head pounded like hooves; on the last day, she caught Menglan’s hand and asked, flat-out, what do you want to do with me?

Menglan only tilted her head and blinked those pretty, innocent eyes, like a doe in a glade.

—I think our relationship is pretty good as it is, don’t you?

That answer nearly blew Varie’s gasket; to this day, she vents whenever she can, like a kettle whistling on repeat.

“It’s absurd! That ‘being friends is nice’ face—what the hell!” Her hands chopped air like blades.

“What, you don’t want to be friends with her?” Mira’s counter flicked like a fan.

The retort jammed in Varie’s throat; after a beat, she flushed and yelled, “Is that my problem?! She started clinging first, okay, and at the coming-of-age she took my first—”

She heard herself and clamped down, words bitten off like thread; Mira didn’t seem to care, only gave her pin a final push and rose from the stool, lifting a butterfly mask light as wings.

“Is that so. Then think about what you should do.” Her tone lay flat as a calm lake.

“Ha??” Varie’s bark hit the wall like a bouncing ball.

Mira wasn’t trying to needle her; that was the straightest advice she could give, like pointing to a path in fog.

No one but Varie could solve the knot between her and Menglan.

And as for Mira and her sister... it was the same knot, tied in the same wind.