Rain came down in full force as night fell.
Rainy nights grew dark faster than clear ones, and with the downpour making progress nearly impossible, Sophia ordered the column to halt when the sky had dimmed enough — they would make camp here.
And so Mason's army came to a stop in this desolate stretch of wilderness.
Even in conditions like these, that iron river of four thousand soldiers displayed a level of coordinated efficiency that made the bones tremble. The clang of tent-frame metal, the muffled thud of stakes driven into earth — these sounds wove together through the curtain of rain into a rhythm with an almost industrial beauty. In less than half an hour, a tightly laid-out temporary fortification had risen from the mud.
The waterproof canvas used for the tents had been coated with a specially formulated layer under Irene's personal supervision, making them fully usable even on a night like this.
As darkness settled, the rain gradually eased — but just as Sophia had anticipated, the world outside remained terrifyingly dark.
"Your Majesty, the moisture in the surrounding air is too heavy. Without fires to dry the soldiers' uniforms, the wet gear will cause their body temperatures to drop, resulting in a combat effectiveness loss of at least thirty percent."
A logistics company captain knelt on one knee in the mud, rainwater dripping from the brim of his duck-billed mask, his voice carrying a note of hesitation.
"But... if we light fires on any large scale, out here in this pitch-black night, the glow of the campfires would be the clearest coordinates for ten li in every direction. Those Olanese lurking in the darkness would be able to pinpoint our position at a glance."
Sophia stood beneath the overhang of her carriage, letting the cold wind toss her silver hair loose, her pale gold eyes appearing unusually deep in the darkness.
"Light them."
Her tone was as level as someone issuing the most basic of orders.
"If anyone is watching, even if we crawled through this mud on our hands and knees, four thousand people cannot be hidden."
Whoever was surveilling them had known their movements long ago. With numbers this large, concealment was pointless regardless.
The soldiers were stunned.
This — this was Her Majesty's nerve?
Here, on this Jasu border blanketed in death and destruction, she had just ordered them to light bonfires!
This wasn't keeping warm — this was Her Majesty issuing a death invitation to every rat cowering in the shadows.
She didn't deign to hide. She was actively telling those enemies:
I am right here. With Mason's Order and gunpowder. Come and die.
This kind of candor — towering above all scheming and subterfuge — that was the logic of the truly strong.
Pass the order: make sure those fires burn bright. Let those trash see it clearly.
Inside the carriage, Victoria was watching through the fogged gap in the window as bonfires bloomed one by one into the sky.
Lighting fires at a time like this? In Victoria's view, this was not a wise choice.
Did Sophia even understand what a surprise attack was? Fires on this scale were basically painting a giant arrow on the map that read: people here.
And those Mason soldiers — what on earth had they been fed?
Every last one of them looked not the least bit afraid — in fact, they looked excited, like they were heading to a harvest festival. That fanatical we can't go wrong following Her Majesty fervor was somehow even more suffocating than that pile of charred corpses back in Jasu.
Victoria thought all of this in her heart, but her body acted with complete honesty — she quietly shifted herself closer to the alchemy warming stove inside the carriage.
She turned her head, looked at the small girl still curled in the corner, and let her smile once again become flawless.
"Watch closely, little one."
Victoria flicked the silver coin into the air again. Even though the carriage had stopped moving, the motion at her fingertips remained unnervingly precise.
The little girl was no longer quite like a stone statue as she had been. Though she still hadn't spoken a single word, when Victoria's fingers danced through the air, the girl's previously lifeless eyes finally caught the gleaming arc of the spinning coin.
And when Victoria deliberately slowed down to demonstrate the complicated between-the-fingers sliding technique, the girl's small, withered hand twitched — the tiniest, most involuntary tremor — as though her subconscious were trying to imitate the rhythm.
"This is what they call muscle memory," Victoria said, her voice taking on a particular warmth against the backdrop of rain.
"Even when your mind wants to run away, your body will still honestly reach for things like this..."
Seated beside her, Bardess watched the girl's gradually stirring reaction and felt a flash of genuine admiration — but her blunt-edged brain still couldn't resist wanting to throw fuel on the fire.
"Princess Victoria, look how steady this kid's hands are — if she opened up sooner, I might be able to teach her to shoot!"
Bardess said this while enthusiastically leaning in.
"Hey, kid, do you remember the bastards who started the fire — what kind of armor were they wear—"
Before she could finish, Victoria's razor-cold warning gaze swept over her.
Bardess pulled her neck in, very consciously made a gesture of zipping her mouth shut, and sulkily sat back down.
Victoria then gently set the silver coin into the girl's palm.
"It's yours for tonight. If you can make it flip the way I just did, I'll tell you a little secret about the Queen of Mason."
The girl looked down at the silver coin in her palm, still carrying a trace of warmth. In her blank expression, for the very first time, something hesitant — something almost alive — surfaced.
The campfires eventually fought their way to life, flickering defiantly in the cold and damp wilderness. Tongues of flame licked the rain-soaked wood, sending out a series of deep, crackling pops. As hundreds of fires merged into a continuous blaze, the orange-red halo drove back the thick darkness and cast deep silhouettes around those Mason soldiers standing silent as sculptures beneath their black cloaks.
For these soldiers, forged anew over the better part of a year under iron discipline, these flames were not merely heat — they were the silver-haired queen's wordless declaration of sovereignty over this wasteland.
At the center of the camp, a few army cooks were busy tending the large campaign pots suspended over the fires. Inside, pre-soaked dried beans rolled and bubbled, supplemented by finely chopped smoked meat and a few precious spoonfuls of salt. The thick, savory aroma drifted freely through the camp on the damp cold air.
"Hey, check it out — this is the Royal City canteen recipe."
A soldier lifted the lid, the burst of steam instantly soaking his mask, and he grinned, ladling out half a bowl of thick bean stew for the comrade next in line.
Out here in the wilderness, half a bowl of steaming hot soup paired with chewy Black Bread was more comforting to these battle-worn stomachs than any gleaming medal.
The soldiers gathered in clusters of three and five around the fires, heads down, drinking their soup.
Though the post-rain chill still crept through the gaps in their armor, as warm liquid slid down into their bellies, the visceral revulsion brought on by the annihilation of Jasu seemed to be suppressed by the living, breathing smell of something cooked and human.
"You see, those Olanese dogs only know how to kill and burn — turned this whole place into a ghost town. But our Her Majesty?
"She dares to cook us hot soup right under the enemy's nose. That's the difference!
"All you rats hiding in the shadows, take a good look — when Mason people go to war, even at the gates of hell, we fill our stomachs first.
"How soft these beans in the soup are — that's how settled Her Majesty's heart is. Since Her Majesty doesn't want us hiding, let's eat openly.
"Once we're full — whether it's Olan or any other kingdom — we'll stuff them all into the pot as kindling!"
Inside the carriage, Victoria breathed in the rich, almost aggressive smell of beans and smoked meat drifting through the air, and felt a rare moment of stillness settle over her.
Victoria let her gaze drift across the soldiers outside the window — eating until they sweated through their hair, their eyes growing more ferocious with every gulp — and the silver coin in her hand paused, just slightly.
She had to admit: in weather cold enough to freeze your bones through, this bubbling pot of rough stew was, without question, the most effective — and most devastating — weapon for winning hearts. Far more so than any elaborate court ceremony.
Victoria withdrew her gaze and looked again at the small girl still huddled in the corner, clutching the silver coin, expression caught between one thing and another.
The girl's withered little hands were now gripping that coin for dear life.
Perhaps it was the warmth from the alchemy stove inside the carriage, or perhaps it was the disruption of that lively, living sound of cooking from outside — either way, her body was no longer rigid as stone as it had been before.
"That's the price of the secret," Victoria said again, her voice as gentle as a passing breeze in the narrow compartment.
"If you can make it flip just once, I'll tell you that the queen outside — the one who looks so cold — actually has a very, very surprising secret in private."
She hadn't chosen this wager at random. Before boarding the carriage, Victoria had noticed that this little girl seemed to pay particular attention to Sophia.
Probably wondering how that thin, short older sister could possibly give orders to everyone around her.
The girl kept her head down, her eyes — previously like still, dead water — fixed hard on the coin.
One second. Two seconds.
That filthy little thumb suddenly gave the edge of the coin the tiniest, most delicate nudge.
"Ding."
A metallic sound rang out — so faint it was nearly swallowed by the rain.
The coin didn't dance at Victoria's fingertips. It only clumsily flipped once, then slid down onto the girl's knee.
But it was more than just a flip.
In that instant, Bardess sitting beside them snapped her eyes wide open and didn't dare even breathe.
She might not understand Victoria's game of psychological chess, but she understood what this meant.
This child, pulled from a pile of corpses — in this one moment, she had finally extended the thinnest, most fragile tendril of survival toward a world that had given her nothing but cruelty.
Victoria curved her brow, and her smile shed a few layers of pretense, gaining instead a sliver of the pleasure that belongs to those who play high-stakes games and win.
"Very good. It seems our pact is sealed."
She reached out and gently stroked the girl's matted, unkempt hair, her touch so light that even the distant campfires seemed to warm a few degrees:
"The secret is... Sophia was already exactly this tall when she was twelve years old.
"Back then I actually thought she'd grow taller than me — but several years have passed, and she hasn't changed one single centimeter."
The girl lifted her head. Those dry-well eyes, in the darkness, clearly reflected Victoria's image for the very first time — and a flash of something fleeting, lively, and confused passed through them.
Beside them, Bardess found she couldn't quite suppress her curiosity.
Bardess stopped cleaning the ramrod in her hands and shifted the whole of herself forward, her face written over with disbelief, even carrying a flicker of hunger for forbidden knowledge.
"You mean... Her Majesty, at twelve years old... was already this height?"
As she said it, she measured a spot at her own chest with her hand.
At Her Majesty's current stature, on a twelve-year-old that would have been considered commanding — a build people would have praised as "the frame of a future general."
But the problem was, Her Majesty was now sixteen.
Four whole years. Could that growth variable really have ground to a complete halt on Her Majesty?
Victoria elegantly drew the ivory fan from her waist — slightly worn with age but no less exquisite — and flicked it open with a snap, concealing her own smile of layered meanings behind it.
Would you look at that. This lioness could even find solemnity in listening to idle gossip.
That little stone-face Sophia — at twelve she'd been like a small white weasel with very sharp teeth. At the time Victoria had genuinely worried she'd grow up into a two-meter iron tower like their Royal Father. And then...
Who could have guessed?
Fate had apparently decided that after loading her up with such terrifying intelligence, it had no intention of reserving even a single centimeter of physical space for her.
Four years completely frozen — in Victoria's view, this was purely the result of that ruthless heart of hers routing all nutrients directly to her brain cells.
Victoria was ranting at full speed in her head, but on the surface she merely lowered her lashes slightly, her tone carrying that royal tendency for meaningful understatement:
"Back then, Royal Father had a brand-new hunting outfit made especially for her.
"A pity, really — that outfit, even now, would probably fit her... quite perfectly."
Just as Bardess was about to pry a little more into the mystery of Her Majesty's growth, a series of soft but unmistakable knocks sounded against the outside of the carriage.
"Princess Victoria. Bardess."
Willow's gentle voice slipped through the breeze and into the compartment, carrying with it a warmth that put people at ease.
"Her Majesty asked me to call you to join us. I've just finished a pot of fresh meat soup in the tent — smoked ham and dried mushrooms from the stores. Come warm yourselves, everyone."
Willow didn't spell it out, but out here in the wilderness, being able to say fresh meat soup said everything — this was a wartime exclusive reserved for Sophia's inner circle.
Ordinary soldiers could have bean stew, but compared to this pot Willow had carefully prepared, that was simply two different dimensions of taste.
"Understood — we'll be right there."
Victoria answered through the curtain, her voice returning once more to that unhurried elegance.
Victoria turned her head and looked at the small girl — still clutching the silver coin, expression uncertain.
"You heard that. There's very good meat soup outside.
"In freshly rained ruins like these, refusing a steaming bowl of hot soup is very much against the logic of survival."
The girl raised her head. Those dry-well eyes looked toward Victoria.
She still didn't speak — but that instinctive longing for warmth was spreading, little by little, from the depths of her gaze.
Just as the girl was still trying to decide what expression to use to refuse or accept, Victoria had no intention of giving her time to hesitate.
She simply reached out with those impeccably kept, delicate hands — which somehow carried a force that left no room for argument — and seized the girl's small, dirty hand in hers.
"Let's go. Don't keep Sophia waiting too long."
And with that, Victoria half-pulled, half-dragged the girl straight out of the carriage.
Bardess followed behind, watching Victoria's decisive retreating figure, then watching the little girl who — rather than resisting — was actually stumbling along in Victoria's wake, and rubbed her chin with a helpless expression.
"Hss... The Third Princess always looks so soft and refined, so cultured and composed — how come when she actually does something she's just as take-charge as the rest of them?"
Bardess muttered to herself, genuinely puzzled.
Could this be... what they called the resonance of royal blood?
When she'd asked that little girl a question, the kid had stared back like a puppet, not a flicker of response. But the Third Princess? First came the coin tricks, then the forcible dragging — and somehow the child had actually responded to her.
Sure enough, not a single woman around Her Majesty was simple.
Princess Victoria's seemingly high-handed pulling — that was actually her high emotional intelligence shattering this child's defensive walls outright, wasn't it? In this scorched earth of despair, that kind of warmth that asks no permission might really be the most effective kind.
I'm still better off staying by Her Majesty's side. See more, learn more. I really do still have a lot to learn.
The thick canvas of the tent blocked out the clammy outdoor air and sealed away the unsettling post-rain quiet. The campfire danced lightly on its custom-made stand, tongues of flame licking the underside of the pot, producing a faint, rhythmic sound.
The rolling soup inside was Willow's carefully prepared creation — the salt and depth of smoked meat, the fresh sweetness of dried mushrooms, mixed with a precious touch of aromatic spice. It spread through the confined space, and that warmth almost made one forget the devastation outside.
Sophia, Irene, and Daphne were seated on the ground, a simple low wooden table in front of them. On it lay several unrolled maps of the Jasu terrain, their edges worn soft with use.
Sophia rested her chin in one hand, the other tapping the wooden tabletop in a slow, unconscious rhythm. The flickering firelight gilded her pale profile in warm amber, yet still failed to melt the permanent cool disinterest in her eyes.
In one corner of the tent, Delilah lay quietly on the thick bedding. To guard against the damp, Irene had specially layered the sleeping mat with waterproof material and a thick bed of dry straw, raising it well above the ground so the moisture below couldn't seep through and chill the wounded.
The red-haired general's breathing had smoothed out considerably. The deathly pallor that had drained her face had, under Daphne's careful tending, finally given way to a faint flush of color.
Irene glanced at Delilah, who looked for all the world like she'd merely fallen asleep, and felt a quiet admiration in her chest.
Her Majesty really did think of everything.
Even on the march to war, the ones who needed rest were made to rest in comfort. With the bedding piled this thick, never mind the damp — even if it rained blades outside, Delilah wouldn't feel the cold.
Though, General Delilah could only sleep this soundly when she was near Her Majesty. Who else could turn a tent in a wilderness where an ambush could come at any moment into something as cozy as a warm private chamber?
With a soft lift of the tent flap from Willow, Victoria led the little girl and Bardess inside.
In that instant, every pair of eyes in the tent landed on them.
Irene had been about to reach for the ladle. The sight in front of her stopped her mid-motion, a flash of undisguised curiosity passing through those sapphire eyes.
She was genuinely astonished.
That little girl who'd been a stone statue just that morning — whom even a powerhouse like Bardess couldn't crack — was now meekly letting Victoria hold her hand?
Victoria still maintained that perfectly poised, elegant smile. Despite the mud she'd endured all the way here, she seemed to possess some innate gift for always looking as though she'd just stepped out of a palace soirée.
My, this little table is quite low.
Though, out in the wild, conditions like these were already one in a million. Even Olan — wealthy and extravagant as it was — only kept the good things for itself. Those soldiers had no tables, no tents.
And this meat soup...
It really was indecently fragrant.
All things considered, life here was no worse than it had been back in Mason Palace. In fact, Victoria thought, it might even be a touch better than what she'd had before she'd fled.
Victoria paid no mind to Irene's probing gaze. She drew the small, thin girl straight to the fireside and settled her beside herself with complete naturalness.
The moment the girl stepped inside the tent, her body stiffened visibly — especially when her gaze landed on Sophia in the place of honor. A flash of instinctive fear swept through those wide eyes.
But under the guiding warmth of Victoria's hand, she ultimately didn't bolt. Instead she curled beside the hem of Victoria's skirt like a startled kitten that had been soothed into staying.
Bardess came in behind them, awkwardly patting the moisture off her cloak.
Watching the harmonious little scene, she could only sigh inwardly.
How on earth did this little girl actually respond to her approach?
Sophia glanced up slightly, her gaze resting for just a moment on where Victoria held the girl's hand.
She said nothing. She simply pointed at the empty bowl on the table, voice unhurried:
"Sit down. The soup is just right.
"Drink it while it's hot — warm yourselves up."
Willow smiled and swiftly ladled out steaming bowls of meat soup for the new arrivals.
In the cold, gloomy depths of this post-rain night, a truly human warmth finally rose, slow and steady, inside the stern and silent tent.
And the little girl — looking at that bowl of fragrant, steaming soup set before her — gave a small, involuntary twitch of her nose. The expression on that little face, which had been numb for so long, shifted by the tiniest, most fragile degree.
Sophia picked up her wooden bowl, blew gently across the surface, and drank in careful sips. The warm liquid slid down her throat — carrying the oily richness of smoked meat and the fresh sweetness of mushroom — instantly driving out the chill that had clung to her fingertips.
"Willow, your cooking has improved. Thank you for the trouble."
Sophia set down her bowl. Her tone was as even as always, but those pale gold eyes held, for a rare moment, a trace of something soft.
"So long as Your Majesty enjoys it."
Willow stood to one side. At the compliment, those gentle eyes brightened visibly, and even the corners of her eyes carried a faint, almost invisible smile.
"Just good? Willow has cooked spring itself into this pot!"
Irene called out with a mouth half-full of Black Bread soaked in broth, voice muffled, eyes sparkling.
Daphne, cradling her bowl, cheeks flushed pink from the steam, nodded in agreement.
"Mm. After drinking this I feel like some of the exhaustion has just... lifted."
Beside them, Bardess had no use for flowery language. She just put her head down and drank in deep, hearty gulps that rumbled in her throat.
For her, getting to drink something this hot right now beat any reward they could offer. She had no breath to spare for compliments — she just drank and nodded, drank and nodded.
Victoria sat by the fire, her posture maintaining that elegance ground deep into her bones. Watching the identical string of praises from the people around her, a faint private skepticism stirred inside her.
A bowl of rough-and-tumble field stew, however good it might be, surely couldn't be a divine taste — the reactions of these people were a bit much, weren't they? Had Mason's standard of cooking really sunk this low?
Carrying that critical scrutiny, she gently scooped up a spoonful and brought it to her lips.
The moment it hit her tongue, the savory saltiness detonated across her taste buds. The rich, full-bodied broth showed no trace of thinness despite the limited ingredients — on the contrary, the long, slow simmer over low heat had drawn out a depth and warmth that reached somewhere fundamental.
The hand holding the spoon paused, ever so slightly.
Hmm... as much as she didn't want to admit it... this was honestly more comforting than any dish produced by the celebrated chefs of Orr Palace.
That rare skill of coaxing a flower out of cold iron — it truly was something.
Victoria set down her spoon, and her gaze settled on Willow, who was busy ladling a bowl for the little girl.
She had the persistent sense that this face was familiar — not the familiarity born of knowing Sophia's confidante, but something from further back, some dim corner glimpsed long ago.
"Willow?"
Victoria ventured the name, her voice gentle and melodic.
"I always feel as though your face is familiar to me. Have we met before, somewhere in Mason Palace?"
Willow paused, turned, and gave a proper courtesy, smiling softly:
"Your Highness has an excellent memory.
"Indeed, I began serving in the palace when I was very young. But at that time I was nothing more than an ordinary maidservant, responsible for sweeping some of the more out-of-the-way corridors. A princess of Your Highness's standing would naturally never have noticed someone as humble as me."
Victoria raised an eyebrow, faintly surprised.
The maidservants she remembered from when she'd left Mason had been meek, unremarkable things, without a spark of life to them. But this Willow — her bearing and speech were composed and assured, and she carried a steady gravity that many generals couldn't match.
"After Her Majesty ascended the throne, the old and rotten figures in the palace were cleared out."
Willow looked toward Sophia, her gaze filled with undisguised devotion and loyalty.
"It was Her Majesty who found me in those ruins of old records, who recognized my worth, and who gave me the chance to prove myself.
"To me, Her Majesty is not only a wise ruler — she is the light that came into my life."
As she said it, a catch of genuine emotion crept into Willow's voice, utterly pure, without a single trace of courtly performance.
Sophia set down her bowl, swept her gaze over Willow, and spoke in a tone that was cool but carried an oddly grounding strength.
"A hidden gem doesn't lose its luster just because it's covered in dust."
Sophia looked toward Victoria, and then spoke as if addressing everyone in the tent:
"Willow's journey to where she stands today was not because of my recognition.
"It is because in that corrupt environment, she still held onto herself — refused to be swept along by the current, refused to be moved by others' words.
"Her hard work and her character — those are the reasons I chose her."
Hearing this, Willow felt a sudden rush of warmth flood her chest — a heat more burning than the meat soup itself.
She bowed her head deeply and said nothing more, but anyone could see what was hidden in those faintly trembling shoulders.
Victoria watched the scene unfold, her folding fan tapping lightly against her palm. An odd ripple stirred somewhere in her chest.
Sophia... this little stone-face. The way she won people's hearts really was on a whole other level.
Victoria turned and looked at the little girl sitting beside her, staring blankly at the meat soup, and let out a quiet breath.
"Did you hear that?
"Here, as long as you're willing to try, even a pebble can become gold.
"Come on — drink the soup first."
The little girl raised her head, first taking in Victoria's gentle, smiling face, then casting a timid glance at Sophia in the seat of honor — cold in expression, yet inexplicably steadying.
She shrank slightly in the dark, as if afraid to drink.
But seeing that everyone seemed to genuinely mean for her to have the soup—
At last, she opened her mouth and drank a small, careful sip of the warm broth.
The fingers holding the wooden bowl were still taut, knuckles gone slightly bluish from the force of her grip.
In the fragments of her memory, loud noise had always come paired with the fall of a whip — and this kind of special treatment, where she could smell meat, had usually meant that whatever came afterward would be worse than before.
She quietly lifted her eyes, and through the steam rising from the bowl, swept a quick glance at the few people gathered around the low table.
The silver-haired queen who looked like ice and snow was bent over the map in thought, elegant fingers tapping a steady beat against the wooden surface.
The pink-haired older sister and the girl in Saint robes were arguing over which type of mushroom tasted better.
The beautiful woman who had pulled her in was chatting idly with the rough-voiced general about old stories from some palace far away.
No one was looking at her.
None of that appraising gaze that looked at livestock. None of that hair-trigger, brutal readiness to strike.
This state of being "overlooked" — in this moment, at this hour — had somehow become the most extravagant gentleness she had ever known.
She followed what Victoria had done moments before and brought the bowl to her lips with great care, taking the tiniest sip.
The hot current rolled across her tongue and down her throat, and that rich, salty aroma detonated in her parched chest — warmth threading outward through her blood into her frozen limbs.
She instinctively hunched her shoulders, bracing for a reprimand that might come — but the tent held nothing but the soft crackle of burning wood and the low, indistinct hum of people talking.
When she found that truly no one was going to hit her, and no one was going to take the bowl away, the girl's shoulders finally sagged, just a little.
She tucked herself deeper into the shadow cast by the fall of Victoria's lake-blue gown, like a small squirrel that had finally found its hollow tree.
She stopped using the wooden spoon. Instead, she lifted the bowl with both hands and began to drink, small sip by small sip.
That well-stewed, falling-apart piece of meat landed on her tongue, and the fragrance of its fat made those dead, still eyes tremble once more.
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