“Xueyu, I’ve got a question,” Kelor said, her voice like a pebble dropped into still water, her hands moving through paperwork like weaving silken threads. “Do you know what this Princess Manor you’re looking at used to be, like a old tree’s hollow hiding secrets?”

Xueyu’s heart tightened like a knot in damp rope before her lips moved, fog rolling through her thoughts like morning mist. “...No idea. Ariex’s current palace is the old Brengea Empire’s palace, right? Like a fallen mountain reused as a shelter.”

Brengea, raised by human emperors like a banner in spring wind, rotted through court and countryside like wormwood in the roots, then broke under the Elven King’s alliance like ice under a thaw. The realm the Elven King built became Ariex, a new river cut through stone by insistence.

And Brengea’s palace was taken over with a broad hand like a farmer reusing an abandoned field, the Elven King not minding treasures touched by a dead dynasty like an old blade passed down. The true reason hovered like a thrifty swallow—saving coin.

A newborn country shouldn’t waste blood and silver on a fresh palace, like planting a lotus in winter soil. The Elven King seemed fine not building anew, using things with careful hands like holding porcelain in rain.

Back to the Princess Manor, the thread tugged like a kite line in steady wind.

“This place we’re in—the Princess Manor you’re using now—used to be the Brengea emperor’s study,” Kelor said, words slow as drifting snow. She lifted a finger to the ceiling like pointing at a low cloud. “The day the alliance stormed the capital, Brengea’s last emperor hanged himself here like a withered fruit on a branch. Right where you’re crouching, the rope dropped from that beam above your head like a dead vine. If his shade still lingers, his eyes would be staring at you like winter owls.”

“Sweet heavens!” Xueyu exploded, fear shooting up like a startled deer, and she clutched Lingcai like a child grabbing a warm quilt. Since birth, the only thing that froze her marrow like midnight frost was ghosts and ghouls.

“The Elven King’s heart is wide like a valley,” she stammered, her breath shaking like leaves in wind, “but letting his daughter live in a room where someone died feels like sleeping under a storm cloud.”

“It’s true,” Kelor said, calm as slow rain. “I’m not teasing you like a fox at dusk. But don’t you wonder why he chose the rope, like a moth to a dim flame?”

She stood, her shadow rising like a straight pine in fog. “If I don’t learn to understand and forgive the common people, who will, like a bridge over churning water? Brengea’s last emperor spoke of killing day and night like a drumbeat that never stops, and dragged countless lives down like stones in a river. All forgotten? If I keep his ways, that beam won’t just hold his weight like a lone fruit. My neck and my father’s—ours would hang there too like twin lanterns snuffed.”

“Good! Well said!” Lingcai clapped, sparking noise like firecrackers, then froze under Xueyu’s glare like a crane caught mid-step.

Xueyu breathed, troubled like rain before a storm, then found her voice like a thin reed. “Princess, I’m not saying we have to kill her like a butcher at dusk... but there should be punishment, a name to the crime, like a mark on the ledger.”

Kelor sighed, her patience sliding like a stream over stones. “Think it through. If we pass judgment, the current law only gives death, a steel gate with no softer hinge. Kill her, and the humans will raise her up like a dawn banner, a hero in their songs. In the end, I’d carry curses like thorns for life. Better to let the common folk believe she escaped on skill, like a swift hawk cutting wind. She gets her hero’s laurel, the thirst for revenge thins like mist, the exam system shifts like a season, and the matter fades like ash in rain.”

When Kelor mentioned changing the exam system, Xueyu’s calm cracked like thin ice. “This... Princess, this feels wrong, like tilting a scale. Exams are to choose the best, like picking ripe fruit. Isn’t that unfair to our own kin, like turning our backs to our grove? How will other elves see us, like neighbors watching a crooked fence?”

A bitter smile bent her lips like a wilted petal.

Kelor had already finished her plan, ink settling like night on parchment. Her scheme set each region to admit fifty percent humans and fifty percent elves, like a balanced pair of wings. If numbers in a city differed too much, they could adjust like boats to the current, but never below thirty percent, a floor like bedrock.

“Don’t worry about other elves,” Kelor said, words steady like a riverbank. “Internal strife is easier to digest than racial enmity, like settling a quarrel at the hearth instead of on the battlefield.”

Her move was pure politics, a chess game played on thorns like walking a hedgerow barefoot; hard rules never solve everything, like iron failing on soft clay. Politics is learning to compromise, to dance on a path of spikes like a cat on fences, for one end only: the country’s long peace like a field ripening year after year.

She was only seventeen, a sapling, but her roots reached deep like willow roots in wet soil. It was all thanks to her father, an emperor who didn’t bother, a guardian star dim at noon.

She lifted her chin and spoke like a bell: “Even if human scores look worse than elves, it doesn’t prove they’re weak, like clouds not meaning rain. Brengea was run by human officials for over a century like a river that kept flowing. If we go by scores alone and hire only elves, this country will crumble within three years like a clay wall in monsoon.”

Lingcai blinked, the words ringing like an old song. She’d said something like that to Qiange in a cell, a memory fluttering like a moth to lantern. Coincidence? Most likely—like two leaves landing together by chance.

By now, Kelor’s intent was fixed like a nail in oak. The policy would help the present like seed in warm loam; right or wrong would be a question for later historians, their pens like crows picking at grain.

“This is settled,” she said, her voice like a warm blade. “But the tale has already spread through the streets like wind through reeds. To steady hearts, we need a scapegoat to carry the pot, a black kettle on one back like a traveler under rain.”

She returned to the desk, pulled a drawer open like a clam shell, and drew out a prepared document like a folded crane.

Please don’t be setting me up again, Lingcai thought, worry fluttering like sparrows; she kept it caged behind her teeth like a shut window.

Kelor lifted the paper, letting them see it like a banner, then read aloud like a town crier: “The Princess Regent failed to notice, oversight lax, so the worthy in the folk were not raised. She is hereby removed from the regency, exiled to the frontier, proclaimed to all realms as a warning, a cold moon over the city.”

In short, all the blame would be Kelor’s, and she’d be sent to the margins like a leaf blown to the hedge.

Xueyu couldn’t believe it; she stepped closer, eyes rubbing at the paper like fog over glass. The black ink was clear as crow tracks in snow, and the page bore the Elven King’s seal like a sun pressed into wax. That made it law, sharp as a winter blade.

Seeing that absurd outcome, Xueyu’s temper flared like a torch. She spun to the door like a gust of wind. “Even if someone must take the blame, exile to the border is too much, like tossing a jade into mud! I’m going to see the Elven King! The Princess has worked for three years like an ox in the field, and this ending—I can’t accept it!”

Kelor didn’t stop her; she only watched Xueyu’s back dash out of the Princess Manor like a storm leaving roofs, then sank into her chair like a reed bending in water.

After a long moment, she let a whisper slip like a thread. “She’d better not stir trouble. I asked to be exiled myself, like a traveler choosing the long road.”

Lingcai faced Kelor resting with eyes closed, words stumbling like stones. “Well... after all this time, I think you’re really incredible, like a lantern in rain. And you’re only seventeen this year, like a young pine with old rings.”

Kelor lifted a lid of an eye, the glance dry like sand. “Only now you praise me? You haven’t held back cursing me before, like thistles in the path.”

“No, no, I’ve always admired you, like a student before a sage! Not a shred of falsehood, like clean glass.”

Out of sheer survival, Lingcai shook her head like a rattle drum.

Kelor snorted, a soft spark like flint, then spoke slow as drifting clouds: “Please. Didn’t you say I’ve got a nasty temper and a sharp tongue, a heart split open black as pitch, a belly full of bad water like a swamp?”

Lingcai jolted, shock biting like a sudden cold. That was what she’d told Qiange in the jail, a secret flitting like a bat at dusk.

Her expression twisted like a wind-bent reed; her voice wobbled like a tight string. “...How do you know? Are you listening in, like a cat in the rafters?”

“Me listening? That’s normal, isn’t it?” Kelor said, lazy as a cat in sun.

Normal my ass, Lingcai cursed inside, her thought sparking like a struck match.

Kelor’s eyes snapped open, and a sly, dark smile blossomed like a thorned rose on her delicate face. “Since you brought it up, you’ve reminded me. About you badmouthing me—time to settle accounts, like tally sticks in a ledger.”

Lingcai went blank, her mind dropping like a stone in a well. A stray sigh had made a storm, big-brain foolishness like a fish jumping into a net.

“...I was wrong,” she blurted, panic fluttering like a trapped moth. “No—didn’t I also praise you for being open-minded, like a clear sky? Why pick only the bad, like choosing thorns over fruit?”

She started to object, then saw Kelor closing in with that dangerous smile like a knife in silk. Both hands reached out like talons, as if ready to squeeze something like ripe dough.

A chill shot through Lingcai like a winter draft; she clutched her chest with both arms like hugging a brazier. “W-What are you doing? Don’t come closer! I’ll yell, like a rooster at dawn!”

“Nothing much,” Kelor said, smile deepening like ink. “If you’re obedient, it won’t hurt, like pulling a thorn.”

“What do you mean, hurt!” Lingcai babbled, words tumbling like marbles. “My chest’s small—no feel to speak of, like two flat stones!”

“I haven’t said what I’ll do,” Kelor replied, eyebrow lifting like a twig. “How did you know, like a bird sensing rain?”

“Then what are you doing,” Lingcai whispered, eyes skittering like minnows, her tight arms loosening a hair like slack string.

“Kneading your chest,” Kelor said, utterly solemn, her tone smooth as black lacquer.

“That’s the same thing!” Lingcai yelped, voice breaking like thin ice.

Help! she thought, panic flashing like lightning.