Chapter 63

Matthias had reportedly taken leave from the knighthood, claiming he needed to visit his hometown. If that were true, then he must have gone to Köbeck… but why, and why now?

“I heard Köbeck was dealt with a while ago. Practically reduced to ruins,” said Malena.

“Really?” 

“Yes,” Malena confirmed with a grim nod. “Apparently, the lord set the entire place ablaze—determined to wipe it out completely. There’s probably nothing left but ashes. Saying he went home might just be a cover. Maybe he’s headed somewhere else entirely.”

It seemed the Lord of Anatolia had made good on his promise to “clean up” the Köbeck region. It hadn’t been an idle threat, after all.

“What’s even stranger,” Malena added, lowering his voice, “is that he disappeared without even telling you, my lady.”

“He left a note,” Odelliana replied, her tone cool but tight.

“But it didn’t say where he was going—or why. He may have told the Order he was returning home, but I think that was just for appearances. If he truly meant to go to Köbeck, there’d be no reason to hide it from you.”

There was no telling what Matthias had been thinking. And since chasing after him wasn’t an option, Odelliana could do little but wait in silence. Still, she would not let herself idle.

In the meantime, she explored every inch of the castle, acquainting herself thoroughly with its inner workings. She visited the training grounds to observe the knights in practice, gauging their skill and discipline. In the armory, she took stock of the weapons—counting blades and testing their sharpness with a critical eye. She checked the food stores, assessing the condition of the grains, meats, and dried goods.

She reviewed the merchants’ visiting schedule, noting the names and affiliations of each trading company. No detail escaped her. Even the annex where the castle staff lived came under her inspection. There, she committed to memory not just the names and faces of the maids, but also those of the external servants—those who handled deliveries, assisted with various tasks, provided medicines, hunted game, crafted furniture, and tailored clothing.

After that, Odelliana made her way through the scullery, the grand reception hall, the dressing room, the private chambers, the winding corridors, and even the gallery. By now, Marco had begun treating her as the de facto lady of the castle, going so far as to show her the ledgers—though their condition was appalling.

How much did they embezzle? she thought, flipping through the brittle pages. The falsified entries go on and on, nothing is in order, and the calculations don’t even add up…

To anyone else, the disarray might have been baffling. But to Odelliana, trained for two grueling years under the Queen’s household management program, it was nothing short of an insult. Sloppy recordkeeping like this would never have been tolerated at court. Frankly, it was a miracle the domain had managed to function at all.

“We’ll have to start by fixing these ledgers,” she said, closing one of the volumes with a dull thud.

Malena blinked at her. “You know how to keep records, my lady?”

“I was trained,” Odelliana replied simply.

“Oh!” Malena’s eyes widened, clearly impressed.

Odelliana resisted the urge to sigh. She was more than familiar with ledgers—painfully so. It had been the most grueling part of her palace education, drilled into her by merciless court instructors who’d seemed to enjoy making young noblewomen weep over balance sheets.

Ledger work was the culmination of everything tedious and taxing about accounting. It required the classification of coinage by type, the careful documentation of income according to shifting tax rates, and the constant recalculation of assets based on seasonal variance, debt, and demand. One minor error could unravel an entire month’s work.

In Reveln, currencies varied not just in name but in weight and purity. Tax rates shifted depending on the region, and even within cities, levies could fluctuate based on profession or guild membership. Once the numbers started branching into categories and subcategories, the sheer complexity was enough to make anyone want to throw themselves out a window.

That was precisely why most lords relied on legal experts or notaries with accounting experience to handle it. So when Marco looked at her with something like awe, it wasn’t surprising.

It was brutal, she thought. Back then, all I wanted was to leap out the nearest window. Still… it’s nice to know all that suffering actually paid off.

“May I make the corrections myself?” Odelliana had asked. “You can conduct the final review, of course.”

“If you’re willing to help, I’d be more than grateful,” Marco had replied with a bow of his head. “I’ll leave it in your capable hands.”

It wasn’t the sort of task that could be completed in a day. So, as the days passed without word from Matthias, Odelliana poured herself into the work. One by one, she began to revise the ledgers, untangling the chaos left behind by years of neglect—or worse, deliberate deceit.

Then, on the fourth day, someone came looking for her.

“My lady,” a maid said softly, bowing at the door. “Blacksmith Fergus requests an audience.”

Fergus. She had nearly forgotten about him.

Setting aside her quill, Odelliana dusted her hands, closed the ledger, and nodded. “Show him to the reception room. I’ll be there shortly.”

Taking up her cane, she made her way down the corridor. The tapping of it against the stone floors echoed faintly as she walked, steady and composed.

When she entered the reception room, she found a young man standing awkwardly in the center, wringing his calloused hands. His clothes were coarse and worn, stained with soot and oil.

“Come in,” she said, gesturing calmly. “Have a seat.”

Only after she had settled into her own chair did Fergus move. He shuffled forward hesitantly and sat down on the edge of the cushion, as though afraid he might dirty it. Odelliana called for tea and light refreshments, then turned her gaze fully upon him.

Fergus was, in a word, forgettable. His skin bore the rough, scorched texture of someone who worked too close to fire for too long. His pores were large, his eyes sunken and dull, his posture stooped and uncertain. He had the look of a man life had scolded, again and again, until even pride had stopped answering back. His neck jutted forward like a turtle’s, his back slightly hunched. Everything about him spoke of toil, of invisibility, of sweat in the shadows.

“Your being here means I can take your presence as a sign that you’ve accepted my offer, yes?” she asked.

Fergus looked down at his hands, struggling to find his voice. “I… I’m nothing more than a lowly assistant,” he said haltingly. “Can’t even call myself a blacksmith, not properly. Why would you, my lady, choose to support someone like me?”

He still couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe she’d meant what she said.

“I’m in need of a special sword,” Odelliana said, her tone even. “And I’d like to entrust its creation to you.”

Fergus stared at her, lips parted but silent.

“Because only you can make it,” she added, voice softer now, but firm.

At her words, something shifted in him, his eyes widening.

“I—I’m not even a proper blacksmith,” Fergus stammered, his hands tightening in his lap. “I’ve only ever worked as an assistant in a forge. I’ve never made a sword from start to finish on my own before.”

“Then now’s the time to start,” Odelliana said without hesitation.

He looked up, eyes wide, lips parting in silent disbelief.

“The condition I gave you was simple,” she continued. “I would provide you with your own forge. It’s ready now. All you have to do is work there as a blacksmith—and craft the finest sword the world has ever seen. That’s all I ask.”

Color drained from Fergus’s face. To demand a legendary weapon from someone not even formally trained must have sounded, to him, like a cruel joke.

“I heard you were the quickest and most skilled assistant at that forge,” she said calmly.

“That’s only because I’ve been there the longest,” he murmured, gaze dropping.

“How long were you an assistant there?” she asked.

“…About fifteen years,” he replied after a pause.

“So you started quite young, then?”

“Yes, but…” He hesitated, a shadow passing over his features. “I never received proper training. I was mostly stuck doing chores and grunt work.”

Shame flickered across his face. He fidgeted with his fingers, hunched slightly as if trying to make himself smaller.

“Even so,” Odelliana said gently, “fifteen years of observing and assisting must count for something.”

Fergus remained silent, but the way his brows pulled together suggested he was thinking—hard.

“And in the end, you accepted my offer. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“I—I just couldn’t believe someone would make such an offer to someone like me…” His voice cracked slightly. “I wasn’t even sure I was truly allowed to live and work in that forge. I had to come see for myself. Forgive the impertinence, my lady.”

“That forge belongs to you,” Odelliana said, her tone resolute. “What you do with it is entirely your decision. And as for it being too generous—well, I don’t see it that way.”

She leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering.

“I’m not taking a risk on you, Fergus. I trust my own judgment. Asking you to forge a legendary sword isn’t unreasonable.”

He looked at her, stunned into silence.

“Because you’re a blacksmith who can create such a blade.”

He blinked. The words hung in the air, impossibly heavy and impossibly hopeful.

In her previous life, Fergus had forged the greatest sword in all of Reveln—and placed it in Jocelyn’s hands.

That sword, she knew, had been forged from sky-iron—a mineral whispered to be the shard of a fallen star, so rare that scholars could count its confirmed discoveries on one hand. Legends claimed it sang in the forge-fire and gleamed with a light that never dimmed.

And the man who had wielded that miracle of metal was Fergus himself. He once testified—shy and halting—that as a boy he had stumbled on a sky-iron fragment, no larger than his palm, and hidden it away like a sacred relic. Years later, with trembling hands and a stubborn heart, he coaxed it into a blade.

That sword always belonged in Matthias’s hand, Odelliana mused, not Jocelyn’s.

Yet it was Jocelyn who had claimed it in the world she remembered, because no one had seen Fergus’s worth soon enough.

But she saw it now.

Fergus was destined to become a master smith, renowned across Reveln for weapons and armor of peerless craft. If she nurtured that spark today, she would gain an ally whose value would only grow with every passing year.

Odelliana folded her hands atop her cane. “If you truly wish to repay me,” she said, her voice low but firm, “then forge the finest blade the world has ever known.”

Fergus drew a breath that seemed to scrape his throat raw. “That’s… all you ask?” he whispered, disbelief trembling in every syllable.

“That is all,” she confirmed, studying him. “And I’ll provide everything you need.”

For a heartbeat he simply stared, eyes wide. Then the dam broke. A rough sob escaped him; he covered his face with scarred hands, broad shoulders shaking. “Thank you,” he choked out, again and again—each word softer than the last.

Odelliana reached across the small table and laid a steadying hand on his arm. “Do your best,” she said gently. “I’ll be cheering you on.”

He lowered his hands, tears still shining on his cheeks, and managed a wavering smile. “I swear I’ll make it up to you, my lady. I’ll make you proud.”

“I know you will.” Her answering smile held unshakable faith.

After finishing his tea and savoring the last buttery crumb of pastry—luxuries he’d likely never tasted before—Fergus rose to leave, and Odelliana returned to her ledgers.

She worked through the night without pause, quill scratching endlessly across the pages. Candle wax pooled and hardened beside her elbow, and the ledger’s spine creaked with overuse. The dawn sun had only just begun to bleed light into the sky when noise echoed through the castle halls—shouts, hurried footsteps, the distinct ring of alarm.

Odelliana was reaching for her cane when the door burst open and Malena rushed in, breathless, her cheeks flushed with panic.

“My lady—you must take shelter, now!” the maid cried.

“Shelter? What are you talking about all of a sudden—?”

“There’s a beast,” Malena gasped. “At the outer wall—a Vanagand—”

Odelliana froze. “A Vanagand?”

“A high-tier cryptid!” Malena’s voice cracked with fear. “A serpent! The same species that triggered the Great Flood!”

At the name, cold dread lanced down Odelliana’s spine. The Vanagand—one of the most feared and ancient cryptids in existence. That it had appeared here, now, seemed impossibly cruel.

And then—

“Master.”

A voice—deep, calm, and achingly familiar—sounded behind her.

She turned at once, eyes wide.

Standing in the doorway, cloaked in dust and shadow, was Matthias.

“I’ve returned,” he said simply.

Odelliana stared at him, momentarily struck speechless.

He was back. At last.

And just in time—for the Vanagand.