Chapter 91

“Could you spare just a little more?”

“Eat what’s given. If it’s not enough, come back later.”

The old man grumbled but obeyed, scooping the thin wheat porridge into a cracked wooden bowl before shuffling off to his place among the others. The massive pot that had been brimming only an hour ago was now scraped near empty. Odelliana gauged the remaining amount with a practiced eye, calculating silently whether it would stretch far enough to fill every bowl still waiting to be served. Barely—but it would do.

She sighed. There would be no seconds tonight. Those who begged for more would have to endure their hunger a little longer. In times like these, survival meant discipline; keeping everyone alive mattered more than satisfying anyone’s appetite.

“Three months already,” Malena murmured as soon as the last person was fed.

Odelliana removed her kerchief and wiped the sweat from her brow. The air was sharp with the chill of approaching winter, yet her skin glistened under the lamplight from the labor of the day. She looked up toward the ashen sky and smiled faintly. “It has been, hasn’t it? Time moves quickly.”

It had been three months since the Great Subjugation against the barbarians began—three months since harvest season had ended and the snows returned to Eisenwald. This was her second winter in the northern stronghold, and thanks to the meticulous preparations she had insisted on, it seemed they would endure it without hardship.

“I hear the Anatolia campaign hasn’t progressed at all,” Malena went on, stretching her weary arms. “At this rate, one would think they’re trying to make the war last forever.”

“At the very least, the standoff will continue through spring,” Odelliana said softly. “For now, even surviving the cold and hunger is battle enough for them.”

Outside Eisenwald, most territories were already howling under the strain of winter. Prices for grain had soared; starvation whispered through the villages like plague. Yet within these walls, all remained steady and calm. The granaries were full, the hearths lit, and the people safe. Still, every courier that arrived carried grim tidings.

The barbarian army that had seized Anatolia was holding strong, entrenched behind its captured fortress, using civilians as hostages and shields. What was meant to be a swift reconquest had become a long, exhausting siege. For three months, the allied forces had bled themselves dry against the enemy walls, gaining nothing but more dead.

“I heard Young Master Hermann’s division was forced to retreat,” Malena said, worry creasing her brow. “Do you think he’s all right?”

Odelliana’s lips curved with a shadow of amusement. “I imagine he was among the first to run, guarded by his men.”

Malena laughed softly. “Knowing his pride, he’s probably gnashing his teeth somewhere right now.”

Odelliana pictured Hermann pacing his command tent, rage simmering beneath that proud face of his. Even if he’d escaped without a wound, his pride would not be so lucky. To have been outmaneuvered by the very barbarians he had long sneered at—he would be fuming, destroying whatever lay within reach, cursing his soldiers for failing him when, in truth, he had failed them.

“The kingdom’s sending reinforcements,” Malena said after a moment. “Rumor has it the second prince himself will lead them.”

Odelliana lifted her gaze, her expression unreadable. “The second prince?”

“That’s what people in the capital are saying. It seems incredible, doesn’t it? Even if he’s illegitimate, a prince marching to war?”

“If it were Prince Belnias, the heir apparent, the royal family would never allow it,” Odelliana replied, her tone cool. “But the second prince—half royal blood, half ambition—who would stop him? Jocelyn’s skilled with a sword, and his Second Order of Knights is infamous for its aggression. The crown might be hoping his zeal will end the war quickly. They’ll gladly send him if it spares them a prolonged campaign.”

The Allied Forces were indeed struggling. Against an enemy using the conquered city as both fortress and shield, their superior numbers meant little. Every assault risked the lives of innocent hostages. Rescue attempts had failed one after another, and winter only worsened the attrition. The barbarians, meanwhile, waged a cunning war of attrition—dispatching small raiding parties to strike at supply lines, seizing food convoys, ambushing scouts before melting back into the snow.

The tide of battle felt wrong to Odelliana, out of rhythm with what she remembered. Even accounting for altered fates, the Allies’ failure was strange—almost deliberate.

By now, the first bodies should have been returned…

She stared down at her hands, her thoughts dark. News always arrived late in wartime, but not this late. That not a single Eisenwald soldier’s remains had been sent home could only mean one thing: they hadn’t been allowed to fight at all.

If Hermann’s the one commanding the front, she thought, then he likely stationed Eisenwald’s forces in the rear, keeping them from earning any glory.

It would be just like him. The campaign was his grand stage—his chance to solidify his claim as heir to the House of Grüsewald. And Eisenwald, governed by Blair Grüsewald, his estranged younger brother, was a threat to that image. Though Blair had officially broken ties with the main family, his very existence as a Grüsewald by blood was enough to make Hermann wary.

He’d grown up in Blair’s shadow—always compared, always found wanting. Odelliana knew how deep that inferiority ran. If there was even a sliver of a chance that Eisenwald’s forces could outshine his own, Hermann would bury them before he allowed it.

“Do you think Sir Matthias is all right?” Malena asked quietly.

Odelliana’s breath caught at the name. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “There’s been no word at all.”

“Do you think he received your letters?”

“Perhaps.”

But they both knew the truth. Letters seldom reached the front. Couriers were ambushed, dispatches burned or lost to snowstorms. Even if, by miracle, one of her letters had found him, the odds of a reply ever making it back to her were next to none.

Still, she had written—again and again. She hadn’t expected a response. It was simply the only thing she could do to stave off the helplessness that gnawed at her.

“Come inside, my lady,” Malena urged gently. “You’ll catch cold out here.”

Odelliana nodded. Malena draped a thick shawl over her shoulders and led her to the inner room of the charity house. She sank into the chair by the hearth, watching the fire crackle and curl in shades of orange and gold. Malena poured a cup of steaming tea and placed it in her hands.

Odelliana took a slow sip. The heat touched her tongue, but it could not reach the cold hollow forming inside her.

Through the rising steam, she thought she saw him—the boy she’d left behind, standing beneath the iron-gray sky of the battlefield, snow tangled in his dark hair. Her throat tightened. She had told herself she would grow used to the ache, that longing and fear would dull with time. Instead, they had only deepened, until his absence filled every breath.

Are you enduring this well?

Her lips curved in a small, sorrowful smile.

“Will you go to the ramparts again tomorrow?” Malena asked.

“Yes.”

Odelliana looked toward the window, where snowflakes drifted like feathers against the glass. Every few days, she climbed the watchtower and gazed beyond the city walls toward the mountains, where the frontlines lay. She never said what she looked for, but Malena knew. Her eyes, whenever they lingered there, were full of the same quiet ache—a gaze fixed on someone far beyond reach.

***

“The best route would be through Eisenwald,” said Sir Aidas, commander of the Second Order of Knights.

Prince Jocelyn leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping idly against the armrest as he considered the name. Eisenwald—he remembered it. Once, years ago, he had passed through its gates. And he remembered, too, the scandal surrounding its former lord.

“Eisenwald, you say?” he murmured.

It had been quite the spectacle at the time: a noble dragged from his own castle to stand trial in the capital. Jocelyn himself had attended out of morbid curiosity. The man—middle-aged, gaunt, with trembling hands—had confessed to locking women in his dungeons for years, torturing them for pleasure, painting their final moments in oil and keeping the portraits like trophies.

The horror of it had sickened even the most jaded courtiers.

A city ruled by such a monster had no appeal for Jocelyn. To him, Eisenwald was a cursed place—stained by cruelty, steeped in misfortune. “Wasn’t that city left in ruins?” he asked. “After the old lord’s tyranny?”

“Apparently it’s changed completely,” said Aidas. “Only took a year.”

“A year?” Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. “Who governs it now?”

“The younger son of House Grüsewald, my lord. Lord Blair.”

“Blair…” Jocelyn mused, recalling half-forgotten gossip. He remembered Odette’s sneering tone the day he’d mentioned it: something about the younger son declaring independence, much to his brother Hermann’s delight. At the time, Jocelyn hadn’t cared enough to listen.

“So he broke from his house and ended up a provincial lord,” he said with a faint scoff. “Eisenwald belongs to the Duchy of Schaller, doesn’t it? Strange choice of territory.”

“It seems the young Duke Adolf pulled some strings for him,” Aidas replied.

Jocelyn chuckled. Of course. Those two had been inseparable since childhood—handsome, privileged, utterly insufferable. Even when their families were at odds, they’d gone abroad together, thick as thieves. For Adolf to grant his friend a fief was ridiculous, but not surprising.

“I wonder if that indecisive boy can even govern a city,” Jocelyn said dryly.

“By all accounts, he’s done well. Eisenwald prospered under his rule.”

Jocelyn turned his head sharply. “Prospered? After last year’s calamity?”

“Yes, Your Highness. The beast Vanagand ravaged the region, but oddly enough spared the city itself. At first, many fled. But Lord Blair personally led the reconstruction, rallied the citizens, and oversaw the rebuilding of the walls.”

“Hmph.” Jocelyn smirked. “Typical of a man with no pride. A true noble wouldn’t debase himself groveling for the commoners’ approval.”

Still, something about it unsettled him. The beast’s sudden retreat, the city’s quick recovery—it all sounded too neat, too improbable. “You’re certain the younger Grüsewald managed this alone?”

“Not entirely alone. There’s talk of a woman—the lady of the house. They say she’s exceptional. She runs the estate’s finances herself and has a genius for trade. Some call her the reason Eisenwald thrives.”

“The lady of the house?” Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me he married?”

“Supposedly she’s a distant relative.”

A relative? That usually meant scandal hidden behind polite phrasing.

“She’s lame, they say,” Aidas added.

Jocelyn stilled. For a heartbeat, the name, the image, the bitter sting of humiliation from that day flashed across his mind. His lips thinned.

“Don’t tell me it’s her.”

Aidas grimaced at the memory. He, too, had been there that day, when the woman had dared to defy the prince’s authority to his face. Both men shared a moment of taut silence, remembering.

“After that,” Jocelyn said quietly, “she vanished.”

He had sent men to look for her, driven partly by anger, partly by something he didn’t name. The ducal servants had all pretended ignorance; the trail had gone cold. He’d assumed the Duke had locked her away somewhere, out of sight and shame.

But now—Eisenwald. The thought of her there, living as some provincial lord’s lady, stirred something sharp and unpleasant in him.

He remembered, too, the rumors that had followed her: the madness, the violent fits, the servants maimed or dead by her hand, the sordid whispers about a boy she kept close for her own amusement. Outlandish, perhaps, but the image lingered.

An unstable woman, unpredictable and strange—and now apparently prospering where others had failed.

“How entertaining,” he murmured, a dangerous glint lighting his eyes.

Aidas hesitated. “And that boy, the one who blocked my sword that day?”

“The boy?” Jocelyn asked absently, recalling the sharp-eyed youth who had stood his ground. “Ah. What of him?”

“He passed the knight’s exam,” Aidas said. “Duke Adolf took him under his wing.”

Jocelyn’s expression darkened. “Again, Adolf.”

“I traced the boy’s record,” Aidas continued. “After his knighting, he served briefly under a small fief’s order—but there’s a knight in the Eisenwald region whose feats match his description. They say he slew a Prove single-handedly during the trials and later led the vanguard in the beast-hunt expedition. Now they call him a prodigy—a genius born once in a century.”

Jocelyn’s gaze sharpened. So that’s where you ended up.

A curious woman and a gifted youth—both gathered in a city that should have been dead.

“How interesting indeed,” he said, leaning forward. “Perhaps Eisenwald is worth a visit after all.”

He stood, eyes glittering with amusement. “Send the fastest rider ahead,” he ordered. “Inform them the Second Prince will be passing through Eisenwald.”

And though his tone was calm, there was something predatory in the curve of his smile—like a man scenting blood beneath the snow.