“How’s Elder Brother holding up at the palace?” Elyu asked, voice warm as morning tea, eyes steady as a still pond.

“What else could it be?” Paris smiled, weary as dusk over ledgers. “Every day, a ring of old men. Edits, policies. You’re lucky, roaming the world like wind over open sea. What did you bring back?”

“A little.” Elyu kept it brief, like a blade kept in its sheath.

“Whoa! A Sprite! An actual Sprite!” Venus sparkled like sunlight on water. “Those ears are so cute!” She circled Medith’s group like a butterfly, fingers brushing Phiby’s long, sharp ears.

“Ah—Your Highness, don’t—please don’t.” Phiby squirmed like a cat in tall grass, too polite to push away, her laughter trembling like leaves.

Paris scooped Venus up and set her aside, rough as a gust pushing a door. Her beige gown trailed on the floor like pale sand, and he didn’t look back.

“How can you be so rude to honored guests?” His tone cooled like shade under stone. “I’ve got important matters with our guests. Elyu, keep Venus company.”

Elyu said nothing, a quiet rock in a stream. He patted her head, and Venus nodded, wounded like a small bird tucking its wings.

Climbing the stairs, Medith glanced back at Venus. The girl looked fifteen or sixteen, a porcelain doll under spring light. Her blue eyes were clear as a mountain spring, pupils bright as sapphires. Her noble curls of gold fell like sunlit wheat.

She wore a beige dress. Scolded, but not crushed, she pointed at Medith’s group and whispered to Elyu, words fluttering like sparrows. Medith almost reached for her gift to listen, then let it go, and offered a smile like a lantern in mist.

Venus’s face lit with worship, gaze shining on Medith like stars pinned to winter sky. The sight was sweet as honey on warm bread.

...

They reached a broad rooftop garden, alive with birdsong like silver bells. Buds swelled on rare flowers, trembling under sun and breeze like jewels on a thread.

A small stone table sat at the center, fit for four, solid as an altar. On all four sides, more than ten Erene Guard stood, spears of pine overshadowing the Dusk Legion like tall pines over reeds.

“The table’s small. It can’t seat everyone. Forgive me, Commander, perhaps…” Paris’s eyes flicked to Milia and the others, a signal quick as a swallow’s turn.

Milia understood at once, a nod like a falling petal. She took Iling and Phiby downstairs to chat with the Princess, their steps light as wind.

Medith walked to the little table without haste, calm as a lake at dawn. She didn’t sit. Courtesy rose around her like incense.

Prince Paris approved, a brief glow like sunrise through cloud. He took the eastern seat. “Please. Sit.”

Only after the order landed like rain did Medith and Sais take their chairs. Medith looked once, then claimed the western seat, a shadow to his light. Sais sat at her side, steady as a shield.

That simple move rang like a bell in Paris’s mind. He’d chosen the east on purpose—east, the Eastern Nation. If Medith sat south or north, it would hint at willingness to lean east. She chose the west, the mirror opposite. Deliberate as a chess stone.

He hadn’t expected such a closed door at first step, a chill like wind off the sea. Still, it proved little by itself. “Medith—may I call you that?” His tone was smooth as silk.

“Of course. It’s my honor.” Medith smiled without warmth, a crescent moon behind clouds. Paris didn’t rush, patience like a fisherman at dawn.

“Rumor paints you fierce and keen,” he said, praise flowing like wine. “Your knack for cutting at the root—pulling the fire from the cauldron—was masterful. You were ready before the Mountain Bandits struck. You even slew the defector from the Western Kingdom. Admirable.”

Sais’s brow lifted, a swallow-wing twitch. Unasked-for kindness is bait on a hook. The sweeter the words, the sharper the aim.

“Your Highness flatters me,” Medith said, voice level as a ruler. “I didn’t kill Soledo. Phiby did—the little girl from before.”

“Oh! Then my apologies. I should’ve set a seat for her,” Paris said, contrite as rain on dust.

“You’re too kind,” Sais cut in, thin as a blade. “Who is Soledo, exactly? Forgive me—Your Highness seems wary of him, like a hunter watching tall grass.”

Paris chuckled, light as chimes. “Him? A general under Thanatos. Details are fog. But one thing’s clear—he holds more than we do. I even suspect he was tied to that year’s event, a shadow over noon.”

“Soledo and Nessos together wasn’t chance,” Medith said suddenly, words dropping like stones in a pond.

“Oh?” Paris poured two cups of tea, steam curling like white snakes. He set them down before the two women. “I’d love to hear it.”

“I think their target was Her Majesty, the Queen,” Medith said, thought flickering like candle flame. “And their gear—compared to the dead of the Southern Kingdom Hunting Corps—doesn’t match the numbers or the quality. Someone backed them, a tide behind their raft.”

Paris sipped, a quiet leaf on water. “With their skills, and the equipment on record, success was likely as a storm on a dark horizon. But was their aim only to strike the Queen? Or…”

“No. Impossible,” Sais said, memory cold as night stone. “If it were that simple, we’d all sleep easier. The Queen was their axis from the start. Every move turned around her. Medith’s appearance was the crack of lightning they didn’t expect. Her command and blade were too strong. Their plan broke before the escape line even formed, cut like twine.”

She remembered Soledo waiting outside the walls, still as a coiled snake. Why not swarm? Because he was salting the road against failure. If the siege slowed, the plan died like a fire in rain. So when the four captains fell, Nessos withdrew at once. The magic barrier became his death cell, a cage of glass. He needed the Silence Bomb to shatter it.

Too bad they misread Medith. She’d counted the aftershock of the bandits’ loss, numbers neat as knots. She struck Soledo in one blow, clean as a guillotine, drowned their plan like a lamp in a well, and seized that priceless Silence Bomb like a star from the dark.

“I can’t answer that riddle,” Paris said, letting it drift like smoke. “Let’s talk of something else. Medith, what do you make of our country?”

“Strong,” Medith said, gaze sharp as frost. “Your sea routes are arteries, your wall-tax system a spine. It feeds a million soldiers without squeezing the people, a river that never runs dry.

A million ready-to-march troops plus geography like clasped shields—honestly, I find your claim of decline hard to swallow. It smells like fog.”

Sais sent her warning on the wind, whisper thin as a reed. “Don’t talk big. He’ll start doubting.”

“Relax,” Medith answered, soft as silk. “I know the current.”

“Hahahaha!” Paris’s laugh rolled like surf over rock. He wore the look of a man who found a kindred flame. “Medith, you’re a once-in-a-millennium talent!

Yes. Our Eunomia is ringed by sea, a wreath of blue steel. We’ve opened most of our waters, and hold the continent’s richest marine wealth, fat as a silver shoal.

We field a million on land, and our navy fights like storm-tossed wolves. All this while the Divine Stone’s development stalled, and our strength waned like a sick moon.

At our peak? Who would dare shake Eunomia’s roots? Who would tug this ancient tree?”

His fire ebbed to ash. “It all stems from forty years ago, when the Divine Stone dimmed. Call it fate’s cold hand.”

“Our Divine Stone dimmed by half, forty years past,” he went on, voice low as thunder far off. “Walls hardened by it, weapons powered by it—each lost half their bite. We were already slow working the Stone. The blow was fatal as winter on late crops. If we weren’t strong to begin with, war would’ve torn us apart like crows on a field.”