Both of them turned at once; seeing the very subject of their talk, they froze like deer caught in lantern-light. Medith felt the slip prick her skin, then laughed it off: “It’s fine, I was just strolling past. I don’t know a thing.”

“Gerald, weigh the gains and losses yourself,” the man rasped, his voice like gravel rolling in a dry creek. Scars crisscrossed his stubbled face like old riverbeds; a brown buzz cut sat above a frame built like a cliff.

His darkened visage was carved by fear, and his rock-like fists clenched tight as if bracing for thunder. His gaze slid to Medith’s pale-blue eyes, tangled with doubt and dread. She met him with a warm, springlight smile. He held her eyes for a few heartbeats, sighed like wind leaving a sail, then turned away.

As his lonely figure dwindled down the street like a retreating tide, a string in Medith’s chest was plucked and went still. That bowed back overlapped with her own shadow—the day Sais refused her plea, and she fought on alone like a lone willow in a storm.

“Sorry, Medith. That was ugly,” Gerald said with a bitter curl of his mouth, clouds breaking but not gone. Medith read the room and shut her lips like a sheath closing over steel; she didn’t pry, only stressed again she hadn’t heard a thing.

Thinking of that solitary back, Medith’s playful smile iced over like frost on dawn grass. Her expression steeled, bright as a blade catching sun. “Gerald Fortress Lord, we only met recently, but our bond feels iron and oak.

“At least that’s how I see it. If there’s trouble, say it plain. I, Medith, dare and I bear. I don’t fear any threat or challenge.”

Gerald chuckled; the shadow on his brow thinned like fog under morning light. “Medith, I knew I wasn’t wrong about you…

“But this really isn’t your concern. Just a small rift between old friends. Go play, enjoy. On behalf of the [Radiant Knights], I announce you as our ally.”

Medith’s face bloomed like a garden after rain, and a warm current slid through her chest. With people like Gerald alive, even if the world is night, we can walk hand in hand into that night and not lose our flame.

“Gerald, no matter what, you’ll be one of the few I respect all my life,” Medith said, voice firm as hammered steel. “With me here, anyone who touches you stands against me—be it lion, giant beast, or even a white dragon.” Gerald nodded with a grin, his old hearty air returning like a campfire relit, and he walked shoulder to shoulder with Medith.

…

“What do you think Paris wants?” Medith relayed the overheard words to the group, her thoughts fanning out like maps on a table. From the nearby intel and details, the Eastern Nation mobilizing looked set in stone.

Milia twirled her hair ends, worry knitting her brows like stormcloud threads. “Did they catch our trail and send troops to cage us?

“But that doesn’t add up… Paris laid a banquet as a trap, then tears off the mask right after. That’s just plain foolish.”

Iling nodded. “Yeah. It contradicts itself. If he needed a pretext to strike Medith, he wouldn’t rip the veil now. If he never feared ripping the veil, why stage a grand banquet before his ministers?”

Arms folded, Medith fell into thought, her gaze deep as a well. After five slow minutes, she spoke, grave as winter: “Maybe, a sudden variable—a shard that won’t let him keep waiting.”

“A variable… could it be the report you sent about Robert’s death and the [Lamenting Blade] results?” Milia’s thoughts linked like beads on a string.

Medith shook her head, the motion light as wind through reeds. “That’s a catalyst, not the core. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something that makes Paris panic from the marrow out.

“Either way, we’re not at that cliff yet. Steel meets steel, and floods meet earth. If he wants war, I won’t flinch. He’s not strong enough to blot out the sky with one hand.” Her confidence rose like a banner in a gale, and the others’ worry thinned like mist at sunrise.

“I fear he’ll go after the old witch…” Sais blurted, her words dropping like cold rain. The women drew sharp breaths; it was obvious who she meant. With Crimson Sun officers pulled away, an elite assault would be ruinous if it hit unguarded.

“Don’t worry,” Medith said, firm as a bulwark. “The Queen herself hits like a storm. We have the Elders of Eterkles and tens of thousands of trained Sprite Dusk Legion. After a year of campaigns, our clan’s power has swelled like a river in flood. Unless Paris sends a hundred thousand elites, he won’t take Xurenks.”

That wasn’t just comfort. Xurenxus City was still tuning two Fleshgrinder Chariots. More than ten Blackblood War Chariots, carved with sigils and handled by Wind Sprites, waited like crouching beasts. Elite repeating crossbows and multiple battering rams stood ready like a forest of thorns.

Meanwhile, the trade line the Queen built with coin and blood finally opened. It’s only been days, but with Medith’s own halo of renown and the Wind Sprite rumor wind, nobles will flock within a month like migratory birds.

With elite units of the [Dike Guard] beyond Paris’s leash, calling us the continent’s fifth nation isn’t a stretch; it’s a sunrise on the map.

“Still, we shouldn’t linger here,” Medith said, her tone cutting clean as a knife. “Eyes shadow our every move, and this northbound road will be rough as a mountain pass. I’ll send our counterplan to the Queen by carrier pigeon. Everyone, bring your full focus. Robert was the first, not the last.”

“Yes.”