A great gash opened along the Sarman Empire’s northern border, a wound torn through stone like ice split by an unseen axe.

A wall as high as mountains had snapped in two. Miles of broken ramparts sprawled like a dead dragon’s spine, a scar even from the sky. It marred the famed “Unshakable Wall of Wind and Snow” with a cut you could point to from a league away.

Makeshift fortifications ringed the breach like stitched thread. Snow-lacquered elites of the Northern Army stood watch, their heavy armor glazed white. Robe-clad mages and white-coated analysts sifted the drifted rubble, tweezers gleaming against slate and snow.

“So, you’re certain all this… came from one strike?”

“Mm. I’m certain.”

The few clipped words fell heavy, like an anvil through frost. General Slandor’s voice was the same as always, thick and steady, like her suede longcoat snapping in the far-north wind. Her presence pressed down like a ridge of ice. It eclipsed the man beside her, though he outranked her on paper.

It wasn’t entirely his fault. He was Sankachi, after all, a high-seated cabinet minister. He’d never have left Balad’s warm fountains if not for the quake this incident sent through the Empire, and the wildfire rumor the Second Young Master Berlik brought back to the capital. Fear spread like dry reeds catching spark. The Regent had to send a confidant in person, to show the flag and calm the streets.

Now, facing a wall chewed to gravel as if under a million Magic Crystal Stone shells, his jeweled hands shrank deeper into their down cuffs. He shivered, his breath burred low.

Panic struck him like sleet. Inwardly, he muttered, That over the top? Could that red-headed brat have told the truth…? This is trouble. Real trouble.

Seeing his fear, Slandor followed his gaze to the ruin. There, analysts plucked samples with tweezers. When a broken brick slid into an evidence pouch, the jagged face shed glittering gold dust. It shook loose like pollen and sailed with the snow.

“The day of the attack, I heard one blast. One,” Slandor said, pointing at the wreckage. “The wall fell right after. Ten seconds, end to end. When the dust cleared, only rubble remained.”

She drew a breath like cold iron. “I don’t believe any mage on record could do this. Even Lord Rockridge himself likely couldn’t replicate it.”

Sankachi opened his mouth. A gust stuffed it with snow. He spat, ptoo ptoo, and finally got out one of his prepared doubts.

“But even if you say that, it doesn’t prove the Elven Queen did it. How can you be so sure—”

“—Because that’s the truth. If you can’t accept it, come hear the testimonies with me.” Slandor cut him off like a blade through ice. She turned for the camp without waiting. The minister had to scuttle after her.

“And, and, speaking of this—miles of wall destroyed, yet your Northern Army…” He panted, breath snagging like a torn banner. “Why… why only dozens injured? Not… not a single dead?”

Slandor paced sure and long, each step stamping a neat sigil in the snow.

Sankachi had to trot to keep up. A man carried everywhere by sedan chairs, he was lost after a dozen yards, huff huff, but Slandor didn’t slow. She spoke over the wind as she walked.

“It was shift change. The sentries for ground zero hadn’t arrived. That’s why they weren’t powdered with that section of wall.” She glanced back, eyes like flint. “The shock ruined the supports. Collapses snapped a lot of legs. And those legs belonged to good soldiers.”

Her tone cut like sleet. “‘Not a single dead’? That’s a light way to put it.”

“By the One Above, I—I didn’t mean it like that!”

Dizzied by the run, Sankachi denied without thinking. Then he realized the trap in his own words. Her jab clogged his next question in his throat. He swallowed it and fell silent, matching her stride as best he could.

They entered the temporary ward. The scene hit him like cold water in the lungs.

Dozens of white cots held bodies. Nurses and doctors threaded aisles narrower than the minister’s own waist. Freshly stripped bandages dropped into basins turned the water red at once, an iron tang fogging the air.

Sankachi clamped his nose and dry-heaved. Slandor’s face didn’t ripple. She took the closest stool and sat by a bed.

“Koni. Lord Sankachi is here by order of the Regent to inspect the front,” she said, glancing at the minister. “No embellishments, no omissions. Tell us what happened.”

The buzz-cut youth on the bed looked barely twenty. Bandages wrapped his legs like winter bark. His eyes burned bright, all hot-headed grit. He saluted in one clean snap.

“Yes, General! The strike hit just as I was swapping shifts with Palat. I’d just reached the rest room when a thunder-level boom hit. The floor bucked like an earthquake. Every cabinet flew open. Cracks tore through the walls. I dove for the corner. That’s the only reason shards didn’t take my head off!”

“You said cracks. What kind, exactly? Did the wall just split?”

“No, General! The cracks glowed gold, like molten gold. They burned with a sun-bright glare. They ripped the wall open in an instant!”

“Mol… molten gold? Sun-bright?” Sankachi pictured it, his face knotting like wet rope. “You mean Earth aspect? Or some metal variant?”

“Absolutely not, Lord Sankachi. Please believe me. That wasn’t normal magic.”

Koni laid out how he’d served in the Mage-Knight Brigade. He had Earth affinity himself. He swore by his scars. That force wasn’t like any mana he’d seen. No ordinary mage could wield it.

Sankachi’s already-bad color drained further, turning the shade of boiled liver. Slandor cut off the youth’s flood of words with a raised hand.

“That’s enough, Koni. Lord Sankachi understands,” she said, standing. “You did well. What you risked to learn this may… someday save countless imperial lives.”

She patted his shoulder. His face lit like a torch. He snapped another salute, bursting with zeal.

“Yes, ma’am! I won’t fail your trust! I’ll return to my post right awa—(smack!)—AaaAAAAAH!”

Mid-vow, Slandor’s hand left his shoulder and smacked his shin. Crack. The sound was clean as ice splitting. Koni’s scream tore the tent like cloth.

“All right. ‘Return to your post,’ my ass. Don’t get ideas. You focus on healing.”

“Ah—ah—y-yes…! I’ll… I’ll rest. I won’t do anything else!”

Slandor withdrew her hand. She didn’t spare the sweating, mask-faced Koni another glance. She strode out with the still-stunned Sankachi stumbling after.

“Uh… so… what was that? He’s badly hurt. How could he say he’s going right back—”

“—Phantom limb,” Slandor cut in again. “New recruits do this. They can’t accept a grave injury. Their mind conjures the lost limb. They fantasize about going back. It’s common.”

Regret bent her mouth as she shook her head and pushed through the tent flaps. Sankachi trailed her, wearing a look that said too much and nothing. He drew breath to ask more, but a white coat from the dig site pelted over first. The man bowed and held out a scroll.

“Lord Sankachi! The initial analysis of site residues is out. Please review!”

“Oh—oh!” A blizzard gust hit as Sankachi took it. The wind tried to steal the scroll. He clamped both ends like a man holding a kite in a gale.

His eyes skimmed the script. His features bunched tight, as if the words themselves wouldn’t fit his head.

“Unknown? What do you mean attribute determination unknown? Suitability level also unknown? What kind of analysis is this? And this—”

He tried to question line by line. The farther he read, the more “unknown” bloomed like mold. To ask them all, the sun and moon could swap shifts. Heat flushed his wrinkles raw. He flung the report back into the analyst’s face. His voice trembled like a thawed icicle.

“Half this scroll says unknown unknown unknown! You can’t figure out a thing! What use are you? How am I supposed to report to the Regent with this?”

“Tell him the empire faces ruin. Tell him now’s not the time for petty calculations, Sankachi.”

Slandor answered for the stammering subordinate. Sankachi blinked, stunned for half a heartbeat.

“…Fine. You may go,” he said at last, eyes narrowed, thinking fast. He flicked his hand. The investigator fled into the snow like a rabbit.

When the white coat vanished into the flurry, Sankachi spoke again. “What do you mean by that, Slandor?”

“Nothing fancy. I don’t like talking in loops,” Slandor said, meeting his gaze head-on. “I know what you want. You’re hunting for doubts about the incursion—any doubts. You don’t care if they can’t fully kill the rumor. You just want suspicion. That buys time to stall the troop redeployment bill.”

“I don’t understand a word you’re—”

“—Don’t play dumb with me,” she snapped. “The Empire’s main force is in the capital, guarding your grand estate and fountains. You don’t want to lose that. You’re afraid if they come here to face an external foe, no one will guard your skin. So you stall. Best case, you stall until the Elves actually break in. Then you can say, ‘We had a chance to act, but now it’s too late. All we can do is concentrate every soldier to protect Balad.’ And you’ll righteously use the army to shield your property. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You…!”

Sankachi’s eyes bulged. The fatty rings around his neck quivered like coiled sausages. His pointing finger shook, his face twisting into a mask. Slandor didn’t budge. She stepped into him, voice cutting like sleet.

“Face reality, Sankachi. This report didn’t wake you?” Her words hit like hammer blows. “We can’t even name the attack form. No human mage did this. Only the Elven Queen could. The very one who ended the Chaos Uprising alongside Emperor Belior.”

She let the title hang like a bell. “This isn’t a storm you can outlast by hiding in Balad. If we don’t gather the Empire’s full strength to resist, only one end waits us—the empire’s fall. Is that what you want to see?”

“Your… your accusations are false… slander! I’ll report you to the Regent when I return!”

He’d been read down to the bone. Panic scattered his wits like crows. He lashed out with the only club he had. Slandor’s mouth curved in a cold, disappointed arc. She turned away.

“Go ahead. Report me. Odds are we won’t meet again. My Northern Army isn’t like certain cowards. We’d rather shed our own blood into the blizzard than climb the scaffold.”

She took two steps, then paused. A quick, mirthless chuckle steamed in the cold. “Oh, right. Before we part forever, let me leave you something… amusing.”

She flicked a letter tied with a red silk ribbon. It spun once and fell into the snow at Sankachi’s feet.

“Know this: the Red Orchid Society reached out. They’ve decided. Soon they’ll shift every force they can to my side, including the elites facing you in Balad. When the people see Red Orchid fighters spilling blood on these icy streets, while the Regent’s men turtle up in Balad like winter-bound shells, what do you think they’ll believe?”

She left that line hanging like a blade in the wind. General Slandor turned away without a glance, leaving Sankachi alone, scattered by the blizzard like torn paper.

After a while, the doors of the General’s residence sighed open. Snow dusted from Slandor’s robe like salt off black stone, and she sank into her plain desk chair.

She shut her eyes, drew a long breath like the tide coming in, held it ten heartbeats, then let it ebb. “I’m exhausted.”

Her voice no longer had the edge she’d aimed at Sankachi. Her face loosened, her spine released; she leaned back. From a drawer’s hidden seam, she fished out a slim stick, hung it from her lips, snapped her fingers to strike sparks, and lit the tip.

She breathed in again. This time she exhaled a ribbon of white smoke that curled like winter mist. “That’s more like it.”

Slandor finally unwound. Three drags, a satisfied curve tugged her mouth—yet before the fourth, a jet of water hissed and splashed her face.

“Pfah!”

The ember died. She wiped her cheeks, then hammered the desk like a drum. “Damn it! Mannie! With this much pressure, I can’t even take one drag?”

“Because the pressure’s heavy, you can’t indulge. Remember, Lan?”

A long-haired woman in a nun’s habit stepped in, closed the door with a soft thud, laid a thin ward against eavesdropping like glass over water, then moved behind Slandor. Soft yet strong hands settled on her shoulders and kneaded, steady as rain.

“Indulgence is like climbing a mountain while nursing a cold. You chase the joy of the summit, then sick legs fail, and you tumble from the cliff into the abyss.”

Slandor felt gentle water magic seep from her shoulders, flowing through her core, soothing the five organs like spring melt. She rolled her eyes with a weary flick.

“What are you saying? I’m already at the bottom of the abyss. How much lower can I fall?”

Mannie watched her, eyes calm as a lake. “Well? Did the envoy spot any cracks?”

Slandor shook her head. “No. Only Koni, that idiot, tripped over one line. Everything else followed the plan. Sankachi picked up the letter, as expected. Now we wait for him to hand it to Rockridge. After that, it’s His Highness and the Second Prince on stage.”

She let out a dry, mocking laugh, like steel on stone. Those Balad meatheads are easy; toss a taunt, they bite the hook. Mannie tilted her head, a bird listening.

“If so, why the sour face?”

“Because we’re lying?” Slandor spread her hands like empty plates. “Reverend Sister Mannie, doesn’t that brick-thick catechism of yours say liars go to hell?”

Mannie tapped Slandor’s forehead, light as a raindrop. “If it’s for the safety of common folk, a lie isn’t a sin. It’s a trial.”

“A trial… heh. Pretty words.”

“Lan, you’re doing a good thing. Let the burden go, alright?”

The self-mocking smile faded from Slandor’s lips, like frost under morning light. After a moment, she tilted her head, cheek resting on Mannie’s warm palm.

“Sorry… I’m jumpy. Just…” She hesitated, words gathering like clouds. “I don’t know. Do you think the Douglas Family’s eldest daughter is truly worth trusting?”

Mannie’s fingers smoothed her cheek, slow as water. She shook her head. “I can’t be sure. But since Skela trusts her, I’ll give her a chance.”

“Besides, her proposal may be the last chance to keep the land from turning into a charnel ground, to spare the living from being ground into ash.”