November 13, 7:00 a.m. The sky wore a dim veil, and fine rain drifted again. Wind combed the spray east, toward the gate that once felt like heaven’s shield for Sia City. The gate stood like a silent sentinel, but its master had long since changed.
“So we can’t count on rescue from the sea…” Medith said, cool as winter water. In weather this foul, the sea changes like a flickering flame. The route here is long; time slips like sand. Powell butchered every carrier pigeon. It’s a trap from every side.
“Passing caravans are in their grip too. They’ve been driven off,” Kasda said, voice flat as stone.
The women held small green leaves as umbrellas. Rain touched the leaves, then slid off like water flowing down a slope. Tiny leaves, yet perfect shelters against a sky weeping.
“Your way of ducking the rain is clever,” Lord Draela said with a tired smile, like dawn fading behind clouds. He’d overworked for days. He even forced a night of wakefulness to wear the mask of fatigue. Now his stance wavered like a reed in wind.
“My lord, can your body hold? Rest a few hours?” Medith asked, worry rising like a bruised tide. She knew that taste from months ago—mind and flesh crushed like damp clay. A weak will snaps like a twig.
“I’m fine. A day without sleep, I can still stand it.” He exhaled like a bellows. “I’ll push the trapwork forward. Commander, act as you see fit. With your rank, you don’t need my orders.” He turned and began to direct, hands moving like a craftsman setting stones.
Medith prized time like glowing embers. She moved to leave. A thought came like a spark catching. She whispered to the city guard captain, then went toward the secret chamber in the east wall, steps quiet as rain on slate.
…
“Milia, can you do this?” Sais stood by the gallows, her gaze a trembling thread, and looked at Milia.
Milia’s eyes hardened like forged steel, no tremor, no drift. Sais nodded, relief settling like dew. In war, a firm hand must stand, like a pillar against a storm—especially at the cliff-edge of life and death. Medith spoke true: cut down those who poison the heart with despair. Sais would do the same.
Beneath the high platform of the gallows, a crowd pooled like a dark lake. Their eyes held no pity—only fear like ice, fervor like flame, anger like iron, and a thin kind of relief like a breath after choking. Guards shoved five small-framed men up the steps, their feet dragging like dead leaves.
Milia faced the crowd, her voice ringing like a bell. “These five trampled your laws. They sought to violate women, robbed with knives like fangs, and maimed with intent. One farmer lost his hand.”
“They thought our last day had come, that no one could rein them in. They spilled their hunger like wolves, desecrating your laws. Do we truly have no hope?”
“It’s true—less than two days until Lachesis unravels like a frayed thread. By dawn tomorrow night, most of our soldiers may fall like wheat…”
“Ah… this…”
“We’re finished… Your Majesty… did you abandon your people?”
“Everything’s already written. Eunomia will shelter us.”
Despair spread like cold fog. The crowd sank, hearts heavy as wet cloth.
Even the guards didn’t understand why Milia would shake their hearts now. The captain moved to stop her, anger rising like a drawn blade. Sais lifted a slender hand, a willow-branch barring the way. “Watch closely. Under the Crimson Sunset Legion, no captain is weak.”
Pain crossed Milia’s face; she closed her eyes like the moon behind cloud. Then her green eyes flared with will, bright as spring. “No! Hope has always stood beside us, close enough to grasp, like fruit within reach. We let despair crush us like a mountain and forgot it was there.”
“Tonight! We will strike the invaders hard, a hammer on brittle glass. We’ll show them how foolish they are—thinking a wall can pen us in and grind our will, shake our faith.”
“Impossible! Eunomia’s soldiers will speak with action, a thunder that needs no words. They will learn the power they provoked.”
“Everyone in Sia City will answer with a roar like a river in flood. Even if they trample our bodies, they will never scatter this rose.”
“Tonight! On this wall of despair, hope will bloom like dawn. With flesh and bone, we’ll raise a wall that shields you all.”
“May the goddess Eunomia stand with us!”
“Ooooh—aaah!!”
“May the goddess Eunomia stand with us!”
“Sia City will never bow!”
“Long live His Majesty!”
“Ogathas! Ogathas!”
Morale surged to a peak in a heartbeat, like fire catching dry grass. Soldiers raised their weapons and pumped their fists, voices clashing like steel.
Iling and the others caught the blaze. They shouted, pouring out days of fear like stormwater, turning it into strength.
When the moment ripened like a full moon, Milia drew the iron sword at her hip. She leveled it at the five, point sharp as frost. “Now! Justice begins here! I—Milia, of the Elf Clan, a Captain of the Crimson Sunset Legion, one of Sia City’s guardians—hereby sentence you sinners to death!”
“No! My lady, our crimes aren’t—”
Creak—creak—
Milia’s blade flashed like lightning. She cut the lever rope. The five dropped into air, legs kicking like trapped fish. Soon their heads slumped to the side, strength gone like a dying flame.
“Any who still plan crimes—this is your end. Justice will never be absent!”
“Oooh—Milia! Milia! Milia!”
Far off, Medith stood in the secret chamber’s heart, the stone quiet as night. The tidal roar reached her like surf on cliffs. She smiled, relief soft as dawn. Milia could hold a front alone now.
…
“Sounds lively inside, like a nest of mice,” Skaro said, stroking a young woman’s soft body with the casual cruelty of a cat. The girl’s mind had long gone, her eyes empty as winter sky. The distant roar touched her, a spark in ash; a sliver of sense returned.
“You devils! Lord Draela will wipe you out! When that day comes, I’ll watch you crawl on your knees and writhe, yelping! Hahaha… mm… mmm…” Her voice broke into muffled cries, like a gagged bird.
“You never learn,” Skaro muttered, boredom flattening his tone like cold iron. “Do what you want. If she dies, it’s no trouble.” His interest drifted away like smoke.
“Is that Bandit-Slayer truly inside these walls?” Skaro shivered, a chill like ice water down his spine. The day news of Nessos and Soledo’s deaths spread, fear nearly stopped his heart. He wasn’t sure how strong Medith was. That one, though, was famed as a terror in these lands, a storm with a blade.
With just a strategist, the two began with dozens of Mountain Bandits. They grew slow, devouring every gang in the forest like roots drinking soil. Their numbers swelled over ten thousand. The coalition today looks vast, but it’s only their four chiefs emptying their nests to cobble strength. Their gear, their wits, even their force, falls short of Nessos, a candle against a star.
Nessos and Soledo were called the Twin Stars of the East—one mind, one blade, unmatched like sun and moon. Even the king dared not cross them. As long as they didn’t besiege cities, razing villages passed like smoke. Yet men like that died, inexplicably, on Sprite Mountain.
By rights, if they couldn’t win, they should’ve fled like deer. But the tales were worse, night-thick and sharp. Medith cutting through ten thousand like wheat. Foresight like a deity. She pinned the “Wolf Star” Soledok, step by step, a trap closing like jaws. He died where he stood, his escape route useless as a broken bridge.
Most infamous was the tale of Medith gripping a severed head, blood soaking her like rain. The last few thousand bandits had their retreat sealed by fire, a wall of flame. Seeing her clutch a skull and stare, face twisted and scarlet, a few died on the spot from terror, hearts snapping like strings.
The rest charged into the sea of flames, choosing charcoal over meeting her gaze. In the end, only a few dozen staggered back, ash clinging like shadow.
He had the misfortune to meet one. The man’s hair had fallen from fear, body skin and bone, so frail a gust could scatter him like leaves. He lived on instinct, a hollow shell held by habit.
Skaro tried to approach. His foot snapped a twig. The man heard, leapt like a startled hare, and vanished into the cave’s dark, crawling and rolling like a worm fleeing light.
That scene etched itself in Skaro’s mind, a scar that never faded.
“Anyway, the Segireneto Legion is here today. You can’t break this formation of despair, no matter what…” Skaro spoke the words out loud, like throwing stones into a deep well to hear them echo. His hands trembled, faint as a moth’s wings, and that tremor betrayed him.
