Victoria stood there, tea cup in hand — the tea had long gone cold — staring with a somewhat absurd expression at the empty entrance of the main hall.
That Willow, and that Irene with her head apparently full of nothing but inventions — they hadn't even thought to tie me up with a single rope?
They were that certain I wouldn't run?
Or was it that in their logic, the threat level of me — Mason's Third Princess — didn't even rank as high as rushing off to confirm whether that red-haired general still had a single hair left on her head?
What a farce.
Inside the hall, the lively clatter of metal and gunpowder had been swallowed whole by silence in an instant, leaving only a few solitary oil lamps swaying in the cold draft.
Victoria held that long-cold cup of tea, her fingertips tracing slow circles along the rim, while the distant cheers from outside the hall grew louder and more fervent, echoing against her ears.
Those pale gold irises of hers swept briefly to the side, and her gaze locked with precise accuracy onto the small door left ajar on the side of the hall — and beyond it, the row of carved wooden windows in the side hall behind.
Ha. So this is Mason's security logic?
They didn't even leave a dog to guard the door.
The hinges on those wooden windows had already gone half-rotten — one firm push and she could tumble right through.
Skirt the stables, hug the shadows, and with the soldiers in their current state of euphoria, she gave herself a nine-in-ten chance of vanishing completely into Avalon's fog within half an hour.
Victoria's mind raced, sketching escape routes at lightning speed — Plan A, Plan B, contingencies upon contingencies, all meshing together like precision gears, spinning smoothly into motion.
She rose slowly to her feet, her skirts whispering a faint rustle across the floor.
But just as her feet were about to carry her toward that small door — that symbol of freedom — the corner of her eye snagged on a sheet of paper lying on the floor.
It was a page that had slipped from Hailey's little notebook, the one the girl treasured like a prized possession, lost in her mad sprint out of the hall.
Victoria bent down and picked it up with those fair, slender fingers of hers.
The brushwork on the page was extraordinarily childlike — crooked, lopsided, artless.
Hailey had drawn Sophia.
A comically oversized crown perched on her head, and her expression wore that same unwavering, dead-faced blankness as always.
But all around Sophia, the little girl had crammed in every element she considered most beautiful, most exalted, filling every inch of space.
Vivid flowers. Fluttering butterflies. And dominating the entire lower half of the picture… roasted chicken and wheat cakes.
Victoria stared at the drawing, and the tight line of her mouth twitched despite itself.
What an utterly tasteless aesthetic.
What kind of royal portrait gets surrounded by a pile of glistening food?
If that little stone-face ever saw this drawing, she'd probably spend an entire year calculating Hailey's aesthetic education metrics with zero expression on her face.
But… Victoria's gaze lingered on those clumsily drawn dishes, and Hailey's words from earlier surfaced again in her mind.
"Before, we lived just to keep from starving to death. Now we live to help Her Majesty build that golden age."
"As long as Her Majesty is here, not a single person in Mason will go hungry."
Victoria settled back into the wide armchair, her whole body sinking into the shadows.
She had always prided herself on being someone who could thrive anywhere, under any circumstances.
She possessed the most legitimate diplomatic acumen of the royal bloodline — a master of statecraft and intrigue.
If she ran, those power-obsessed fools in the Kingdom of Olan would treat her like an honored guest in a heartbeat, begging her to come untangle their knotted strategy.
Even if she didn't go to Olan, she could make straight for the Imperial Capital.
Back when she'd attended the Noble Academy in the capital, there were a handful of old friends who now held real power — they would certainly have a respectable post waiting for her.
She really could carve out a perfectly comfortable life for herself.
But… that kind of life had already stretched on for years.
Haggling with those blowhard earls who did nothing but spray spit, or trading pieces of hollow, illogical intelligence at hypocritical balls — was any of that truly more interesting than staying here to watch this little stone-face turn rubble into an age of glory?
She looked out the window at the last traces of evening light that had not yet faded.
The color in these soldiers' faces. The fanatical gleam in their eyes. And the cheap but strangely invigorating scent of the floral water on their persons…
All of it was telling Victoria one thing: Hailey hadn't lied.
Mason had truly changed.
This tiny principality she had written off as doomed to die, rotten to its foundations — it had somehow transformed, in the hands of that logic-obsessed maniac, into something entirely new, something she couldn't begin to fathom.
If I run now, I'm just leaping from one old chessboard onto another.
Victoria bowed her head, looking at the poorly drawn figure on the page — that expressionless little stone-face in her lopsided crown.
But if I stay… I might just get to watch with my own eyes how this unreasonable girl dismantles the entire old world, piece by piece.
That prospect felt a great deal more thrilling than merely staying alive.
She wasn't a person who sought out danger. But she could dimly sense Sophia's attitude toward her.
She doesn't actually want me dead, does she?
Otherwise, with the power she wields now, she could have ended Victoria's life the moment they first found her.
Instead of dragging her along like a petty act of spite — keeping her close, yet refusing to deal with her.
Victoria thought back to the moment she'd first fled Mason. She had believed there was no real family bond between her and Sophia.
And so she had lived in constant vigilance, certain that she would be Sophia's next target.
But now, a new thought had taken shape in Victoria's mind.
Could it be… that even if she hadn't run back then, Sophia wouldn't have had her killed?
Though if that were the case, the succession to the throne would have been contested. Some people would naturally have favored an eighteen-year-old her over a sixteen-year-old Sophia.
In that scenario, Victoria's very existence would still have been a threat.
Run, or stay?
The question surfaced in her mind again.
If she ran — at the pace Sophia was moving these days, it wouldn't be long before she was caught again, would it?
And next time, would Sophia's attitude still be the same?
No.
Her subconscious delivered the answer in under a second.
She folded the drawing casually and tucked it into her sleeve.
Then she picked up that long-cold cup of tea once more, took a composed sip, and turned her gaze — deep and contemplative — toward the entrance of the hall.
The side door of the hall creaked open in a gust of wind, then drifted slowly shut again.
Victoria remained right where she was — like a beautiful stone statue wearing a perfectly calibrated, artificial smile — waiting quietly for the return of the storm's center.
Outside Avalon Palace.
A breeze drifted through, and the miasma that had been forcibly dispersed by the Black Rose floral water showed faint signs of creeping back. But under the imposing presence of five thousand of Mason's finest, this cold and blighted land had managed, against all odds, to take on a rare quality of grim order.
Willow and Irene walked on either side of Hailey, each holding one of her hands, with an escort of elite black musketeers following close behind.
Their pace was swift, military boots striking the wet cobblestones in a crisp, rhythmic beat as they drove at full speed toward the faint green glow still flickering somewhere deep within the dense forest.
Hailey jogged along, her short legs working double time, her little face flushed red from the effort, white puffs of breath streaming from her lips.
She couldn't help turning her head back toward the Avalon Main Hall, which was growing dim and indistinct in the gathering dark.
"Miss Willow, Miss Irene…"
Hailey tugged at the hems of their clothes, her wide eyes brimming with worry.
"We all just walked out like that — is that really okay? Her Majesty's biological elder sister… won't she take the chance to play hide-and-seek with Her Majesty while we're not looking?"
In Hailey's simple understanding of the world, Victoria was an unpredictable variable who "ran" — like a startled deer in the mountains, there one moment and gone the next.
At Hailey's words, Willow and Irene both paused half a step almost simultaneously, then exchanged a glance — and the corners of both their mouths curved into the exact same knowing smile.
"Don't worry, Hailey."
Willow reached out and gently smoothed a strand of hair that the wind had blown across Hailey's face, her voice cool and measured but carrying an absolute, unshakeable conviction.
"Before Her Majesty set off into the forest, she made it clear: as long as Victoria still has even one milligram of logic left in that head of hers, she won't run."
Hailey tilted her head, looking a little confused.
"But… what if? What if that lady actually wants to run?"
Irene let out a gleeful laugh beside them, reaching over to give Hailey a pat on the head.
Those sapphire eyes of hers blazed bright in the darkness — the particular gleam of a tech obsessive basking in the glory of their own handiwork.
"Little Hailey, you're still underestimating how thorough Her Majesty is!"
"Her Majesty did say she wouldn't run — and that assessment was based on a full analysis of the lady's intelligence. But Her Majesty also said: logic may be perfect, yet human nature sometimes makes choices outside the expected range. So, while none of you were paying attention, every single one of the seventeen hidden passage exits in this entire Avalon Palace, every one of the thirty-four skylights in the side halls — even the dog flap in the rear garden that only a small pig could squeeze through — Her Majesty has already stationed her best scouts to watch every single one."
Irene leaned in toward Hailey's ear and winked with exaggerated mystery:
"The moment that Third Princess dares to let even her tiptoe cross the threshold of the main hall steps, at least twelve black muskets will lock onto her shadow simultaneously. Her Majesty is saving face for her elder sister — that's the only reason there's no rope around her neck. But that doesn't mean Her Majesty is granting her any freedom. In Mason's tactical handbook, this is called asymmetric surveillance. Just you wait — Princess Victoria is sitting right there in that hall, drinking her tea like a good girl. Because she knows perfectly well: unless she can turn herself into a puff of smoke and float away, every breath of air inside that palace belongs to Mason!"
Hailey's mouth fell open in a perfect O. Then she gave a series of deeply reverent nods.
She bowed her head and made a solemn mental note in that invisible little notebook of hers.
So Her Majesty and the other sisters really were impossibly smart and impossibly capable!
No wonder Miss Willow had run out here without a second glance. No wonder she hadn't looked back once.
All this time, hiding around that seemingly empty hall, there had been so many of Her Majesty's eyes watching.
Poor Sister Victoria — she probably thought she had a chance to escape, but she'd already been sitting right in the palm of Her Majesty's hand!
Long live Her Majesty!
"Let's move. The signal flashed again."
Willow lifted her gaze toward the layered shadows in the distance. Her eyes sharpened, blazing with focused intensity.
"That should be Delilah's position."
At Willow's command, Mason's elite soldiers wasted not a moment more.
They crashed through the dead leaves and fallen branches carpeting the ground, wrapped in that sharp, invigorating fragrance of floral water, driving forward like an unstoppable drill — plunging ruthlessly into the last foggy heart of Avalon's wilderness.
When Willow and Irene pushed through the final stretch of thorns and led the others into the open, the scene before them made every single person hold their breath in an instant — a crushing, suffocating sensation, as though an enormous hand had seized their hearts and was squeezing without mercy, overwhelming even the sharp sting of gunpowder still hanging in the air.
It was a small clearing in the forest. The earth had been churned into chaos. Several trees as wide as a grown person's embrace bore deep sword gashes and blackened bullet holes.
Sophia sat there motionless on the damp moss-covered ground.
Her silver silk skirts — always immaculate, the embodiment of Mason's highest Order — were now spread wide around her in great sweeping folds.
What had once been pure silver was now saturated in great patches with something warm and viscous and deep red, so that in the flickering firelight it looked like a blood-red rose blooming in full and ruinous splendor against the dark.
And there at the center of that crimson stain, Delilah lay silently against Sophia's chest.
The red-haired general who in ordinary times blazed like a living torch — who always stood with her spine as straight as iron — was now frail as a crumpled sheet of paper.
The light armor she wore had been shattered beyond recognition, multiple concave dents from blunt-force impacts pressing deep into her chest.
Her hair, which usually burned like a flame, was now tangled with mud and dried clots of blood, plastered strand by strand against a face gone so pale it was nearly translucent.
Her eyes were closed, her lashes barely trembling. Each breath was faint and broken — as if at any second the guttering lamp of her life might be snuffed out entirely by Avalon's cold wind.
"Delilah…"
Irene let out an involuntary, strangled sound. She instinctively lurched forward — but caught one look at Sophia's profile and stopped dead in her tracks.
Sophia still wore that immovable, expressionless face.
Her spine was perfectly straight. Her right hand steadily cradled the back of Delilah's neck. Her left hand lay gently over the other woman's wound-ravaged wrist.
Yet even without a single word, everyone who stood there could feel it — radiating from this young queen without pause, without end: a low-pressure cold so terrible it could freeze a soul where it stood.
In those pale gold eyes, the familiar calculus and cold reason were gone. In their place was something purely, utterly frigid.
The kind of cold that comes after watching something you treasured most be maliciously torn apart. The kind that precedes a devastating, total reprisal when every last piece of your logic has been desecrated.
Willow stopped too, a reflexive fear keeping her from moving closer.
Her Majesty was angry.
Not angry in any ordinary sense.
That look in Her Majesty's eyes… it was the look of someone gazing at the dead.
Even seated in the mud, even with her skirts soaked in blood, the pressure emanating from her was even more overwhelming than when she had faced an entire enemy army.
Whoever had done this to Delilah — Her Majesty had probably already designed several thousand deaths for that person in her mind, none of them within the bounds of human mercy.
Looking at the tight set of Her Majesty's lips, I finally understood: General Delilah is not merely Her Majesty's sword.
Daphne was kneeling directly across from Sophia, cold sweat beading dense across her forehead.
Her pristine Saint's robes were in disarray from the branches of the forest floor, and both of her hands were suspended rigidly above Delilah's chest.
A torrent of rich green magic power, almost solid in its intensity, gushed from her palms as she fought desperately to knit together wounds so deep they reached bone.
"Your Majesty… I am forcibly locking her heart meridians."
Daphne's voice was thin and strained from overexertion, carrying the faintest, barely perceptible edge of tears.
"The Olan methods were merciless. They didn't only torture her — they packed the wounds with stone powder that inhibits healing.
I can keep her alive, but she is far too weak right now. She needs to be taken somewhere warm immediately."
Even though Daphne and the others sometimes competed in small, subtle ways with Delilah for Her Majesty's attention, in their hearts, all of them were Her Majesty's treasure, Her Majesty's vassals.
And between them, there was a genuine camaraderie.
Seeing Delilah lying there like a corpse, no one could bear to look on in silence.
Sophia said nothing. She only bowed her head slightly and rested her cheek gently against Delilah's icy forehead.
In that moment, a strange illusion seized the soldiers standing around her — that their queen was using her very soul to warm a blade that was almost entirely extinguished.
Irene stood at the outer edge of the group, looking at the red-haired general's near-lifeless form cradled in Sophia's arms. The heavy parts case she usually clutched so habitually was being squeezed in her grip until it creaked.
To hell with cost efficiency!
To hell with logical budgeting!
Those Olan bastards actually dared to put Delilah through something like this…
Thank god. Thank god she got out.
War was cruel — this was something Irene, who had received a modern education, had always known.
But if they wanted to live, to live well, then in this chaotic era war was unavoidable.
It was only when the knife cut into a comrade that Irene felt it again — that pain.
She had done too little. Far too little.
Why couldn't she fabricate missiles with her own hands? Why couldn't she wipe out every one of those disgusting, hypocritical, greedy villains entirely?
Hailey hid behind Willow, both small fists clenched tight around the fabric of Willow's clothes, tears spinning in her eyes.
She looked down at the drawing of Sophia in her hand, then back up at the queen before her, soaked in crimson.
For the first time, she realized that this powerful, fearsome Majesty — in this single moment — looked so very alone. And so very heartbreaking.
Sophia raised her head slowly. Her gaze swept across the soldiers who had just arrived, her voice so soft it nearly dissolved in the wind — and yet carrying a killing stillness that left no room for argument:
"Bardess."
"At your command!"
Bardess dropped to one knee with a crash, her voice thundering.
"Seal every exit from Avalon for this Queen.
The nobles left alive, the officials who had any hand in this — kill them all.
Brand the prisoners of war with the magic seal Daphne prepared."
Sophia tightened her arms around Delilah, rose to her feet, and let the bloodstains drag their savage marks across the silver skirts.
"We're going home."
Sophia's voice was barely above a whisper — as if she feared waking the sleeping beauty she held in her arms.
Bardess and her personal guard fell in immediately behind her.
The Commander, usually so brash and careless, had a face now set in iron-cold silence. She watched Sophia's profile — still utterly expressionless — and the fingers wrapped around her sword hilt had gone white at the knuckles from the force of her grip.
Her Majesty had already carried the General like this for a full three miles.
The General was slender, yes, but the weight of armor and bone was no joke.
I tried several times to go up and say 'let me take her, please don't exhaust yourself' — but every time I looked into Her Majesty's pale gold eyes, my throat locked up like it had been stuffed with ice.
Her Majesty is punishing herself.
She is using this near-self-flagellating method to feel the weight of this broken blade.
When the side door to the main palace hall was pushed open, Victoria Mason rose slowly from where she had been waiting.
The first thing her eyes found was not a triumphant sovereign — but a silver silhouette drenched entirely in blood and gunsmoke.
The red-haired woman cradled in Sophia's arms had a pulse so faint it was barely distinguishable from a corpse, her tangled hair and shattered armor shockingly jarring beneath the brilliant lights of the hall.
The perfectly practiced smile on Victoria's face cracked open in an instant.
She actually… actually carried the woman back herself?
Insane.
That little stone-face Sophia had completely lost her mind.
With her stamina, surely even her fingertips were trembling by now?
She was the Queen of Mason. She had no shortage of people strong enough to carry and haul. And yet she chose the most inefficient, most dignity-destroying option available to her.
For a general already half-broken, she had reduced herself to this — drenched head to toe in blood, a picture of wretched disarray…
If the Olan Earl ever heard about this, he'd probably laugh himself to death right there at his own banquet table.
But… why is it that when I look into those pale gold eyes of hers, I can't summon the faintest trace of laughter?
Victoria opened her mouth. The carefully prepared words she'd had ready died in her throat the moment she noticed the blood dripping from the hem of Sophia's skirts.
Sophia didn't spare Victoria even a ten-thousandth of a second of eye contact.
She passed her like she would pass an irrelevant stone pillar, carrying that suffocating smell of blood, walking straight across the hall and into the depths of the palace — toward the warmest, driest suite that had already been ordered to be swept clean.
"Prepare hot water. And the cleanest bandages available."
Sophia's voice was steady as ever, yet threaded through with a husky roughness that sent chills down the spine.
She stepped into the room and with exquisite care laid Delilah down onto the velvet-padded couch.
Her movements were so gentle it was as though she were setting down a priceless, irreplaceable piece of porcelain.
Daphne's face was ashen at this point, her Saint's robes soaked through with sweat.
She didn't even manage the presence of mind to bow to Sophia — she stumbled to the bedside and thrust both hands out again, releasing a faint but unyielding green light.
"Magic power… still enough…"
Daphne gritted her teeth, those jade-green eyes locked unblinking onto Delilah's sunken chest.
"Your Majesty, please step back a little. I need to clear the stone powder from her wounds. The process… will be very painful."
Sophia didn't move. She simply stood at the head of the bed in silence, allowing the blood from her skirts to drip onto the expensive carpet.
When she heard Daphne say the magic was running low, she immediately extended her hand and placed it on Daphne's arm — and in the next instant, Daphne felt a surge of magic flowing in.
Her Majesty wouldn't leave.
Everyone in the room knew it.
Irene stood in the doorway, arms wrapped around her parts case, not going in so as not to disturb the treatment.
She looked at Sophia's blood-smeared back, and every trace of her usual boisterous energy had vanished without a trace.
She felt fury — fury at the innocent suffering caused by human greed.
Victoria stood at the far end of the corridor, watching Willow and the soldiers rushing back and forth with armloads of emergency medical supplies.
She glanced down at her own dress — pristine, not a speck of dust, still impeccably elegant in its deep red — and then thought of Sophia's blood-drenched silver skirts from a moment before.
This unconditional, cost-be-damned protectiveness over your own — is that the cornerstone of the logic by which you rule Mason, Sophia?
What a terrifying charisma for a leader to possess.
Under a Tyrant like this, even death starts to feel like something that can be calculated and endured.
If you won't abandon even a chess piece that's nearly dead, then I — your elder sister who still has plenty of use left in her — it seems I really can afford to relax a little… and sell myself to you.
Victoria exhaled slowly. The tension that had kept her shoulders rigid finally let go.
She turned and walked toward the side hall, and began organizing in her mind the complete list of all Avalon's officials.
"Could someone bring me paper and writing brushes, please?"
A busy soldier heard Victoria's request and without hesitation went to fetch them.
Even if the Third Princess wanted to write letters, it didn't matter — she couldn't send them anywhere. They might as well let her scribble away and keep herself occupied.
Victoria could feel it: the moment the paper and brushes were in her hands, the number of eyes watching her had multiplied.
She didn't mind. Because she no longer had any desire to run.
As this elder sister, the least she could do was help sharpen the blade a little keener — so it wouldn't keep dirtying that dress of hers, which by now was… well past any hope of washing clean.
Inside the room.
The dense, almost tangible emerald radiance slowly receded like a withdrawing tide.
Daphne's arms, held in their casting posture, trembled faintly. Sweat traced the line of her delicate jaw and fell in drops onto the velvet rug beside the couch.
She let out a long, slow breath. Her face, drained pale, had taken on a feverish flush from sheer exhaustion — yet those jade-green eyes of hers had finally, at last, relaxed.
"Your Majesty…"
Daphne turned her head, her voice thin as spider silk, but carrying the deep relief of someone returned from the edge of ruin.
"General Delilah's life has been saved. The stone powder inside her has been fully cleared, and her fractured ribs have been temporarily secured with magic. From here, she simply needs to rest — there is no longer any risk of infection."
She paused, a flash of pain moving through her eyes.
"But her injuries were so severe, and her life force so severely depleted — she will likely need to sleep for a very long time before she wakes."
Sophia had stood at the head of the bed this entire time, the hand still stained with dried blood never once leaving the range of Delilah's awareness.
When she heard those three words — "has been saved" — the ice-sealed surface of those pale gold eyes rippled, faintly, for just an instant.
It was the quiet settling of logic returning to its proper place.
She looked at the swaying, barely-standing Daphne — and without a word, she reached out and closed her hand around Daphne's small, ice-cold fingers.
Not a simple supporting grip. Fingers interlaced, ten into ten.
"Hmm—"
Daphne's whole body shivered. An indescribable, pure and vast energy surged in through the interlaced gaps of their fingers with wild force.
The sensation was nothing like a magic potion's violent rush — it was more like sinking into a pool of perfectly warm water on a winter's day. Warm, deep, and substantial, carrying the cool, clean fragrance that was uniquely Sophia's, filling the near-empty reservoir of Daphne's magic power in an instant.
Daphne bowed her head, her cheeks flushing so red they seemed ready to bleed.
This feeling — no matter how many times she experienced it, she could never stop herself from drowning in it.
Her Majesty's body was exactly like Her Majesty herself — glacial on the surface, yet burning at the core in a way that made one's heart seize.
This interlaced-hand energy transfer — it was the greatest trust and the greatest reward Her Majesty could give to her, wasn't it?
Though the outside world might deem this manner of contact too intimate, in Her Majesty's logic, this was simply the most efficient form of resupply.
As long as I can help Her Majesty, as long as I can hold fast to Her Majesty's blade — even if this comforting warmth were to swallow me completely, I would welcome it gladly.
"Go rest."
Sophia withdrew her hand. The faint warmth that had lingered at her fingertips dissolved instantly into the air, and her tone remained its usual short, absolute self.
"Your Majesty should also rest — you have already… overdrawn yourself for far too long."
Daphne reluctantly pulled her own hand back, her voice low as she ventured the small protest.
"It's not time yet." Sophia turned her head to look out the window. Avalon's fog, in the faint early light of dawn, seemed heavier and more oppressive than ever — as though it were concealing countless lambs lined up for slaughter.
Daphne knew Her Majesty's nature well. Once that accounting logic of hers began to turn, no one could make it stop.
She gave a gentle nod.
"Then I'll rest a while on the small bed in the side hall. Your Majesty, if anything comes up — or if the General shows any change in condition — please don't hesitate to call me."
As Daphne retreated into the side hall, Willow — standing guard at the door — let out a long, long breath.
The tightly wound string in her eyes finally went slack.
"I'll go prepare something warm to eat."
Willow said softly to the others in the room, her gaze sweeping across Sophia's blood-streaked silver skirts. A faint ache passed through her chest.
"Everyone's been busy all night. We'll still need our strength for what comes next."
Irene leaned against the door frame, absently rolling a black gemstone between her fingers out of habit.
Her pink ponytail swayed gently in the morning breeze. The usual restless energy in those sapphire eyes was gone, replaced by an absolute, bone-deep gravity.
"Take Hailey with you. She's had a shock."
Irene nodded briefly, her voice low and quiet.
"I'll stay here and keep watch."
Seeing that even her usually lively, high-spirited colleague had fallen into this somber mood, Willow gave a deep, heavy nod.
If it were possible, she wanted to make something sweet — something that might lift everyone's spirits at least a little.
Avalon's dawn brought no warmth. Instead, it draped itself over the city like a grey shroud, winding tight around this sin-laden palace.
The air still carried the lingering smell of gunpowder, mingled with the damp, metallic scent of freshly turned earth.
Outside in the plaza in front of the main hall, the marble paving — once smooth and pristine — had been torn into a cratered ruin by the baptism of Black powder.
And right now, on that pockmarked ground, was playing out the most humiliating — and the most thorough — sweep in Avalon's century of existence.
Bardess stood with one hand resting on the hilt at her waist, her black cape snapping in the morning breeze.
The brash, swaggering expression she usually wore was gone. What remained was a face as hard and unyielding as iron.
Under her command, Mason's soldiers moved like the most relentless of cleaners, herding every living soul from the entire palace — and the surrounding streets — toward the center of the plaza.
"Move it! Stop dragging your feet!"
A soldier drove a boot into the back of an Avalon official dressed in fine silk. The man let out a shriek, his round body rolling through the mud for several turns before slamming into the crowd like a piece of discarded rubbish.
There was no longer any distinction of rank or standing in this plaza.
Nobles who had spent their days in pampered comfort speaking in refined tones were now squeezed in together with filthy servants, shaking with fear.
They stared at the ring of Mason soldiers surrounding them — black duck-billed masks on their faces, silent as death itself — and the only thing left in their eyes was the hollow despair of those who have seen everything shatter.
These are what Her Majesty called the invalid variables.
Looking at these people, Bardess thought of the General's body covered in wounds.
In Mason, a person earns respect through hard work.
Here, these parasites had entertained themselves by tormenting our heroes.
Her Majesty said to seal the exits. So I will scrape every last crack in this Avalon clean.
At the very front of the plaza, a line of prisoners of war was standing with heads bowed, undergoing a most unusual inspection.
Every surrendered Avalon soldier and camp follower had a faint blue light pulsing on their forehead or the back of their hand — the magic seal Daphne had worked through the night to prepare: criminal · prisoner of war.
These markings were not carved into skin. They were anchored directly to the perceptual layer of the soul.
The pale blue light pulsed in the mist, like an invisible hand ceaselessly reminding everyone nearby of their identity.
"Don't think about rubbing it off."
Bardess walked past a military officer who was trying to cover his mark with his sleeve, her voice cold enough to make teeth ache.
"This is a logic-lock woven from Lord Daphne's magic. Once you've dug enough ore to cover your debt, once the roads you've repaired can connect to Mason's borders — this thing will vanish on its own. Until then… you are nothing but a negative asset on Mason's ledger."
"Out of the way! Make room for the new arrivals!"
With a shout, another team of elite musketeers shoved a handful of people stumbling into the plaza.
Those few landed, very gracefully — face-first in the mud.
They were none other than several of Avalon's core senior officials who had attempted to escape through faking death or hidden passages, along with two Olan spies who had tried to blend in with the refugee crowds while dressed in foreign clothing.
Bardess looked down at these mud-soaked, broken things and let a cold, savage smile pull at the corner of her mouth:
"Her Majesty said, regardless of whether they're alive or had a hand in what happened — not a single one is to be missed. Seems our search teams did an excellent job. They even dug the rats out of the sewers."
This is a violation of the laws of war… it absolutely violates the laws of war!
That silver-haired Tyrant — she actually used magic for something this humiliating?
The way those soldiers look at us — it's not the look you'd give a prisoner of war. It's the look you'd give a pile of scrap material waiting to be recycled.
God, that woman called Bardess — she was just looking at that list…
That has to be a death list!
If we'd known Mason's revenge would be this kind of merciless, saturation-strike-style retribution, we never should have laid a hand on that red-haired lunatic…
Off to one side of the plaza, Willow walked briskly past, a food hamper in hand.
Despite the wails and pleading filling the air all around her, her steps were unhurried and steady — her skirts not even collecting a speck of dust.
She swept a glance across the plaza, now thoroughly subdued under Bardess's iron hand, and felt a faint, quiet sense of settlement in her chest.
Bardess was crude in her methods, yes — but in moments like this, it took exactly this kind of thunderous, brutal force to set the stage for Her Majesty's reckoning.
Her Majesty had a keen eye. She had seen from the very first moment that Bardess was someone who could be relied upon to get things done — which was why she had specifically requested her from Qubi.
Every measure of suffering General Delilah had endured would be converted into the weight of the shackles these prisoners wore.
Since Avalon had no understanding of Order, Her Majesty would use the brand marks stamped across this entire city to teach them what Mason-style rules meant.
Willow drew her gaze back. She could already smell the faint, rising fragrance of rice porridge drifting from the side hall.
In that room thick with the scent of blood and medicinal herbs, her Majesty was still waiting for her.
At the center of the plaza, Bardess slowly drew the long blade from her waist. Its tip dragged across the stone slabs with a grating shower of sparks.
"Count them."
She swept her gaze around the square. Those eyes of hers, reddened by gunsmoke, held a calm that made people's blood run cold.
"Any name that doesn't match the list, anyone who played a part in all of this — fill them into the foundations of the city walls.
Her Majesty's side is still waiting for the summary report."
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