Before them, Siegfried planted his predator's gaze into that of L?l?-Anne, his ashwolf skin attached to his hip floating weakly in the breeze.

  "Before you die, I would like to know what reasons drove you to attack us so treacherously. Were our kingdoms not at peace?"

  While stepping over the corpses before them to approach the knight, Mar?-Anne pulled her head from her sister's shadow and sketched a wide smile, her lips revealing a row of sharp teeth.

  "What reasons drove you to attack us so treacherously blah blah blah?" she retorted while chuckling before resuming more seriously. "You mean THE reason, knight. But even if we explained it to you, you couldn't, nor would you want to understand it. You know why? Because you're still blinded by her light. However, if there's one single thing you must know, it's that our cause is just, unlike yours. And for that we only had to slit the throats of a few soldiers without spilling innocents' blood."

  "And maybe one day he'll even thank us, don't you think, little sister?" L?l?-Anne added with humor, slightly turning her face toward the other lieutenant.

  Siegfried squinted and calmed his breath, feeling fury rising in him.

  "Thank you? You just destroyed the economic route of the kingdom I swore to defend with my life and you want me to thank you? Without this maritime route, Solheim won't be able to trade with Emporium. The kingdom will slowly suffocate under the weight of its isolation, with famine as consequence that will surely carry away millions of souls across Istalith. Is this your just cause that killed no innocents?"

  Mar?-Anne tilted her head to the right like a doll, fixing the knight with her acid-green irises without having listened to a single word he had just spoken, her blood-red hair braid almost touching her hip.

  "You're right, little sister. But it's still too early for him to be able to see through the Lie. His god and his cheap order still blur his vision far too much. But if he lives long enough, perhaps he'll understand us," she suggested to her twin, her gaze still plunged into the paladin's.

  "Will you stop saying such senseless things, little sister?" L?l?-Anne retorted, tilting her head to the left in turn.

  "Why wouldn't he have the chance to see the..."

  The devilesse with the braid falling on the left displayed a diabolical smile, eyes wide open scrutinizing the knight and cut off her twin.

  "Because we're going to kill him today."

  Mar?-Anne plunged back into her sister's shadow while bursting into laughter.

  "Hihihihihi! You're right. Let's kill them all."

  Gripping with his two hands his longsword's handle with even more ardor, a savage gleam crossed Siegfried's glacial gaze.

  "My cheap god? There will be your last words, worshippers of Nihibell."

  Suddenly, he launched forward. His sword split the air in a brutal arc aiming at their flanks, a precise and powerful strike destined to test their speed.

  The ?mdras lieutenants dodged with a backward pirouette with supernatural ease. Their bodies pivoted in harmony like a leaf in the wind. Mar?-Anne took her sister's place during the defensive step to riposte. A storm struck down in return, a deluge of glittering metal that seemed to defy time itself. The twin blades danced in their hands, tracing silver and mortal arcs.

  The first blow struck the knight's left shoulder, a sharp gash that lacerated his pauldron. The metal screamed under the impact as a trickle of blood spurted. He parried the second blow with a desperate twist of his sword, sparks bursting in a savage crackling. He counterattacked with a piercing thrust but the four-armed devilesse pivoted on herself once more. The sisters exchanged their place again and a third attack bit his right thigh. The curved blade barely cut muscle and tissue in a lightning pain.

  Siegfried growled, his foot sliding on the wet planks. The lieutenants left him no respite.

  A fourth blow aimed at his hip and tore Solar?s's white veil in a sharp whistle. Blood flowed in warm rivulets along his left leg. He attempted a horizontal blow, his sword whistling toward the enemy chest, but they slipped under the blade with feline grace, slashing his other thigh in a fifth attack. Each movement of the twins was a mortal ballet. Their scimitars whirled like extensions of their bodies, too fast to be followed with the naked eye.

  The sixth and seventh blows struck his shoulders in rapid succession, twin gashes that tore a growl of pain from the paladin. He blocked the eighth with a fierce parry, the shock's force resounding in L?l?-Anne's trembling arm.

  Before the knight could riposte, the devilesse separated.

  Mar?-Anne passed under her twin's arm while sliding on her knees to find herself at the son of Solheim's back. She cut his left flank again in a ninth blow. An atrocious pain spread in his ribs but despite that, he whirled on himself to launch a devastating circular slash with the sole goal of reuniting the four-armed fighter again. He knew his only chance of victory was to fight a single devilesse and not two women facing and behind him. His strategy worked and they dodged his longsword to reunite.

  The tenth to fifteenth attacks chained in an implacable dance, a rain of blows that lacerated his arms and thighs again and again. Each gash caused deeper wounds, each drop of blood splashing the planks in a dark red that mixed with ashes. Siegfried staggered, his breath jerky, his boots sliding on the waterlogged wood as he struggled to stay standing. He dodged just enough the sixteenth attack to not lose half his face. The enemy blade still struck his left eyebrow. A clean cut that released a scarlet flow in his eye and troubled his vision with a reddish veil. The paladin blinked furiously, the world wavering in a bloody mist. The enemy still wasn't slowing down.

  The last blows were a symphony of brutal precision: a backhand to the right shoulder, a thrust on his cuirass, a slash to the left thigh, and a final arc that gashed the right side of his forehead. Blood now flowed from both sides of his face, blurring his vision in scarlet chaos. The knight wavered, his sacred cloth hanging and soaked with his blood, his body covered with vivid and pulsing wounds. However, his concentration as well as the determination in his gaze remained marble. Since the beginning of his duel he knew he would only need one occasion. One single and unique opportunity that would allow him to finish it.

  From his crate, Dragar growled, his fists clenched.

  "Your chief is dead, N'zonki," he let out, his voice tinged with a hint of disappointment.

  Motionless, arms crossed, Juuh'ma sketched an enigmatic smile.

  "No, my lieutenant. The ashwolf may bleed, but his heart still beats. I know my brother, and he won't fall. Watch."

  At his feet, Siegfried saw from the corner of his eye a smoking torch. He feinted a more pronounced weakness and let his sword hang limply. As he placed a knee on the ground, his free hand grazed the still burning piece of wood. The devilesses chuckled, their four scimitars raised above their heads to finish him.

  "Your light that burns everything just abandoned you, knight."

  They dissociated and jumped toward him in a graceful leap, their blades ready to remove his head from his neck.

  There, the paladin broke the torch's extremity into pieces and projected them toward their eyes in a grayish cloud.

  Blinded and burned, they screamed in pain, their scimitars vainly lacerating the air. Taking advantage of this moment, Siegfried rolled on his right shoulder to position himself on the twins' flank.

  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH," he howled while straightening with a leap.

  The ground cracked under his footholds' force. His thrust was so brutal that his sword sank its entire length into L?l?-Anne's chest.

  The blade traversed her armor to his weapon's guard in a sinister cracking and pierced the belly of the other Ashengardian who stood behind.

  The combat was over.

  With a single attack, as he had planned, he had just impaled both sisters.

  L?l?-Anne opened her mouth, but only a bloody gurgle came out. Her eyes widened. Not with fear, but with surprise. She hadn't imagined this duel would end thus. Her hands weakly gripped those of Solar?s's son.

  The other devilesse collapsed on her sister and their dead weight struck down against Siegfried. Blood spurted, splashing the planks and his tattered cloth, forming a scarlet pool that slowly spread. Their blades fell in a double metallic tinkling.

  They no longer moved, or almost. Small spasms. Jolts. Bodies refusing to die immediately.

  Then, slowly, L?l?-Anne raised her head, lips trembling. She tried to speak, but blood gurgled in her throat. She coughed, projecting red splashes on the knight's breastplate.

  "The... The...," she murmured, her voice barely audible, broken by pain before her head fell to one side, Death holding her in her arms.

  Behind her, Mar?-Anne moved weakly and opened her eyes with difficulty, her pupils seeking those of Siegfried. And against all expectation, she smiled at him. A sweet, peaceful smile, as if peace had invaded her being.

  "The... Night, knight," she said in a strangely serene voice despite the blood pearling at her lips.

  She closed her eyes a moment, breathed with difficulty, each breath having become a fight.

  Then she reopened them. And in her dying gaze shone something that resembled pity. She coughed. Then coughed again. Her voice weakened. She knew she only had a few moments left to live, so she said what she had to say. What she had come for, what she had decided to die for.

  "The Night...," she whispered, tears mixed with blood on her cheeks. "The Night will return... to heal the world... knight."

  Siegfried froze.

  Before the gleam in her eyes disappeared, she smiled at him one last time, even more warmly. They were dead, together, smiling.

  He pushed them gently with his left hand while withdrawing his sword, letting them slide on the quay in a dull and wet sound. He remained there, motionless, his sword dripping with blood in hand. He fixed the two bodies intertwined at his feet. These two bodies that, even in death, smiled.

  Killing them brought him no satisfaction, only questions that resonated in his head, again and again, like an obsessive echo he couldn't or wouldn't chase away.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "The Night...? Nihibell...?"

  He shook his head violently, as if to expel them from his mind but an icy shiver snaked along his spine. It wasn't the pain of his wounds, but something far more insidious. His hands trembled slightly. Not from fatigue, but from something he refused to name.

  Doubt.

  He looked at the sky, this eternal day imposed by his god, and for the first time, the light seemed heavy to him.

  "NO," he convinced himself with resolution while clenching his teeth. "No, this is nothing more than lies. A poison to make me doubt."

  But despite that, he knew it was too late. The poison was already in his veins.

  "Why this smile? Why this relief in her voice? As if... as if she truly believed what she was saying. As if she was dying for something just," he murmured, eyes fixed again on the smiling corpses.

  No answer came. Just the silence of the devastated port and the wind that carried the smell of blood and ashes.

  Only he had heard these words. And for the first time in his life, Siegfried Vaan Hart, knight of the Solar Order, infallible strategist and Blade of Solar?s, no longer knew what to think.

  From his place, Dragar applauded with admiration and shouted so the bloodied warrior could hear him.

  "I've participated in battles and I've seen duels. But what I just saw was magnificent. I've rarely crossed men as valorous as you, Knight Vaan Hart. You can be proud of your combat. But this victory won't erase the punishment awaiting you."

  "And not bad the trick with the ashes in the eyes, Sieg!" his archer added, crouched on a roof's edge.

  With a wrist rotation, the knight ejected the blood far from his blade then sheathed it. He then took a piece of fabric from one of his pockets to wipe the blood troubling his vision. Then he nodded, sketched a smile at the boy. But his gaze was distant, the lieutenant's words still resonating in his mind.

  Arms still crossed sitting on his crate, Juuh'ma glimpsed doubt invading his brother's eyes but didn't speak. He uncrossed them, extended his hand to grab the bandages and ointment that Dragar had placed not far away. With a slow step, he headed toward his chief, followed by the one-eyed lieutenant and the archer who jumped with agility from his height.

  Offshore, Ashengard's vessels glided like shadows, their dark sails crossing the bay's extremity, bypassing the crescent of land. One by one, they passed behind the rocky crest, their slender prows disappearing as if swallowed by the relief. The four men scrutinized the horizon in silence, fists clenched.

  Siegfried crouched and pressed his hand against a gaping wound at his hip, blood oozing between his fingers. Other gashes, less deep, marked his body—his right eyebrow bled in a trickle on his eye, and a cut on his forehead poured a red flow that streamed on his face, soaking his ashen skin.

  Face grimacing, he raised his eyes toward the Stoneskin.

  "Juuh'ma, I need bandages. It's flowing too much."

  Without hesitating, the colossus knelt near his brother and, with his two hands, tore off what remained of his protections to be able to bandage the wounds bleeding the most.

  "Seeing you like this, your resemblance to King Muumgadh N'zonki's mummy is troubling, my brother," he said while smiling and casting a glance at the less serious cuts. "I've bandaged as I could your deepest wounds. The others will wait for hands finer than mine."

  "Me, I'd say he looks more like the sick old man who comes to eat at N?rr's," the young archer mocked while looking at his chief.

  The squadron's knights laughed so hard that Siegfried had to hold his hip that made him suffer.

  "I thank you my brother, this will be amply sufficient," he said, hand extended toward his Shield.

  "Amply sufficient? He treated you like a blind beefhorn would have," a small voice added that made the knights jump and broke the laughter.

  Mei, one knee on the ground, extended the parchment to Siegfried, her dark eyes betraying a mute urgency.

  "I couldn't save the Intendant, Sieg, but she was holding this in her hands."

  The four men turned around. Parchment in hand, the knight signaled the specter to stand up.

  "How many times must I repeat it to you Mei? I'm not your master, only your chief. Stand up please," he ordered before unfolding the message to read it aloud. "How is it that Ashengard's warriors know the places so perfectly?"

  A heavy silence followed.

  At the Intendant's words, Juuh'ma and Siegfried understood that their reflection on a possible traitor had just been confirmed. For an instant, and despite the pain, the knight felt his mind shift into this familiar process that had so often saved him during his missions. His breathing slowed imperceptibly, his shoulders relaxed slightly, and his gaze fixed on an invisible point beyond the horizon. It was as if a part of him detached from the physical world to plunge into the meanders of pure strategy.

  In the mental theater opening before him, information began to dance like pieces on a giant chessboard.

  "This information therefore confirms what we thought," he told himself in his mind while a map of the kingdom spread before him. "If my reasoning is correct and Fort-Shadow is also part of this plan, then we're facing coordination of surgical precision."

  He imagined enemy movements like red arrows on a war map.

  "Only a person having excellent military and geostrategic knowledge could establish such a vast plan with so much precision. Commanding Ashengard to attack us in the West and an enemy still unknown to us to attack us in the East... This surpasses simple tactics, it's grand strategy. Lieutenant H?lw?nd was right. However, no noble could imagine such a plan."

  In his mind, he scrolled through the profiles of those who would have access to such information.

  "This person must necessarily be among the capital's high instances to have access to this knowledge as well as the communication network by volatiles."

  He visualized the military hierarchy like a pyramid, each level filtering sensitive information.

  "But how to identify the shadow among shadows? For the moment I see no means of achieving it but I know that if we want to unmask this threat gnawing our kingdom from within, she must under no circumstances suspect we're aware of her existence..."

  The mental chessboard's pieces continued to reposition, exploring each possible ramification. He could almost feel his brain's synapses activating in cascade, creating connections, analyzing probabilities, evaluating risks.

  "A traitor in our ranks? That's what this message is about, isn't it?" the young archer questioned without noticing his chief's analytical trance.

  He whistled and extended his right arm for Feather to come land on it.

  "Shouldn't we warn the capital?"

  "Wait, R?chard!" the Noohrikane stopped him firmly, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. "Sieg has already left. Let's give him time to find the best path open to us."

  Dragar, two hands placed on his prominent belly, let out a heavy grunt, his single eye squinted scrutinizing the motionless knight. He passed a hand in his graying beard and shook his head, eyebrows furrowed by incomprehension.

  "What's he doing to us there? Did he lose too much blood or what? Bwahahahaha!" he asked while chuckling, unaccustomed to this spectacle.

  "No, my lieutenant," Mei replied patiently. "He's analyzing all possible and imaginable scenarios that could result from each of our choices. It's a bit like his mind finding itself before a giant chessboard where each piece we advance would represent one of our decisions. At least, that's the simplest way he found to explain to us what was happening in his mind when he entered this state."

  While the group discussed around him, Siegfried pursued his strategic analysis in his reflection's silence.

  "Although we shouldn't spread this information, we can't keep it to ourselves alone. Too many lives are at stake. However, the fewer people who know, the more we'll have a tactical advantage."

  He imagined concentric circles of confidence: at the center, his squadron, then superior officers, finally high instances.

  "The only viable strategy would be to warn only one person having enough power to investigate discreetly among high-ranking officers. But who?"

  The faces of all Solheim's representatives scrolled in his mind like playing cards. He methodically eliminated each option, weighing loyalties and weaknesses, access and influence.

  "A person we cannot doubt. A person whose loyalty to Solar?s would be absolute and who would have the necessary authority to act..."

  Suddenly, the evidence struck him like a flash of clarity.

  "Why think so long? The Captain, obviously! The N'zonki being physiologically incapable of lying and betraying, he's the sole and unique person to whom we could entrust this information without any risk."

  But another dilemma surged in his analysis.

  "Should I tell him the last words of this devilesse or not?"

  The question haunted him more than it should have. It wasn't just a tactical decision. It was something else. A part of him wanted to understand, wanted to know if these words contained a truth they had been hidden. So he evaluated the pros and cons with the cold logic that characterized him and forced himself to return to pure logic.

  "Wisdom would command me to be silent. Without more information, these remain only fabrications in the mouth of a dying enemy. However, prudence would dictate I keep these words in mind awaiting new elements. And that's exactly what I'll do: observe, wait, and only reveal this information if new facts come to support the hypothesis of Nihibell's liberation."

  "Observe his gaze well, my lieutenant," Juuh'ma murmured with undisguised admiration.

  Seeing one of the old man's wounds reopening, he extended another bandage to him and continued.

  "As soon as you see a gleam or a spark there, it's that he'll have found what we should do. And you can believe me, his plans never fail."

  Pieces of fabric in hand, Dragar muttered to himself.

  "He reminds me of little H?lda, this kid..."

  "You know Dame H?l..."

  Juuh'ma couldn't question the old man. The lieutenant glimpsed this spark light in the knight's eyes. Immediately, Siegfried emerged from his reflection, his gaze regaining its usual sharpness, and dictated his conclusions with crystalline clarity.

  "Our young archer speaks true: this message comes to confirm what Lieutenant H?lw?nd suspected. A traitor hides among us, and more precisely in the capital's high spheres. For this precise reason, we cannot risk sending a message containing the information we hold. They could fall into the wrong hands."

  He looked at each of his knights in turn.

  "Without knowing this shadow's identity, we cannot afford to spread this revelation if we want to flush her out. The fewer people aware of this fact, the better it will be for Solheim. For that, I see only one sufficiently safe path we can take without fear: inform the captain in person, and only the captain!"

  "Because the N'zonki can neither lie nor betray...," the Stoneskin murmured with obvious pride, his chains clicking under his words' weight.

  Nodding at his brother-in-arms's words, Siegfried continued.

  "Exactly. Moreover, although I cannot be completely certain, my instinct tells me Fort-Shadow's events are intimately linked to those of Port-Foam. Two blows aiming simultaneously to slow, even destroy our kingdom's economy, cannot simply be coincidence. It's coordinated strategy of remarkable sophistication."

  At the knight's explanations, Dragar's weathered face hardened. His massive fists instinctively clenched. In his piercing eye shone a gleam of urgency. He immediately understood what was at stake: the kingdom of Solheim wavered on the precipice's edge, and the Goddess of Time, this time, was definitely not on their side.

  "Everything you say makes sense, kid. The kingdom of Solheim is in danger and you've already lost far too much time here," the old man declared with a firmness that brooked no contradiction.

  With a brusque gesture, he pulled a bronz?te war horn from his back pocket, the object testifying to numerous past campaigns. His scars seemed to revive under emotion while he turned toward R?chard, piercing him with his gaze.

  "You, the Desrosiers with the bird, send your raptor as messenger immediately! Let it carry news of our defeat faster than the wind!" he ordered before sweeping squadron Vaan Hart with an imperious gaze. "And you others, listen to me well: you must return as quickly as possible to the capital to warn the Captain. Understood?"

  "At your orders, lieutenant!" they replied in chorus.

  The urgency in his voice was palpable, charged with experience's weight and consciousness of the disaster threatening to strike down on their kingdom. So, without losing an instant, Lieutenant Bjornhold brought the horn to his lips. He breathed deeply, inflated his massive chest striped with scars, and blew with military precision: two brief and dry notes, followed by a third, long and grave, that resonated like a funeral chant in Port-Foam.

  Rally signal at the starting point. A code every Golden Lances knight would recognize among thousands.

  The powerful notes tore the heavy atmosphere, crossed the gutted alleys where stone and blood mixed, snaked through the squares littered with calcined debris of the ruined port. Their plaintive echo rolled inexorably to the outer quays where their rescued ships still stood.

  The grave and solemn sound carried in it all the tragedy of this cursed day that had seen the millennial statue of Aagard?ne sink.

  The battle was over. The maritime city of Port-Foam had fallen.