On the eighteenth day of the third month, Elyu led a funeral—small in procession, heavy as a bell’s toll on the heart.

Every key figure in the palace came, a tide of real power and titled vassals. Even Venus arrived to offer mourning, like a pale petal drifting in.

Venus felt little shock, only a soft ache. The kindly old grandfather—both times she’d met him, he’d slipped her candy like a warm secret in winter.

Paris wore grief like a wet cloak; his nose twitched, his eyes burned red. He choked out, “He… he was a rare talent, one of Father’s old companions. He was so robust we forgot he’d long crossed seventy…”

Elyu’s sigh was deep, like wind through fallen leaves. He’d long learned to face partings and cycles, the crown and bright robes forcing his feelings into quiet chains.

The Queen, tears brimming like dew on jade, turned to Ostos.

Ostos stood at the bier, staring at the smile that clung to him even in death. Tears slid without sound; though he tried to dam them, they fell like rain from a broken sky.

All the grief in the hall, gathered like rivers, was not half of Ostos’s.

Since Elyu’s ascension, Wald had served with the steadiness of stone. He took no wife, had no child; few knew his face. He was the silent shadow at the ledger, hands in every matter from grand reforms to the tiniest expense.

Treasury Minister—that was only the title seen by daylight.

He was also another thing—the King’s left hand.

It seemed a limb rarely raised; but once severed, the body falters, and order frays like torn silk.

A member of the King’s Court Guard, famed alongside Delaia, he refused the high dais on Elyu’s coronation day, sending a nobody to stand in his place like a leaf in the wind.

A life without chasing name or profit, without wife or son—quiet as winter earth.

No one expected the cut to come so suddenly, like a candle that gutters at noon.

“Did he… say anything…” Ostos asked, voice trembling like a bowstring.

“Your Maj—sir… Lord Wald said, he wanted to sleep a while…” a treasury official sobbed, words breaking like thin ice.

Ostos let out a helpless laugh, dry as old parchment. “That really… is his style…”

After a simple, plain funeral, Wald was laid to earth, the soil closing like a calm sea. A new Treasury Minister was being urgently sought; Ostos had backups in mind, but long retired, he could only watch like a distant star.

He could only recommend, weighing gains and losses to Elyu and Paris, the two brothers. Elyu knew the treasury’s marrow-deep importance; a small post left vacant can stall the Empire’s great machine like sand in a gear.

Elyu and Ostos talked through the night, lantern light thinning like dawn mist, and found no answer.

Before they could settle on a choice, news came at daybreak: Paris had appointed a Treasury Minister, a blade drawn while the elders still breathed.

Paris justified it with iron calm: the treasury can’t go a day without a hand; succession must be swift, like a stitch before cloth tears.

By Paris’s rank, naming a minister was not impossible, and the man he chose sat on their shortlist like a marked piece. Improper, yes—but the wood was cut; hard to turn the grain back.

After that, Elyu began a quiet inquiry, moving like shadow through corridors. He found Wald’s maid; seeing the King, she shook with fear, bowing awkwardly, hands fluttering like frightened sparrows.

After brief pleasantries, Elyu laid his purpose bare, the blade under silk.

The maid had only just heard the blow. Her almond eyes opened wide, her body trembled; she stepped back without thinking and knocked over an expensive vase, porcelain crying in shards.

Heartbroken, she told of Wald’s recent days. No illness gnawed at him; though he seemed near dusk, his spirit was brighter than most. She couldn’t believe it—fine in the morning, and by afternoon…

Paris also made careful inquiries, and his mood grew wistful, like smoke fading at dusk. Life is like that—no one predicts the next heartbeat, the next ripple in the cup.

That night, the royal physician’s report arrived: a natural passing at the end of years, a lamp going out as the oil runs dry.

Everyone sighed, a single breath in a cold hall, lamenting life’s impermanence.

No one imagined a hidden hand. Wald’s death was a signal, a red string tugged, a portent written in ash.

We are held together by organs and limbs, senses and balance; remove one, the whole staggers like a maimed beast.

Now the left arm is cut. For Eunomia, it is harm, not blessing. Undercurrents stir in the city like black water; Paris’s pieces are set on the board. From here, king or outlaw hangs on a single breath.

Paris stood upon the castle’s peak, back to the dragon banner that snapped like a storm. His golden wave of hair shifted in the night breeze; a mysterious smile hung on his handsome, imperious face.

“Midnight’s passed. The board will settle.

King or outlaw—you will never understand.

After all, how can mortals grasp a god’s mind?

This world rotted long ago. All we do is the thrash of the dying. Only a grand design completed can grant peace that lasts.

Elyu, you’re a good king—but never a good Emperor.

What’s mine, I’ll take back with my own hands. I don’t need your charity.” Paris’s face remained indifferent, like frost on bronze, a god descending to look down on the living.

Medith gazed into the starfield, eyes deep as a well, fixed on the Southern Kingdom. Her green hair swayed like river grass. Sais and Gill stood beside her; every gaze turned south, hard as polished stone. The blades in their hands breathed a thin chill like winter fog.

In her chamber, the Queen looked at the full moon, round and cold, and let tears fall onto the windowsill like silent pearls.

Nora, Nira, and Olivya studied a stack of reports from Shezdan in the Sanctuary of Freedom, their faces darkening shade by shade, like clouds gathering before rain.

History’s wheel rolls on, iron and inevitable; human hands cannot halt its grind. Under the same sky, what scenes will they be forced to watch?

Will tomorrow truly be better?

I don’t know. I truly don’t know…

Volume IV · Chain of Tragedies (End)