Chapter 67: Bait.
The afternoon sun beat down over the palace’s secluded southern garden, casting long shadows through the stone arches.
King Thema walked slowly along the marble path, hands clasped behind his back, mind still tangled in the haunting taste of the previous night’s stew — a flavor that had no right existing, yet sat heavy in his memory regardless.
A quiet rustle of leaves broke the silence.
Near a blooming rosebush stood a young woman in a simple servant’s dress, holding a silver tray with a steaming porcelain teapot and a single cup. Her vibrant crimson hair hung loosely tied, framing a face dotted with light freckles. She froze, eyes widening as she realized she’d stumbled straight into the sovereign’s path.
She dropped into a low, frantic bow, gaze pinned to the tiles. "Y-Your Majesty! Forgive me, I didn’t realize you were in the garden. The head butler sent me to refresh the tea in the outer gazebo."
Thema stopped. His sharp eyes settled on her face, then drifted to the long red hair spilling over her shoulder. Something heavy and uncomfortable thudded in his chest.
"Get up," he commanded, voice cold and unreadable.
She rose quickly, hands trembling slightly as she adjusted her grip on the tray, eyes staying respectfully low.
"Your name?" Thema asked, stepping a fraction closer.
"Luna, Sire," she said softly. "Appointed to the palace kitchens three days ago."
Luna.
The name struck him like a blow, though his expression held rigid and unmoved. He studied her a long, quiet moment, then gestured toward the stone bench by the fountain. "Set the tray down there."
"Yes, Your Grace." Luna stepped forward with careful, measured movements, setting the tray on the stone table without a sound. She poured the tea, and the scent of mountain chamomile and crushed honey-root rose instantly into the warm air.
Thema picked up the cup and took a slow, deliberate sip.
Absolute perfection. Temperature, sweetness, the exact bitter edge of the leaf — flawless. Not merely delicious, but eerily, impossibly precise. It matched the stew from the night before exactly, carrying that same phantom trace of a woman dead fifteen years.
He set the cup down with a quiet clink. "Who taught you to brew tea, Luna?"
"My grandmother, Sire," she answered, calm, no obvious hint of deceit anywhere in her voice. "She always said a cup of tea is only as good as the care behind every drop."
"Your portioning is precise," Thema noted, eyes narrowing as he studied her face. "Remarkably so."
"I’ve always had a good eye for it, Your Grace," she murmured, offering a modest nod.
Thema turned away, looking out over the manicured roses, taking another sip while his thoughts churned in open turmoil. "From now on, you’ll handle my afternoon tea personally. Deliver it to the private gazebo, this hour, every day."
Luna bowed deeply, gratitude dripping from her voice. "It would be an absolute honor, Your Majesty."
"Dismissed."
She backed down the marble path, head lowered until she rounded the stone archway and slipped from the king’s sight.
The moment she was clear of the guards, the timid, trembling posture melted away entirely.
Her pace slowed, a faint, razor-thin smile spreading across her lips. Her amber eyes sharpened, the innocent commoner mask dropping as she smoothed down her apron.
Everything had gone exactly to plan. Her unique skill, Perfect Portion, let her replicate any flavor down to the smallest grain, forcing every ingredient into flawless harmony. Using the late queen’s secret recipe hadn’t been coincidence — it was the opening move, a calculated strike aimed straight at the old king’s most guarded, most vulnerable spot.
She glanced back toward the quiet garden arches, her smile widening into something dark and deliberate.
*Bait caught,* she thought, satisfaction glinting in her eyes. *Now — how do I keep it.*
---
The ground beneath the private training grounds shattered under the sheer violence of Princess Elestar’s boots.
A dense, suffocating wave of crimson mana flared around her, radiating outward like a storm of liquid fire. She gripped her longsword with both hands, knuckles bleached white, chest heaving in ragged, furious pulls. Sweat ran down her jaw to pool at her collarbone, but she didn’t notice — her eyes, usually sharp and bright, sat bloodshot, consumed by a cold, searing rage.
*"Which is more important — capturing us, or saving the whole kingdom?"*
Niel’s voice echoed in her head, clear as struck glass, mocking her over the deafening roar of falling stone.
"Haaaaah!"
She swung with a guttural roar. The crimson aura burst outward in a massive arc of condensed force, slicing clean through a three-meter boulder of solid granite. The top half slid off with an agonized screech, crashing into the dirt in a burst of fine dust.
She didn’t stop. She spun, blade whistling through the air, striking a second boulder, then a third, a fourth — explosions of shattered stone and sparks tearing across the courtyard, each strike heavier than the last, driven not by clean martial form but by an uncontainable desperation burning her out from the inside.
Her mind flashed back to the sky above the ruined arena.
She remembered how he’d hovered there, calm, casual, that eerie demon mask fixed in place, while she’d fought desperately on the ground below just to keep his meteors from crushing the lower grandstands. She’d trained her whole life to be the shield of Warstone. A master swordswoman, a royal warrior praised across the kingdom for her talent, her ruthless edge in battle.
And when the Sinners appeared, she’d been utterly helpless.
A fifth boulder stood near the training wall’s edge, reinforced with heavy iron runes. She poured every scrap of remaining mana into her sword, the blade flaring blinding, violent red, heat radiating off it enough to melt the stone beneath her boots.
"Vael!" she screamed, swinging with everything left in her.
BOOM!
The reinforced boulder didn’t just split — it detonated. A concussive shockwave tore through the dirt, shattered the stone perimeter fence, sent heavy granite fragments hurtling skyward. The blast rattled the courtyard pillars, leaving a smoking crater gouged into the center of the field.
The force of her own swing sent her stumbling back, boots skidding through the ruined dirt, sword slipping from exhausted fingers to clatter against the stone.
She dropped to her hands and knees in the crater’s center, breath coming in violent gasps, arms trembling uncontrollably, muscles burning from overexertion, her mana core scraped completely dry. Black spots danced across her vision, but the burning humiliation in her chest hurt worse than any of it.
She stared down at the dirt, fingers digging into scorched soil, tears of pure frustration welling up and mixing with sweat and soot on her face.
*I couldn’t even reach him,* she thought, her teeth grinding hard enough to ache.
Worse than the destruction was the haunting fact that she couldn’t even prove who he was. She knew, in her very bones, that it was Niel — but without proof, her father and Namor were chasing shadows. A princess, and utterly useless.
She squeezed her eyes shut, fists clenching until her nails bit into her palms, drawing small beads of blood. The heat of her aura slowly bled away, leaving the air cold and still around her.
She stayed like that a long while, her own ragged breathing echoing off the broken training walls.
Slowly, the chaotic rage in her chest began to cool. The wild, blind fury settled into something colder, harder — a stone of realization.
*Raging won’t change what happened.*
Elestar opened her eyes. The tears were gone, replaced by dark, unyielding focus. She drew a deep, long breath, pulling the cool mountain air into her lungs, letting it settle the storm still raging in her core.
She pushed herself up from the dirt. Her legs wobbled, but she forced them straight, wiping sweat and dirt from her forehead with the back of her wrist, straightening until she stood tall again amid the rubble she’d made.
She crossed to her sword, lifting the heavy hilt, staring at her own reflection in the polished steel. Her blue eyes stared back sharp, stripped clean of hesitation.
"It doesn’t matter," she whispered into the empty courtyard, voice steady and quiet.
She slid the longsword back into its scabbard with a crisp, decisive snap.
"I wasn’t ready," she admitted to the wind, no weakness in her voice, only absolute clarity. "That was the whole problem. I was weak, arrogant, unprepared for what real monsters look like. That’s why I’m here now."
She looked up toward the sky, toward the clouds where Heaven’s Spear had torn reality apart only days before. Somewhere out there, the Sinners were waiting, planning their next move. Niel was watching, biding his time until he struck again.
She rested her hand firmly on the hilt of her sword, jaw setting into a hard, determined line.
"Enjoy your little victory, Niel," she murmured, eyes burning with an oath she had no intention of breaking. "Because next time we meet — I’ll be ready for you."