The King of Hedon jolted up as if a spring snapped beneath him. “Is that true?”

“Your Majesty, as true as iron in winter. Towns near Mida Village are abuzz like a stirred beehive. A woman infected with the Ghost-Spike plague is selling dragon meat and dragon bone by the gate, and your servant saw clear as daylight the seller was our Princess. Beside her stood a woman who is the very image of the Grand Princess of the Marl Kingdom.”

“...”

What kind of mess is this?

Their Princess of Hedon, peddling dragon meat in a border town like a hawker under a willow?

And the neighboring kingdom’s Grand Princess at her side like a shadow in snow?

The tale sounded like smoke on water, too flimsy to grasp.

The King of Hedon doubted the report like a man tasting sand for salt.

Until more border officers came one after another, like crows gathering before a storm, all telling the same tale.

Yes.

Only then did the old king, heavy as a millstone in the rain, face the truth he least wished to see.

He had never imagined that the lunatic who stormed Marl’s capital arena and snatched their Grand Princess was his own daughter, blood of his blood, like a blade turned inward.

When he first heard it, he refused it like a gate barring floodwater.

He could refuse everything but reality.

Dammit. Isn’t this the sort of pit a father gets pushed into by fate?

“Do they know in the Marl Kingdom?”

He stroked the bristle at his chin like raking dry grass, a headache thudding like drums.

“I fear it’s only a matter of days, Your Majesty,” the officer said, honest as a bare branch.

“...”

Troubles rise like a north wind.

If the king of Marl learns his precious daughter was tied up by mine, won’t he gallop here like thunder for blood?

He pictured war with Marl, a forge of iron and smoke, and pain bloomed behind his eyes like a lightning flare.

“Go. Find a few steady men. Ride to Mida Village. Tell my wayward, fever-bright daughter to send the Grand Princess of Marl back.”

He sighed like snow falling on pines and gave the order, voice low as dusk.

Ghost God stirs, plague runs like wildfire in dry reeds. If war starts, no one knows when the blade will be sheathed, and only our people will bleed like rain.

Unless forced, he had no wish to trade harvest for ashes.

But barely had the ink dried on the report when the hawks in the palace—those who dream of conquering Marl and uniting the continent—started swarming like crows on carrion.

For days they filed in, night after night, tongues sharp as knives.

They urged the King of Hedon to seize the hour and strike Marl while the iron rang.

Most diligent among them was the chief minister, Giges. He came almost daily, a relentless tide against rock, and his arguments were tight as drumheads, hard to swat away.

“My king, this is a once-in-a-century opening, a door blown wide by fate. The barbarians of Marl have two princesses undone—one captured by our Princess, the other vanished like a deer into fog. If we extort them first, then raise our banners, we’ll fight with the wind at our backs.”

“Think, Your Majesty. It’s the Grand Princess of Marl—peerless in arms, a general in rank. Those iron-blooded barbarians won’t stomach leaving such a jewel in Hedon’s coffer.”

“Our lands are riddled with plague like wormwood in wheat. The people shiver under the shadow of a Ghost God returning. If that specter steps back into the world, and Marl strikes while we’re bent, we’ll face wolves in front and a cliff behind.”

“Turn it around, though—if we march first, we can unify the continent and steady the hearts of the people. When the Ghost God rises, we can face it with our back clear, blades free of dread.”

“A plan so whole it gleams, Your Majesty! What are we waiting for?”

Giges kept saying “the barbarians, the barbarians,” like a woodpecker hammering one tree, and the king’s temples throbbed like a storm tide.

Giges wasn’t wrong, not in the way grain isn’t chaff. What dragged at the king was this: if the two kingdoms clash, won’t the Ghost God’s Four Heavenly Kings, hidden like vipers in grass, swallow the profit?

This is a time of knives in shadow. The enemy in front isn’t the only one with teeth.

Hedon must guard against more than Marl’s steel. We must also watch the hands of the Ghost God’s servants, who move in candlelight like moths.

“Enough. You needn’t say more. I’ve decided. Unless we’re pressed to the wall, Hedon will not march on Marl.”

No matter how hard the hawks pressed, the King of Hedon sat like a stone lantern in wind, steady and unlit by fury.

Marl was not the chief thorn in the foot. The Ghost God, set to revive inside Hedon’s own borders, was the thorn near the heart.

“Giges, withdraw. Don’t bring this up again. Our first duty is curing the Ghost-Spike plague. As for Marl, we’ll speak again after we send their princess back.”

“But, Your Majesty—”

Giges rose, words poised like arrows, but the king waved a slow hand like lowering a curtain.

With no other road open, Giges bowed with all the rites of court, then turned and left the palace like a man walking in sleet.

To him, this was a golden hour to strike Marl, bright as sunrise on steel, yet his king chose shadow—valuing a rumored Ghost God over a tangible foe.

That Ghost God is a fireside legend. Who knows if it will revive? And if it does, will it match the tales, or prove smoke and mirror?

His sovereign, in Giges’s eyes, was wrestling air and calling it fate.

Isn’t that muddle-headed?

On the road home, the more he thought, the more sour the taste in his mouth, like biting into green persimmon.

Someone—easily, in truth—had captured the enemy’s Grand Princess, and the king just let the fish slip like water through fingers.

As a subject, Giges felt a lump in his chest like a stone that wouldn’t shift.

No. He wouldn’t let this ebb away like tide on flat sand. Even if the king forbade it, he’d try once more.

He’d heard the Marl Grand Princess was taken by the king’s own daughter, the Princess banished to the border—a twist like frost on spring buds, and it surprised him.

The one called the Sugar Princess in the capital—soft-spoken, kind as a warm lamp—had iron under silk, it seemed.

But since she’d seized Marl’s princess, she clearly didn’t want Marl to sleep easy. A door stood ajar.

He should go and speak with her, mouth to mouth, like merchants haggling at dawn.

Turning this over, Giges decided the path might open. He hurried home, ordered a carriage like a whip crack, and rushed for Mida Village on Hedon’s border.

...

Far off on the frontier, Nana Toki had slipped back into a few quiet days after slaying the Giant Dragon, like a hunter by a calm fire.

Her routine was simple and solid as bread. At first light, she had Ling’er Long drag the dragon’s carcass like a mountain behind a plow to the next town to sell dragon meat and dragon bone by the gate. Then she returned at sunset, when the sky bled red like a sliced pomegranate.

The days were full as a granary and the coin pouch fat as a winter cat.

As for the negotiators sent from Hedon’s capital by royal order, Nana Toki ignored them like flies on a window.

Because.

These geniuses actually told her to return Ling’er Long?

Dream on.

If they’d asked her to send Ling’er Long back together with Jade Ring Long, she might’ve nodded like a willow in breeze. But Jade Ring Long had slipped out days ago, following Lorin from Mida Village toward the capital like a moon trailing a cloud.

By the time Nana Toki and Ling’er Long realized and went looking, Jade Ring Long had been gone two days, footprints already washed by dew. How could they catch up?

So.

For days now, she had to deal with one or two batches of Hedon envoys daily, like waves that never tire of breaking.

They were driving her up the wall like ants under a robe.

“I’ve said it a hundred times. What I hauled back is mine. If you want her back, bring someone with hands and try tying her up yourselves.”

Lounging in her chair at home, Nana Toki crossed one leg over the other like a queen on a rooftop, her expression cocky enough to beg a slap.

Friggin’ hell, these geniuses kept coming. Didn’t they get tired like oxen in summer?

Had she known she’d be snatching a princess, she would’ve masked up and forged a name, like a fox wearing moonlight.

Then these geniuses wouldn’t be knocking on her door like woodpeckers.

“Still standing here? Do I have to invite you out?”

She glared, knives in her eyes, at the Hedon officials she’d beaten black-and-blue until their faces were ripe peaches.

They hunched their necks like turtles in frost, faces full of grievance as if she’d plucked their feathers.

“Your Highness... please don’t make it hard for us. We can’t beat you.”

They’d come for days and taken dozens of beatings, like drums in a festival that never ends. Light blows they could bear. But Nana Toki didn’t do gentle; she hit like a hailstorm, always where clothes didn’t shield.

Especially the face—her methods were cruel as winter wind. It didn’t hurt much, oddly, but the swelling rose like steamed buns.

They were almost scared of her shadow.

Wasn’t the Princess supposed to be gentle and generous, kind and approachable, a beauty like spring water?

How did she turn into a storm with fists?

“If you can’t beat me, go find someone who can. Coming every day just to get smacked—are you masochists?”

“Keep this up and I’ll start charging like a roadside stall.”

The Hedon officials: “...”

Was the Princess possessed by a ghost?

Her temper had grown spicier than chili in oil.

“I’m telling you, you’ve hit today’s challenge cap. If you want another beating, come back tomorrow. My energy’s not a river without end.”

System: “...” Are you running an online game now, with daily caps?

“The exit’s right there. Get out. You’ve almost nagged me to death these days.”

Nana Toki lifted her teacup and drank like a cat at a saucer. “If you weren’t Hedon’s own, I’d have thrashed you senseless long ago, you geniuses.”

She pointed at the door, a silent broom sweeping guests away, and didn’t spare their wounded-puppy faces a glance.

She couldn’t fathom what the king in the capital was thinking. She had tied up another kingdom’s princess, and his first thought was to send the hostage back, not lock her up as a bargaining chip, iron before war.

What in the world was rattling around in that royal skull?

Thinking about the coming days, a parade of pests at her door like cicadas in heat, Nana Toki’s temper flared like dry tinder.

These geniuses needed a lesson carved into bone.