"Where are we?" By the fire’s flicker, Lance eyed the wall like a ruin’s ribcage and asked.
"Five hundred years ago, when Doran’s restoration seemed impossible, they planned to make a last stand here." The Thunderlight Knight slipped off her gauntlet. Her smooth, delicate fingers brushed a corroded relief, a ghost of its old outline. She glanced at Lance, then away. "But clearly, Doran’s forebears were heroes—"
"So in the end this place became a cowards’ grave. How pitiful."
"Ha. You do know your stuff. No wonder you’re a Thunderlight Knight from the Empire."
For some reason her cheeks warmed like embers, then she snapped, temper flaring like dry tinder. "You! You’re a knight of Doran and don’t know Doran’s history. Don’t you feel ashamed?"
Her stance amused Lance, like watching a cat puff up its fur. He piled on the praise. "Since you just saved my life, I’ll be reluctantly ashamed, Lady Thunderlight Knight~~"
As expected, she basked in it like a flower in morning sun. The girl of the Celestial Race relaxed, pleased. "That’s better~~"
Pleasure softened, pity stirred. She looked over the battered boy-knight and, with a sudden tenderness, said, "Also, my name is Liya. I’ll make an exception and let you use it. Feel honored."
Then, as if her pride were a cloak she refused to drop, Liya glanced around the shadows, coughed ceremonially, and added, "But only until we leave this underground palace. After that, our ties end. I’m still a knight of the Heavenly Spirit Empire."
"Got it, got it~~" Lance answered with a wry smile. The not-so-honest foreign girl before him tugged at a memory of another not-so-honest foreign girl, only that the former was far, far more so.
While they chatted, several of the King’s Royal Guard Knights—who had fallen with them—came hurrying back to report. "Blazing Fire Knight, we’ve found the way to the exit."
"Over there." The underground palace sprawled like an ant’s nest. One of them pointed down a corridor.
Lance followed the finger and felt a faint freshness in the air, like dew through stone. That had to be the way out.
"Let’s move."
"Mm."
"Yes, sir."
They set off at once.
As they walked, the lead Royal Guard kept a wary eye on the dark and tried to make friends. "To be honest, when the Hardsteel Knight fell, many suspected you used dirty tricks. But now, Lord Lance, it’s clear—you’re a knight of staggering courage."
Lance didn’t mind purposeful goodwill. It was a warm wind worth sailing. "Of course."
He hadn’t yet decided how to use that wind when the air grew muddy, like silt stirred from a riverbed.
"Wait." Lance’s face hardened. He raised a hand to halt them.
"What is it?" The guards blinked, lost in the gloom.
"Beasts." The word came with his motion; with a whoosh, he lifted the Sirius Sword.
"Yes... and many." Thunderlight Knight Liya slid into a ready stance, like lightning about to strike.
"Understood. Please stand behind us." The Royal Guards moved with practiced ease. They didn’t need to shield the two, but as the least injured, and with charge-level strength, duty was duty, so—
"Don’t get careless. Engagement, now!" The knights formed up in front. At the same breath, the hidden pack surged out. Two different tides crashed together, and the hall filled with shouts and throaty growls. Battle Aura flashed like shattered stars. Then the weathered floor and walls were smeared with a red that did not belong to them.
"Huff, huff~~ tough bastards!" After the brawl, the knights panted. One slumped to the ground and swore. "Hell, why are there so many Grade-B beasts?!"
Grade-B magic beasts were warped things that needed a hundred knights to bring down. They usually only crawled where corruption gnawed at the land.
But this was the royal city’s underground palace. No corruption should touch it. This many Grade-B beasts was wrong.
"Move. We’ll investigate after."
"Yes, sir."
After a short rest, they pressed on.
Nearly an hour of twisting corridors later, stairs rising upward appeared at the end like a promise.
They gathered at the steps and looked up. A long stone stair climbed into dim light.
Evening’s crimson spilled through a crack in the ancient stone gate above, a blade of sunset in the dust. Walking last, Thunderlight Knight Liya gave Lance a reluctant look, a soft tide she quickly pulled back. Then she straightened, voice formal and edged with regret. "Blazing Fire Knight, once we pass that gate—if you still intend to keep your knight’s path—I may be your enemy."
"I understand." Lance’s reply rang out like iron as he pushed the stone gate. "I’m the Blazing Fire Knight. I fight for myself. If you come to challenge me, I’ll meet you with everything I’ve got!"
He turned and held out his fist.
Honesty met resolve. Liya’s eyes widened, then narrowed with a smile. She bumped her fist lightly to his and laughed, bright as bells. "I will~~ Blazing Fire Knight."
The watching knights swallowed envy like bitter wine and groaned, "Damn it, youth is wasted on the young!!"
After the brief laughter, Lance heaved the heavy stone gate.
Beyond the weight was a narrow way that climbed, the secret path’s last reach to the surface.
But when they finally stepped out, life did not greet them. Silence did.
The air stank of rot, thick as swamp water. Bones lay heaped like discarded firewood, human and beast tangled together.
Beyond stench and bone, the air held a viscous darkness, a tar of night that choked the lungs.
Against it, the sunset bleeding through a slit of tiny stone window felt like a cruel joke.
Strange as this dark was, the King’s knights still recognized the place.
"This is... the detached palace?" One guard stared at the stone carvings and the style, unsure, as if waking from a bad dream.
"If it’s the detached palace, why are these things here..." Thunderlight Knight Liya’s voice trembled, cowed by filth like a deer before a pit.
"If it’s the detached palace, we’re only a few steps from the royal palace." Lance sounded unfazed, or just unwilling to care, wearing nonchalance like armor.
A knight nodded and gripped the gold token the King had granted, a sun in his palm. "Yes, sir. Once we reach the main hall and report to Prince Dylan’s guards, we can return to the palace."
"Then let’s leave this place at once," Liya urged.
"Yeah. Move." Lance answered, and gestured for the knights to lead.
Before they could leave the wide hall steeped in ill omen, a strange voice rippled through the air.
"I won’t be letting you go, mm-hehe~~"
"Who’s there?!" The knights snapped their swords up as one, faces taut, eyes darting through the gloom.
"From the Gaia Empire. A noble envoy of the Earth Mother. Bearer of the honored blood of the Dark Blood Clan. A baptizer who praises and foretells the boundless night to come~~" As the words flowed, a storm of black bats whirled into the hall’s center. They swarmed, then knit together into the curving shape of a ravishing girl in black formal dress.
She opened her eyes. Blood-bright irises burned, and a predator’s gaze swept the room. Her jade-red lips parted, voice sinking into marrow. "Third princess of the Dark Blood Clan, Shelika~~ Remember this name well before you fall into eternal silence~~"
