“No wonder it’s... the Demon World...”

To a mortal’s eye, Valhalla was man’s chisel on stone. To Aphelia’s Arcane sight, it was a gulp of winter air. The city mirrored the firmament like a lake. Starlight poured from the velvet sky like spilled silver. Arcane Power hung in torrents, white silk pouring down, cocooning the city in a radiant sheath.

Her gaze fell to the serpent ring on her finger. The metal lay cold as a sleeping snake. Could it tear this imperial ward like a blade through paper? Even her heart, steady as a drum, gave no answer.

“Aphelia, these two are our housemaids. They’ll look after your daily needs.” Lilo’s voice was a warm lantern.

Two girls stepped forward on soft feet. They lifted their skirts like ripples and bowed. “I’m Shi.” “I’m Fen.” Their words braided as one. One wore gold hair like noon sun, one red like banked embers; even their eyes echoed their flames. Beyond color, they were mirror and moon.

Aphelia’s body hadn’t fully healed. She returned only a gentle smile, light as dew.

“Blackhold is grave,” Lilo said, apology dimming her eyes like cloud over the moon. “I must report to the royal house and to our clan. It may delay you a few days.” Her bloodline kept her at the palace hearth; a True God–level incident demanded swift report, or else the law would brand her a rebel.

Aphelia had once served the Church. She knew the iron of rules. She nodded, calm as stone.

“Thank you, Aphelia. If you need anything, just tell them.” Lilo steadied Aphelia into the girls’ arms. She flicked a Rune. Arcane Power swelled like a storm tide. In a whoosh of light, she vanished from the watchtower like a spark on wind.

Softness pressed at both her sides, two warm clouds against her arms. Heat bloomed on Aphelia’s cheeks like a sunrise. She’d become a woman, but twenty years of a man’s habits still cast their shadows. Worse, before the change, the “Hero” had been a virgin as white as snow.

The maids didn’t share those thoughts. They took her for a porcelain beauty, frail as new bamboo. After a quick apology, they brushed her brow with cool fingers, careful as petals.

“Miss Aphelia, are you alright?” Fen felt no fever at her skin. She dared not probe with Arcane Power; for a maid, that would be a step past the line, like muddy shoes on a temple floor.

Aphelia’s odd flush made her seem weaker than she was. The teleport had shaken her; her body rang like a gong. Yet the blush wasn’t illness but mortification. She shook her head and smiled, a leaf in wind. Inwardly, she sighed. She had the heart for spring, but wintered hands. Twenty years hauling other people’s burdens, and what had she enjoyed? Only dust and the road.

Shi and Fen traded a look, helpless as two sparrows in drizzle. They guided Aphelia into the room behind them, steps steady as a metronome.

“This floor of the watchtower belongs only to the Crimson Dragon Clan,” Shi said, eager as a bell. “His Majesty granted it for our service to the imperial city.” She bent by a Rune at the wall and murmured to it like to a sleeping child. The door sighed open. Deep violet light spilled out like wine.

Aphelia thought of human royals on the other side of the sea. Their “privileges” were street lanterns; this floor was a private sun. The contrast felt like mountain to grain.

“Forgive the trouble. One more teleport,” Shi said softly. “This array goes straight to the family lands.” Space hummed in the violet glow like a plucked string. Aphelia exhaled and let them lead her into the light.

This time, the pressure was a mountain. Her world grayed out. In the dim, crimson fire rose again like dawn through fog. A familiar breath coiled around her like a dragon tracing circles.

When she woke, she lay in a strange room, silence thick as snow.

She rubbed her temples to ease the dull ache, as if kneading a knot in wood. She hadn’t expected her body to quarrel so badly with Demon World arrays; the strain sat in her bones like cold water.

Still, she wore a True God’s flesh. Relief returned quickly, a tide pulling back. This hadn’t been like the last long jump; the distance felt shorter, the sting less sharp.

She lifted the quilt like lifting a veil and took in the chamber. The finery glowed everywhere like stars on velvet. She gave a rueful smile. She was used to wind and rain for walls. Silk made her shoulders itch.

A soft knock pattered, light as drizzle. “Miss Aphelia, are you awake?” Shi and Fen’s voices drifted through the door, twin flutes.

“I’m awake. One moment...” Aphelia checked her clothing. A loose nightgown hung on her frame. At her chest, white skin lay bare to the air like moonlit snow.

She scanned for her robe like a hunter for trail. Before she found it, the door eased open. Shi and Fen swept in like a fresh breeze and whisked her toward a side room.

“Wait—what are you doing!”

“Forgive us, Miss Aphelia. Please understand!” Fen’s eyes flashed like flint. Her hands moved without hesitation. The nightgown fluttered down like a fallen cloud. Pale, slender lines came bare to the light; only her black hair, a waterfall at midnight, kept one last secret.

Shi’s gaze raked her like a shameless uncle at a market, then steadied. She nodded, turned to the cabinet, and began to choose, fingers sifting fabric like a harp.

“W-wait, it’s just changing clothes, right? My robe—”

“Miss Aphelia, you’re due at a banquet,” Fen said, iron sliding into silk. “That robe wouldn’t pass. It’d be rude.” Her tone rose like a cresting wave. She parted Aphelia’s guarding arms, smooth as a blade through grass, swept her black hair back, and began to tend it with swift, precise strokes.

“Miss Aphelia, your body’s beautiful,” she said, voice professional as a surgeon’s. “Not very full yet. But head to heel, your proportions are nearly perfect. No need to be self-conscious.”

“Self-conscious my ass! It’s called shame! And where are your hands going!” Heat torched Aphelia’s cheeks. The brush of those deft fingers felt like minnows skimming a pond, and it made her sputter.

Fen coughed and averted her gaze, hands snapping back from Aphelia’s chest like burned thieves. She stood as if nothing had happened, calm water over quick sand.

“Then why are you so stiff?” they asked in unison, like bells chiming. “We’re not the opposite sex.”

“I...” The word snagged in her throat like a hook. Aphelia bowed her head, the tip of a willow. She said nothing. Her arms still shielded what modesty demanded.

She wasn’t the Hero Aphelia of yesterday. The fault wasn’t theirs; it was her mind, still clinging like ivy to an old wall. Even so—she’d never stood bare under another’s eyes. Man or woman, it felt like frost on skin. In five years of hiding, she’d learned to live, not to be waited on like a porcelain doll.

While Fen tamed her long hair, comb sliding like a stream over stone, Shi lifted a deep-blue gown. She held it against Aphelia, measuring with her eye like a tailor weighs silk, then nodded.

“Miss Aphelia, please raise your arms. I’ll make a few small adjustments to fit your shape.” Shi’s face was all business, a sealed ledger.

Aphelia sighed like a lantern going out. She let her arms fall open and yielded to Shi’s hands, which traced and pinned like quick birds.

In that moment, she felt something slip from her, soft as a petal—something important, gone on the wind.

She closed her eyes. Shi and Fen traded a glance over her dark crown. A knowing smile bloomed between them like a hidden flower.

In the mansion’s dining hall, the long table ran on like a river of wood. Guests in jeweled finery clinked glasses, light winking like stars on wine. Up on the second-floor balcony sat three at a small round table. Lilo led them, offering polite nods to the sea of faces below.

Beside her, a middle-aged man held the main seat like a mountain holds the skyline. Lilo and a young man flanked him left and right.

Lilo wore formal dress. A black ribbon tied her red hair like a seal on a letter. Her crimson gown traced her curves like flame on bronze, and her beauty burned without smoke.

Her mind drifted like a leaf in eddies. She wanted to speak to the man at center. Words rose, then sank back like stones.

Across from her lounged a young man with Lilo’s features, softer by youth. He yawned, lazy as a cat, yet every idle motion whispered training, coiled and ready.

“Sis,” he said with a small laugh, a spark under snow. “Why worry? You know Father’s temper.”

“Bate, I recalled you to my side not to chatter,” the man in the main seat said, voice a hammer on anvil. He sat like forged steel, the two words iron man etched between his brows. Stand before him, and your spine straightened as if pulled by wire.

“But Father, she’s a disciple of the Valkyrie. If you...” Lilo wanted to say the next words were rude, sharp as a thorn. One glare from him cut the thought like a knife. She swallowed and sighed, a thread of smoke.

She only hoped her father wouldn’t go too far.

A soft knock followed, moth-wing light. Shi and Fen appeared like shadows at noon. Between them, Aphelia stepped into the hall in formal dress, her poise a still lake. She lifted her eyes, found Lilo above, and offered a smile like first light on frost.