The room iced over like frost on a windowpane, and it wasn’t just Silan who lost her tongue—Mira did too.

Before coming, she’d braced for it. With the Trial of Truth looming, this banquet would likely turn into a flurry of hidden cards hitting the table like falling leaves.

Back then, she thought Adelaide brought her because she had a role to play. Like the misdirection at that ball, the off-angle kiss that stirred a storm—just another cog in a larger clock.

Strictly speaking, everything so far still sat inside Adelaide’s design, like stones planted along a garden path.

Even when Silan narrowed her eyes and tossed out scandal after scandal about the Fana Family and the Nacha Tribe, hoping to claw back ground, Adelaide snuffed each one out with a couple of clean strokes.

Silan brought up the Nacha radicals’ violent bent. Adelaide answered with twenty-three cases last month of Elven crackdowns, sealed like ice over a river. Silan prodded the dragon-slaying tale and the stain of the Exiles. Adelaide asked if she truly wanted the Elven public to know what the Lionheart Hero did to purify their mother river.

Round after round, what should’ve cut Adelaide boomeranged into double-edged blades that sliced Silan’s own side. Silan couldn’t flip Adelaide’s opening doubts the same way. When asked why she cared so much about the desert village massacre, she could only fog the glass and dodge.

So the host of the feast found herself on the back foot, her own table turning like a tide against her.

Yet the more Adelaide shone, the shakier Mira felt, like a lantern trembling in a draft.

Adelaide kept the only immaculate smile at the table. Even when the other side flashed a trump, she returned serve with one soft line, natural as rain. She had read Silan’s aim before stepping in, and laid countermeasures like snares in tall grass, guiding Silan straight into her own trap.

Just as Mira believed: her sister could bargain with ancients who wore centuries like armor, and not give an inch. Even on away ground, she could make them yield, step by step.

Even so, Mira couldn’t accept one thing.

She believed Adelaide always had her reasons. She saw it: provoke them with Bingxia first, draw out the topics, answer with precision, no wasted motion, no stray brushstrokes.

Except for one thing. Bringing Mira.

The more Adelaide moved pieces like a storm herder, the more Mira felt like a spare chair.

Just like Adelaide had said before. Mira didn’t need to do anything. She could sit quiet, and Adelaide would solve everything, like a lone dancer filling a stage.

Mira wasn’t sulking over a thin script.

It was good she hadn’t become Silan’s knife to press against Adelaide’s throat. But then why bring her? If Adelaide foresaw they’d use Mira as a card, what good came from making her a partner tonight?

If she hadn’t come, Silan would lack a witness on site, and her position would be worse—this question rose like smoke in Mira’s chest. She finally couldn’t help it. She stole a glance at Adelaide from the corner of her eye.

She saw the same expression as before.

Under the elegant calm, something feral and irrational throbbed, like hot coals banked under ash.

Only then did Mira sense the deliberate tilt in Adelaide’s poise.

Yes—deliberate.

Unlike her usual effortless act, Adelaide now moved like a dancer in a grand staged performance, under a gaze beyond the chandeliers. She answered with exaggerated, rebellious dominance, as if to answer that unseen audience.

That audience wasn’t Silan. Silan had been smothered with ease.

The logic clicked, and cold crawled up Mira’s spine like a shadow.

Silan and Mira—like Adelaide—were just actors caught in the spotlight’s circle.

There were other seats filled in tonight’s theater.

Mira’s throat quivered. Her unease peaked like a flood crest. She snapped her head to Adelaide, and worry opened in her sea-green eyes like deep water.

Let’s go back. Let’s leave the Carne Family. Let’s go now—Her fingers tightened around Adelaide’s under the table, and she traced the message in the skin with a ripple of magic.

Adelaide’s eyes widened. The flawless mask slipped a hair at the plea etched by Mira’s magic. That slip confirmed Mira’s fear—her sister was hiding something vital. This feast wasn’t just Fana and Carne swapping knives.

Before their small exchange could settle, another voice cut in like a draft through a door.

“What’s the situation… here?”

The question carried a tiredness rooted in the soul, a sand-worn fatigue. Mira and Adelaide had to look up. An Elf approached their table, and the black circles under her eyes showed even through thick magic-lenses. Her plain robe was spattered with strange colors, sharp scents rising off it like alchemy fumes. Among the tastefully groomed Carne members, she looked like spilled ink on silk.

Silan lit up at the sight, joy flashing like a signal fire. She snapped her fan shut, took the newcomer’s hand, and pressed her down into a seat.

“Allow me to introduce Ayu—my friend, the most renowned Blood Magic researcher among us Elves, and… the ‘mother’ who provided Elven blood to the Human Emperor.”

“‘Mother’…?” Adelaide tilted her head, like a bird catching a glint.

“Yes. The Human Emperor sought our help with an heir. No one had done such a thing before. But for our researcher, Ayu, it was just another star to chart. She volunteered her blood, worked day and night under Queen Dreamlan’s guidance, and with the World Tree’s power, she fused a Human–Elf hybrid into being. A miracle for the ages.”

Silan turned her wrist, fan spinning like a leaf. She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Pity. Her ‘children’ are very ungrateful. Since the Chaos Uprising ended, no Imperial generation has visited her. For a ‘mother,’ how cruel—”

“It was an experiment,” Ayu cut in, voice flat as a slate. “Why would I want them to visit me?”

Silan’s smile froze like a painted mask. After a beat of awkwardness, she threw courtesy aside. She pointed her fan’s tip at Mira’s gold hair.

“Yet you accepted my invitation to my manor today, didn’t you? You must have wanted a look at that golden hair, the mirror of your own!”

“No. I just passed by on a walk.”

“…?”

Silan’s face cracked, all but pleading, Don’t wreck my bit. Ayu blinked, a step behind.

“You sent me an invitation? I’ve been breeding tata-rats with long-tail bats. Busy. Probably missed it.”

“…?”

Then why are you here—Silan’s mouth twitched. Ayu still wore her indifference like a shawl.

“I smelled something delicious. I came to see what it was.”

“Wow, you can praise my flowers?” Silan’s smile went paper-thin. Her gaze flicked to the acrid stains on Ayu’s robe. “Surprising. I thought you only liked preservative fumes.”

“Flowers? No. I’m not interested in your flowers.”

“…?”

Their back-and-forth flipped like a fish in a net, the timing awful enough that nearby Carne members averted their eyes. But perfect banter meant nothing here. Adelaide held the counter cards. If Silan couldn’t break them, even proving Mira was of Human royalty would be smoke in the wind.

By now, everyone saw Silan hadn’t pinned hopes on Ayu. Pointing at Mira’s hair was a warning at best, a grab for initiative against Adelaide.

Seeing no real threat, Mira glanced at Adelaide again. Adelaide’s gaze dipped. Their joined fingers tightened, pressure like a promise.

When Adelaide lifted her face, the forced obsession faded from the depths of her blood-red eyes, like dye washed from silk.

Then let’s leave while the tide is with us. Don’t corner them here. Adelaide’s smile said it, and the same words pressed warm into Mira’s palm. It eased her breath.

Adelaide drew her lips to shape, “What a delightful evening, Silan,” the exit line ready.

But Ayu closed her eyes and sniffed the air, like a hound catching a trail. She spoke to no one. She just followed the scent.

“I smelled something wonderful on the road today. Not flowers. A scent I haven’t met in some time. Its source is here.”

She opened her eyes. Her gaze locked on Mira, on that golden hair. Her eyes narrowed like blades.

“Yes. You have my hair… But your blood is not mine. You are…”

Nuhaman.

She didn’t speak in Common or Elvish. She used the desert tongue that birthed the word. It left no room for misunderstanding.

Adelaide and Mira froze the instant they heard it, like deer in a moonlit field.

“Ha… haha. Ayu, what are you saying? The Nuhaman Tribe was wiped out long ago… ah?”

Silan tried to laugh it off, dry as dust. Mid-sentence, she realized Ayu wasn’t joking. She also stalled out, stunned.

“You’re serious?”

“Are you questioning my sense of smell?” Ayu’s reply was cold as steel. “You aren’t a Blood Mage, so you don’t hear it. But this scent belongs only to pure-blood Nuhaman. I can’t mistake it.”

Silence fell like snow. Even Silan held her tongue. Mira swallowed, her throat clicking. She turned to Adelaide, still lost on what had just cracked open.

She’d been recognized as Nuhaman? So what did that change? If Human royalty wasn’t leverage enough, how would this identity matter?

But when her eyes met Adelaide’s, she saw her sister’s gaze waver like a flame in wind.

Not just that. She felt Adelaide’s hand tremble, tiny and real.

Fear spread in Adelaide’s pupils like ink in water. Mira didn’t know why, but she knew that fear.

When Adelaide threw herself over her beneath the Magma Forge, Mira saw the same fear in her sister’s eyes.

Why? What just happened? What should I do now?

Lost, Mira could only clutch Adelaide’s hand, knuckles white. Across the table, Silan lifted her head. Bloodshot edged her eyes like cracked glass.

“I’m sorry. But I think, tonight…” She looked at Mira and spoke slow, like lowering a bar. “You must stay.”

Click-click.

Silan’s folding fan clacked. A sigil array bloomed under the paper like frost. She stood ready to fight.

Around them, Carnes snapped to. They didn’t understand the why, but they moved with their matriarch, drawing power like blades from sheaths.

In a blink, walls of bodies formed. A duel of words turned into steel drawn under candlelight.

Adelaide looked at Silan. Under the table, her other hand clenched. A shard of a messaging array slipped from her palm like broken glass. She pulled a strained smile.

“So warm a welcome. Are you planning to keep your guests by force?”

“If I must,” Silan said, calm as a drawn bow. “I will.”

“Are you threatening a candidate, Silan?”

Hearing the turn, Mira narrowed her eyes and warned her, a hand already on the hilt at her waist. Silan didn’t yield a step. Her gaze pinned Mira like a spear.

"No—the chair kept warm isn't for her, the candidate; it's for you—"

She laid it down slow, each word a pebble, until a lazy voice slid in and broke the surface.

"What's this? We promised a victory feast. Why's the air strung tight like bowstrings?"

Silan's eyes flashed alert. But when she saw who it was, she rose and bowed, a reed bending to wind.

"Your Majesty, Queen Dreamlan!"

From the flowered arch at the entrance stepped Menglan herself. She waved, a petal-soft dismissal, and the Carne Family members encircling Adelaide's group parted to open a path.

She took a seat as if it were her garden bench, gaze drifting over every face like moonlight on water. Then she let out a soft, sudden chuckle, like a bubble popping.

"Why so solemn? Tell me—did something sour the talk?"

"No…"

This time Silan faltered, her words catching like silk on thorns. Adelaide rose, slipped her hand around Mira's wrist, and nodded with a crescent-smile.

"Well, it's late. The night's embers are dimming. I'm afraid we have to leave early."

She turned with Mira, steps flowing toward the door like water. Silan shot up, urgency sparking, "Wait—"

"—Silan, stay and chat with me. It's been so long, and I've missed you."

Menglan tugged Silan's sleeve. Silan tried to step forward, but her stride hit stone.

Those fingers looked tender as spring scallions, yet they held like bedrock, keeping her rooted.

She could only grit her teeth and watch as Adelaide and the others vanished into the sea of blossoms at the doorway.