“Ha!” Angela slipped aside like a swallow skimming a branch, then drove a bladed hand at Edlyn’s waist.

The Demonic Lord looked surprised and impressed, then pivoted and kicked like a sudden gale, booting her own sister through the snow.

Angela tumbled a few times in the white drift like a loose dumpling, then lifted her head, face scrunched. “Sis, am I not your real sister? Do you have to kick that hard?”

Edlyn blinked, a spring uncoiling in her eyes. “Sorry, it was reflex—my foot just… eh-heh.”

“Ow. My waist.” Angela glared like a cat nursing a fake wound, rubbing a waist that didn’t even hurt, wailing while plotting what to extort.

“Weren’t you going to wander the city? Come on, come on. We’re done training.” Her words fell like a hand tugging a curtain closed.

“Oh-ho.” Angela snickered, sly as a fox with a pilfered grape.

It had been forever since she’d tasted snacks; her eyes curved like crescent moons, her tongue flicked over her lips like dew on a petal.

The purse strings sat in Edlyn’s hand like a clasped snowflake; aside from Uncle Eli, who could draw coin from the Mage Association anytime, Angela’s spending lived under Edlyn’s skies.

“What should we eat first!” Angela trailed behind her, thoughts bobbing like sugared plums, a glint in her eyes like a pair of playful crescents.

“Still, Angela, your warrior gift looks strong. If you don’t like magic, Sis can teach you Battle Aura.” Edlyn’s voice was a blade choosing its path in light.

If she ever returned to the Demon Race with Angela, with Battle Aura forging bone and flesh like tempered steel, the girl might tank a few punches.

“Eh, fine. I really can’t stand talismans anyway. Hey, sis, there’s a barbecue stall—let’s check it out!” Smoke curled from it like little dragons tasting the sky.

Edlyn let Angela tug her forward, but her thoughts flew like startled birds. At the thought of returning to the Demon Race, a headache beat like a drum. A year roaming with the Hero had taught her bitter weather.

Today’s Demon Race isn’t wiped out, but what remains is ash—weak and maimed, no spark to resist.

Except her—Edlyn, a lone blade stuck in snow.

These days, following Eli to eat, drink, and play, she had no idea how to find her old banners buried under dunes.

Thirteen Demon Generals, twenty-four clans, plus eight affiliate races— even without their Demon King, that vast forest once towered over the continent. How could trunks like that vanish in barely two centuries?

Edlyn sighed, breath fading into mist, her mind wavering like a reed in wind.

She’d chased the Hero on a whim, afraid he’d slip away and her cold ember of revenge would die. Now, looking at the forked paths like crossing rivers, leaving him felt unwise.

Not to mention, the Hero had cared for the sisters with steady hands. And if the Succubus condition flared again, where would she find a blood pack, when hunger rises like a black tide?

(Of course, the Demonic Lord clearly doesn’t know about a certain milky-white option, a cloud-white secret.)

Angela? She eyed her sister’s petite frame, then shook her head. Two bites and that sparrow might catch a storm and fly off for good.

Besides, that method can’t bite the same sex; the rule sits rigid as ice lines.

Ugh—why does a Succubus even have gender? How can a being of the Demon Race be chained by vines like that?

The Demonic Lord scrubbed her head in misery, turning lovely silver hair into a chicken nest of feathers.

Angela kept chewing barbecue, smoke curling like lazy serpents, watching her sister’s freak-out with blank pond eyes. “…”

Besides, without Eli’s guidance, she likely couldn’t touch the elements; that door of winds felt closed like a sealed gate.

Training demonic qi would be hundreds of times faster, a flood against a dripping faucet.

But if she had to leak demonic qi to protect herself outside, that black smoke would draw moths and spears. Humans would hunt her to death.

The Demonic Lord rolled her eyes, a moon dim behind clouds, her heart heavy.

Power— in the end it’s still power. To think Pandora, the Demonic Lord, would fret over strength, a tilted crown in storm!

She shook her head and brushed the clutter aside like leaves, then quietly reached for the demonic qi buried deep beneath the earth, roots whispering in the dark.

It was the ritual she must perform whenever she left Eli’s side, a fitting of shadow gloves.

And right now, she stood a hair’s breadth from the next stage, toes on a cliff where dawn thinned the night.

Angela walked on, then felt Edlyn’s aura shift. A repulsive yet familiar cold wave rolled from her body like breath from a cave.

Edlyn halted at the roadside, still as a frost-bitten statue.

Angela’s eyes went hazy, gold flickering like sunrise ripples in her pupils. Edlyn’s aura snapped shut like a book, and Angela’s gaze calmed. She shook her head fast. “Uh—what just happened to me?”

Edlyn opened her eyes. Her right eye was no longer pretty green; it had turned to time-worn gold, like old wheat under autumn sun.

Angela’s mouth fell open, a pebble dropped in a pond. “Sis—sister! Your eye!”