Fair point. When messages can’t flow cleanly, a magic scroll is a boat cutting through fog. Aphelia’s silence has stretched like winter; the plains fester like a wound. We need a swift cure.
Nero peered through the curtain like a thin veil of rain. He saw Duke Dion striding toward the tent, and cold sweat slid down his back like ice. He cut his words short, signaled the two to stay inside, then parted the curtain like water and stepped out.
“Duke Dion, it’s been so long.”
Nero’s smile was warm as sunlight after snow. He opened his arms, and the sturdy old man met him with a solid embrace like steel.
“Your Highness Nero, long time no see. To witness you and Her Highness together again before I crawl into a coffin—what an honor.” His voice carried gravel and wind.
Up close, the gray beard and hair didn’t make him withered; they framed a veteran’s vigor like oak roots gripping earth. A scar slashed from temple to cheek like a lightning bolt, lending him a stern majesty even in silence. Nero felt no fear; only the ache of a longed-for spring.
Duke Dion looked at him with quiet pride, a sigh rising like mist. Childless all his life, he’d watched Nero and Fenrir grow like twin pines, saw them come of age like blades tempered in fire, and now stand on opposing ridgelines.
That was the fate of imperial heirs: unless one set down the blade, the path was a river to battle. Dion knew, so from the first he swore an oath like iron not to meddle in the heirs’ strife.
“Your soldiers drill well. Seems you remembered what I hammered into you back then,” he said, a glance like a quick spark. “Shame you didn’t learn the deeper art of war like your sister.”
Nero’s laugh came sheepish, like a boy caught climbing a wall. The truth was, he’d often slipped away from Duke Dion’s sword lessons like a bird from a net.
“Let’s not dig up old bones, Duke Dion. If I could go back, I wouldn’t skip a single class.”
He gestured invitingly, hoping to bring Dion inside to talk like fireside tea. Dion shook his head and pointed toward Fenrir waiting beyond the camp like a lone star—he couldn’t linger.
“A pity we can’t speak long. When I left the capital, you had already slipped into quiet. I still miss your guidance,” Nero said, bowing with a smile thin as a blade.
“I’m glad you found it useful,” Dion replied, eyes steady as mountain stone. “Even in the royal city, the wind carried tales of your deeds in this border province as an heir. Lord Senro would be proud.”
For a heartbeat Dion saw a different silhouette: the youth before him had shed his fledgling feathers like autumn leaves; he no longer needed a scolding lash.
“Please don’t bring up Lord Senro,” Nero said, a shadow crossing his gaze like a cloud. “Since I left the capital, there’s nothing between us. Duke Dion, you aren’t here as my sister’s mouthpiece, are you?”
He flicked a glance toward Fenrir, cutting off Dion’s unspoken words with a joke like a tossed pebble. But in the quiet river under the jest, Nero counted worst tides: if Dion turned coat, the balance would topple like a wall of sand. How would an heir face a general whose name weighed on the Demon World like thunder?
Dion shook his head, smile easy as a breeze. “Of course not. I came because this is cooperation between you and Her Highness Fenrir, and I was invited to escort her. If you ask where I stand...”
He chuckled, a sound like boots on old wood. “I stand with you and Her Highness Fenrir, always. Past or future, that never changes. Those two brothers? I never thought they deserved the title of heir.”
Relief broke from Nero like fresh rain, and laughter followed like bells. Only this sharp-edged old general would dare toss words like spears in daylight; other nobles would choke on them.
Such talk, twisted by schemers, could brand a man a slanderer of royals—lands stripped like bark, rank cut like rope, exile tossing him to the borders like driftwood. But none of that clung to Dion.
Strip his lands? His merits were carved into the Demon World like stone tablets; no royal seal was needed. He’d donated his holdings and wealth like pouring water back to the river; his hermitage was smoke without a trail. Exile? Who could exile a veteran laden with laurels, strong as a Demigod? He had no sons, no daughters, no ties like vines. If the other brothers dared strike at him, the crowd would howl like a storm, and even their backing nobles would fold like reeds.
“Duke Dion, you jest, but in the capital, beware the petty ones skulking like rats,” Nero said, hugging the old warrior again, warmth tight as a cloak. He felt the ache of farewell; who knew when these paths would cross like constellations again.
“Farewell, Your Highness Nero. May victory follow your blade,” Dion said, patting Nero’s back like a drumbeat. He gave one last satisfied look, then turned and walked out of the camp like a stag into the pines.
“Jasmine, since we started working with Nero, have you ever seen him that close to anyone besides Christine?” Zhe asked inside the tent, eyes gleaming with mischief like foxfire.
“Not really. Most of the time he wears that annoying smile like a lacquered mask and deals with all sorts of people,” Jasmine said, shaking her head like a willow.
As Nero’s scribe, she’d never seen him show his true heart to anyone but Christine; he moved through high society like a masked dancer among lanterns.
Zhe played with the jade pendant at his waist, watching Duke Dion recede like a ship on dusk water. A breath of relief cooled his chest like evening wind. That pendant sensed the strongest presence nearby like a hunting hawk and reacted. When a Titleholder neared, the jade bled Arcane Power like dew, warning Zhe.
If someone above a Titleholder approached, the jade stabbed his nerves like needles in a winter gale. When Duke Dion appeared, the stinging came sharp and frequent like hail, piercing to the bone; Zhe dared not hold a single shred of contempt, as if a mouse under a hawk’s shadow.
“Nero still keeps good ties with someone at that height. We need a small adjustment,” Zhe said, fingers tightening on the jade like a clamp, yet a grin bloomed like a child finding a new toy. “Jasmine, don’t rush. In the Demon World, ‘we’ are still young saplings.”
His smile twisted like a warped mirror, and Jasmine felt a chill slide down her spine like frost.
“Zhe, Jasmine, are the scrolls ready?” Nero asked, coming back in with a smile like a steady lantern.
“Of course. Once we reach your place, we can send it,” Zhe said, voice smooth as silk. “But maybe wait an hour. Number Two’s regular report should return like a homing bird. Then we’ll decide. Every teleport eats a heap of Mana Crystals like a furnace.”
Jasmine handed Nero the prepared scroll and tapped a signal toward his pocket watch like a ticking sparrow. Nero reached into his coat, froze, then withdrew his hand with a rueful smile like dusk light.
“You’re still sharp about time, Zhe. I trust you,” he said. “We’ll head back and wait for Number Two’s report. Mana Crystals should be saved like rainwater.”
He clapped Zhe’s shoulder like a drumbeat, and they left the tent, walking toward the waiting carriage like travelers to a haven. The driver was Christine, Nero’s maid, calm as moonlight on water.
The moment they entered the carriage, their faces shifted like storm clouds. Nero bit his finger, blood bright as a rose, and fed the defensive array like a thirsty sigil. Jasmine and Zhe flung up a sealing barrier like a glass dome, ripping open several strengthening scrolls so Arcane light layered over them like stacked shields.
“Christine, don’t go to the villa!” Nero barked, voice cutting like a blade. “Head for the watchmaker’s. Use our own route, not the nobles’ turf—stay on ground that’s ours.”
He turned to Zhe, eyes keen as a hawk. “Zhe, what kind of trouble forces us to ask that uncle for help—and why tell me in this way?”
He meant Jasmine’s hint toward the pocket watch, a silent bell in fog. As an imperial heir, Nero had woven many lifelines like hidden ropes. The pocket watch was one such line, ticking toward salvation like a heartbeat.
