“Medith... why would she come? With her cunning and keen sight, she can't possibly miss the truth.” Unease pooled in Haidra, moonlight caught in her eyes. She watched stars like scattered salt over a dark lake. Her face, petal-soft, showed worry carved deep. She'd owed Medith too much already, a debt her strength couldn't repay.

Talant, seeing the one she’d long hoped for, wasn’t as thrilled as she'd imagined. Yet admiration rose like a warm tide. Medith’s beauty stole breath, a blade wrapped in silk. Her five-foot-seven frame carried not only countless lives. It carried the dignity of their people, the pride of women. Talant had fought up the mountain, believing the heights were only cold.

We’d been blind to how strength arrives like thunder behind clouds. Medith isn’t coming by choice; she’s forced by the path. From the moment Paris sent that invitation, only one road remained. She weighed gain and loss like scales at dawn. She chose risk, set life and death aside, to shield those standing behind her.

And yes—strictly speaking, she already died once for strangers in Sia City. How could she abandon her own kin now?

For the first time, I felt Paris’s worry, sharp as sand in the eye. No exaggeration: this storm’s duel isn’t us, nor the Eastern Nation. It’s the two of them. From the first move, this board crowned a king. We’re nothing but pieces that orbit the king.

Paris knows it, so he stalled us every way he could, buying a day. He feared we’d reach Medith. And in that delay, his shadow, Velledo, has surely tried to ensnare her, hasn’t she?

“What if... Medith gives her word?” Haidra’s worry seeped like cold rain. Talant smiled, soft as spring, “Who she is—you know better than I do.”

Haidra blinked, then shook her head with a helpless, bitter smile. Care can tangle the mind. Lately, loyalty and grief have crashed like waves, leaving her thoughts fogged. Elyu’s death—its “truth”—stabbed dull and deep. Paris’s moves chilled her bones with fear.

She keeps asking herself: turn the blade toward her own king, or obey his will and become his loyal spear?

She doesn’t know—she truly doesn’t. If that day comes, will she still drive her belief clean through and fight to guard Eunomia?

A king and Eunomia—shouldn’t they be entwined, equal as root and trunk?

Then... thirty-five years ago, Manto and the others, branded rebels by Ostos—what did they fight for? For Eunomia, or for Osnath? Is the truth really as Ostos claims, loyalty blinding them into mistake after mistake?

Or is defending one’s king not a sin at all? Who gets to judge Osnath’s right and wrong?

At that thought, Haidra shivered; gooseflesh sprang like frost and wouldn’t fade for a long while.

“Haidra, don’t spiral. You’re not Erig and the rest. You fight for Eunomia. They fight for the ‘fool-king.’ There’s a gulf between them—don’t blur it.” Reading her heart, Talant clasped her hand tight, steadying her.

Haidra nodded, but anxiety jittered in her chest. “Am I really... different from them?”

...

Medith reached the tower without trouble. Just as she’d guessed, it was abandoned. Thick vines cinched it like ropes around a giant. Inside, dust rose in slow swirls. Moonlight poured down, lighting a field of ruin. The drifting motes turned dreamlike, like snow in a lantern.

“We didn’t misjudge you.”

“Of course. General Medith stands righteous, a war-god among generals. How could Paris’s filthy, heartless ploys fool her?”

“We of the [Blood Covenant] will restore the truth. We’ll clear the people, and clear Ostos’s name. For that, we beg General Medith’s aid. May Eunomia stay evergreen.”

Medith stared, shocked, at nearly twenty nobles in robes of every hue. Each wore the gleaming Sixpetal Rose without exception. Her blood flared to a boil. Hope sparked in her eyes, bright as dawn...