Maybe there was still a chance.
No — with Kail unconscious, the odds were slim. But I had to do something.
“Kail!”
Held fast in the grip of the knight, I squeezed every last drop of voice from my throat.
“Wake up!”
Please. Wake up.
“Wake up and call the Creatures — right now! There have to be some somewhere in the palace!”
This was the capital. The center of the kingdom.
Even royal knights, unless they were from the north, would never have faced a Creature in real combat. Not once.
If Kail could summon whatever Creatures were caged somewhere nearby, we might actually have a chance.
“Kail, please — call them as loud as you can, and—”
But then —
“Tsk. Aisha. A trip to the north and all you’ve come back with is a bigger imagination.”
Bang.
Duke Foss’s voice landed at the same moment as the door.
It slammed shut.
________________________________________
The room that had been loud with Aisha’s desperation went silent the moment the door closed.
It felt like being cut off from the world entirely.
A boy crumpled in the corner. An empty vial rolling across the floor. Dark liquid smeared in splatters that looked like bloodstains.
Find Aisha.
Kail had not moved. He lay still as stone.
Through his closed eyelids, across his rounded cheeks, and between the slow, labored breaths from his nose, the potion that had clung to his face had already dried.
Ha ha ha —!
From beyond the sealed window, the laughter of nobles drifted in, faint and distant.
Find Aisha.
The afternoon sky shifted as the sun began to tilt — the light that had filled the room was swallowed by gathering shadow.
And then.
Find Aisha!
Kail’s eyelids lifted, slowly.
The violet eyes that fixed on the ceiling shone in the dark like something that belonged to a wild animal.
And then —
“Kyaaaaah!”
A tremendous crash rang out — the sound of a building being torn apart.
And the voices beyond the window, which had been full of laughter, turned to screams.
“A Creature!”
Kail had called to them.
The Creatures had answered. They broke through their cages and escaped into the palace grounds.
“…Aisha.”
Kail had only been unconscious for a very short time. In truth, he had woken just before Aisha was taken away.
His limbs had been locked rigid, his eyelids sealed by the drug’s grip — he couldn’t see, but he had been listening. Piecing together what was happening to Aisha from the sounds alone.
And what he had realized, lying there:
When Creatures were nearby, he could reach out to them with his mind. He could call, and they would answer.
The moment he could move again, Kail gave the command with everything he had — and the Creatures responded.
We want out. We’re going out.
Their reply was simple and clumsy. But it was enough.
At first, they had hesitated.
They had been caged since they were young. The thought of escape had never occurred to them.
But then —
There’s a place for you in the north. Don’t hurt anyone else — just find Aisha, and then go home.
At Kail’s words, a tremor ran through them.
Home. The word had reached them.
For the first time, the Creatures grew curious about the world beyond their iron bars.
“…….”
Listening to the sounds from outside, Kail pushed himself upright and looked around.
The drug’s hold had finally broken — he could move again. But in the time it had taken, those men had already taken Aisha away.
Aisha.
His Aisha.
The home he could not afford to lose.
“I have to save her.”
He pushed the window open.
Unlike the north, the air of the capital was thick and stifling — humid in a way that clung to the skin.
He wanted to go home. Right now.
________________________________________
A little before Kail woke.
Empress Grace had listened to Calypse explain Aisha’s true identity without a word.
Then — rather than responding — she simply moved to a quieter corner of the corridor and addressed the knights closest to her.
“Find Lady Aisha Krost. I’m speaking to every one of my personal guard.”
And then, without pausing:
“At the same time — seal every road leading out of the capital. Not one person leaves the city.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She understood the order of priorities.
The revelation that Aisha was a spy of House Foss had shaken her. But the fact that the one who had revealed it was Calypse himself was what made her decide: the only thing that mattered right now was finding the girl.
Calypse despised Duke Foss. So did Grace.
She had chosen to say nothing about it until now — but thanks to Knox, she had known for some time who was truly behind the Creature rampage incident.
And that at the center of it all was King Arjen, nursing a quiet jealousy of Calypse that he had never voiced aloud.
The thought of her husband’s face made something heavy settle in her chest, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
No. Arjen can wait. Right now, no one hates a spy of House Foss more than Calypse does — and he still came to find her.
Whatever had passed between them — Calypse loved Aisha. You didn’t need to be told in words. You could see it in everything he did.
He had not put her down once during the entire banquet.
Whenever she craned her neck trying to peer at something across the room, he would watch her — and the corner of his mouth would lift on its own.
She really did look like his own daughter.
There would have been complications between them. Plenty of them.
But that was their story. Grace had no need to hear it, and no time to ask.
Right now, Aisha’s safety was what mattered.
“Duke.”
“Yes.”
“Everything about Aisha — we’ll revisit it once this is over.”
“……!”
Grace moved quickly, and Calypse’s eyes widened — just slightly, and slowly.
“Thank you.”
He bowed his head to her with genuine feeling.
But just as he did —
“A man and a woman alone in a secluded corridor!”
An exaggerated voice of mock-surprise erupted from around the bend.
“Grace. You’ve always had such a fascination with Creatures — and now you’re meeting in secret with the very hero who slaughters them?”
King Arjen.
The banquet hall is in the other direction. Why is he coming from this side?
Grace was puzzled, but Arjen was looking back and forth between her and Calypse with the particular expression of a man constructing a story for himself.
She met his eyes and replied without heat.
“Your Majesty. That remark is an insult to all three of us.”
“An insult? Grace, I’d say the greater insult is finding my own wife alone with another man in a deserted corridor.”
But —
“Your Majesty.” Calypse cut across Arjen’s needling entirely, his voice quiet. “Have you seen Lady Aisha?”
Calypse was not alone in his suspicions of Arjen.
He had been watching the king carefully, and something was off.
“The young lady? Oh, you mean that blond twin-braids little one? I haven’t seen her.”
Arjen shrugged, naturally enough.
“You’re certain you haven’t seen her?”
“Why are you asking me about your young lady? I told you — I don’t know.”
“It’s only that I’m curious how you know what she looks like.”
Arjen’s step froze.
“You haven’t attended a single formal gathering, Your Majesty. You wouldn’t have seen my daughter’s face once.”
Arjen was not like Grace. Where she led with reason, he led with feeling.
That tendency had just revealed itself.
“…Oh — Aisha, that young lady is so well-known, you see. I’ve simply heard descriptions of her from people around me, that’s all.”
His face had gone white as he said it. The lie was plain.
Something is there.
The look in Calypse’s eyes turned cold. He was already stepping toward the king when —
CRASH!
A violent impact — close enough to feel in the bones. And then —
“A Creature!”
“A Creature has appeared!”
The shouts of panicked knights rang out, and a palace guard came sprinting toward Arjen.
“Your Majesty! A Creature has breached the grounds. One has appeared inside the royal palace — out of nowhere!”
“What? Why is it out of its cage?”
Arjen went pale enough that he looked close to fainting.
“Pardon? A cage, Your Majesty — what do you mean by…”
The knight, having no idea about Arjen’s secret hobby, was understandably confused —
“How many, and what type?”
Grace stepped in and seized control of the situation.
“Two, Your Majesty. They appear to be Giant Orcs.”
“Send twenty knights to evacuate the nobles and servants from the banquet hall to the east wing. If they came from the royal palace, that should give us enough time.”
“Yes.”
“All remaining knights engage the Creatures directly. A Giant Orc’s strength is not something human bodies can simply absorb. Kill them with everything you have — and if you can’t kill them, do not let them leave the royal palace grounds.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The knight saluted at the swift set of orders and was already turning to go —
“Your Majesty.”
A large hand cut across his path without warning.
“Cancel the order.”
It was Calypse.
________________________________________
