“Easy. Leave it to me,” Lance said, clean as a blade catching morning sun.

Then the weight hit him like a sack of stones; it was Layne’s half-year pay. He added, voice steady, “Mentor, this staff’s precious. I’ll be on the road for a long stretch, and roads breed accidents like nettles. Aren’t you afraid I’ll lose it, or sell it?”

Layne answered with calm like still water. “Unless you’re forced, you wouldn’t. If you ever are, I won’t blame you.” He pressed a fist to his chest like a knight’s drumbeat. “I’ll blame myself, or the Iron Duke. If we were stronger, a talent like you wouldn’t be driven to the ends of the earth.”

So this is the new-age knighthood, Fulin thought, a spine like an iron bar; but why did the air sink like a rain-heavy sky again?

Lance eased the mood like a hand smoothing a crease. “Don’t worry. I’ll tread carefully. I’m a Flame of Chaos knight. You don’t need to fret.”

While they spoke, dawn ripened like milk poured over the horizon. The hour of exile approached like a bell.

Fulin, playing Lance, left the ducal keep with Layne, step by step like pebbles counted on a stream bank.

“Not saying goodbye to Alice?” Layne suddenly remembered, then caught himself like a door snapping shut. “Oh, right. You’re sentenced to exile in name. As a cast-out, you can’t meet a noble duke’s daughter.”

“Yeah. That’s how it is,” Lance said, voice flat as a calm lake. “If we need to meet, there’ll be a dozen ways later.”

Layne laughed, rough as gravel. “Hahaha—kid, you’re bold. But listen,” he paused, words weighty as a mailed glove, “the city around Golden Bay City has turned restless too. Same as us in Mubay City—rumors of vampires. Be careful.”

“Got it.” Fulin, still wearing Lance’s face, tucked the intel away like a knife in a boot.

By late morning, the exile was ready to be read like a verdict carved in stone.

Mubay City’s square should’ve been empty after last night’s riot. But the duke’s summons rolled through the streets like a drumbeat, and doors swung open like leaves. People flooded the plaza, a tide of bodies, noise boiling like a kettle.

They saw the Iron Duke and Alice whole and breathing on the platform. Hearts fell back into chests like birds to roost.

“We’ve shattered the Shadowspirit Legion’s wicked plot once again! But this victory wasn’t won cheap—” When Lance arrived, the Iron Duke’s voice cut the air like a trumpet.

He spoke of a sly enemy, a snake already in the grass. He spoke of himself and Alice nearly dying, of knights fighting like torches in a storm and burning out. He named trials ahead like thorns on a path. He called the people to bind together, and he promised aid to the fallen like bread to the hungry.

A bleak report turned bright in his mouth, a forge bellows stoking cold iron to glow.

“Whoa!” The citizens erupted, cheers lifting like a flock into the sky.

“But sadly, this secret incursion by the Shadowspirit Legion had a traitor threading the needle behind it!”

People had expected this, like thunder after lightning. Survivors had whispered the tale: one child of the Golden Eagle Legion’s commander had defected, and danger followed like wolves on a scent.

Hearing that, most assumed the traitor was Lance. They pictured a punk going mad when he learned his brother would wed Alice, and so he ran to the dark like a moth to a torch.

That’s what they thought.

But when they saw the body tied to the stake wasn’t Lance, but Duncan, disbelief hit like cold water.

“This has to be wrong!” someone shouted, a crack in the crowd’s wall.

Then they saw the marks crawling black across Duncan’s skin, not tattoos but the brand of corruption a Night Disciple bears, like rot in wood. Shock gave way to rage, and rage flared like oil.

“Damn traitor!”

“Go to hell, beast!”

“Burn that filthy corpse!”

Voices flew like stones. Stones flew like curses. Filth arced through the air and splattered the ruined body like mud on a fallen banner.

When the first volley spent itself, soldiers stepped in like clockwork. They piled oil-soaked kindling and touched it with fire. The corpse belched black smoke that spread over the square like a low storm. Priests began to chant, prayer a bright thread through gloom. Holy light washed up and broke the cloud like sun after rain, and the curse-dark haze thinned to nothing.

Some citizens trembled like hares. More clapped and capered, taking death as a show, muddling through chaos like drunkards dancing.

Fulin had thought she was seasoned—so many medieval burnings on screen, endless battles in Legend of Dawn. She thought her eyes were calloused like old leather. But standing here, breath choked by heat and ash, the scene felt savage and unreal, like a dream pierced by a spear.

Still, bitter humor bubbled up like a hiccup. Burning human smells like roast meat, she thought; not a bad aroma. Hah… and then a sigh like smoke.

Joy didn’t stick, because after Duncan, it was her turn—Lance’s turn.

“Duncan, fallen into a Night Disciple, had a younger brother—Lance Morrison!” the duke’s voice cracked like a whip.

By the time heads turned, soldiers had already brought Lance to the foot of the platform, his shadow long as a gallows rope.

Seeing all eyes on Lance, the Iron Duke read the crime, words cool as steel. “Lance Morrison fought bravely with our knights last night. But as the brother of a Night Disciple, he failed to watch his elder when his father marched to the front. That failure helped bring Duncan’s fall. I declare Lance Morrison guilty as well.”

This time the crowd didn’t gasp; they smirked. Schadenfreude spread like frost. Few felt sympathy for Lance; many thought he should’ve died yesterday.

“Right! Good call!”

“Told you—he should’ve died long ago!”

“The fire’s still hot—toss him in and be done!”

Fulin felt a chill, a wrong note like a cracked bell. Wasn’t this supposed to be exile? She lifted Lance’s eyes to the platform. Thankfully, the duke and his circle traded looks like thrown knives—they hadn’t expected Lance’s reputation to be this rotten.

The duke hurried to the sentence, words marching like a file of soldiers. “Lance Morrison is guilty, but not to death. He is Commander Malte’s only remaining child, and he earned merit last night.”

“I, the Twenty-third Iron Duke, Wood Murphy, strip him of citizen standing and all rights. I sentence Lance Morrison to exile from the domain. Execution of sentence, now.”

A hissing wave rolled through the crowd, thin as wind through reeds.

The punishment felt too light, and disappointment settled like dust. Under the Iron Duke’s gaze, no one dared snarl. So they swallowed it like bitter tea, stared at the lucky wretch, and cursed him a thousand times in their hearts to roast in hell.

Soldiers “escorted” Lance, shields up like shells. Without them, the crowd’s fury would’ve broken over him like surf.

So Lance walked under guard, step by step toward the city gate, as if walking a narrow ridge above a canyon.

Fulin, wearing Lance’s face, looked up at the grand gate like a cliff’s mouth. A month ago, she’d slipped out in the old butler’s carriage, quiet as a mouse. Now she left under spears and eyes, a spectacle like a parade in reverse. Last night she’d been honored at the high table; now she was judged guilty, a prisoner in chains.

Everything was on plan, yet her heart tasted five flavors at once, sweet and sour stirring like a storm in a bowl.

In that muddle, Fulin realized she wasn’t as decisive as she’d pretended. The thought sighed through her like a wind through bamboo.

Lance—Fulin’s Lance—left Mubay City without a word, like a shadow slipping off a wall.

She hadn’t gone far when Alice broke through the soldiers like a spark through straw. “Lance!”

Lance turned. The headstrong young lady who should’ve been all thorns was crying, a spring turned to flood.

“I’m fifteen!” Alice said, voice shaking like a chime. “For now I have to be my father’s good girl. Give me a few years. Give me the magic academy. Wait for me! No matter what you become… when the time comes, I will… Lance!”

Before she could finish, soldiers and maids swept her away like a tide pulling back.

Fulin remembered the rule; the gulf in status was a chasm, a sky trench. Even farewells were forbidden.

But Alice didn’t care, as always brave as a flame—first facing brutal thugs, then declaring herself at the banquet like a banner in wind, and now running out to say goodbye, rank be damned.

Facing that courage, Fulin felt a quick stab of jealousy, a thorn under skin, then she breathed and let it go.

So Lance—Fulin’s Lance—just lifted a hand in a simple wave, light as a falling leaf.

The citizens saw that gesture and smelled scandal like blood in water. They decided the punk had defiled their beloved Miss Alice.

Rage raced through them like prairie fire, a spark becoming a sea of flame. Respect for the duke couldn’t dam it, and the crowd exploded like a bursting dam.

They spat on Lance’s name and hurled every filth and curse, words venomous as snakes. Some swore to kill the brat. Others cursed his exile from the marrow of their souls.

Even so—what of it to Fulin?

He had already walked far. The trees closed around like an ocean of green. He entered the Demon Realm Forest, where the path ahead ran like a ribbon toward Golden Bay City. There, no one knew Fulin. No one knew Lance. It was a blank page, white as winter.

Thinking that, her mood opened like a sky after rain.

Light as the cat-drawn cart beneath her. Swift as the scenery streaming past like a river. They swayed above the ancient sea of trees, and together they turned into wind, blowing free toward the horizon.