Eldrian could easily picture the scene.

The previous morning, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Lesta as she fought Prongest. Time and again, his heart had dropped and burned before pounding wildly.

That was how Lesta fought.

She charged forward without hesitation, recklessly endangering her own body and striking with merciless force. Watching her stirred something fierce within him. He wanted to help her, to fight beside her and trust her to have his back.

But he barely knew her; he didn’t understand her thoughts or desires. In fact, he couldn’t even be certain who she was. Yet still, that dangerous longing took root in him.

He’d thought that hearing Baron Rubellen’s stories about Lesta, from someone who knew her much better than he ever did, might help clear up his muddled thoughts. Instead, it only left him feeling more unsettled.

Even after the baron had left, having told him to call if he needed anything, Eldrian remained seated for a long time, lost in thought.

✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦ ✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦❘༻༺❘✦ ✦❘

Lesta lay sprawled over her office desk, idly running her fingers along the silver-masked doll.

Toma, carrying a tray of snacks, set it down in front of her.

“Boss, you healed fast this time. Looked like you were badly hurt.”

“Yeah. The young lord poured four whole bottles of Helros potion on me. I was practically glowing.”

“Ha! That’s Sunray for you! It must be nice to be that rich. No matter how much we earn, we’ll never be able to compete with high-ranking nobles like dukes when it comes to money.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not.”

Crunch, crunch—

Toma kept reaching for the thinly sliced sweet potatoes glazed with honey, munching without pause. Lesta shot him a sideways glance.

“Weren’t those for me?”

The plate was already more than half empty.

“Oh!”

Toma gave a sheepish grin and licked the honey from his fingers.

“Eat up, boss. You need it to get better.”

A healthy diet always aids recovery after a serious injury. She would usually have needed enough food for two cows to regain her strength, but thanks to the Helros potions Eldrian had given her, she healed quickly without needing to eat.

Lesta picked up one of the honey-glazed sweet potatoes and took a bite. The warm sweetness spread across her tongue, filling her mouth and softening her heart. For a moment, she could almost see the scene she missed so dearly.

A winter’s day long ago.

Marta had roasted sweet potatoes for her by the fireplace. As Lesta reached out to grab one straight from the flames with her bare hands, Marta and Hans cried out in alarm and rushed to stop her.

‘Grandfather. Grandmother.’

She had thought that the longing would fade with time — that the grief, which was sharp enough to rip her heart out, and the loneliness of being left behind, would slowly ease as new people entered her life and the years went by.

But she had learned how foolish that belief was. The more time passed, the clearer it became that the solitude only deepened and the ache only grew stronger.

No matter how many good people gathered around her, her yearning to see Hans and Marta never faded. In fact, it intensified until she began to wonder if she herself was made entirely of longing.

‘Grandfather, Grandmother, look. I’ve made friends now.’
‘Grandfather, Grandmother, look. I’ve conquered a labyrinth.’
‘Grandfather, Grandmother, look. The Young Lord of Sunray has finally come to find me.’

Whenever her life changed in some way, she wanted to tell Hans and Marta about it because they would always smile at her with the same gentle warmth, no matter what she said.

Their smiles meant more to her than all the gold in the world. Even now, long after they had died, that hadn’t changed.

If only she could see their smiles once more, just once. She would tell them then.

‘Thank you. I’m sorry. I loved you, and I still do. And I always will.’

The words she had never spoken burned inside her like poison, eating away at her heart.

That was why, ever since losing Ernel, every moment had hurt. Her heart ached so deeply that physical pain no longer even registered as pain.

A week had passed since she had hinted to Eldrian about how Blackwood had created her. Hinted—that was all. She had spoken only a fraction of what she’d endured, barely even a shadow of the truth, and still, he hadn’t seemed to believe her.

She couldn’t blame him.

Who would? Who could believe that House Blackwood, for the sake of power and wealth, had committed such barbarity?

Even if Lesta shouted the truth for the whole world to hear, no one would believe her, just as Eldrian hadn’t.

The only small comfort was that Eldrian had not yet left Revron City.

He spent his days wandering its streets aimlessly and at a leisurely pace, like a mere traveler. Although he didn’t appear to be investigating her directly, Lesta knew he was watching her. Without saying a word, he traced the rhythm of the city, observing every trace she had left behind.

That was why she felt no unease.

Even if he chose to walk away without taking her hand, it wouldn’t matter.

Sunray might have been her strongest card, but it wasn’t her only one.

Lesta had already mapped out her next move, and the one after that. It would take time, and the road ahead would be harder, but she didn’t mind.

Her life was bound to one purpose: the annihilation of Blackwood. Her body, her soul, everything she was existed for that end.

Each time she pushed her power beyond its limits, she could feel her soul fraying and being devoured piece by piece. But even that didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered was watching Blackwood’s so-called paradise crumble and its inhabitants sent to the other side.

“Endure.”

The Duke of Blackwood’s cold voice rose from her memory. She must have been four years old then.

He had pressed a branding iron against her back, her arms, her thighs, saying,

“This pain is what you must bear to protect our paradise. You were born for this.”

Even at the age of four, Lesta hadn’t screamed. The stench of her burning flesh and the agonising pain tearing through her muscles were enough to make her pass out, yet she endured. She believed it. She believed she had been born for that very purpose. And, in truth, she had.

Without realizing it, Lesta rubbed her lower back.

Even after being cast out by Blackwood and being saved by Hans and Marta, who gave her a name, the mark of the evil god still burned upon her skin. For a while, it seemed to fade, but recently it had become vivid again, as if freshly carved.

It was the mark of the evil god, branding her soul as his possession. In exchange for her soul, he had granted her a fragment of his power. With this cursed gift, Lesta had worked tirelessly to build Blackwood’s so-called paradise.

She was destined to die in order to complete the ritual and seal the spell with her own death.

But she had survived.

She often wondered which side the evil god was on now. Did he still support Blackwood? Or had he turned to her, his chosen vessel, instead? Or had he grown weary of everything — mortals, gods and the endless cycle — and fallen into an eternal slumber?

Lost in thought, Lesta reached for another piece of sweet potato, only to find that the plate was completely empty.

She looked up slowly and narrowed her gaze towards Toma.

“Toma.”

“Sorry, sorry! Once I start eating, I just can’t stop. I’ll go buy another plate.”

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Revron City was vast, and not all of its districts were well maintained. No matter how much effort was put into maintaining order, there were always areas that were out of reach — places where countless ships came and went, inevitably bringing crime and trouble with them.

In one long-abandoned port, where no one had set foot for years, shadows moved secretly.

Men with sun-darkened skin, muscular builds and scarred bodies worked quietly, radiating danger. They were unloading crates from a ship.

When a faint groan escaped from one of the boxes, the man with the long scar on his cheek did not hesitate to jam a thin metal rod through the crack.

“Make another sound and I’ll kill you.”

A strangled m*an followed, then silence. The scarred man stabbed the rod a few more times for good measure before lifting the box again.

“Careful,” one of his companions muttered. “You’ll ruin the goods.”

The scarred man snorted.

“These won’t fetch much anyway. They look like they’ll die before we even reach the slave market.”

“Even a few coins are still money. With Revron’s patrols tightening, it’s not easy to trade these days. We’ve got to make what we can while it lasts.”

“Tch. It’s that woman’s fault. Ever since she took Ides, moving around has been a nightmare. Can’t someone just kill her already?”

“You know the assassins from Syth were all wiped out.”

“I know! D*mn it! Do you realize how much gold we spent on hiring them? They couldn’t even scratch her before they died! All that talk about Syth being the best is lies.”

They were pirates who prowled the seas beyond Revron. They had made their fortune by kidnapping natives from nearby islands and selling them into slavery. But ever since Lesta established her base in Revron, the slave trade had nearly come to a standstill.

Relocating wasn’t simple either. Each pirate crew had its own territory, and encroaching on another’s meant open war.

Lesta tolerated smuggling to a degree, but never slavery. Moreover, the profits from smuggling could never compare to those once earned through human trafficking.

Unable to bear their dwindling income, the pirates had secretly arranged a delivery from a hidden slave market in a corner of Revron for that night.

What they didn’t know was that they were already being watched.