Chapter 686: A Gift For A Gift [Bonus - ]
It wasn’t a masterwork weapon forged from steel. It wasn’t a bag of sovereign mana stones, or an ancient alchemical elixir either.
...It was a piece of clothing.
Specifically, it was an enormous heavy-knit hoodie spun from thick charcoal-gray wool.
The fabric was undeniably luxurious looking heavy, and impossibly soft to the touch, with neatly reinforced double-stitched seams along the cuffs and hem.
The sizing was utterly absurd for someone of Evelyn’s petite stature... it was broad across the shoulders, long in the torso, and cut with generous comfortable sleeves that would have swallowed her whole.
And stitched right across the center of the chest, rendered in meticulous vibrant embroidery, was a pair of charming stylized chibi faces.
On the left was an adorably grumpy hooded chibi-girl with a permanent scowl and a tiny unlit cigarette between her lips and on the right was a smiling dark-haired chibi-boy with messy bangs, winking with effortless infuriating confidence.
Evelyn held the garment out toward him with both hands with her gaze fixed stubbornly on his collarbones as a faint furious pink began creeping along the tips of her ears.
’Don’t shake. Don’t you dare shake,’ she ordered her own fingers but they shook anyway.
"I made it," Evelyn muttered, her voice dropping into an uncharacteristically quiet shy mumble. "Every stitch... The spinning, the dye, the embroidery... all of it."
Beneath the rough cotton of her collar, her heart hammered against her ribs with ridiculous humiliating intensity.
’Will he even like it...?’ she worried internally, her fingers tightening slightly against the soft wool.
’It’s a hoodie... A stupid hoodie... He has vaults full of enchanted robes and a whole territory of women who’d kill to sew his buttons, and I’m standing here handing him wool like a kid at a school fair.’
She had rewritten the speech in her head the whole way over, and every version ended with her sounding like a lunatic, so now there was nothing but silence and the wool between them.
The original project had started weeks ago as a personal attempt to craft an oversized loungewear hoodie for herself during the quiet nights on the fortress.
But when she had walked through the shops in the city earlier that morning, looking for something to buy him as a proper thank-you, she had realized how hollow money really was.
Silas had a Gold Core... he ruled a territory full of strong women, possessed perhaps an endless inventory, and had more high-tier resources than half the minor lords in Central City combined.
If she just bought him some expensive weapon or a pouch of mana gems, it would feel like a soulless corporate transaction, like she hadn’t bothered to think about him at all.
So she had stayed up until three in the afternoon, resizing the pattern, reinforcing the shoulders to fit his broad frame, and painstakingly stitching those stupid embarrassing chibi faces onto the chest.
Twice she had unpicked the right chibi’s smile because it came out too soft... it was too much like the way she actually saw him so the wink was the compromise.
Silas reached out with his fingers brushing against the wool.
The tips of his fingers found her knuckles through the wool and Evelyn felt it all the way up to her elbow as a slow genuine smile broke across his face.
Evelyn forgot how lungs worked.
"Evelyn..." Silas murmured, his voice softening with pure warmth as he took the weight of the garment into his hands. "This is amazing."
’Amazing,’ she repeated in her head, like an idiot. ’He said amazing... About something I made...’
He lifted the hoodie, holding it up to examine the fine craftsmanship, before tapping his index finger squarely against the smiling chibi face on the right.
"Look at this," Silas chuckled, his gold-ringed blue eyes dancing with teasing amusement. "Did you really capture my rugged devastating charm on the first try? And look at your grumpy little face! It’s identical... You even gave your chibi the permanent scowl."
"Shut up!" Evelyn hissed, her cheeks instantly blazing a deep radiant scarlet as her hand flew out, playfully smacking his shoulder with a dull thud. "I shouldn’t have stitched that dumb wink on you! Give it back if you’re just going to make fun of it!"
"Not a chance," Silas laughed.
He didn’t hesitate as he pulled the oversized charcoal hoodie straight over his head.
The fabric slid over his shoulders with a gentle whispering rustle.
The cut was perfection, resting comfortably broad across his back with the thick fleece lining settling against his skin like a cloud of pure breathable warmth.
The hem fell neatly just past his hips, and the cuffs rested comfortably around his wrists without bunching.
Silas buried both hands into the deep front kangaroo pouch, rolling his shoulders to test the flexibility.
Evelyn’s breath caught as the hood settled around his neck.
It was ridiculous... It was a hoodie... She had seen him in armor, in Sovereign robes, in blood to his elbows, and none of it had ever done this to her stomach.
’Mm... I feel weird.’
But Silas in a charcoal hoodie she had stitched herself, hands buried in the pocket and his hair mussed from the neckline, looked like someone who lived in her house.
"Damn," Silas breathed, genuinely impressed. "It’s so soft. The mana insulation in the wool is top-tier, too. For your first attempt at tailoring, you completely knocked it out of the park. Honestly... I might have to hire you as my personal tailor."
’Oh fuck,’ Evelyn realized, staring at his chest.
The grumpy chibi sat right beside the winking one, shoulder to shoulder, close enough that they could have been holding hands if she had bothered to stitch hands.
’They’re side by side. It looks like a couple’s shirt. Why did I put them next to each other?! Because the pattern was symmetrical, that’s why! That’s the only reason!’
She pressed her lips together and prayed to every god in the Sovereign Realm that he wouldn’t notice.
"Fuck you," Evelyn shot back instantly, though the furious blush on her face didn’t fade in the slightest as her lips twitching with a fierce suppressed smile of pure relief. "I run a mobile fortress, Graves. I don’t sew trousers for lazy Lords."
She crossed her arms, turning her chin slightly away to hide how ridiculously happy she was that he was actually wearing it.
"Now that you got your gift, keep it," she said, her voice regaining its steady familiar tone. "Wear it when you’re slacking off in that big empty Keep of yours and... maybe when I finally clear my business and get a few days of shore leave, I’ll drop by Blessed Land again to inspect your perimeter. If that’s alright."
Silas smiled, his eyes warm and completely welcoming. "You don’t need an inspection excuse, Evelyn... You’re always welcome in Blessed Land... Anytime..."
’Anytime,’ Evelyn repeated silently. The word rolled around her ribs like a warm stone. ’He always says it so easily... Stop being so nice.’
Evelyn nodded with her dark eyes softening.
"Good. And... you don’t need to get me anything in return. Really. Just... thank you. For everything."
’Liar,’ the small voice muttered. ’You’d keep a rock if he handed you one.’
She lifted the heavy alloy helmet, sliding it back over her messy bun.
Psssshhhh-KLAK!
The seals clicked shut as the tired, flustered twenty-two-year-old girl vanished, replaced once more by the towering cold silhouette of Commander Lord Sky.
"Movement protocols are cleared," Sky’s baritone rumbled from the visor. "The personnel ramp is deployed so you’re clear to disembark."
"Take care of yourself, Sky," Silas said.
He slipped the Disguise Artifact back onto his finger.
Silver light flared across him, his hair pouring out long and black with violet blooming in both eyes and his left sleeve folding itself into a neat pin as the new hoodie vanished beneath the pristine tailored lines of Kara White’s high-society coat.
Kara turned toward Aeliana, offering a small decisive nod.
Aeliana stepped forward, her emerald eyes glowing beneath her deep traveling hood as she linked hands with Morwenna and Rika.
With a crisp elegant snap of her fingers, space folded around them.
SNAP! FLASH!
The four figures vanished from the bridge in an eye-blink, leaving behind only the faint scent of wild mountain pine and the hum of cooling machines.
Inside the alloy helm, Evelyn let out a long quiet breath that misted the polarized interior of her red visor.
’I did good,’ she thought, a quiet unfamiliar warmth lingering behind her ribs. ’Get a grip on yourself idiot...’
She turned on her armored heels, leaving the quiet command deck and walking down the wide central transit corridor.
Spending time in Blessed Land, watching how Silas treated his people, how his Heroes lived without the constant, choking terror of supply starvation and debt, had fundamentally shattered her perspective.
Her crew, Elm, Hiro, Brainbox... they had bled for her for a long time, they deserved far more than survival... all of them, they deserved a proper home.
She reached the fortress’s primary lower airlock.
The broad hydraulic ramp had fully extended, resting against the polished cobblestones of the private estate basin.
Evelyn stepped down onto the stones with the cool crisp breeze of Central City brushing against her armor.
The estate grounds she had purchased were styled as a secluded park... broad mossy lawns ringed by weeping willows, a clear reflective pond, and wrought-iron fencing separating the grounds from the bustling metropolitan avenues beyond.
She looked back at the imposing iron-plated bulk of the Unmovable Wall, three stories of heavy iron plate rising off its great steel treads, dominating the landscape.
’It could definitely use a proper makeover,’ Evelyn mused, tapping her chin with a gauntlet. ’The armor plating is battered, the secondary hull has scorch marks from three different border sieges, and the exterior living quarters look like a penal colony but... refitting a vessel of this tonnage would cost an astronomical fortune... Even with my recent payouts, there are strict limits to how much capital I can dump into structural upgrades in a single cycle... That is, if I can even afford the raw mythril—’
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
A heavy metallic knocking echoed from the ornate iron gates at the park’s entrance.
Evelyn’s head snapped toward the boundary.
Through the decorative iron bars, a lone figure stood waiting patiently.
He was tall, dressed in the immaculate high-collared crimson-and-gold uniform of the World Council’s magistrate corps, complete with a polished silver sash and the twin-scale insignia of the clerks.
A magistrate’s clerk.
Evelyn’s posture stiffened instantly.
Her internal alarms flared into sharp vigilance as she marched across the lawn with her heavy boots crushing the grass with disciplined thuds.
Technically, the clerks were the paper-pushing hands of the World Council, the men who carried writs, summonses, and sealed decrees to Lords the magistrates themselves couldn’t be bothered to meet.
Why the hell was one standing outside her private estate gates within thirty minutes of her touchdown in the city?
She stopped three paces from the gate with the baritone of Lord Sky projecting through the iron bars.
"If this inquiry is regarding my absence from the formal assembly chambers during the World council meeting, I apologize."
The clerk smoothly brought his right hand to his chest, offering an immaculate formal court bow that was perfectly calibrated to acknowledge a Lord.
"Greetings, Commander Lord Sky of the Unmovable Wall," the clerk said. "Your absence from the general assembly is of no concern to the Magistrate’s Office... The World Council’s strategic negotiations were concluded with resounding success, regardless of personal attendance."
Sky narrowed his eyes behind the red visor. "Then why are you here?"
"I am here on direct executive business from the Chief Magistrates," the official replied.
He reached into his leather dispatch case, withdrawing a thick heavy paper bound with imperial gold leaf and bearing the embossed, wax-sealed crest of a Senior Magistrate.
He unrolled the document, his clear voice reading the formal administrative decree:
"By executive authorization of the Magistrate’s Office, pursuant to the war-merit concession awarded for the defense of North Khemet during the Rift invasion... be it known that a request submitted by Lord Vespera, registered under the civilian name Kara White, was the complete structural overhaul and replacement of the mobile sovereign vessel designated The Unmovable Wall."
Inside the helm, Evelyn’s breath stalled entirely.
’What...?!’