"Don't swing the sword, Medith, don't swing the sword..."
"You again? Swing what sword?"
"Don't. Absolutely don't..."
"Why would I swing it? Who are you, really—"
Boom—rumble—whooooo— Medith jolted awake, heart pounding like a drum in stormlight. The whole canyon shuddered, as if heaven hurled thunder down, shaking loose a rain of shards.
Cecilia sprang up, like a cat jarred from sleep. "What was that? What happened?"
Instinct first, thought later—Medith drew her greatsword. Her gaze swept the ravine, then snagged on a sight that punched the breath from her chest: over the Sanctuary of Freedom, a black pillar ripped the sky, an obsidian spear crowned with the Western Kingdom’s infinity mark.
"That’s... the Black Eye’s effect?!" Her brows kicked, dread prowling under her ribs.
She ground her teeth, bright as silver in moonshade, and spurred her horse. No time to sift the clues, no patience for reasonable steps.
"Gill! If you touch my family, I’ll drown your guild in blood for a thousand miles!" Her roar rolled along stone walls, echoing like a hunting horn. She kicked into a Cyclone and tore for the Sanctuary of Freedom.
The rushing wind flipped Cecilia onto the gravel. She caught herself on scraped palms, but Medith was already swallowed by night.
"How could it be?!" Cecilia stared at the pillar, blacker than the night that held it, and saw again the look Gill wore when he sent Medith away—eyes emptied of everything but resolve.
No, breathe. Calm. Calm. Her pulse skittered like a trapped sparrow. Everything was too fast, too neat, too timed.
Like a puppeteer’s string tugging at every wrist. Even Medith was being led.
If the worst had already struck, charging in blind would do nothing. It would only smear the truth until it vanished.
Her mind lit like a kiln. She looked at the fused iron and broken stone Medith had brought.
Iron. Flame. Melt.
Stone. Blood-marks. Read.
Ambush. Dusk Legion. O'Neil escaped...
The Dusk Legion sent blades to cut down the Young Lord. He fell into an ambush. In the struggle, O'Neil slipped free...
After, the Dusk Legion severed the iron bridge. The Young Lord lost ground, spent his strength, died clutching Medith’s coin.
If so, then why leave blood-signal after blood-signal on the stones?
Why wasn’t the body on the marker, but in the center of the field?
And since when did the Elf Clan wield flame that fierce?
That bridge was special-forged. Its melt point topped two thousand degrees. How does a common fire swallow an iron span in an instant?
And O'Neil’s story was riddled with holes...
Cecilia slapped her hands together, frustration stinging like nettles. The proof was there—close enough to taste—yet slippery as rain.
She set the shard beside the scrawled message, fitting jagged edge to jagged thought.
"Huh?" Her eyes widened, clear as dawn after storm. The pattern snapped into place like antlers locking.
"Wrong. I read it wrong!"
She knelt hard on the grit, breath hot, and studied Herbert’s full message.
"This arrow of blood means ‘not.’ In sequence, it reads ‘not—4—Dusk Elves.’ Under the 4, something hides—a mark for ‘did.’ So it’s ‘Not the Dusk Elves who did this.’ That’s what Herbert was saying.
"And this S... not Dusk Elves. S... not S-rank. Not S-rank means not a guild faction...
"S... S... south.
"Southern?!"
"Not the Dusk Elves. It was the Southern Kingdom."
Cecilia stared into the night forest, branches whispering like old ghosts. The soil breathed out the copper reek of blood.
Lightning of realization cracked through her spine. "Stinking wind... Southern Kingdom... Bloodhand Andrew!"
Gill’s voice detonated again in her memory, a thunderclap in the hall. "You didn’t know Medith ran into Bloodhand Andrew’s men, the Southern duke’s lot? The Southern Kingdom’s tough, sure. She still took their leader’s head with one swing. Days have passed—have you seen Andrew lift a finger?"
"Yes. That’s it!" Tears tightened her throat. She hugged the stone as if it were a heart still warm. "Young Lord... I found what truly killed you. You saw it all.
"That’s why you carved this, bleeding, to leave a path. Isn’t it?"
She could see it now, fear and fury painted in ash and scarlet: a Southern leader used a Magic Breaker to melt the iron bridge, iron turned to slag under forbidden art.
They hammered O'Neil until he broke. He betrayed them, lied about the battle, buried the truth, and shoved both sides into a sea of blood.
Andrew’s men forced the Elvenfolk to strike, while they played the fisherman, netting chaos for profit.
Then they killed the Sprites themselves, made them scapegoats, and walked away clean.
They killed Herbert, too, and stuffed the coin into his dead hand.
The scene rose in her mind, sharp as winter stars. She could almost feel Herbert’s iron will as he carved those blood-letters, every stroke a fight against the dark.
"Young Lord, rest easy. The Southern Kingdom won’t get away with this. Not ever." Grief hardened into hot iron. Cecilia gathered the shard and the iron lump, whipped the reins, and drove the horse toward the Sanctuary of Freedom.
