“Hahaha—you're saying Alice could be my fiancée? That true?” Lance—Fulin behind the mask—let disbelief drift like cold mist.

Lawrence’s smile iced over like a pond in wind. “Mm... I swear the Duke will grant you a reward no less than that.”

Anyone with half a thought knew the Iron Duke would never hand Alice to Lance, a mountain that won’t budge for wishful wind.

“I figured,” Lance said, shaking his head, a sigh falling like ash from a brazier.

He looked dejected, yet Fulin’s chest loosened like a knotted rope cut clean. Alice meant trouble on trouble, a net of duties tugging at every limb.

It wasn’t just a pretty wife; it was inheritance on your back, fealty sworn, lives to shield, and a noble circle to seep into like dye.

And Lance Morrison didn’t have the threads for that tapestry, no matter how he smiled.

More simply, Mubay City’s golden rose wouldn’t be handed to a scoundrel without the crowd spitting thorns, and the Duke’s barons wouldn’t open their ring of stone to a carefree stranger.

Marrying a duke’s daughter wasn’t a garland; it was a web of favors, ledgers, and ink-stained nights, a mill of chores grinding the hours to dust.

In other words, the otherworld’s 9-9-6 grind—nine to nine, six days—waiting like a yoke in the dark.

Fulin had dropped dead by that grind once; to wear that millstone again would be the height of folly.

Only a fool among fools would wed a duke’s pearl; at most, Fulin might play the breeze—ugh, scummy—so marriage was off the table.

Night-trained horses ate the road, hooves drumming like rain, the wagon rolling at a steady clip toward lantern-glow; ten minutes to the camp at most.

Fear first, then words—Lance, Fulin’s voice beneath, changed the subject. “Forget that. How’re we rescuing Alice? Heads-up, I’m not charging first. I like breathing.”

She knew the Lionheart Legion were iron-hearted; they wouldn’t throw Lance to the wolves, but a sloppy plan was a thin-ice bridge over a black river.

To them, fear of death was a campfire joke. Lawrence boomed with laughter, sparks in his tone. “Brothers, look at the lad—he says he’s scared?”

No malice in it; the soldiers in the covered wagon chuckled like low thunder rolling away.

One soldier lifted a hand. “Sergeant, I’m scared too. What do I do?” His eyes slid to the gray-robed mage perched at the wagon’s edge like a crow.

Lawrence caught the look and clapped Lance’s shoulder, palm heavy as a drumbeat. “How about I order our mage to stack extra wards on you?”

Fulin blinked, curiosity rising like steam; it had to be some defense spell, but she knew nothing of this world’s craft, and neither did “Lance.”

Her first magic here had been that red-robed battle-mage in Mubay’s southern outskirts, a comet across a dull sky; as an Arcane Mage herself, she burned to know what mages wielded here.

At least, she’d never heard of “wards.”

“So what’s a warding spell?” Lance asked, straightforward as a blade.

Lawrence paused, then winced. “Uh, that’s my blind spot. Mage Eugene!”

Eugene opened his eyes, annoyance sharp as sleet. “Sergeant, don’t disturb me while I’m using Beast Tracking.”

“They aren’t gearing up for anything ugly, are they?”

“No. Those jackasses are still checking why the gate won’t shut, braying at hinges.”

“Perfect. There’s a head jackass right here. I order you, Mage Eugene—explain wards to him for the coming fight.”

Lawrence’s palm fell on Lance again, weighty as a hammer.

Eugene studied Lance with a lanternless gaze, then spoke in a dry creek-bed voice. “Warding is basic magic. I have Level One Arrow-Swerve and Level Two Blade-Glance.”

“Simply put, Arrow-Swerve bends incoming shafts aside, and Blade-Glance makes blades fail to land. Field mages must carry both like a shield and helm.”

“In ten years I’ve cast wards five hundred times for the Legion. Each time, a man stepped away from a sudden grave.”

He lifted a bony finger at Lance, a thorn pointing from a dead branch. “So with my experience and polish, a simple ward can make your Blazing Sword miss air.”

“Get me, knight?”

The words carried sandpaper, not silk.

“Eugene!” Lawrence snapped, voice like a whip. “Explain wards; don’t bring your academy airs. Remember whose grace shelters hedge mages like you.”

Eugene flinched, anger twitching like a fish on a line; he shot Lance a glare, then swallowed it down.

“In short, wards can keep you alive. I also know Fortitude, but its bite is dull on me,” he said, pride tucked away like a knife under a cloak. “Every mage has his field. Let me use my best wards. May your battle-fortune rise.”

Fulin saw why the gray robe sat awkwardly among soldiers; face mattered to him like armor, and knights were a burr under that robe.

“Master Mage,” Lance asked, curiosity flickering like a moth, “don’t you use attack spells? Like, blast a part of the camp first, then send the boys in?”

Eugene said nothing, and eyes in the wagon turned to Lance as if a deer had asked the moon for wine.

Lance scratched his head, sheepish as a dog in rain. “Isn’t that safer than just wards—blast them stupid, then charge?”

Eugene let out a breath that sounded like a laugh sharpened on bone. “Knight, attack magic is dangerous and costly, and the Mage Association watches it like hawks.”

“In the Doran Kingdom’s forty thousand mages, fewer than two thousand choose that trouble. Any competent novice has ways to keep himself safe.”

He pointed behind Lance, and the sheathed longsword leapt like a fish from water, rising on unseen currents.

Every eye widened; the hovering blade drifted down to Eugene’s hand like a leaf to a pond.

“For instance, disarm a knight, or kill him with his own steel.” He returned the sword, words smooth as oil. “Or use tricks you’d call parlor games.”

The sword thumped into Lance’s hand heavier than before, a sudden stone. He almost dropped it to the planks, but his grip held like a clamp.

That refusal broke Eugene’s rhythm; his eyes opened a notch wider, a crack in ice.

He found other examples fast, voice rising like a kettle. “Not that case? Picture this: you charge me down a road.”

“A proper battle-mage turns the earth to mud, your feet vanish, you hit hard, and then I cast Levitation.”

“With your legs hunting ground like rootless reeds, however strong you are, a knight who can’t stand is a boar on its back.”

Fulin had to admit, the picture was vivid, a warning bell like Layne’s old words: without a mage at your side, don’t tangle with a mage.

Even so, Eugene’s edge at Lance felt too sharp, like a blade honed past reason. Maybe it was for knights as a whole.

“Enough!” Lawrence’s voice cracked like lightning across dry sky. “Eugene, throw those moth-eaten tricks away.”

“This is the Iron Duke’s land. With poor luck, you’ll see the front. Try your ‘specialties’ on Dark Spirit warriors or vampire mages. I bet you only bully the goblins under them.”

Eugene’s first flare of anger wilted like frost-bitten grass; even his breath seemed to cool.

“Vampire mage... a snap-cast Fireburst...” He shivered once. “Apologies, Sergeant Lawrence. Let me cool my head.”

“Good. We’re on mission. If you pull that antique act and make this lad botch it, the Duke’s lash lands on you. Clear?”

“Clear!”

Fulin understood now: either pride or the mage’s habit of looking down at knights had pushed Eugene to peacock his feathers, trying to clip Lance’s.

Narrow hearts are common as pebbles on a road; show off, and they’ll bruise your heel.

The wagon slowed and stopped, the night air settling like a damp cloak.

The driver called back, breath smoking like a kettle. “Sergeant, I can see the campfires ahead.”

By lantern’s small sun, Lawrence checked the terrain map, then looked to Eugene. “What’s it like inside?”

Face may matter, but work steadied Eugene like a stone in a stream. He opened his eyes and spoke coolly. “Trouble. They’re getting ready to burn the other hostages—everyone but Alice’s group.”

Lawrence’s jaw clenched like a trap. “Mage, report.”

Eugene kept it tight. “In the last hour, the mercs tied a dozen men together on the open ground and piled wood around them.”

“The axe-man—looks like their boss—holds a torch high, strutting. A few underlings sprinkle pine resin over the stacks.”

“Give them a little more time, and the torch drops. The bonfire starts whenever they choose.”

“Animals,” Lawrence growled, a fist thudding the bench like a mallet that almost split wood.

They’d moved like a storm. The Duke got word after nightfall; half an hour later, Lawrence ran hard, the road a black ribbon under hooves.

If not for horses needing breath, there’d have been no village pause, no lantern-lit rest.

Two hours past nightfall, and the enemy already hurried to feed fire with lives.

Why break the script? Everyone knew without speaking; they wouldn’t blame the Iron Duke, nor the young man only doing what he could.

There was no time for blame—only action to cut a rope before flames took it.

“Everyone off,” Lawrence ordered, voice a bell. “As planned, split and form up.”

Two dozen soldiers flowed into infantry and archers, lines straight as spear shafts before the wagons.

“Good,” the sergeant said, satisfied as a craftsman. “Men, wait for my word.”

“And you, recruit!” Lance—Fulin in his skin—startled like a cat pricked by cold, then stepped up.

“Since you’re Layne’s student, I’m handing you a special, critical task,” Lawrence said, words falling like seals on wax. “Don’t let us down.”

Fulin’s breath snagged in her chest like cloth on a nail.

But Lance asked by the book, voice steady as a drawn line. “Sir, what’s the task?”

“I want you to rescue Alice,” Lawrence said, clearing his throat, the order sharp as steel. “Mage Eugene goes with you. I’ll hold the enemy with the rest. Understood?”