Keeping to yourself is hard; even if you don’t seek it, trouble blows in like a stray storm to your door.

Like now—Fulin saw it clear as cold water—Duncan had come to make trouble for Lance.

“What, you only just figured that out?” Lance kept his playboy swagger, a silk smile that refused to yield.

That attitude needled Duncan; he didn’t show it. He pasted on a lacquered grin, a mask smooth as ice.

“Lance, as your elder brother, I first commend you. Stupid and lazy till now—yet at last you’ve decided to reform.”

“That’s just great,” Lance said, a light tap of words, no warmth.

In Fulin’s head: Step through the door, first thing is your dumb mug—what rotten luck. Crawl off, crawl, crawl.

In her last life, she hated this type most: shallow and narrow, playing at mystery. Talk to them, and your precious time trickles away like sand from a broken hourglass.

So Fulin wouldn’t waste breath. Wearing Lance’s face, she slid around Duncan at the center of the hall, a cat stepping through candlelight, and headed for the stairs.

Duncan didn’t mean to let him pass.

“Bob. Bill.”

“Yes.” “Here.”

Two knight-retainers turned the corridor’s corner, one before and one behind. They closed in on Lance, a net tightening in quiet air.

Lance feigned dullness. “Duncan, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Duncan smiled, strolling two lazy steps. He came up to Lance, words dripping honey and poison. “As your brother, I’ve been too merciful. You do get that?”

“I don’t.” Lance spoke cool, but his hand settled on the sword hilt, a calm bird perching on steel.

Fulin meant to strike first. Rude? Maybe. But there were three men. Duncan was a formally recognized knight by the duke. The two were hardened veterans from the Lionheart Legion.

In Fulin’s count, those retainers would inch closer while Duncan drawled on. By the time his speech ended, they’d be within pouncing distance, jaws at the throat.

Lance hadn’t awakened Battle Aura, and his warrior blood sat at the low rung. In raw strength, numbers would crush him. Draw late, and the blade would meet only air and regret.

She didn’t know their exact aim, but her choice firmed like ice: act now.

The Lance she wore moved to seize the first beat.

No one caught the tiny shift. Duncan kept droning, words like gnats buzzing the ear. “Good, I don’t need you to understand, because as your—”

Lance drew his sword.

He stepped and slashed without a blink, a gusting cut that pressed the air forward. The sharp blade bit a retainer’s chest.

Clang!

Hidden chain links snapped under the shirt. From left shoulder to lower right belly, a red seam opened, shocking as a torn banner.

“Lance!!” Duncan’s eyes flared like torches; his teeth grated hard as grit.

His plan had been simple: lock Lance away, wait till Father decided business and marriage, then release him. Sounds brainless, yet it was workable—he’d woven excuses like nets. Lance, a wastrel, always skirting small wrongs till a big one broke; after much weighing, Duncan had moved.

Tonight Lance came home late—perfect timing, a ripe fruit falling into hand.

It should have worked.

Now one retainer slumped against the wall, bleeding. The other, unarmed, dared not rush. Duncan hadn’t foreseen this. He hadn’t expected Lance to strike first, nor that his “useless” brother hid a blade of real skill.

He knew then: that damned brother had fixed his sights on the inheritance and had been preparing. Without that, “the affair” a month ago wouldn’t have failed.

Even so, a thin relief slid through him. The idiot still acted without a second thought. Many servants had seen Lance swing first; don’t blame the elder if his hand turns hard.

“Lance, you’ve finally lost it. I’ll stop you!!”

Duncan tore his sword free and charged, breath hot as iron.

As a trained knight, his mind laid out the arc and drop of the blade. Throat—instant kill. Arm—disable and bleed. Belly—gut and flood the floor red.

Best of all, the fool wore no armor. Duncan could punish and kill him at will, like a hawk raking a bare-backed rabbit.

He still didn’t land the cut.

“Duncan. And Lance.” Malte’s arrival stopped the blood like a hand closing on a drumbeat. “Your little game’s gone too far. I’ll pretend I didn’t see that last moment.”

Malte Morrison’s presence steadied the servants; their scattered eyes settled like leaves after wind.

Malte didn’t address the brothers first. He sent the wounded retainer to the servants’ quarters, ordered the hall cleaned, and told everyone else to return to their posts. In moments, the hall fell quiet, like the storm had passed and left no trace.

Soon, only Malte, Duncan, and Lance remained under the bright candles. Wax wept down the stands; shadows stood like judges against the walls.

Fulin had no interest and no place here. Wearing Lance, she said, “I’m going back to my room.”

She turned and climbed for the mezzanine, steps soft as dusk.

Even before Father, Duncan wouldn’t let it go. He rushed to tattle, voice sharp as a reed.

“Lance, stop! Apologize to Father, now!”

Fulin didn’t feel Lance had done wrong. If even self-defense is forbidden, then the Nordland Continent won’t just turn on the Blood Clan; most humans, even the Celestial Spirits, would have to tiptoe through every day.

So Lance treated Duncan’s howl as wind at the ear. He didn’t look back. He walked for the stairs, steady as a blade sheathing itself.

Duncan, livid, moved to block him. Malte’s voice pulled him short.

“Enough, Duncan.”

“But Father! He cut one of my retainers—Lance struck first!”

It sounded childish, and it soured the commander of the Golden Eagle Legion like iron left in rain.

“Duncan, don’t forget what I said. I won’t say it twice.”

Duncan’s heart sank—a cold stone in deep water. He understood. He held back and went toward the study on the first floor.

The hall left Malte alone. He gazed at the stairs, thoughts drifting like smoke.

“Lance… a good sword, no hesitation—but why…”