The man must’ve snapped. He saw disbelief stamped across Amelia’s face and, like a moth battering at a cold flame, he rushed in to explain. To her, his scramble carried a sour kind of charm—noise with teeth.

“What do you mean?”

The Queen watched him skid to a stop before her. Frost gathered in her gaze, and a restless surge rose inside her chest. If she had to name it—It makes me want to kill him.

He was the oblivious sort, blind to the chill in her eyes and the ruin in his own face. He kept babbling, shoring up his excuses like sand against the tide.

“Queen! Please, you have to believe me! I never meant to harm the Princess! It’s all a misunderstanding! No… not a misunderstanding! A plot—a plot by that bastard lying over there! He’s jealous of my skill, jealous of everything I am! It’s jealousy that led to all this! So please don’t—urk—”

His last word cut short because Amelia cut him off. Yes—cut him off. In the literal, physical sense. Her hand, soft as silk at a glance, clamped his throat. That slender arm, all grace and no show of power, hoisted a heavier, broader man with one hand like lifting a bucket from a well.

“Done talking?”

Her voice chilled like iron left in night rain. She didn’t know why. She only knew anger rose like a storm front. Her daughter was still bound in suffering, while this man chirped in her path and blocked her road to Elfe. That simple. That single reason scraped the gentle mask of the [Queen] off her face and set the selfish helm of the [Mother] in its place.

—This time, I’ll save you as [Mother].

She said it in her heart, then tossed the man away like refuse. Her steps cut through the lamplight. In a few strides she was at Elfe’s side.

“What are these ‘threads’?”

She asked the man beside her, the one keeping the magic stable. He flinched, trembling like a leaf under frost. They had all seen their captain thrown aside like a rag doll; his fear wasn’t baseless.

He hesitated. Her gaze narrowed—ice locking onto his face, pinning him like a butterfly in glass. Only after a shudder or two did his mouth finally move.

“Th-this thing is [REDACTED]. Rumor says it can eat everything. It’s a monster from the deepest layer of the Underworld…”

At the word Underworld, a thin shadow crossed the Queen’s face. The Elvenfolk prized clear light and upright hearts; creatures of the Underworld were thorns in their eyes.

“Why summon those things?”

“N-no, Your— Queen… It was necessary… [REDACTED] might devour the ‘curse.’ And with a magic circle, we can control them. That’s why we dared to use—”

—Control? Heh.

Her smile was a knife’s edge of contempt. If that’s control, sparrows would start writing manuscripts.

She ignored the man still shaking beside her and stepped into the magic circle without a second thought.

“Stop! Queen, you mustn’t!”

The mages who had prepared the circle panicked, voices flaring like startled birds. Her answer was a flat blade.

“If not me, you?”

Silence fell like ash. Predictable. She gave them a disdainful glance and a soft “Heh.”

She moved closer to the circle’s heart. More threads noticed her presence.

Perhaps there were too many threads. Some had no way to feed off Elfe and, starved and mean, they lunged at Amelia like hungry beasts hearing a bone crack.

“Hiss…”

The nearest thread rasped like a snake and sank into Amelia’s skin without hindrance. It bit because she let it. She wanted to see what these threads would do to Elfe—so she didn’t strike the first one down.

“Glug…”

A swallow rolled down its length. Others might not know, but Amelia did: they were drinking her blood. One thread took only a few drops, a pinprick in a red sea. But threads were numberless. A few drops, multiplied by thousands, turned to a steady stream.

“Enough. You’re done.”

Her right hand became a blade. She chopped down, clean as a falling icicle, severing the thread feeding on her blood. A few more lunging lines went with it. She cut as she walked, cutting and cutting until she reached Elfe. The white tangles coiled over the child’s small form fell like snapped cobwebs. Surrounded by pale threads, the little one finally breathed free. But—

—Why are monsters from the deepest Underworld this weak?

The doubt rose from her bones. She didn’t linger. One light step and she leapt out of the circle, leaving the newly “revived” threads to thrash aimlessly, stripped of all targets.

“Shut the circle!”

The Elvenfolk obeyed without a heartbeat’s delay. A few short chants, the circle tightened like a closing iris, and in one breath it vanished.

“Haa…”

She let out a long sigh, like steam leaving winter tea. The danger had passed. It hadn’t lasted long, but weariness still brushed her shoulders. Then she looked at Elfe, and the tiredness thinned like mist under sun.

—At least… safe.