“Sister Sais! Commander!” Phiby barreled in, armor clanking like a storm of iron.

Sais blinked, startled like a deer in torchlight. “And you are…?”

“Me! It’s me—Phiby!” She tore off her war-helm and let out a breath like winter mist.

“You?! The little one?” Shock flashed across Sais’s face like lightning over a plain. The tiny sprout had shot up a handspan; still as flat as the open steppe, yet her back stood like a young pine, the tender softness melted like last snow.

Familiar yet strange, like an old path under fresh frost. Even Medith slipped into old memories, sighs rising like morning mist.

“Where’s Sister Melia?” Unaware of the news, Phiby searched the hall like a sparrow seeking its nest.

Lids lowered like falling curtains; faces shifted like clouds before rain.

…

“This can’t be… You’re lying to me… right?” Phiby’s bell-bright eyes widened like twin moons.

They closed ranks, mischief folded away like fans; gravity settled like a millstone. From her breast, Medith cupped a green-glowing orb that had drunk half of Sais’s magic; inside lay a quiet hyacinth like a sleeping starfish.

Sensing their gathering, the hyacinth stirred without wind, swaying side to side like reeds; its lush leaves fanned up and down, as if waving hello like spring grass.

When Phiby touched it, a tide of memory crashed in like monsoon rain, and she broke into sobs, voice cracking like thin ice.

“Melia… just like her mother—stubborn and unyielding, faithful to the end…” The Queen’s face wore sorrow like a gauze veil, yet her heart stayed still as a winter lake; the dead had passed her eyes like a river of bones.

At the Elders Council benches, Euticles sighed like old timber. Nobles bristled like thorns, saying human nature won’t change without a lesson written in blood.

“Why… didn’t we kill Gill and his lot?” Milia’s pale fists clenched like buds in frost; clear tears slid soundless as dew, cherry lips bit down, white teeth ready to crack like porcelain.

Medith let out a breath like smoke. “They were pieces used on a board. A small slip on both sides was stoked into a great wrong.”

“There’s no need to keep the blades singing; both sides have lost enough to fill a sea.” She thought of that “god”—a piece bound by chains in this wretched world. Gods are only people with brighter halos; for her sake, it saved her twice at death’s door, and now it wouldn’t step from the shadows again.

“Then… Commander, what are you going to do? Just let that damned Bloodhand Gang of the Southern Kingdom drift off like dust on the wind?”

“Huh? What? The news didn’t reach you?” Sais frowned, ripples folding across her brow like wind over water.

The Queen shook her head like a slow bell. “Since the Eastern Nation’s 3.24 incident, we cut all contact like slicing a mooring rope. Even the trade lines froze like winter rivers. We followed your teaching to the letter.”

Medith nodded, approval glinting like a knife-edge. In such chaos, the best way is to steer clear of the vortex’s eye. But those trade lines had swallowed people and coin like sand, and the Queen herself had beaten the drums for them. Shutting them for good wasn’t possible; they’d need a long plan like a slow river.

“Your Majesty… do you think the Elf Clan’s hyacinth can regrow?” Nora’s words shot out like arrows from a bow. “It’s condensed from the Elf Clan’s life essence, right? Then is there a chance—”

On this return to the city, Medith had brought part of the Crimson Sunset Guild—Nora, Nira, and Peggy among them—sharp feathers on her wing.

It showed how much Medith prized talent, like a farmer saving good seed. Nora knew it was her chance and tried to glow like fireflies, but her past hung like a shadow; once part of a hunting band, she’d stepped into their ranks. No wonder the Elf Clan bristled like a forest in wind, and even comrades spoke with grit between their teeth.

“Hm?!” At that, everyone straightened, spirit kindling like dry tinder; sorrowful faces caught a sliver of light, like dawn edging a storm cloud.