As a battle roared a thousand miles away, another game unfolded in an old courtyard, eaves like wings, stones cool as moonlit water.

No steel clashed, no grief broke its mask. Only two nonhuman women sat at a chess table, one vivid as peonies, one pure as orchids, incense mist veiling their faces like gauze.

A magic chess clock ticked with silk-smooth clicks, soft as rain on bamboo, marking each decision’s dwindling breath. Beyond that, the world held its breath under the quiet eaves.

But the scene wasn’t as empty as it looked. This was the first test of the new livestream system, a net of unseen eyes, more than any debate had ever drawn.

Under that weight of invisible stares, Silan picked up the first red piece, steady as a blade laid flat.

“Miss Adelaide, since our ‘hurried’ parting at the victory banquet, we haven’t had a chance to sit and really talk.”

A red soldier stepped forward, returning to the board like a drop back to the river. Across from her, Adelaide studied, then let her hand fall.

“You’re right. Fate plays tricks. That farewell was too rushed, but…”

A black cannon slid sideways and landed with a clean tap. Silan’s voice followed, light as wind through leaves.

“But?”

“I thought this was the venue for the Trial of Truth, and that the one facing me would be Miss Tonglu, the Carne Family’s candidate.”

Silan’s shoulders lifted, a fragrant shrug drifting through the haze. “Ordinarily, you should already be crossing tongues with her. But, as you said—fate meddles. A tiny discovery turned a splendid debate into a hollow shell.”

Adelaide’s brow smoothed, her smile undimmed. “Oh? What ‘tiny discovery’ can make a tradition of millennia feel pointless?”

Silan only smiled and set another piece down, unhurried as a cat in sun. Adelaide lowered her eyes to the board. In their quiet give-and-take, the position shifted like clouds.

Then Adelaide dared a bold leap. Her black horse advanced to five and took Silan’s advisor.

“Hm…” Silan tilted her chin, musing. “For a human, Miss Adelaide, you play surprisingly well. I thought I’d need to explain the rules.”

“I only had the luck to play a few rounds with Her Majesty. I learned a little, nothing more.”

Far outside the scene, Her Majesty herself heard that tall tale through the stone-slab screen and smiled. Her brush kept dancing, laying intricate array sigils on bamboo slips, preparing for the feast to come.

Silan couldn’t see that. She accepted Adelaide’s words with a small nod, then continued, voice like warm tea.

“So it was Her Majesty. That is a surprise… though you were her personally invited guest. It tracks.”

Honored guest is far too much—I can’t— Adelaide began the ritual modesty, but Silan cut in, eyes narrowing like a drawn bow.

“So I’m very curious, Miss Adelaide. Under what circumstances did you meet Her Majesty?”

“If we must go there, I can only speak of a chance encounter in a humble tea house, like stepping into a thread spun by fate.”

“Oh? A humble tea house… Considering Her Majesty hasn’t left the Sealing Array’s bounds in a thousand years, that tea house must be inside the Array. Perhaps a shop near the border?”

“Put that way, it should be so.”

“Should be?” Silan lifted her remaining advisor, slender fingers bright as porcelain. “Here’s what won’t leave my mind. The Sealing Array has divided us from the human Empire for millennia. Very few humans have set foot here. I remember every name.”

She set the red advisor down with a soft knock, voice still cool. “Unless it’s grave, we don’t welcome outsiders to barge in. The first ‘Emperor’ did enough to tangle our lives. Then you appeared, as if summoned by a spell, among us. As ‘Her Majesty’s honored guest,’ you became the first non-elf candidate for Flower Dancer.”

Her smile curved, a pressed petal edge. “So, would you mind returning to the beginning and telling us, in detail, how you crossed that line, Miss Adelaide?”

Red advisor met the black horse deep in red territory with a dull thud. The horse left the board, and a sly smile tugged Silan’s lips. Satisfaction glimmered, and she even spared a comment: Bold, but unlucky—the piece you took was anchored.

While the mantis stalks the cicada, a higher hunter waits. The meaning hovered in her tone like a hawk’s shadow.

Adelaide’s face didn’t ripple. Like a deer unaware of the snare, she studied the board for a breath, then calmly used her cannon to take Silan’s advisor. Silan’s soft “Mm?” slipped out, surprised she still had room to think and strike.

“As you said, fate meddled. It led to quite the misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?”

“Yes. A misunderstanding. The kind where a kind soul, who couldn’t bear our battered state, spared us the registration and gave us direct passage. That kind soul was you, wasn’t it?”

Silan’s eyes narrowed. The pride in them thinned, yet this wasn’t the first time they brushed this thorn.

At the “victory banquet,” they had already fenced over Adelaide’s “Exile” identity. If Adelaide raised it again now, she had brought a blade hidden in her sleeve.

Silan moved again. Her chariot rolled forward one square, lantern-bright, setting the general under a rising shadow.

“I did order a human convoy in distress to be allowed through. That doesn’t mean they could skip registration.”

Her words aimed at Adelaide, but her gaze turned to the lenses now fixed on her. She spoke to the countless elven citizens watching the stream, voice even as a flowing brook.

“As hosts, I had the border guards settle them at an inn. We’d let them catch their breath, then file the papers. But on the morning of the third day, when we knocked, half the guests meant to be ‘resting’ were gone. Among them, a white-haired, red-eyed human woman. That same night, near the inn, an otherfolk suspect was arrested for ‘attempted assassination.’ Before we could verify, Her Majesty Queen Dreamlan herself pardoned that prisoner—”

“—Let me spare you the proofwork. I was that white-haired human.”

The neat chain of questions snapped. Silan frowned, a string plucked too hard.

She… admitted it?

Adelaide’s bluntness caught her off guard, enough to make her doubt her ears. But Adelaide went on, open as daylight, recounting how she entered, how she unraveled the inn’s alarm array, how she slipped out at midnight, and how a chance led her to Queen Dreamlan. Her expression was frank, as if her heart carried no dust.

When Silan asked why she fled without leave, Adelaide’s eyes lit, palms coming together with a crisp clap, excitement bright as fireflies.

“Because the ‘morning tea’ on day one was too stunning. I couldn’t help myself that night. I had to sneak out and taste the Elven Realm’s legendary breadth of cuisine!”

“…Huh?” Silan blinked, incense fog pooling around her confusion, then caught herself. She raised a hand, cutting off Adelaide’s impassioned comparison of elven dishes and imperial fare.

“That’s not the point. The point is, every room had an alarm array outside the door, and you neutralized them.”

Adelaide tilted her head, a sparrow listening. “And? I wasn’t the only one who snuck out that night. If anything, you should upgrade your security. It’s the border, after all.”

She looked perfectly earnest, as if offering civic advice. Silan didn’t bite this time. A cold smile edged her lips, the rhythm hers again.

“Miss Adelaide, you know what I mean. The other rooms’ alarms were broken by force. Yours was ‘deconstructed.’ The first needs only brute strength. The second is a different mountain to climb, isn’t it?”

Adelaide wore that same puzzled look. “Eh? Is that so special? If it were you, you’d do it easily.”

“Still playing dumb? Heh…”

Silan’s laughter cooled, a crescent knife behind silk. Her gaze held the calm cruelty of a fish out of water, watching it thrash.

“True, you aren’t the highest in raw magic here. But no one hides their strength the way you do, Miss Adelaide.”

Her elegance dropped like a mask set aside. Her phoenix eyes pressed forward, and her question struck like a bell.

“If you’ll keep dodging, I’ll ask another way—tell me, Miss Adelaide. Where is the Dragonheart of Soul Devourer Sormaidon right now?”

Every Elf before the stone-slab screen drew in a breath at once. Even Queen Dreamlan paused her brush, her gaze turning to the live image like frost forming on a lake.

At last, the aim of Silan’s slow rhetoric stood bare in the noon light.

All Elves knew it. A dragonheart was a dragon’s most precious prize, especially for a Blood Mage.

Even an ordinary dragonheart, in a gifted Blood Mage’s hands, could unleash power that wipes a city clean in a heartbeat. Much less the Dragonheart of a legendary abomination like Soul Devourer Sormaidon.

And there lay the spine of Silan’s doubt. A top-tier Blood Mage who hides her strength is already suspect. If she also hoards a chaotic abomination’s Dragonheart, the word ‘suspect’ dies on the tongue.

She becomes a bomb, ticking under their eaves, ready to turn the world to ash.