“Milia? Melia... Iling... Phiby... even Lina, Rita...” Medith stared as they dropped one by one, shadows shedding from the rafters like falling leaves.

Cold hit first, like a blade to the spine, then Milia clamped her long legs and hugged her slender body. “Whoa! I’m gonna lose years—why is it this cold?”

Sunlight sprawled like warm silk, and she wore knee-high socks and boots, yet her body felt cast into an ice cellar.

“Right... how—” Melia lifted her head and froze, eyes catching the Queen and Sais crossing blows through the empty air like storm fronts colliding.

The Queen’s blue eyes breathed a frost-blue vapor, while Sais’s flame-red pupils burned crimson like live coals.

They clutched the long bench Medith had just made, locked jaw to jaw, while the air fell in temperature, and thin filaments of lightning stitched the void.

“Medith! Mei-chan!” Their shout cracked like ice and fire together, and a wave of cold and heat rushed at her.

Dread crawled up her neck first, then Medith saw their eyes spitting fire and felt a chill run bone-deep. “Ah... huh?”

“Sit...” The Queen’s voice floated soft as falling snow, and Medith moved like a wooden puppet, then sat.

Sais slid in at her right and lifted her hand, chin high like a proud hawk. “Mei-chan, tell her. Tell her what you said to me that night.”

“Tch! Darling, tell her you love me, not that shameless woman.” The Queen seized Medith’s left hand, words like knives wrapped in silk. “She flaunts herself every day. Sooner or later she’ll end up with some other woman. I’m not like that. For a thousand years, I’ve loved only you.”

“Oh, sure! You scumbag—always picking flowers and stirring honey. Do you tell every woman ‘I love you’?” Sais’s voice wavered like rain on eaves. “Who’s this Xier? Hot air. Xier doesn’t even exist, right? Just your excuse to flirt.”

Aggrieved, she kept pressing her forehead against Medith’s chest, like a willow bending into shelter.

“It’s fine, darling. Let’s marry. Once we’re wed, she can’t bother us, all right?” The Queen spun Medith to face her, eyes soft as moonlight.

Sais yanked her back with a snap. “Say something! Were you just playing me?”

“Don’t mind her, darling. Since the war she’s been twitchy, like a broken clock.” The Queen reeled Medith in again.

“Shut up! Old witch, older than a thousand winters!” Sais turned Medith back, sparks flying like fireflies.

“What did you say?! That’s insubordination!” The Queen’s anger flared, and she wrenched Medith around like turning a compass.

“What about it! Old witch! Old witch, old witch, old witch... a scumbag who keeps forcing herself on Mei-chan!” Sais’s last barb struck like flint; the Queen’s temper finally caught fire.

“Come on then! We settle it today. You’re itching for a beating, aren’t you? Don’t you know I am your Queen?” In her right hand a Scepter condensed, humming like a storm trapped in glass.

Sais shaped two wind blades, edges singing like cicadas. “Fine! This lady won’t rest till one of us dies, old witch—”

Overwhelm thudded first, then Medith stood, dusted off her skirt like shaking snow, and tried to slip away. “You two... you fight slowly, take your time, I’ll... I’ll just go.”

They saw, and killing intent melted like ice in sunlight; in a heartbeat they turned, pinned Medith together. “Oh, you!”

“Mutiny?!”

“Give us an explanation today, or I’ll split you in half and we’ll share!” Sais raised a blade, ready to cleave, the air taut like stretched hide.

“No—spare me—” Her plea rose like a long, soaring call, and with it laughter spilled like bells. Xurenxus City lay under a veil of harmony and celebration.

...

Across the far continent, at the cloud-brushed peak of an island...

Darkness pooled like ink, silent and wordless; in the black, a hand would vanish, and nothing took shape.

Suddenly, blue torches bloomed like cold flowers, and a great hall came alive with ghost-blue light.

The hall was empty, save a throne without a master, standing like a mountain of absence.

After a breath, two will-o’-wisps flared on the throne, while from the walls came the grind of gears. “Ka... ka... ka.”

Time stretched like old leather, and the ghost-fire gathered into a human shape—a hulking figure. If Medith saw this “person,” her three souls would scatter like startled birds.

For it was the “King” who had haunted her for so long.

The King gripped a skull greatsword set with four gems, each a different element, and stared into the distance like a sentinel carved from night.

“Ka... ka... ka...” The machine felt jammed, like bones in a gear, refusing to move.

The King drove the greatsword down, and it locked into a slot in the floor. Cobweb-like lines lit and ran, weaving together into the shape of a gear.

Then: “Ka... ka... kak-ka... kak-kak-kak... ka... ka. kak-ka...” The machine began to twitch, then turn, like a heart remembering its beat.

“Mm...” A low sound rasped out, rough as rust.

The King’s voice came hoarse and deep, like rusty gears starving for oil. “Me... dith... I... suc... ceeded... now... it... all... rests... on... you... You... must... save... her... must... save... save... save...”

He forced the words out; by the end it was a stuck record, a dying machine’s breath.

Then his body unraveled like tattered willow catkins in wind, and last to fade were those eyes, blue ghost-fire swaying, lingering and worried like a spirit at the gate.

“Krrr-krrr-krrr—” With his death, the machine of fate finally roared to life, turning like a river freed of ice.

(Volume II · The Vast World — End)