Petals wheeled like snow, and the square swelled like a tide of people.

On the eve of the Knight Festival, the Knight Square before Maple City’s royal palace unfurled like an epic scroll.

In the crowd, a salt merchant from Red Sands bumped into a lowborn noble from Wood Bay, two stray leaves caught by the same wind.

After chatting from south skies to north seas, they naturally drifted into heated guesses, sparks on dry straw.

“Who do you think will make it into the Knight Festival this time?” the salt merchant asked, voice like a pebble dropped into a pond.

The lesser noble, a baron by his dress, paused with practiced poise, then said with granite certainty, “First, the dukes’ signature knights will glide through like hawks riding thermals.”

The salt merchant mulled it over, then nodded like an oar cutting water. “True enough… and then?”

“Next come the rising stars of tomorrow,” he said, eyes bright like dawn through mist.

“Like… the Blazing Fire Knight?” the salt merchant asked, hope flaring like a campfire at dusk.

“Yeah… the Blazing Fire Knight. Back in Wood Bay, that kid was the shame of knights. Who’d have thought…” the baron muttered, face a knot of weeds in shifting wind.

At the same time, inside the palace, within the Winter Palace where the Second Prince resided, Count Lloyd—one of his right hands—brought Lance in and gathered every aide, like crows to a bell.

Count Lloyd stood with Lance and spoke in formal cadence, each word a drumbeat. “The Blazing Fire Knight now shoulders the fate of our Doran Kingdom. When the Restoration War ended five hundred years ago, the late king foretold today’s dilemma. It isn’t only the Second Prince who chose him. Fate itself laid the mission upon the Blazing Fire Knight. He’ll bring a dawn of victory.”

Faces below were solemn as stone, with glints of doubt and hope rippling like light on a river, stealing glances at the teenage knight.

“May the Doran royal house endure in glory,” Lloyd concluded, voice ringing like steel on steel.

“May the Doran royal house endure in glory,” the aides roared in unison, the cry washing through the Winter Palace like a storm wind.

And yet, that blood-stirring scene—

“Utterly boring.” In the Gothic clock tower of the detached palace, First Prince Dylan Robel, eldest son of the king, curled a cold smile, a knife in frost.

Among the royals, the First Prince was thickset, a mountain beside the slender Marquis of the Silver Silkworm, who looked like a willow in his shadow.

“Your Highness, our plan will succeed,” the Marquis said, bowing low like a reed in rain.

Dylan Robel’s eyes swung over, too bright, like lanterns that scare the night.

“Of course. It’s just…” His cold smile sharpened, a rebuke like sleet. “I didn’t expect the ‘Rose’ you prized to be a bad move.”

“I hadn’t foreseen it wouldn’t sap that Morrison boy’s will, my lord. Even so, the outcome you envision…” the Marquis murmured, voice like silk hiding thorns.

“What a sly fox,” the First Prince chuckled, a blade wrapped in velvet.

The smile faded. He stared again toward the Winter Palace gardens. Distance blurred the details, yet in his power-drunk haze he pictured the Blazing Fire Knight strutting, a banner in the wind.

That, the First Prince could not allow, like a wolf refusing another’s scent on its range.

Sensing it, the Marquis’s face cooled like stone in shade. “Your Highness, even if it’s off-plan, if you wish, I can remove the boy ahead of time. I promise no stain will touch your soul.”

“No.” The First Prince’s expression steadied, a lake re-freezing. “From what I hear, the Blazing Fire Knight’s title rings loud, but he’s still just a Charge Knight.”

Yes—among all knights awakened to Battle Aura, a Charge Knight was the lowest rung, a pebble beneath a throne in the First Prince’s eyes.

And yet—

He clenched his broad fist, and his brother’s face flashed up—Gio’s contempt when he stopped looking up to him, a thorn under the nail. The First Prince’s features twisted, then smoothed like ice over a wound. “We’ll win fair and square.”

“As you wish,” said the Marquis of the Silver Silkworm, sinking to one knee like a shadow at dusk. “The lot-drawing for the Selection Rite is about to begin. I’ll take my leave.”

“Mm. Go,” the First Prince said without turning, a mountain refusing echo.

When the tower held only Dylan Robel’s lone shadow, something rippled out of it like moonlight from deep water—a silver-haired girl with a lush silhouette.

Her pretty cheeks lifted in a mischievous curve, a cat by cream. She looked past the prince toward the Blazing Fire Knight far away. “Even with no chance of winning, you humans claim you’ve already won.”

She smiled, sultry as night-blooming flowers. “Humans really are amusing.”

Disgust bent the prince’s face. He pretended not to hear, jaw tight as a locked coffer, fist thumping the stone window rail, a dull thud like a mallet. “Monster, if I do what you say, do I become king?”

“How dull, man.” Her coo slid into a pout. “We’ve worked together this long, and you still won’t call me by my proper name?”

“Third Princess of the Dark Blood Clan, Shelika…” His face darkened like a gathering storm, then broke with a roar. “Monster! I’m asking again—do I become king?”

Shelika only covered her lips and laughed, a lilting heh-heh that danced like windchimes. She watched his fury the way one watches fireflies—pure sport.

Then she breathed out, lazy and sweet. “Of course.”

Her pale, elegant hand grazed the back of his neck, fingertips tugging the robe to bare the skin. The old bite mark showed, healed and re-healed, a crescent scar like a chained moon.

She stroked the scar, smiling with venom like honeyed wine. “I’ll make you king, naturally. Just like your father, heh-heh.”

The First Prince shuddered, a tree in a sudden gale. His hot rage curdled into a churning stomach sea.

Cold sweat slipped down his temples like melting frost. He clung to a shred of dignity. “By the Light Deity… y-you’d better keep your word.”

While he bent under nausea and sweat, the blood-born beauty’s coyness died, face turning sharp as a drawn blade. Her gaze arrowed toward the distant Winter Palace garden—to Lance, flaunting before the Second Prince’s aides—and confusion iced her tone. “A dead man… how does a dead man stand alive under my very eyes?”

Her crimson, wintry pupils flickered with unease, a candle in a draft. “Don’t tell me…”

“Oh Light Deity above… oh ancestors above… oh God of Victory above… oooh—” Not long after the lot-drawing, the Feng Wolf Marquis paced like ants on a hot pan, muttering prayers like beads on a string.

It grated on Lance. He tucked the drawn lots that would decide his matches, then groused, voice dry as kindling. “Marquis, can you stop? In the name of that ancient iron and blood or whatever, shut your mouth.”

“Hahaha—never thought the Blazing Fire Knight gets nervous,” the Second Prince boomed, laughter bright as morning brass.

“Shut it. I’m not nervous,” Lance corrected, cool as a blade in shade. He drew the Sirius Sword and tilted its edge to the newborn sun, catching light like fire on water.

“I need to focus,” he added, while his Battle Aura gathered like wind packing a sail.

Tiny tongues of aura-flame licked along the blade, faint yet eye-catching as foxfire. The Second Prince nodded, approval ringing like a bell. “So that’s the Blazing Fire Knight’s aura. I’d heard you were a genius of the aura arts. Your control is smooth as silk.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, casual as a drifting leaf, while he traced the aura’s flow within the Sirius Sword, mind staging battlegrounds like chessboards before a war—warming up in the mind’s quiet arena.

As the three walked a street blooming with festival heat, a voice waved from a far corner like a handkerchief in breeze.

A girl in round frames, pretty as a spring bud, bookish and delicate by her dress, stood there.

“Lance!” She wasn’t used to crowds. She waved at him, cheeks shy as peach blush, eyes skittering like minnows so fewer eyes would land on her.

In truth, the flower-bright street had already drawn many noble scions. Gentlemanly gazes slid to this unusual beauty like bees to clover. If she hadn’t timed her arrival for when the ceremony ended, she’d have drowned in the tide of suitors.

The familiar voice tugged Lance out of his thoughts. He stiffened inwardly, then flipped on his showy persona like a lantern. With roguish, sunlit energy, he called back, “Yo, Jasmine, did you get some rest?”

“Mhm! All thanks to you, Lance!” Jasmine tilted her head, smile warm as tea.

Seeing their easy closeness, like lovers under a shared umbrella, the noble scions took a gut punch, clutching their chests like actors on cue.

The Second Prince nodded. “Blazing Fire Knight, I hear after you passed the review, the dean reformed the faculty team on the spot. With your help, the investigation into the Night Disciple moved fast. As expected of you.”

“Yup—Lance is amazing,” Jasmine chimed, sunlight in her voice, as she laced her fingers with his.

That sight crushed more bachelors like waves breaking on sand—and it soured someone else’s mood.

Alice had trailed Jasmine and only just reached the café where they met, a ribbon of frost behind spring.

After the incident, Alice had been sheltered for being the duke’s daughter, never finding a chance to see Lance. Now, finally here, she walked in on a scene already stolen, a butterfly missing the bloom.

She fought to keep a noblewoman’s poise, smiling with lips stiff as carved wood. She stared at their joined hands and, on purpose, raised her voice. “Ahem! Lady Jasmine?”

Jasmine was the high-strung but airheaded type. She thought Duke’s Daughter Alice was greeting her and nearly squealed, delight popping like firecrackers. “It’s Lady Alice!”

Alice’s smile grew worse, like chewing three bitter gourds. “Yes, I’m Lady Alice, ha-ha…”

Then she snapped awake and shook her head hard, hair like a banner. “No, no!”

She declared, brisk as a bell. “If I recall, Lady Jasmine, you’re the discipline prefect for Year One, Class One in the Battle Arts track. Lead by example—how can you disrupt public decorum by flirting in the open?”

Realizing she meant the hand-holding, Jasmine flushed, a ripe apple red, and yipped as she let go.

“Sorry! I got excited and… it just happened!”

“Uh-huh. What a very ‘just happened,’” Alice said, unimpressed, tone cool as glass.

Unused to Alice’s deliberate needling, Lance had to play mediator, a palm calming ripples. “Alright, Alice, don’t make it hard on her.”

He expected a fit. Instead, Alice’s face crumpled into wounded clouds. “It’s not about making it hard. If I’m not there, and you do something I don’t want to see, what then?”

“Something you don’t want to see?” Lance blinked, a bird tilting its head.

“Yes! Whether you chat up other girls without my say-so, or play the hero with your life without telling me…”

“Do you know how worried I was when the academy incident happened?” Alice’s voice thinned, rain over paper.

Lance hesitated—no, inside, Fulin hesitated, a harp-string pulled tight.

Then a spark flickered in his mind. Fulin remembered the vow Lance had made to Alice. If it mattered to her, like Fulin’s own wish for a quiet life, maybe telling Alice his aim would ease her heart.

With that thought, Lance spoke, steady as a lighthouse. “Don’t worry. I gave my word. I’ll make your dream real.”

Sadly, it landed like a pebble in mud. “Idiot! I’m not talking to you!” Alice huffed, turning away, skirts snapping like flags. It happened at the café entrance, and the onlookers thickened like crows on a wall.

Seeing the crowd swell, the Second Prince nudged Lance’s arm, wary his disguise might crack like thin ice. “Hey, Knight, maybe we change spots?”

“Fine,” Lance sighed, a leaf going with the current.

But fortune spun its wheel. The street’s flow parted, and someone made a grand entrance like a swan on water.

Usually only high-ranking Celestial Spirits drew that kind of procession, a river escorting a moon.

“O-hoho! Isn’t this my Blazing Fire Knight!” rang Vivian’s high, affected voice, a trumpet over silk.

Many heard it. Lance was already Maple City’s talk of the town, smoke that rises on every breeze. Sure enough, Vivian’s words lit the crowd like oil on coals. Joyous talk of the Knight Festival didn’t mind one more spicy topic, a chili in the stew.

Before the café, the street pressed in. People closed around Lance’s group like petals folding at dusk.

Because of certain reasons, Alice and Vivian were on bad terms. At Vivian’s proclamation, Alice shed her grief like a blown-off veil. She tossed aside her duchess-daughter polish and snapped, "What do you mean 'my Blazing Fire Knight'?!"

Vivian eyed Alice with crescent-moon smiles, then purred, "Like this—"

Right before Alice, she hugged Lance’s arm, like staking a claim with a brand. "This is 'my Blazing Fire Knight'—got it?"

"Yaaah!" Alice’s face went storm-cloud blue, and she lunged without another word, prying the two apart.

Torn off Lance’s arm, Vivian let out a put-upon sigh. "What a rough woman."

She recovered quick, crisp as a bell. "I’ve got shares in this place. I’m going in first."

Jasmine feared crowds; she tugged Lance’s sleeve like a kitten pleading at dusk. "Lance, let’s go in too..."

"Alright." Lance sighed, the sound like steam leaving a kettle.

The Feng Wolf Marquis read the room and bowed out, like a lantern dimming. "I won’t intrude on you young folks."

"Your High— no, sir, let’s go."

"Got it." The Second Prince, hidden by sunglasses and a long scarf, nodded, then reminded them as he turned. "Your selection rite is at 2 p.m.; be there at least an hour early."

"I will." Lance sent them off with a brief wave, a farewell like a leaf on the wind.

The café’s walls and windows were forged with spellwork; the streets outside, loud as a festival tide for the Knight Festival, couldn’t pour their noise in. Under a delicately dressed ceiling, the air felt elegant and light, like clear spring water.

Lance admired, "What an exquisite tea house."

Jasmine nodded; with the calm inside and snug booths like quiet coves, her voice found its sails again. "You bet. This 'Passionate Agate Red' is famous among us girls!"

"Is that so..." Lance scratched his head. Since coming to Maple City, he’d been glued to the plan. He doused flare-ups like a watchman and had no leisure. Only now did a sliver of ease settle, like warm tea in the chest.

"I mean, Lance..." With Vivian and Jasmine at the counter, only Lance and Alice sat in the booth. The air turned hazy, like silk in lamplight; her gaze burned yet wandered. "Were you serious that night?"

At those words, the room fell quiet, the hush like snowfall.

Lance paused, then answered steady. "Of course. I’ll make your ideal real."

Alice ducked her head, shy as a lotus in rain, then lifted it a little, blinking. "Why do you do so much for me?"

"Because—"

I want a peaceful life, he almost said, the thought soft as ash. But before the words formed, the booth’s calm was hacked open.

A richly dressed man strode in with two knights, shoving the thin door like a paper screen.

"Alice, you made me search hard." The newcomer was the Crown Prince, Dylan Robel.

He treated Lance like air, and his voice cut like a blade. "You turned down my invitation without a word. Is my favor to your father so easy to forget?"

Alice had meant to stand firm, but a hand pressed to her soft spot; her head lowered, silence knotting her tongue.

Lance didn’t know the details. A partner was being threatened right to his face, and he couldn’t abide it. Anger kindled like flint.

Before he could strike back, the Second Prince—who should’ve returned to the Winter Palace with the Feng Wolf Marquis—arrived unexpectedly.

Facing the Crown Prince’s startled look, the Second Prince stayed casual, a smile sheathing a knife. "Well, if it isn’t dear brother. They’re my friends. With me right here, what exactly do you plan to do to them?"