Isabelle Armentt sat with her back straight and her hands folded neatly over her knees.The sway of the carriage let the light drift across her face—soft and pale as porcelain.

  Her beauty did not seek attention, yet it claimed it all the same: a kind of elegance untouched by dust or ruin.Perhaps that was why the kingdom's second prince had fallen in love with her—and in doing so, why Lusian had earned his hatred.

  She was not meant to be there.She was not meant to be his attendant.But in Kuria, decisions were rarely born of one's own will.

  Lusian barely opened his eyes and studied her.At her throat shimmered the mark of the oath: a silver circle etched by the magic of the god Sagmus.That mark bound her life to his—for life… or for death.The price of her loyalty was her existence.

  "Miss Isabelle," he said suddenly, without opening his eyes."Why did you swear the oath?"

  She looked up, startled."The oath… of loyalty?"

  "Yes," he murmured, turning his face slightly toward her."No one forced you. And you know what happens if it's broken."

  Isabelle took her time before answering.The rattling of the carriage filled the silence; the metallic rhythm of the wheels sounded like the ticking of a confession.

  "I know," she said at last, her voice calm and trembling all at once."But some of us need to believe in something.Even if it hurts."

  Her gaze drifted to the window, where trees passed like fleeting shadows.

  "The oath… is not a chain," she continued softly."It is a choice. One I cannot betray."

  Lusian watched her, trying to decipher what lay behind her eyes.It was not devotion he saw, but a quiet determination—almost resigned.

  The death of Caleb Douglas had unleashed a fury impossible to contain.The Douglas family had demanded her head for her involvement in the events that led to Caleb's death.Lusian had barely managed to mediate, turning vengeance into punishment—and punishment into a bond.Making her his attendant had been the only way to save her.The best possible outcome… under the circumstances.

  Mercy, in his eyes. Oppression, in theirs—a villain carrying off the maiden as the world watched in judgment.

  Lusian looked away, uneasy. Outside, the trees blurred into shadow.

  Seated beside him, Sofía Mondring watched the changing landscape.

  Rolling hills. Thatched-roof villages. Smoke rising lazily between fields of golden wheat.The air smelled of earth and wind, and banners bearing the wolf emblem streamed proudly above the caravan.Three hundred knights escorted the procession, their armor gleaming like silver scales beneath the sun.It was a display worthy of the Douglas name—a symbol of power and a silent warning to the entire realm.

  Sofía gazed through the window, but she did not see the meadows.Her mind wandered elsewhere, lost among memories that still ached.

  "The House of Mondring offers its daughter Sofía in union with the Douglas heir."

  She could still hear the solemn voice of the priest of Sagmus speaking those words.There had been no celebration, no music—only the hollow echo of a sacred vow resounding through the great hall.

  The Mondrings—an ancient comital house with more fear than power—had offered their daughter as tribute, seeking protection beneath the colossal shadow of the Douglas family.The duke of that time, a severe and calculating man, had discovered that Sofía possessed an Omega magical affinity—a gift that appeared only once per generation.In his mind, it was not a blessing.It was a resource.

  "I will bind the power of your blood to my son's," the old duke had said."The duchy needs a strong heir, not a lovestruck poet."

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  Thus her fate was sealed.

  Laurence Douglas—young and in love with another woman, the gentle Martha of House Vernier—became her husband under the oath of Sagmus.The vow ensured not only marriage, but obedience.Neither a son's will nor a wife's pleas could break a bond sanctified by the god.

  Sofía remembered Laurence's face that day: handsome, youthful… and utterly empty.Her own had been cold on the surface, shattered beneath.

  Then came Martha.Always Martha.

  Her light laughter filling the duchy's corridors.The glances Laurence believed he concealed.The nights of silence.Love denied, replaced by a quiet, steady hatred—like a fire that never dies, yet never gives light.

  When the old duke died, Laurence inherited the title… and freed his heart.He married Martha in secret, installed her within the duchy as his concubine, and the servants began to whisper the name Caleb—the son born of that forbidden love.

  Sofía, still the lawful duchess, remained untouched.To the world, she was the duchess.To Laurence, she was an oath.A shadow bearing a noble name.

  Humiliation fed her for years.

  But when Caleb was born, Sofía broke her silence.Douglas blood would flow through her as well.And so, almost by imposition, Laurence was forced to fulfill his duty.

  From that forced union, Lusian was born.

  The child drew his first breath in her arms while rain lashed the castle windows.In that moment, something inside Sofía shifted.It was not love for Laurence, nor forgiveness for Martha.It was something else.A crack in the emptiness.A spark of purpose.

  Because Lusian was her inheritance.Her vengeance.Her answer to a destiny she had never chosen.

  The boy's magical affinity astonished even the duchy's mages: Epsilon—bordering on the divine.The perfect result of a union she had despised.

  While Caleb grew beneath his mother's laughter, Lusian became the silent reflection of her strength.The struggle for the duchy's succession began then—silent and venomous, like all wars of blood.

  Sofía turned her gaze toward her son.He rested with eyes closed, unaware of the ghosts traveling beside him.

  The landscape of Kuria stretched before her: villages scented with fresh bread, peasants pausing to watch the caravan pass, temples devoted to the ancient gods.

  She pressed a hand against the carriage glass.Her reflection stared back—a woman who had survived marriage, humiliation, and the weight of a name that had never truly been hers.

  Lusian.Her son.Her reason.

  Not Laurence's. Not the Douglas family's.Hers.

  She had raised him under iron protection, untouchable, as if the entire world were unworthy of laying a hand upon him.Before giving birth, she had believed he would be her vengeance against a cruel fate.But when she held him in her arms—when she watched him breathe, watched him grow—something changed.

  She no longer wanted revenge.She wanted a place where he could be happy.Where no one would impose their will upon him.Where he could choose his own path—something she herself had never been allowed.

  To see him triumph over Caleb, over Laurence, over all who had once scorned her—that was her purpose.And beneath pride and resentment lay something purer, and far more dangerous: love.

  If the moment ever came, Sofía would give her life for him.

  Without hesitation.

  The retinue passed through the first village before midday.Light-stone houses rose among exhausted fields.Windows gleamed with mana crystals that once barely glowed; now they burned with a brighter blue light, as though something in the air fed them.

  A mill turned, powered by an affinity crystal. Its hum was uneven, unstable.Children played with small arcane spheres that flickered too brightly.

  Sofía noticed at once.

  She had traveled this road many times between the duchy and the capital.Before, the valley's mana had been scarce, docile.Now she felt it vibrating beneath her skin.The air was thick, charged—as if they breathed within an uncontrolled spell.

  "The flow has changed," Sofía murmured, watching the horizon.

  The land confirmed it: cracked soil, crops burned from within, and along the road's edge, creatures that did not belong there.

  Three-horned deer. Birds with metallic feathers and translucent eyes.They watched the men without fear.Mana had altered their instincts.Nature no longer remembered its place.

  As the sun began to sink, the roar came.

  A sound so deep the earth trembled.

  "Adele," Sofía said firmly.

  The knight turned her reins. Thunder reared, and the air crackled with electricity.Larriet, the golden lion, answered with a roar; Umber dissolved into shadow.

  The attack was instantaneous.Three carnivorous beasts burst from the forest—black-scaled hides, eyes swollen with liquid mana.

  The first shattered a tree before falling beneath Adele's spear.The second was cleaved apart by lightning exploding beneath Thunder's hooves.The third—the largest—was torn down by Larriet's burning jaws.

  Less than a minute.

  Silence returned.Only the scent of blood and ozone lingered over the road.

  Lusian had watched everything from the window.For the first time in a long while, a chill ran through him that had nothing to do with the wind.

  His steady gaze followed the blood seeping into the earth.

  "Even nature," he whispered, "is losing its place."

  His eyes shifted to the creatures' twisted bodies.The mana radiating from them was brutal—level ninety, at least.Such beings should not exist so far from the primordial forests.

  The phenomenon has begun, he thought.Herbivores will flee the saturated zones… and carnivores will follow.Humans will be caught in between.And the small villages will fall first.