The banners came down at noon.

  By evening, the courtyard was spotless—no blood, no broken steel, only rake marks combing the sand. Evelyn slipped away from the crowd, the weight of her new command already settling on her shoulders.

  In her absence, the king summoned Rocher and me.

  Though I'd often seen it in the game, it was my first time in the royal audience chamber.

  It was a monument to excess—high vaulted ceilings, gold-threaded banners, and a throne that seemed carved more to impress than to sit upon. Every surface gleamed as if afraid of dust, every shadow carefully arranged to ftter the king's figure. Even the air felt heavy with polish and pride.

  His Majesty himself was tall, somewhat portly, and still sported an impressive head of hair for his age. I couldn't help thinking that Rocher would probably age just as gracefully.

  Of course, that thought was only a distraction from the anger etched across His Majesty's face. He looked like a man forced to sell his favorite warhorse. A petty sort of fury, the kind that belonged more to the man beneath the crown than the monarch wearing it.

  Fortunately, Evelyn had stopped short of ending Ramón's life. Unfortunately, he'd be incapacitated—and in a jail cell—for quite some time.

  I wanted to retort that he was being shortsighted, that uniting the Thieves' Guild and the Mercenary Guild under Evelyn was well worth the price.

  But back-talking the king would have cost me my head. So I kept my mouth shut and let Rocher do the talking.

  "Your Majesty, we'll make it up to you. We'll visit five—no, six fiefs."

  The king leaned back, fingers tapping the throne's armrest. "I expect you to depart first thing tomorrow. Any idea yet as to destination?"

  "It's been a while since we visited the eastern border," Rocher said. "What does Your Majesty think?"

  "It'll do."

  Satisfied, the king turned to me. My gaze snapped to my feet.

  "This the girl?" he asked. "The one who's too clever for her own good?"

  "Yes. May I introduce Cire de Lune."

  I curtsied, eyes trained firmly on the marble.

  The rings on his fingers clinked as he stroked his beard. "Not bad. Were I ten years younger—"

  "Your Majesty." Rocher's voice cut sharp enough to draw blood.

  The silence that followed stretched long enough to make me wish I could disappear.

  I sighed inwardly.

  Like son, like father. Besides the queen, the king kept at least a dozen concubines.

  "Don't worry, Cire," Rocher said on our way back. "His Majesty is not actually all that angry. He's... wiser than he lets on—just likes to act stubborn at times like these so he can squeeze more work out of us."

  I figured. He's probably also giving you a hard time because he's your father, I thought, but kept it to myself.

  "Anyway, aren't you excited?"

  "Huh? Excited about what?"

  "I picked fiefs around the southern edge of Lake Pcid. It's supposed to be beautiful this time of year."

  Oh!

  The dungeon safeguarding the Tear of the Ocean was closer to the western edge, but we'd be less than a day away. I couldn't help feeling a small thrill of excitement, adding a bounce to my step.

  "Haha, I can tell you're looking forward to it. I'd wanted to go—just the two of us—but this works too."

  And just like that, we found ourselves carriage-bound for Lake Pcid.

  Evelyn had to sit out again, at least for the first few missions. She was absolutely swamped with paperwork.

  'If running one guild means a hundred things a day to sign, two means double,' she'd grumbled. 'I'll catch up with you ter.'

  Lumiere slept with her head in my p, her breath soft as I brushed a stray lock from her cheek. Since we were pnning a small celebration after the work was done, I'd invited her along. She looked so blissful that I couldn't help yawning myself.

  Seraphine frowned at us. "Cire, if you're feeling sleepy, I can take over. Want to switch seats?"

  "Thanks, Seraphine. I think I can bear it."

  Then she added, a touch too sweetly, "Actually, the sun is in my eye—it's making it hard to read. Can I trouble you?"

  "Oh. In that case, sure."

  "Wait, Sera—" Rocher began, but fell silent when she elbowed him in the ribs.

  I nodded and gathered Lumiere into my arms while she squeezed beside us.

  Once she settled, I took her old seat by Rocher.

  The warm air folded around me like a heavy bnket. Before long, my eyelids grew heavy.

  "I'll have to trouble you in turn, Mister Rocher," I murmured.

  I let my head rest on his shoulder. He tensed, the fabric beneath my cheek smelling faintly of steel and cedar.

  I hadn't realized how exhausted I was.

  Somewhere in the distance, a bird trilled. The st sound I remembered before sleep was the wheels rounding a soft bend in the road.

  With Evelyn's quest behind us, I pnned on inviting Lumiere to more of our outings.

  The activation condition for Lumiere's css advancement quest was straightforward: she needed to visit border fiefs to build a power base strong enough to challenge corruption in the central Church.

  I wasn't sure yet how far she could advance now that she was no longer Saintess, but since her quest relied on warmth rather than her prowess with holy magic, I thought it couldn't hurt to try.

  At the very least, bringing the Church to heel would make Seraphine's quest far less punishing.

  Yes, it was a simple pn—but the way Lumiere smiled at every chapel and greeted each congregation reminded me that it was more than that.

  It was like she was reciming something sacred.

  For our st two missions, Evelyn finally caught up to us.

  'I've discovered the magic of delegation,' she'd said, grinning. Meaning she dumped the work on some poor sap.

  I was a little afraid that she might be behind the curve, given how many missions she had already missed. But to my surprise, she was as strong as, if not stronger than, the rest of us. Such was the power of css advancement.

  As the ashes of the penultimate demon were dissipating, Rocher and Seraphine were bickering about who dealt the finishing blow.

  I tuned them out—it didn't matter anyway. There was something else that caught my interest.

  "Hey, Miss Evelyn. Can I see the Mask for a second?"

  She peeled it off her face and handed it to me, curious. "Don't drop it, okay?"

  Because of the recent kerfuffle, borrowing the Sacred Mask required even more scrutiny and red tape.

  Luckily, His Majesty was as amenable as Rocher had said, pushing our request through. We needed the practice, after all.

  I turned it over, imagining how Xolotl might have used it when he was battling the original incarnation of the Demon Lord.

  It was highly ornamented, covering only the bottom of the face, with rows of jaguar-like teeth embroidered on both sides—the outside blue and gold, the inside red and green. The threads shimmered with faint power.

  Perhaps that was the trick. I gripped the mask by both ends and cracked it over my knee.

  The sound made everyone flinch.

  "Hey!"

  "Cire!"

  "Rex," I said, holding it up. "See? Still in one piece."

  The colors were swapped inside-out, red and green where blue and gold once shone.

  "Here, try it on."

  She slipped it onto her face and invoked the relic's magic once more.

  Nothing happened—but I felt the faintest traces of the air shifting.

  "Cire... did you break it?"

  I ughed. "No, it should still work the same if you flip it back around. But for the next mission, let's test this mode out."

  "...Mode?"

  The st demon was protected by a small band of orcs.

  We took our usual formation, and as usual toward the midpoint of the battle, the enemy's attention began to shift to Seraphine at the backline.

  It was a significant fw that we'd always overcome through sheer grit and space control.

  Our frontliners could not hold aggro for long—not that their medium armor generated much threat to begin with.

  But this time, I had a new trick up my sleeve.

  "Now! Evelyn!"

  She invoked the Mask's power once again, but with the red and green side facing outwards, it had a different effect.

  A shimmer rippled through the air, and I watched the orcs' faces shift imperceptibly as it passed over them.

  One by one, the orcs roared, their eyes gleaming red, and they turned to bear down on her.

  She faltered for a second, unaccustomed to that many eyes on her during battle—then the hesitation snapped into focus.

  The orcs were clumsy, and Evelyn easily outmaneuvered their wide swings, tearing through them with devastating counterattacks.

  Watching her weave between the orcs with impossible grace, I allowed a small measure of soce into my heart.

  Seraphine and Rocher looked at each other wide-eyed, then toward me.

  "Well, don't just stand there sck-jawed. Go help her out."

  I smiled.

  Dexterity governed both attack and defense, after all. I wasn't sure until now, but Evelyn was fast approaching a level where she would be nigh-untouchable.

  All she needed was a way to generate threat.

  And luckily, the Sacred Mask of Xolotl was the ultimate threat control tool.

  In-game, it was a simple button press to toggle between aggro and stealth. But here, it lived in the resistance in the hinge, in the shifting threads, in the way the faint hum of magic along her fingertips.

  The motion was a little awkward, but she would manage. Though at the moment, she looked a bit dazed.

  I spped her once on the shoulder. "You'll get used to it."

  She huffed a dry ugh. "Sure hope you're right."

  She wasn't just our skirmisher anymore. She was becoming our shield—proof that mastery lived in the narrow seam between weak and strong.

  Rocher and Seraphine were still ughing, breathless from victory. For a moment, everything felt bright and simple.

  I found myself smiling back.

  Tomorrow we would reach Lake Pcid.

  The road ahead felt open.

  veetoks