Moments later.

All the men of Mare, along with Penna, were bound tightly and brought before Cassion. Following Irynsis’s wish not to frighten the children, the rest of the villagers were herded into a corner of the settlement under the soldiers’ watch.

That alone seemed to bring some relief—the men’s faces, while tense, showed a hint less fear.

But for Cassion, things were only just beginning. From the moment he heard how they had brought Irynsis here, the atmosphere had turned hostile.

“So instead of begging for help as you should have, you resorted to kidnapping?”

At his piercing glare, Penna and the men of Mare shook their heads furiously and turned desperate eyes toward Irynsis.

With a sigh, she corrected them as they wanted.

“To be precise, they stole me after I’d already been kidnapped.”

What difference that made, no one knew—but the men nodded furiously in agreement.

“It’s the same thing.” 

Cassion, of course, didn’t so much as twitch. The air around him was sharp enough to slit their throats at any moment, and Irynsis had to stop him.

“Anyway, don’t kill them. I want to see the relic, too.”

“Where is it?”

“They say they don’t know.”

Cassion let out a short, mirthless laugh.

“Are you joking?”

They had kidnapped the Grand Duchess of Pathsbender to beg for help with a relic they didn’t even know the whereabouts of. If nothing else, the Mare lot were the boldest fools in the empire.

“There’s an old, stubborn man who knows, but he refuses to speak.”

“An old man?”

Cassion glanced at his commanders. Hugo stepped forward to answer.

“There’s a sorcerer, old as the hills. Can’t use his power anymore, so we left him where the children are, Your Grace.”

Cassion remembered hearing rumors of a sorcerer in the Kingdom of Mare long ago. Even then, he had been said to be an aged man with white hair. For him to still be alive was unexpected.

“The one who guarded the last king of Mare to the end?”

“Most likely.”

Judging from the fact that not even Penna, with her infamous temper, could manage him, he was clearly no ordinary man.

Irynsis cast her gaze over the line of bound captives.

“Wouldn’t he talk if we used them as leverage?”

The chill in her eyes made the kidnappers swallow hard.

***

With the blue sea at their backs, a pyre was suddenly raised on the sandy shore.

The men of Mare, though knowing they wouldn’t truly be burned alive, couldn’t hide their fear. It wasn’t the pyre itself that unnerved them.

‘Do you want to stand trial as outlaws of the empire?’

Every time Irynsis’s smiling voice, casually speaking such dreadful words, echoed in their minds, gooseflesh broke out over their skin.

Before they had time to answer, the pyre was ready. Irynsis even offered the courtesy of letting them pick which one they liked.

Penna, glaring at her as if utterly fed up, was the first to mount it. Beside her, a great fire was stoked, and the logs beneath were soaked in oil to burn easily.

Any wrong move could wipe Mare’s remnants from the continent, but there was nothing they could do. They knew well enough that if Pathsbender meant to kill them, they would die no matter what.

“Looks convincing.”

Irynsis smiled with satisfaction at the pyre, swiftly erected. The Mare men knew, whether they lived or died, that kidnapping her would be the regret of a lifetime.

“Bring him.”

At Cassion’s order, two soldiers reappeared from the settlement, dragging a frail old man.

White-haired, with a long beard, he looked like a drenched, pitiful dog. But his eyes blazed with defiance as he glared at them.

“You…! What is the meaning of this, you lawless fiends!”

Summoning strength from nowhere, the sorcerer Nautil twisted and resisted. Seeing the young men who had suffered their whole lives now tied to the pyre broke his heart.

Irynsis, however, had already sized him up. He was the man who had served the Kingdom of Mare longer than anyone—who, even when given the chance to escape, had stubbornly returned to live with its people.

Now, stripped of rank, status, and power, he still held on to the pride of a royal sorcerer and a loyalty that would not fade overnight.

Irynsis lit a torch and stepped toward the pyres.

“Normally, you’d start by threatening to kill the low-ranking ones one by one, wouldn’t you?”

The men bound to the pyres flinched. To them, the torch in her hand might as well have been Death’s scythe.

“But I don’t have time.”

With a bright smile, Irynsis walked forward and stopped at one spot. It was the pyre where Penna was bound.

“So I’ll start here.”

“Y-You dare! Get away from the princess this instant!”

“If you want that, then talk. Tell me what became of the relic in the end.”

She spoke no further.

Irynsis merely murmured numbers under her breath. Each time the count changed, the torch in her hand lowered closer to the pyre.

Nautil struggled with all his might, but at last his strength drained away, leaving him gasping for breath.

“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you, you wretched girl!”

In the end, Nautil knelt.

“Wow… you’re the first to break that old man’s stubbornness.”

Penna, standing nearby, gaped in astonishment.

Irynsis tossed the torch into the sand and glanced at her.

“I didn’t break him. You did.”

For in the end, the most important thing to the obstinate old man—the reason he had clung to life all this time—was Penna herself.

At her words, a shadow crossed Penna’s face, as if she understood.

“Release them.”

At Cassion’s command, soldiers rushed forward, hauling the captives down from the pyres.

“Come here, Irynsis.”

He held out his arms from below, and she leapt straight into his embrace. The Mare men whispered among themselves—moments ago she’d been terrifying, yet in front of her husband, she could wear such an expression.

“Now speak. Remember, the pyre can always be raised again.”

“Fine, fine! But take these off me first, you wretched girl!”

Grumbling, Nautil was freed at Cassion’s signal. With a long sigh, he closed his eyes and began chanting strange words.

Suddenly, a blue light flared around his body.

“What—so you weren’t entirely powerless after all?”

Penna and the Mare men, wide-eyed, pressed closer in wonder.

Then—

Boom. Boom—

A deep, heavy rumble shook the island. The ground quaked so violently that it was hard to stand without holding onto something. The vibrations surged upward from the sea floor.

“What is that?!”

All eyes turned toward the ocean.

From the shallow waters, the sea suddenly swelled and overflowed—then split in two.

“My God…”

Out of the empty sea rose a vast cavern, clad in black stone slick with moss, looming like an impregnable fortress.

“Cough!”

Nautil collapsed, coughing harshly. Startled Mare men hurried to support him. After catching his breath, he spoke in a hoarse voice.

“It is a labyrinth I created, by command of the late king.”

“A labyrinth?”

“It was also where His Majesty last went, carrying the relic.”

At his words, Penna’s eyes flew wide. She had never heard of the labyrinth—nor her father’s last act.

“As the empire’s situation grew dire, His Majesty ordered me to prepare for the worst.”

A shadow fell across Nautil’s face as he mentioned the king.

“But it has long since slipped from my grasp. All I can do now is summon it forth.”

It was a secret he had guarded all his life. Better to take it with him to the grave than risk exposing the Mare people to danger.

Seeing this, Penna’s eyes reddened faintly.

“This place allows entry only to those the relic permits.”

When he had created the labyrinth, Nautil’s power had brimmed over. He remembered proudly weaving complex magic over it. But now, he could no longer control it.

“You can’t just enter it as you plea—!”

“What?”

Before he could finish, Irynsis, who had been examining the labyrinth, was suddenly pulled inside.

“Irynsis!”

Without a moment for the others to react, Cassion followed her in.

“Your Grace! My lady!”

Panicked, the Pathsbender knights and Penna rushed toward the cavern. But the stone walls slammed shut as if mocking them, barring all entry.

“My God… O King of Mare…”

Nautil’s hollow murmur was drowned out by the waves sweeping over the sand.