Aug 13, outskirts of the Southern Kingdom...

A steel tower loomed like a cold spear, over twenty meters tall. Its skin wore black heavy armor, a carapace that dared no one to touch it. Narrow slits bit into its sides. Almost a hundred archers kept watch in those windows, like crows on a cliff.

Beneath the tower, a black-steel gate squatted like an ancient behemoth, crushing any thought of assault. Behind the tower ran a belt of plain concrete walls, dull and gray as dried clay. Past that ring lay the Southern Kingdom’s first city, a stone heart beating behind a shell.

Because of its special purpose, the tower choked every artery in and out. Its dusk-black silhouette earned it a name among the people: the Dusk Pillar.

After Medith smashed the border line in a lightning raid, the city’s heart fluttered like a panicked flock. Luckily, Medith didn’t press her advantage; she stripped gear and coin to mend her losses. The panic got reined in like a runaway horse.

Medith played it shrewd. One more step, and the Southern Kingdom could strike under the banner of “territorial violation.” If she tortured prisoners, they’d have righteous cause, a blade with law’s sheen.

But she did nothing more. She killed Andrew, then withdrew clean as a knife’s pull, not a drop wasted. She pinched the Southern lords by the throat; they couldn’t advance, couldn’t retreat, a noose tightening with each breath.

Set Medith aside, where would they put their face after a defeat this big? The Emperor executed the lords who “failed to coordinate,” and the uproar sank for a moment like a stone in water. Even so, the people and some lords had begun to stir, like grass in a rising wind.

Since the year Ostos led a storming force into the capital and slaughtered fifty thousand troops, the Southern Kingdom had been cowed like a hound in thunder. They dared not eye the Eastern Nation’s strife to loot a fire. In the thirty-eight years since, this was their first defeat.

Punish Medith? The Emperor himself spoke: in this matter, she held the right. Andrew struck first. As Medith said, pull one thread and the whole tapestry shifts; touch her, and every seam could strain.

If by one misstep, hitting Medith stirred the continent’s wrath and drew aid from the Eastern Nation, the Northern Kingdom, and the entire Sprite race, it’d be a loss dressed as profit. Not to mention Medith’s unfathomable strength and a mind that missed no move, a chessmaster on the continent.

Weighing blade and balance, the Emperor chose to endure for now. He didn’t let her walk free, though. He dispatched a Tsunami-tier Magic Breaker general to hunt Medith and deliver a punitive war, sharp as a warning slap.

This move steadied the lords like wedges under a tilting cart. As long as Medith got punished without their hands getting dirty, they were content.

...

Far to the north, Medith had no idea she’d become the Southern Kingdom’s eye-thorn and flesh-splinter. Her party hurried in fits and starts, boots drumming a road that unspooled toward the north.

Medith raised her right hand to shade the stabbing sun. She looked up into an azure spread and felt ease pour through her like cool tea. A butterfly drifted across the sky, a petal on wind. She watched it float into the distance, smiled in quiet understanding, and stepped north again.

Aug 20. That butterfly crossed the sea, west to deep east, a small sail over a blue plain. As it skimmed the palace peak, it flicked its wings and burst into a cloud of motes, a dream shedding to dust. For a breath, everything felt like illusion.

Thump—thump. On the palace rooftop, Paris felt a nameless tremor of dread; his heart kicked hard, a drum in a storm. A hawk dove out of the heavens and clamped the balustrade with iron talons.

Paris frowned in confusion, a ripple before thought. He hadn’t released it; how had it gotten out? And it carried a scroll rolled tight like a sealed secret.

His fingers trembled; emotion surged first, motion followed. He tugged the scroll open, and a shock ran through him; his golden eyes bleached to stark white, like frost over fire.

When the scroll unfurled fully, his fingers kept shaking. His whole body convulsed, as if lightning had speared him from cloud to spine. He stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide, unable to move, a statue struck mid-breath.