“The Heretic Inquisition is about to kill Raven, and you still have time to toss icy barbs.”
Stini and Andor’s scuffle was sunshine on water; toward him, it turned to drawn knives.
Laughter still rang like glass a heartbeat ago; at the sight of him, their faces clouded like storm-swept skies.
“You’re right here. You could’ve stopped it. Why did you let the Truth Seekers Assembly take Raven? Why let the Heretic Inquisition hunt her?”
“Fluent delivery. Even in anger, you forge a blade of hostility. Full marks.”
Stini fisted Abigail’s collar; her fury hit like a rough wind, all splinters and flame.
Great Hero, savior of the world, naive country girl—Stini’s anger made Abigail feel the guilt dig like thorns.
“Why? Don’t you like Raven? Why didn’t you save her!”
The words cut open his chest like a cold blade; he wanted to deny it, yet the truth tasted like iron.
It hurts.
Good. Make it hurt more.
This is his penance.
“She chose it. It’s not on me.”
Under the spear of doubt, Abigail could only spit out frost.
He posed as unbothered, high above like a winter moon, distant and pale.
He put on the villain’s mask; without it, there’d be no trial fit for a sinner.
“You should thank me. Not killing Raven on the spot was mercy. As for you—”
A storm of muscle and blood rose from Stini’s fist like a red squall, slamming toward his face; mana glare stung his skin like nettles.
But in Abigail’s eyes, time turned to slow rain. Drops slid off his umbrella’s dark silk, blown onto Stini’s half-healed face, each bead lazy as a yawn.
Legendary magic, the Fool-King’s Scorching Insight, triggered on its own like a sunflare behind his eyes.
He couldn’t steer it yet; Stini’s strike got dragged into the Godspeed Realm, and he couldn’t step out of that bright, breathless stillness.
He could have slipped aside like a leaf and swept her to the floor, but he didn’t.
He stood quiet, solitary, umbrella held like a lone pine, waiting for the punch as for winter.
I deserve this.
Abigail let his eyes dip closed, a ghost of a laugh tasting of ash.
The punch was never fated to land.
Andor caught Stini’s arm and wrapped her small frame from behind like an anchor in river current.
“Stini, you and Berenz head to Warehouse One and rally. Grab whatever supplies you need. Let me talk to Abigail.”
The great Hero who’d driven back the Demon King more than once, vice-captain and true leader of the Hero Squad—always cold-faced, eyes hiding deep night. Andor wore his usual corpse-still mask and spoke to everyone.
He took Abigail to a small bar, almost empty as always, quiet as snowfall, with one skilled pianist drifting a slow river of piano notes.
No blows, no scolding; the calm felt like a room with no air. Abigail ordered coffee, hoping bitter steam would drown the noise in his chest.
He paused, put on the grin of a crooked merchant, and said:
“So, if I sell you intel on Raven, what price do you pay?”
“Peace of mind. How’s that rate?”
Andor ordered an ice cream and set it before himself like a small white altar.
His eyes pinned Abigail, a deadpan mask that itched like wool; with Andor, that blank sea never showed a ripple.
Was he joking?
“Don’t joke. To save someone branded a heretic by this world’s justice—surely you know what that costs.”
“Then let me repeat myself.”
Andor held his stare without a blink, as steady as ironwood.
“Peace of mind. Freedom from the guilt of ‘hoarding intel and doing nothing.’ The comfort of saying, ‘I tried—at least I gave intel for Raven—so whether she lives or dies, I can face it.’ How’s that price?”
He ate his ice cream in a hush so clean it rang, spoon never touching glass, no chew, just silence—like something huge in the dark slowly worrying a corpse.
Abigail couldn’t name it, but the Fool-King’s Scorching Insight flickered like a broken beacon.
For a heartbeat he saw it—an abyssal thing with a thousand arms and ten thousand bone-wings, a sea of foul blood behind it, a land paved with skull-white earth.
The mirage snapped and vanished; the unnamable was swallowed by forgetting like a stone in deep water. He blinked and found Andor’s eyes again—black that had eaten all night, waiting, expecting, sniffing at his pulse.
A chill ran his spine like meltwater; he nearly spilled his cup.
He drank without a twitch, but calm would not come; the heart kept beating like a trapped bird.
He couldn’t refute a word Andor said. Maybe he wasn’t that small inside, but the shape of it fit like a shadow.
To stage a neat “I tried,” to fool himself and wash a stubborn conscience.
His throat burned like a coal; he reached for coffee and found the cup dry.
He coughed twice, tried to speak, and found his voice a closed fist.
Andor took the thread:
“It’s fine. Leave it to me. All of it. You don’t need to bear the weight or be crushed by ‘I sat on intel and did nothing.’ I’ll shoulder yours and pull.”
“I know you like Raven, but you don’t stand for yourself alone. You carry the Beatrice royal house of the Azure-Wind Kingdom. You can’t move lightly. So let me, a man with nothing to lose, do it. I’ll wear the guilt and the stain.”
“I don’t care. I’ll fight the world for Raven. You can trust me.”
Andor drew back that devouring gaze and focused on scraping the glass clean, spoon whispering like a whetstone.
He said nothing excessive, no curses, no blame; yet every calm syllable was a smile cutting sideways at Abigail.
Mockery tuned to his mind and his bind, so precise it left no target to hit.
It mocked his helpless hands, his foolish head, his constant glance at balances, his failure to save the woman he loved.
It was malice, but not the kind he craved.
It hurt worse, like someone reaching in to pull his guts out by hand.
He still begged, palms together inside, begging for a clean, simple cruelty.
“Don’t you ever hope someone would go with you to save Raven? Don’t you—hope I would?”
Abigail’s cheek twitched; his voice came dry as a dying man licking dust.
Andor smiled—a rare curve, serene and gentle, yet crueler than any Demon King drunk on blood.
“No. I planned to go with Stini and a few others. If you can hand me first-hand intel on Raven’s side, I’ll be grateful.”
He never expected you, the air seemed to say.
Abigail fell silent.
After a long stillness, he drew from his inner pocket the first-hand reports squeezed from the Heretic Inquisition by Beatrice’s pressure.
The pages were dense as ant trails—assumptions, guesses, estimates, every path that might save Raven. Writing them had been all he could do.
Andor thumbed through, then slipped them into his Shadow like papers into a quiet well.
“That’s everything?”
“Yeah. Frontline, first-hand.” He let out a long breath like fog.
“Thanks.”
“Mm… then I’m begging you. Please. Save Raven.”
Abigail’s brow knotted tight; if he didn’t squeeze his eyes, tears would fall like sudden rain.
But he would not cry before the man named Andor Mephy. Not again.
“I will. I would, even if you didn’t say it.”
“And… treat Raven well.”
“Got it.”
“She loves magitech. Don’t let her pull all-nighters building Constructs. It wrecks the body.”
“Got it.”
“You… you’ve spent more time with her than I have. She likes a high pillow or she can’t sleep. She’s student council president, bad at saying no to pushy people—you know that… Treat her well.”
“Got it.”
“Don’t fail her. Or I’ll cut you down. You know I can.”
“Mm. Got it.”
His words ran dry. Abigail slumped over the table like a string cut from a kite, empty and oddly freed.
Andor ordered another ice cream, and a martini that glinted like evening water.
He said,
“Abigail, Raven isn’t suited to you—neither in status nor in temperament.”
“Mm.”
“Find a noble lady of your house to marry. Ideally, one who loves knight romances.”
“Mm.”
“No—better yet, your rival’s daughter or sister. Settle politics and your life in one stroke.”
“Mm.”
Head down, Abigail only breathed soft assent, agreeing to every stone placed on his chest.
Whatever the reason, whatever the excuse, in the end he chose nation and station. He did not choose Raven. On that field, he had already lost to Andor.
You’ve lost the right to cry for her.
Abigail told himself, and the words were a blade held under the heart.
