Calix died on the Day of the North Wind.

Or rather, he destroyed every day of his life as Calix.

If you only consider the outcome, he survived. The fact that he managed to cling to life was nothing short of a miracle born of countless coincidences and layers of sheer luck.

Zenfri happened to linger in the village that day for a trivial reason. He had left his wallet behind at the inn where he had been staying.

Considering how much he valued money, it was almost unnatural for him to make such a careless mistake.

“Ah, Sir Zenfri! You’ve come back safely. I was worried you might miss each other on the road…”

At that moment, the innkeeper greeted Zenfri warmly and handed him a letter. It had arrived just after Zenfri had left the inn.

A letter arrived from His Grace the Grand Duke. But the contents are strange. It reads: 【Do not set foot in the Grand Ducal Castle, and find a way to contact His Grace directly.】

“Huh?”

At the time, Zenfri thought Rocheste might be playing some kind of joke.

【Before the Day of the North Wind arrives, there is something I wish to deliver to His Grace, the Grand Duke. As it would be difficult for you to come here, I will go instead. Let’s meet at Lumos Gorge.】

However, the situation changed completely when a letter arrived bearing Selina’s name as the sender. Clearly, something was amiss at the Grand Ducal Castle.

Zenfri hesitated, torn between rushing to the castle and going to Lumos Gorge. Ultimately, he decided to follow Rocheste’s instructions and go to the gorge.

In hindsight, this was the first correct decision he had made.

By the time he reached the gorge, the land above was already blanketed in snow. With the arrival of the Day of the North Wind, winter had come early.

It was then that he noticed something amiss: figures moving about the gorge. They were soldiers dressed entirely in white.

White hats. White armor.

No matter how you looked at them, they resembled hunters more than soldiers. But hunters had no reason to be here on the Day of the North Wind.

In that instant, Zenfri’s senses went on high alert. When everything was buried beneath the snow, those dressed in white were almost impossible to detect.

Perhaps they had deliberately disguised themselves as hunters to conceal their presence.

And sure enough—

When he reached the top of the gorge, he saw countless soldiers lying in wait, hidden and entrenched.

Something was happening.

It was far more serious than he had ever anticipated.

From that moment on, he could not afford to let his guard down for even a second. Wearing the same disguise as the soldiers and matching their attire exactly, he moved among them.

Not a single word was exchanged. The soldiers said only that their task was to wait for someone to appear.

Who could possibly show up on a mountaintop like this?

Zenfri thought the idea was absurd, yet he couldn’t dismiss it outright. A creeping sense of foreboding crawled over him, prickling through his body until the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Three days passed with them encamped in the same place.

Then, without warning, the ground beneath them shook with a deep rumble and the earth trembled violently. Soon after, someone emerged from within.

They were too far away to make out clearly, but they appeared to be a woman. Standing beside her was Waldemar.

From Zenfri’s distant vantage point, it looked as though Selina and Waldemar were working together, even though they seemed to be arguing. The moment the woman was pulled into Waldemar’s arms, the soldiers surged towards the underground passage from which she had emerged.

Until recently, Waldemar had been staying at the Grand Ducal Castle with Marquis Bryson.

Clearly, he had been expelled by His Grace the Grand Duke. Yet, instead of leaving Thalia, he had remained in Lumos Gorge.

Suddenly, Zenfri remembered the letter written in Selina’s handwriting. It had mentioned luring Calix there.

Could the Grand Duke be inside?

Dread clenched his chest. Without hesitation, Zenfri plunged into the deep, pitch-black underground stairway.

He descended for what seemed like a long time, yet the end never came into sight.

After nearly ten minutes of going down—

“Found him!”

A soldier at the front suddenly shouted.

On looking more closely, he could see a faint light glowing in the distance.

His Grace the Grand Duke was in danger.

Every knight commander understood this instinctively. On the Day of the North Wind, Calix could not use his powers and would hide somewhere only he knew of.

This must be where His Grace was hiding.

He had to stop them, no matter the cost.

But even in this narrow passageway, there were more than a dozen soldiers. There were far too many to face alone.

As he frantically searched for a way out—

“W-what is this?”

A soldier who was about to move forward suddenly froze.

When he tried to step into the lit opening, he encountered an invisible barrier.

They were just one step away from capturing Calix and claiming the enormous reward that came with it.

Enraged at being stopped, the soldier drew his sword and swung it down with all his might at the unseen barrier.

At that moment—

Crackle—!

“Aaaaargh!”

With a violent tearing sound, crimson flames burst forth. The raging fire engulfed the soldier, turning him to blackened ash in an instant.

“U—uagh…!”

Chaos erupted in the narrow passageway when a comrade died before their eyes. Terrified that the flames might leap onto them next, several soldiers turned and fled.

Zenfri cheered inwardly.

“Get back here at once! Do you think we’ll make it out alive if we retreat like this? Commander Waldemar will have our heads!”

It was infuriating that there were still people among the enemy who were capable of reason.

Stepping forward, he fixed his gaze on the invisible barrier. Then he grabbed the charred corpse and forcibly shoved its arm through the veil.

“It worked! This way, we can get through.”

Unlike when the sword had struck it, forcing an arm through the barrier allowed passage, albeit slowly. Shielding himself with the charred body, the soldier pushed his way inside.

The moment one person made it through, the barrier shattered, revealing what lay beyond.

He had prayed it wouldn’t be like this.

But Calix was there.

Lying motionless with his eyes closed, he looked utterly defenseless. He seemed so vulnerable that he could be killed without offering the slightest resistance.

As the soldier at the front lifted his blade, ready to behead Calix, panic tore through Zenfri.

He drew his sword and drove it straight into the soldier’s back.

The soldier crumpled forward, blood spilling from his mouth as he turned his head. His face twisted in confusion — he could not comprehend why someone he had believed to be an ally had struck him down.

“Sorry, but my reason for being here isn’t the same as yours.”

He then cut down another soldier who was rushing towards Calix.

Only then did the soldiers realize the truth: Zenfri was not one of them, but a Thalian soldier who had come to save Calix.

“Kill him first!”

More than ten men lunged at Zenfri all at once.

His body stiffened.

Even on the battlefield, he had never been attacked by so many people at once.

Suddenly, he remembered the oath he had sworn long ago to dedicate his life to His Grace the Grand Duke.

At the time, even as he spoke those words, he had thought that he would never truly sacrifice his life for Calix.

‘Honestly, it was just because Calix had never once been weaker than me.’

But now the moment had come, and offering his life for Calix’s did not seem so terrible after all.

If only one of them was to survive, it had to be Calix.

Only then would there be a future for the survivors, including Thalia.

“You will not lay even a fingertip on Thalia’s sun.”

Zenfri tore a strip of cloth from his clothes and wound it tightly around his hand and the hilt of his sword. He vowed that he would never release this blade until the moment he died. He would guard it with his last breath.

And so he cut down the soldiers who rushed at him, one by one.

As time passed, his vision grew steadily dimmer.

An hour later, Calix opened his eyes.

The Day of the North Wind had not yet ended. Nevertheless, the fact that he had awoken could mean only one thing: he had been dragged back into consciousness by an unexpected and overwhelming shock.

The aftereffects were far worse than he had anticipated. The moment he opened his eyes, blood surged up his throat and he collapsed to the floor.

Then he saw it: An arm beside him, soaked in blood.

Not his own.

“Selina…”

The last person he had seen was Selina.

She was the only person ever to have entered the Heart of the Sun.

The thought that she might be lying there, covered in blood, drained all the color from his face. His body went rigid, as though his heart had stopped altogether, and moving even a single finger felt impossible.

As though wringing water from a dry cloth, Calix forced his hand to curl and pushed himself upright. His body, still recovering from the backlash, moved with the grinding resistance of a rusted blade, but he ignored the pain entirely.

Nearly crawling, he reached the fallen figure and lifted the bowed head.

The features were coarse.

Unfamiliar.

Not Selina’s.

Relief flooded through him, but only for a moment.

“…Zenfri?”

He felt as though he had been slapped in the face.

His mind went blank, leaving him unable to speak.

Had he expected this, he might have been shocked, but seeing a close friend in such an unimaginable place felt so surreal that it seemed like a dream.

“Why are you here…?”

As he reached out to check Zenfri’s condition, Calix realized that Zenfri was not the only one soaked in blood.

Countless bodies lay scattered around them, all drenched in blood.

“…Your Grace… the Grand Duke.”

A faint, broken voice escaped from Zenfri’s lips.

Calix leaned in close, focusing on every word.

Then came the next sentence.

“…My lady… betrayed… Thalia…”

In that instant, the world Calix had believed in collapsed completely.