Even though it was still a midsummer night, the dugout was cool and damp. Underfoot, rats and insects summoned by the black magician were crawling all over.

“So, this secret story you wanted to tell…”

Frost’s upturned mouth corners drooped dejectedly.

He had been excited and thrilled, wondering what kind of secret story they needed to share ‘just the two of them’, like walking on clouds. He had expected a lot…

Seeing that Cassandra was already there, it seemed the story his wife wanted to tell wasn’t a sweet secret just for the two of them. His heart, which had been inflating like a balloon, deflated with a hiss.

Cassandra, who had slipped away from the banquet hall at Yuriella’s call, had removed the illusion spell cast by the tower master and returned to her original form.

“The black magician told quite a useful story.”

“Of all places… do we have to hear it here?”

It’s not that he wanted to talk while catching flower petals in the moonlit back garden like a nineteen-year-old lady. But a smelly, dirty dugout where the black magician had been imprisoned for 6 years?

“Ah. I’m sorry about the location. Cassandra said it would be easier to understand if we spoke here.”

It was too poor of an environment to be alone with her, to take comfort in just getting away from the annoying Aerie and the tower master.

“Cassandra! I told you not to eat bugs!”

Yuriella shouted at the ragged woman eating insects. It was a pig that the tower master had disguised as Cassandra.

Frost pulled Yuriella back as she tried to go to the honey pig Cassandra and lightly lifted her up.

“Oh!”

“There are too many rats and insects on the floor. I was afraid you might be scared.”

“I’m not scared at all.”

Yuriella shrugged with a clear expression.

She really looked like it. His wife was too calm in front of things that should naturally be scary and disgusting, even if she wasn’t a noble lady but just a dancer. Should he add this to his curiosity storage as well?

Not imagining in his wildest dreams that what his wife really feared was the excitement towards him that kept swelling up shamelessly, Frost looked down at Yuriella, who was turning her head with ears reddened, and let out a long sigh.

“Cassandra. Begin now.”

Yuriella instructed the real Cassandra.

Under her lush eyelashes, her mysterious red eyes were filled with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety.

‘What on earth is this black magician going to show?’

Frost’s grumpy gaze shot at Cassandra.

Cassandra sat facing the dugout wall and began to mutter incantations.

“Our Father who art underground. Your servant cries out desperately, open your servant’s eyes and let them see.”

When Cassandra opened her eyes wide, eyes that gleamed black even to the whites were revealed.

“The power of darkness shall reach everywhere, there shall be no earth it cannot penetrate, no wall it cannot cross!”

As she stretched her two arms up high, the dugout wall began to vibrate.

The rats squirming on the floor circled rapidly in a large ring. The insects gathered in the center and began to build a tall tower, wriggling.

Frost reflexively hugged Yuriella tighter and frowned.

“Hey, black magician. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but at least give a warning-”

Boom! Boom boom!

Frost’s words were buried in the roar of the black magic erupting from the circle of rats. The dark and eerie magic soon climbed up the insect tower, completely covering it before being absorbed inside.

And a moment of silence.

Frost and Yuriella looked at the motionless insect tower with tense faces.

Cassandra stood up and slowly walked towards the tower.

When the black magician’s thin finger tapped it, the insect tower crumbled with a rustle. And from among the insects left as empty shells with their vitality drained, a stink bug larger than Frost’s hand popped its head out and waved its long antennae.

Cassandra bent down and held out her palm, and the stink bug flew over and landed.

“Little one. Did you have a good trip? Will you show me what you saw and where?”

Cassandra released the stink bug into the air and spread her arms wide, closing her eyes.

As Cassandra gently waved her arms, a curtain of black magic draped down from the ceiling of the dugout.

The stink bug that had been circling in the air flew into the black curtain. Everywhere its trajectory swam through the magic, the color of the curtain faded, and a certain place began to reveal itself.

“…!”

Frost’s eyes opened wide.

The place gradually revealing itself was the Emperor’s bedchamber. And it was the innermost private room.

He wasn’t surprised that the black magician was showing the Emperor’s bedchamber.

He was shocked because there was an object that didn’t belong in that place, in a form that didn’t fit.

Inside the private room attached to the bedchamber, there was a glass tank large enough for an adult man to enter with room to spare.

And inside it, the holy sword Flamma, the Sword of Fire, was mounted on a stand…!

The glass tank and stand seemed to be made of a special material infused with black magic spells, as they were emitting black magic that wrapped around Flamma in swirling coils, squeezing it.

Frost, who had been staring at Flamma in disbelief, felt Yuriella’s hand clutching his lapel and glanced down. Her slender fingertips were trembling.

“Yuriella…?”

Is she crying? Or laughing?

Frost, who had been staring blankly at Yuriella with a faint smile on her lips and tears welling up in her eyes, turned his gaze back to Flamma.

Occasionally, small sparks of red energy burst out from Flamma, but the thick magic soon swallowed and dissolved the sparks.

“It’s fighting,” said the black magician, looking at the holy sword Flamma reflected in the black curtain.

“Fighting?”

Frost looked intently at Flamma, which had already lost its red glow, with an expression of disbelief.

“Yes. It’s struggling not to be consumed by the magic. It’s truly remarkable. This is already powerful enough magic to have completely consumed it and more.”

Frost let out a low groan.

He had guessed that it was the Emperor or one of his close associates who had turned the holy sword Flamma into a demonic sword.

He had also thought that it would be hidden somewhere deep in the Blanc Casa palace, probably in a secret warehouse or something.

But to make a glass tank and preciously keep it in his own bedroom.

“Crazy. Does he enjoy looking at that until he goes to bed when he enters the bedchamber?”

“It doesn’t seem to be… just for display.”

Yuriella twisted her body as if asking to be put down.

Frost let out a faint sigh and set Yuriella down on a spot on the floor that looked somewhat clean.

Yuriella slowly took a step towards the undulating black curtain.

Frost clenched and unclenched his fist a few times, missing the emptiness of his arms, then followed behind Yuriella.

“I agree with your opinion that His Majesty is a madman. But there must be some reason.”

Intense anger boiled up in Yuriella’s eyes as she looked at Flamma.

“Reason?”

“His Majesty is a meticulous person. When he moves, there is always some intention, and the end is almost never a pleasant outcome. His Majesty is trying to do something with Flamma.”

The Grand Duke’s eyes sharpened as he looked at Yuriella mentioning the Emperor.

Yuriella was greatly moved by facing Flamma, and she seemed completely unaware that she was now saying things that only someone who knew Justin Della Ponti very well could say.

With all his attention focused on Yuriella, it was a reaction Frost could not possibly miss, but.

Frost, staring at his secretive wife, once again swallowed the words he really wanted to ask with a shallow sigh, and decided to ask what he needed to ask.

“Trying to do something? For example?”

“For example. Becoming the master of the demonic sword.”

“Master of the demonic sword?”

Frost frowned with an expression of incomprehension.

“Why would someone who already has the empire bother?”

What use is there in having a sword that has lost even the power of a holy sword and is now just an empty shell.

“He has the empire, but… he couldn’t have the master of that sword.”

Foolish Emperor. Stupid Emperor.

Does he believe he can have Solas Moretti again if he holds the demonic sword? Or is he plotting something else behind the scenes?

Yuriella could no longer look at Flamma, which had almost faded away and was painfully raising red sparks again, and averted her gaze.

“You said Solas Moretti was an unfortunate knight who met the wrong master. No. It wasn’t just the knight who met the wrong master… It was Flamma. Meeting an unworthy master… it lost all its original holy power and honor.”

The Sword of Fire, Flamma, is the only one of the four holy swords without a fixed shape. When Solas first made a contract with Flamma, it was just a handful of brilliantly shining fire.

Like other holy swords, but especially the Sword of Fire, the size and shape of its power vary greatly depending on the ability of its master.

Sometimes as a whip of fire, sometimes as a spear of flame, its appearance changes according to the master’s intention. As she became accustomed to wielding the Sword of Fire, she carried Flamma in the form of a longsword wrapped in a red aura.

Yuriella bit her lip, disgusted with her past self who had swaggered around wielding the Sword of Fire as if she were something great.

“Let’s go back now. Your complexion doesn’t look good.”

Frost’s hand slowly caressed Yuriella’s pale cheek.

“Your body has cooled from the chill of the dugout. If you catch a cold, forget about the honeymoon, you won’t even be able to get out of bed.”

She hadn’t realized how cold her body had become. Not until Frost lowered his hand and warmly stroked the goosebumps on her arms with his own warmth…

Yuriella’s eyes, which had been immersed in sorrowful thoughts, slowly became clear and regained their expression.

“Ah… I’m sorry. Cassandra said she had more to show. Cassandra.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

After erasing the image of Flamma from the curtain, Cassandra snapped her fingers.

The birch wand that had somehow appeared in Cassandra’s hand circled in the air a few times, and countless white dots began to blink on the black curtain, slowly forming some kind of shape.

“Is that…?”

The brightly shining white dots were an aerial view of the main palace of Blanc Casa and its annexes, along with the administrative buildings where officials worked and large and small gardens.

“Yes. This is Blanc Casa, Your Grace,” Cassandra answered. And at her gesture, red glowing dots began to encircle the main buildings of the imperial palace.

“The red blinking dots are barriers created by black magic spells.”

“Barriers of black magic? This is outrageous. In the imperial palace of all places? For what purpose?”

“Those with something to hide have much to fear. It seems to be a barrier created for security purposes. Isn’t it incredible? Look at how dense those red lights are. But who am I!”

As the black magician proudly stretched her arms towards the curtain, bright yellow dots drew paths that avoided the red dot barriers and penetrated into the Emperor’s bedchamber, office, and the Empress Dowager’s palace.

“Is there any land that the greatest black magician of the North, no, of the Empire, cannot penetrate, any path that cannot be reached? Even wearing the restraints Your Highness put on me, I penetrated all the way to the Emperor’s bedchamber, didn’t I? Ohohoho!”

“Shut up, black magician.”

Cassandra clamped her mouth shut as Yuriella growled lowly.

Yuriella approached Frost, who was intently looking at the yellow lights reflected on the curtain.

“I want to know what the Grand Duke thinks.”

Flame-like red eyes gazed steadily at Frost.

“His Majesty doesn’t stop the game once he moves a pawn until he captures the opponent’s king. What about you, Your Grace? How far are you thinking?”

Looking at the eyes that held a calm but firm and sharp energy, Frost thought it was like facing a fine sword with a cool blade.

*

The tea that the Grand Duke personally served was bitter and astringent.

But I drank it sweetly to the last drop and went to bed.

My body shivered from the chill I hadn’t felt in the dugout.

‘Was I too hasty?’

It’s true that my mind was in a hurry.

When Colina Rosa was decided as the honeymoon destination, I remembered the subordinates I had lost. The thought that followed was worry about the subordinates who had lost their titles or even became fugitives because they had offended the Emperor because of me.

Isn’t there anything I can do?

I thought it would be good if the Grand Duke made a decision, and I could find something I could do on that path.

After seeing the whereabouts of Flamma and the presence of black magic all over the imperial palace together, I expected the Grand Duke to show one of two attitudes.

Either he would be pleased with the unexpected information, already having the mind to strike at the Emperor.

Or he would scold me for harboring unnecessary thoughts of rebellion that would endanger the North.

But on the way back to the Grand Duke’s chambers, the Grand Duke didn’t say a word.

Yes. I was too hasty.

Because my heart was urgent, seeing Flamma struggling against the magic made my heart impatient, and I failed to consider the Grand Duke’s circumstances.

The Grand Duke is a person who bears the heavy burden of the safety of the North and the lives of its people on his shoulders. Each step he takes can never be light…

‘Don’t rush, Solas.’

As I try to calm my hurried heart with a deep sigh.

Something cold and sharp touches my neck.

Is it that thing that’s been lurking on the ceiling for the past few days? Did the Emperor send it? Or the Empress Dowager?

“Grand Duchess. Any last words?”

A large assassin in a black mask growled, asking me.

Why do they always ask this? Are they going to deliver my last words to the Grand Duke if I leave any? Tsk.

As if the assassin had no intention of listening to my last words in the first place, he raised his sword and swung it widely.

And the next moment. The assassin saw his own sword stuck in his chest instead of my neck, and collapsed without even being able to scream, his eyes wide open.