The Duchy of Praha, once the pride of the North, had been reduced to ash and ruin.
What had been a palace of pristine white stone now resembled the aftermath of a siege. Gray flakes drifted through the air like mockeries of snow, and the bodies of servants lay scattered across the courtyard like discarded dolls.
“There she is!”
Several knights bearing the Elder Council’s colors shouted from across the debris field. They had found her at last.
“…It’s hard to even hide.” Lea Praha exhaled slowly and rose from her hiding place behind a collapsed wall.
The emblems carved into their armor told her everything she needed to know—these were mercenaries, not House knights. Sellswords of considerable skill, judging by their equipment and formation.
“Mercenaries hired by the High Elder,” she murmured. “Some sort of secret weapon, perhaps?”
The thought drew a bitter smile from her lips. She found it strange that she was unconsciously mimicking Louis’s habit of talking through problems aloud.
They say people grow to resemble those they love.
Whether Louis knew it or not, she was quite certain of her feelings for him. How else could she explain the way he occupied her thoughts, or how her cheeks warmed whenever his name crossed her mind?
“Enough.” She shook her head sharply. “Idle thoughts can wait.”
The mercenaries were already moving.
Lea gripped her sword and stepped forward to meet their charge.
Whoosh—CRASH!
Her blade sang as it carved through the air, trailing frost-white Aura.
The mercenary’s torso opened in a spray of crimson, and he crumpled to the ground in two pieces. Her ice-touched power spread outward, freezing the blood where it fell and coating the stones with killing frost.
Battle after battle followed in the same pattern. Strike, kill, move. Strike, kill, move.
“There’s no end to them,” she whispered, wiping sweat from her brow despite the cold.
She had lost count of the skirmishes. Just how many mercenaries had they hired to take a single ducal house? At this rate, her Aura reserves would fail long before their numbers did.
Lea’s grip tightened on her sword hilt. Whether she could hold out or not, she had to keep fighting. What she protected here was more than just her family—it was the North itself.
* * *
Three hours’ hard ride from the Imperial Palace, Louis Berg urged his mount toward Praha Duchy. He had not spoken a single word since they departed, focused entirely on coaxing every bit of speed from his horse.
The knight commander watched him with growing concern.
This is dangerous.
The young man was driving himself toward destruction, consumed by something darker than mere duty. How many talented warriors had he seen ruin themselves when blinded by revenge?
“Sir Louis.”
“What is it?”
“We’ll reach the Praha Duchy in thirty minutes. Perhaps we should rest the horses, even briefly?”
Louis glanced at him, and the knight commander saw murder in those eyes.
“You seem fine physically.”
“I’m not concerned about myself, but the other knights. Even Imperial Knights will suffer if we maintain this pace.”
Louis turned to assess the column behind them. The knights showed strain, though they pressed on without complaint. Their mounts, however, were beginning to falter.
When every moment counts, Louis thought, clicking his tongue in frustration.
“Very well,” he said aloud. “Rest if you must.”
The knight commander’s relief was palpable. At least the boy retained some tactical sense.
“Good thinking. We’ll rest over there—”
“I’m going ahead.”
The words cut through the knight commander’s planning like a blade.
“What did you say?”
But Louis was already spurring his horse forward, the crack of his reins sharp in the cold air. His mount leaped ahead with renewed vigor, and the distance between him and the column began to widen rapidly.
The knight commander watched until Louis became a distant speck on the northern road, then raised his hand to halt the advance.
“Another star falls,” he murmured, offering a brief prayer to whatever gods might listen. Please don’t let this one burn out too quickly.
* * *
At the moment Louis rode alone toward the Praha estate, Lea was fighting for her life against the Artezia knights disguised as mercenaries.
“Kill everyone except the Fourth Lady!”
“If you can manage it, you’re welcome to try!”
Grrrr—BOOOOM!
Lea’s Aura erupted outward in a wave of cutting frost, cleaving through steel and flesh alike. The shockwave sent bodies flying, and she moved quickly toward the fallen enemies to finish what she had started.
Before she could reach them, more mercenaries arrived, drawn by the sound of battle.
“Over here!”
“The noise came from this direction!”
They swarmed toward her position just as she noticed the Praha servants cowering behind the rubble where her enemies had fallen. Their terror-stricken faces turned toward her like flowers seeking sunlight.
“My Lady,” one whispered.
Before Lea could order them to flee, one of the wounded mercenaries rolled to his feet and grabbed the nearest servant—a young maid who couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
“Stop!” The mercenary’s voice cracked with desperation as he pressed his broken sword to the girl’s throat. Blood welled where the jagged metal touched skin.
Lea’s expression hardened. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Good question.” The mercenary’s smile was painted in his own blood. He hadn’t expected this gambit to work, but fortune favored him. “Lea Praha, drop your sword. Otherwise, they all die.”
“They’re civilians.”
“No. They’re leverage.”
The mercenary’s grip tightened, and more blood flowed down the maid’s neck. The girl trembled but made no sound, though tears streamed down her cheeks.
Lea cursed silently as she assessed the situation. Killing the mercenary would be simple, but the maid would die in the process. Moreover, his companions had formed a loose circle around her position.
“If I surrender,” she said carefully, “you’ll spare their lives?”
The mercenary nodded, his grin widening. “Of course. You think I’d actually hurt this sweet little thing?”
“Very well. I surrender—”
“N-no, don’t!”
The maid’s voice cut through Lea’s words like a blade. Before anyone could react, the girl pushed forward, driving the broken sword deeper into her own throat.
Squelch.
“Fucking hell!” The mercenary stumbled backward in shock.
Lea moved like lightning, her blade taking his head before he could recover. The man’s body hit the ground with a wet thud, but she paid it no attention as she knelt beside the dying maid.
Blood frothed on the girl’s lips, but she managed a trembling smile—fear and determination warring in her young face.
“Why?” Lea demanded. “Why did you do such a thing?”
The maid’s voice was barely a whisper. “My Lady... shouldn’t... die here...”
Those were her final words.
Lea stared at the still form, her mind reeling. Suicide. Why would anyone make such a choice?
“Why?” she whispered, reaching toward the corpse. Warmth still lingered in the girl’s skin, though it would fade all too soon.
I could have just surrendered. What I wanted to protect were people like you.
Tears tracked down Lea’s cheeks as the remaining mercenaries closed in around her.
“Capture the girl alive!”
“Those thirty gold coins are mine!”
Thirty gold coins. Lea’s grief crystallized into something harder and colder than winter itself. They had orchestrated this massacre, caused this girl’s death, all for thirty pieces of gold.
“I’ll kill them all.”
Her Aura began to shift, pure power darkening like blood in water. Her eyes took on a crimson gleam, and the air around her grew thick with killing intent. She looked less like a noble lady than a vengeful spirit risen from the grave.
Frost erupted from her position in all directions, coating everything within reach in killing ice. The very air began to crystallize.
Crack. Crackle.
Aura that affected the physical world—a technique only Masters could achieve.
“All of you die!”
Lea raised her sword, now wreathed in power that made the air itself scream. She drew back for a strike that would end them all—
“That look suits you, but I still prefer how you were before.”
The familiar voice cut through her rage like sunlight through storm clouds. The voice she most wanted to hear in all the world.
Her eyes cleared, the crimson fading to their natural blue. The darkness bleeding from her Aura began to recede, and the killing frost melted back into ordinary winter cold.
Lea turned toward the speaker.
“Louis.”
“Finally calling me by name instead of ‘Sir’ and ‘Lord’ everything.” His tone was light despite the carnage around them, that deep, musical voice she had come to treasure. “Seems we’ve grown closer.”
Louis Berg approached through the rubble, raven hair streaming behind him like a banner. Her fiancé had come for her.
“You’ve suffered enough,” he said quietly, drawing his bow.
The weapon seemed to gather light as he nocked an arrow of pure energy.
“Just close your eyes for a moment.”
<Lightning Bolt>
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Blinding radiance erupted from his position, washing over the mercenaries like the judgment of heaven itself. When the light faded, nothing remained of them but ash on the wind.
One shot—certain death. With a single arrow, hundreds of enemies had been erased from existence.