“Six months already…?” Lance drifted back a few steps, hollow as leaves pushed by an autumn wind.

These six months, Fulin kept waiting, a candle guttering in a draft.

She waited for word about Reina. She sent Jeremy to Golden Bay City, then to Maple City, like kites cast into a gray sky. Nothing came back.

It wasn’t surprising. From the Marquis’s tone, the wedding had been hushed like a bell under cloth. Only the high-seated knew the truth—Reina had been married for half a year.

She left without a word, no note, no entrusted message, just a hurried return to Maple City, like a swallow fleeing a storm.

She rushed to meet another man, a stranger Fulin had never seen, a shadow she couldn’t name.

She rushed to wed that man—behind Fulin’s back—behind the mask of Lance that Fulin wore. A secret wedding, quick as snow melting on hot stone.

Back then, Fulin had spent herself to save Reina, scraping the bottom of every barrel, burning every wick.

Saved, Reina ran without a sound to marry a stranger, forgetting that Lance—the one who hauled her from danger—lay close to death, ember-thin.

Reina must love this man, Fulin thought, like a willow bends to water.

By the Marquis’s account, Reina became his wife, and they clung together like bone and sinew, sweet for six months. If nothing had gone awry, her belly might already be rounding like a new moon.

Reina must love her child, she thought, a tenderness deeper than winter earth.

Otherwise Fulin couldn’t explain why Reina had forgotten “him” so completely, as if a name erased from wet ink.

How did it turn into this? Her heart tightened like a knotted rope, chafed and raw.

I only wanted a quiet life. Why does it hurt like cold iron against the ribs?

She had no answer. She tried to find a door out of pain, tapping at walls like a trapped bird.

Maybe Reina didn’t like that man. Maybe her family forced her. Maybe there was a prior betrothal, written long ago like frost script on glass.

In her mind, hypotheses bloomed like paper lanterns, each one able to explain the cause and effect. She could pick one to persuade herself, soothe herself, keep the ache at bay.

But—

Reina must love her child, she thought, and the thought was a brand pressed to skin.

Anger rose. Inside, an ocean of fire heaved, red as a sunset spilling across black water. It bled into Lance. He couldn’t hold the reins on his feelings.

Lance burst with a blaze of Battle Aura. The uncontrolled flame turned inward, a wildfire eating its own roots.

“Ah—ah!” His cry tore out, ragged as fabric caught on brambles.

His clothes caught fire. His skin blistered, then sloughed like bark after lightning. Wounds charred to black. If the flame didn’t stop, he’d burn himself to ash.

“Hiss!” The big cat roared, a streak from the shadows like a bolt from black clouds.

It triggered a thick baleful shroud, purplish-brown like bruised twilight—a Battle Aura that spread like suppressant foam from a fire canister.

It coated Lance head to toe, smothering the Flame of Chaos, starving it of breath.

Lance lay there, breath thin as a thread. Scholar Freming sighed, a reed shaken by wind. “The Flame of Chaos… a fire that brings calamity, huh,” he murmured.

Minutes passed. The Marquis’s private mage finished his work. Lance looked whole again, as if the blaze had been a bad dream fading at dawn.

He bowed slightly, a reed bent by rain. “Sorry. I lost my composure.”

“Not at all,” the Feng Wolf Marquis said, eyes downcast like a rooster in dirt—until a household knight grabbed his collar, knuckles white.

“You idiot!” the knight roared, a storm breaking over stone. “Are you even a noble? Don’t you know a scene when you’re in one?”

“It’s because your whole Feng Wolf line is full of screw-ups like you! Even an ancestral blaze can gutter and die!”

“If Lord Lance takes offense and won’t help us, what’s your plan? How will you answer to our house for a decline five centuries deep?”

The Marquis couldn’t lift his head; shame pressed him down like snow on a bowed branch.

“Rest easy. I said I’d help you,” Lance replied, steady as a sword laid across the lap. “I won’t go back on my word.”

But—“Reina’s matter is… regrettable.” His voice trembled like a plucked string. “I’ll need time to accept it.”

He shook, body and voice, and to the others he looked a young knight struck hard, a tree hit by sudden frost.

His companions felt it like a cold entering the bones. Jeremy’s face was shocked, but not surprised; as if he’d counted down to this storm.

“Figures,” Jeremy said, bitter as smoke. “Women are faithless bastards.”

Yuna didn’t fully agree; she was disappointed in Reina, the way a worthy rival quits the field before the drums. Her tone turned cool as winter porcelain. “Pitiful woman. She tossed aside a knight’s honor and chose to be a noble’s plaything.”

Jeremy and Yuna never got along. He already looked down on women. He struck where it hurt. “And what right do you have to judge, woman? Weren’t you ‘a plaything’ once?”

Yuna had never thought much of Jeremy. Mercenaries were dogs to her, all teeth and flea-bitten. She pushed up her rimless glasses, voice cruel as ice. “Mercenary, you don’t know our master’s mercy. You don’t understand our master’s greatness.”

“You’re here for the 1.2 gold coins a month. You follow him for money, don’t you?”

“What did you say?!” Jeremy’s temper flared, sparks on dry straw.

“Money-grubbing mercenary,” Yuna shot back, a needle glittering in lamplight.

Gunpowder filled the air. The scene teetered, ready to crack like ice underfoot.

“Enough,” Lance cut in, his command a bell stopping a riot. “I order you both—stop arguing.”

“Tch.” Jeremy turned away, jaw tight.

“Yes, Master.” Yuna stepped closer to Lance, her shadow joining his like two strands braided.

Seeing them still at odds, Lance tried for peace, voice soft as rain on a tiled roof. “Don’t be like this. Reina might have her own hardships…”

He didn’t get far. His body shook again, unbidden, like a kite pulled by gusts. “And she must love her child,” he said, the ache a dull knife.

“Boss…” Jeremy lowered his head and laid his hand on Lance’s shoulder, solid as a post, saying without words that he’d bear weight with him.

“Master, I…” Yuna forgot her usual form. She wrapped Lance gently, a shawl around a winter-chilled statue, hoping he’d find a bit of warmth.

…

Minutes later, Lance’s emotions finally settled, embers banked under ash.

Calm, he carried a thin current of sorrow, a river under ice. He shed his usual decisiveness and stubborn angle, and sat by the window, letting the cold wind stab like needles.

Yuna pushed up her rimless glasses and asked, voice clear as glass chimes, “Master, what will you do next?”

“Make a plan…?” Lance answered faintly, as if speaking to fog.

Jeremy barked at her, anger flashing like steel. “You venomous thing! What are you trying to push Lance into? By the God of Victory—say another word and I’ll end you!”

“I’m not pushing the Master into anything,” Yuna said, eyes bright like stars under ice. “I know our Master.”

“She’s timid sometimes, but decisive and careful. She moves. She won’t sit beneath a falling sky and wait.”

Silence fell, clean as fresh snow.

Her words brought light back to Lance’s eyes, a hearth rekindled. The murk in Fulin’s heart blew away like smoke before wind.

A gentle firelight rose from Lance, an aureole warm as dawn. He stood, and the winter gust outside seemed to turn to spring when it touched their faces.

Faced with praise, Lance tilted his chin as usual, a fox proud on a wall. “Of course. I, Lance Morrison, am the Blazing Fire Knight of rumor. I’m that remarkable.”

Warmth moved through them like soup in cold hands.

Scholar Freming nodded, feather fan flicking like a bird’s wing. “As expected. Fire’s end is to bear hope.”

The Feng Wolf Marquis finally let out a long breath. A few minutes later, curiosity broke through like shoots in thawed earth. “Sir Lance, may I ask… what do you intend to do about Mrs. Walz?”

“You idiot, again?” the household knight snarled, ready to pin the Marquis to the floor like a carp on a cutting board.

“No harm,” Lance said, shrugging on a fresh cloak, the cloth flowing like dark water. “I’m no secret-monger. I’ll tell you.”

Count George looked stricken, sweat beading like dew on cold stone. “Lance, you’re not really planning…”

“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything reckless,” Lance said, flicking his knight’s mantle. His eyes held a dim flame, iron in velvet.

His decision was a blade laid flat. “I only intend to demand compensation.”

Yes—compensation. Fulin wasn’t a child. In her previous life, she’d been a proper working adult, ground down by endless overtime, tempered like steel in a furnace.

Not skill, not virtue—what mattered most was legal awareness, the iron frame inside the wood.

Because of that, she wouldn’t cry for apologies. She’d use a lawful, reasonable road to claim what’s due.

And if it’s written in law, the claim won’t stop at a bow and a sorry.

“Yuna, a task for you,” Lance said, hand cutting the air like a commander’s baton. “Find me the asset distribution of the Silkworm Clan and the Golden Flower Family across all Nordland.”

“Understood.” Yuna curtsied, lifting her skirt like a ripple of ink.

“Sir, you intend—!?” The Marquis’s nerves snapped like a taut string. He didn’t dare hear the rest.

Lance made it sound easy as turning a key. He put a hand to his chest. “According to the Constitution of the Doran Kingdom—”

“When a noble becomes poor, he loses his noble status and all attached rights, lands, and vassals.”

“It applies to any noble, even royal members. From duke down to baron.”

Count George, sweating cold, stammered, “S-so… it… it also… applies to a Marquis.”

“Correct.” Lance turned his back to them and looked into a starless night, where white fairies—snowflakes—drifted through the window and vanished in the heat of lingering fire.

“Maple City’s small. Five Marquises are too many,” he said, voice calm as an executioner’s list. “If the Golden Flower and Silkworm houses stop cluttering the view… the Crown will thank me.”

Silence settled thick and fearful, like damp wool in a closed room.

The rising heat pressed the Marquis to speak plainly, sweat salting his tongue. “Mrs. Walz’s Golden Flower Family, and Mr. Walz’s Silkworm Clan…”

“Blazing Fire Knight, you cruel man.” He slapped his thigh and plopped onto the floor, a man dropped by a gust. Then he lifted his face. “But that move—beautiful.”

“Mm. Betrayal must pay,” Scholar Freming said, feather fan tapping lightly, a crane’s beak. “A lifetime of wind and rain under the eaves—enough to make some remember forever.”

…

Deep night. The snow had stopped, leaving rooftops clean as bone.

As always, Fulin climbed the castle top and looked at the bright moon, burning her sleepless hours on its pure glow and tiny flaws.

Yuna followed to the roof, braving winter night chill, teeth chattering like dice in a cup. She set a warm shawl gently over Fulin’s head. “Master, aren’t you cold?”

“Not cold. Just cool,” Fulin said, not noticing frost threading her silver hair like spun glass.

Yuna brought warm water and a comb, and gently lifted the ice chips from Fulin’s hair, like plucking thorns from silk.

Sometimes Yuna dropped her mask and spoke her true heart. “Master… isn’t what you’ll do to them… too harsh?”

“How would it be?” Fulin spread her hands, her shoulder bare—skin smooth and tight, catching faint moonlight like water on jade.

She gazed at the starless night, and sighed, voice barely above the wind. “If you had to leave… couldn’t you at least say goodbye?”