Chapter 185

She took a single step back, her eyes cool as they swept over the shattered barrier.

“We can’t possibly let the entire army of barbarians inside the fortress,” she said, her tone measured yet edged with tension. “If they realize the city is empty, they’ll sense something’s wrong and retreat before we can act.”

“That’s not untrue…”

Elise bit down on the inside of her lip. They had no choice—if they were to lure the Ugel forces into the stronghold, they would have to engage in battle. There was no avoiding it any longer.

“I’ll be the bait,” she said quietly.

“The bait?”

“We’ll station soldiers along the walls. If we make it look like we’re preparing to resist the siege, they’ll push inward. Once they do, we can draw them deep into the city.”

“And after that?” Barnon asked, his brows furrowing. “How do you plan to escape? Once the fire starts, it won’t distinguish between friend and foe.”

“Then each of us will find our own way out,” Elise replied. “Your Highness, there’s no such thing as a war without sacrifice.”

“I understand your heart,” Barnon murmured under his breath.

But Elise couldn’t agree so easily. She had never commanded an army before, never learned to think of soldiers as expendable pieces on a board. Each life weighed on her—every man who followed her into battle carried a name, a face, a story.

“Who would stay,” she asked quietly, “knowing they’re likely to die? No one wants that.”

“I expected you’d say that.”

Barnon gestured toward the gathered knights around the operations table. The deputy commander of the Argan forces straightened his shoulders proudly, his eyes burning with a fierce light. In the set of his jaw, in the tension in his neck, there was no hesitation.

“Just give the order, Your Highness!” he declared. “We’re all waiting for your command.”

***

“Tell them,” Elise had said only moments ago, her voice unsteady, “that it’s not too late. Anyone who wishes to leave may do so now.”

And yet, when she turned her eyes across the assembly, she saw almost no movement.

Through Barnon, she had given the order—only those ready to die were to remain within the fortress. But fewer than twenty soldiers had withdrawn. Over two thousand men stayed.

The deputy commander struck his chest twice with a clenched fist. “Where Her Highness the Princess stands is where we’ll be buried. You are the Empire itself—how could we leave when you remain?”

The soldiers’ eyes gleamed red with emotion. They knew what she had endured since arriving in Riosa. They had seen her fight exhaustion, starvation, despair—had seen her carry herself with a composure that no longer belonged to a sheltered royal but to a sovereign forged by fire.

Many had once regarded her with cold, skeptical eyes. But after she had ridden to the front lines and been cut off with the vanguard, none could hold that resentment any longer. They knew she had stayed behind not for pride or glory, but because she refused to abandon those who might still return.

She had waited—for them.

Having once doubted her and pushed her into the crucible, they now felt they owed her a loyalty fiercer than any oath. To question her again would be blasphemy. In their eyes, Elise was no longer merely a princess—she was the last living ember of Argan’s imperial flame. Without her, their nation would cease to exist.

For a long moment, Elise couldn’t speak. Her throat closed with emotion, and when she finally found her voice, it trembled with quiet sincerity.

“…Cherish your lives,” she said softly. “Throwing yourselves into a battle without a chance of victory would be a waste. I don’t know what His Majesty believed, but I don’t want to lose even one of my people needlessly.”

Barnon watched her as she spoke, a faint smile touching his weathered face.

So what if she didn’t understand the ruthless efficiency of war? This was not the time for strategy alone. What her soldiers needed now was not calculation, but heart. A commander’s compassion could be more powerful than any sword.

“Live,” Elise said, her voice growing firm. “All of you, live—and return to me. We still have a capital to reclaim, and I’ll need every single one of you to take it back.”

When she finished, Barnon handed her a torch. She turned toward the pyres waiting by the ramparts—stacked logs reaching her waist, and upon them, the simple wooden coffins of the fallen.

It was time to bury the dead.

Elise touched the cold cheek of the old duke lying within one of the coffins. She had learned only after reaching the fortress that Rezette himself had carried the man’s body from the battlefield.

The Duke of Bellator had left a will, they said. If his remains were ever found, his ashes were to be buried in the soil of his homeland.

“I’ll see your lands restored,” Elise whispered. “Rest now, in the arms of God.”

As she murmured the prayer, every Argan soldier lowered his head in silence.

The pyres caught, and the flames climbed into the night. The fire crackled and devoured the coffins, sending orange light rippling over her gold-flecked eyes. It looked as though the fire had taken root inside her gaze, burning with the same unwavering purpose.

“Let’s go home,” she said quietly. “To the homeland we were driven from in grief.”

With that, the preparations for the final battle in the canyon were complete.

At dawn, the cannons roared.

The shells screamed through the mist and struck the Ugel lines dead center. The explosion thundered across the cliffs, shaking the stone beneath their feet.

Both sides were fighting with their backs against the wall—Argan’s soldiers for survival, Ugel’s for conquest. There was nowhere left to retreat.

The barbarians’ crescent blades flashed like guillotines in the pale light. Hooks tied to iron chains whistled through the air and slammed against the walls. Some fell short and clattered to the ground, but others caught fast on the battlements. Soon, the enemy began to climb.

Elise watched everything from the highest tower, her knuckles white on the parapet. She could not look away from her soldiers as they fell one by one beneath the barbarians’ blades.

Every cry, every body, would become a line in history—a testament that they had fought to the last breath, that they had believed so fiercely in the empire’s rebirth.

A guttural roar split the air.

“Waaaaah!”

The Ugel warriors had breached the wall. It was a sight worthy of a people who had terrorized the continent for a century. Their strength was monstrous, every swing of their blades cleaving through shields and bone alike.

Argan’s soldiers fell, rose, and fell again, clawing toward the inner keep. Behind them surged a tide of ocher armor—the barbarians pressing forward without pause.

When the gates splintered beneath the pounding of the siege hammers, a flood of men poured into the northern entrance. The barrier spell broke apart like mist, and the tide swept in.

“Find the Princess!”

The first prince of Ugel, Rihan, shouted above the chaos. “Bring her to me—alive! Hurry!”

They had no time to waste. If they lingered, they would be crushed by the Northern Alliance closing in from below the canyon. Capture the princess, restore the barrier, and hold until reinforcements came—that was their only chance.

The barbarians tore through the fortress. They overturned the chapel where Argan soldiers had prayed, stormed the storage rooms and barracks, desecrated even the bedchamber where Elise had slept that very morning. Nothing sacred remained.

One by one, the fortress gates fell—six of eight now destroyed. Heavy chains made from thorned vines snaked through the gaps, binding the entrances shut.

Then came the first flicker of confusion.

“Your Highness!” one of the commanders called. “She’s not here!”

“There are no soldiers anywhere,” another shouted. “The fortress is empty!”

“What?” Rihan’s blood ran cold.

By all their intelligence, Riosa had housed over five thousand troops. Yet not a trace of them remained.

Hanan, pulling his blade from an Argan corpse, growled, “What’s happening, brother? Did the bastards flee beforehand—?”

“They couldn’t have!” Rihan snapped. “If the Princess had teleportation at her command, she wouldn’t have let the Duke of Bellator die in the canyon. She’s here—somewhere.”

If she had escaped, Argan would have broken days ago, as it had when the emperor was captured. But this time… this time the soldiers had fought like zealots.

Find her. Bring her to Father, and everything will change.

And then—something shifted.

An unearthly stillness fell over them, followed by a faint, trembling awareness, like the brush of a divine presence.

The princes turned.

At the base of the tower stood a slender woman.

Amid the blood and ruin, the space around her was eerily calm. Her silver hair spilled down a deep-blue cloak, her beauty so unblemished it seemed unreal, as though even chaos dared not touch her. The half-light drew a crimson halo at her feet.

Rihan and Hanan froze.

Found her.

“There!” Rihan roared. “The Princess—capture her!”

The horde surged forward.

Elise faced the ones who had destroyed her home, who had driven her from her throne and slaughtered her people.

“This time last year,” she said softly, “I was the one running.”

She remembered the endless plains, the cold wind tearing at her as she fled in a stranger’s arms, her name forgotten, her crown lost, her heart hollow. Back then, she had done nothing but weep.

Now, the men who had cornered her then were charging again, blades raised high.

Behind her, the stairway to the tower loomed—the only way out. She didn’t turn toward it. She no longer needed to run.

“For the chance to return everything they took from me,” she whispered, “I give thanks to God.”

Something stirred within her—a living warmth beneath her hand. The child she carried kicked, as though sensing its mother’s resolve. Elise cradled her belly and lifted her gaze.

Far in the distance, a banner fluttered above the northern gate. The signal. The barbarians were all within range.

“Now,” she breathed.

From the heavens, something began to fall—red-hot stones, glowing like fragments of a dying star.

When the first struck the ground, the earth convulsed. The explosion ripped through the fortress like divine wrath.

Kwoom!

The sound was deafening, followed by a rain of fire. One after another, the stones crashed down, pounding the ground, shaking the walls.

Above, a dragon wearing Andrei’s face grinned triumphantly.

“I’ve kept my promise,” it said.

Only the tower beneath Elise’s feet remained untouched.

“Hold your ground!” Rihan bellowed. “Anchor yourselves with the chains!”

The barbarians had endured one landslide before—they would not fall to another. They hooked their vine-chains to pillars and braces, clinging to them as the earth split apart beneath their boots.

“You think we’ll fall for the same trick twice?” Hanan shouted.

But their confidence faltered.

As the tremors began to fade, a strange shimmer filled the air—something pale and dust-like drifting down through the smoke.

Rihan and Hanan lifted their eyes, confusion dawning as the truth took shape before them…