Rita pushed the obsidian box toward Sophia, her dark-violet eyes heavy with exhaustion.
She had long foreseen that something momentous was coming — but she had never imagined it would be something as catastrophic and irreversible as the annihilation of an entire kingdom.
"The Royal House of Jasu paid for their kingdom to keep this secret buried.
Since you're taking Tulan with you, that means you've accepted an inheritance capable of cursing the gods themselves."
Sophia's expression didn't change. She closed the stone box and passed it smoothly to Irene, who was standing at the ready beside her.
"This is no curse," Sophia said.
She tilted the brim of her hat slightly lower. Her cool, clear voice sent ripples of cold through the sealed chamber.
"This is a purge of a chaotic world. If the legitimacy of those royal houses was built upon lies, then it falls to me to erase those illogical falsehoods — and that is the most reasonable outcome of all."
"What will you do with Tulan?"
Rita couldn't stop herself from asking. She had met the child twice — a sweet, likable little thing. The two before her were clearly no ordinary people; if Tulan could fall under their protection, she might have a decent life ahead of her.
If they weren't willing to take her along, Rita was prepared to take the girl in herself.
"Tulan is a subject of Mason. This Queen will naturally treat her well," Sophia replied, her voice as cool as ever — and this time she made no effort whatsoever to conceal her title.
Rita's pupils widened.
She stared, barely believing it, at the slight, young figure before her.
Could this be — the Queen of Mason herself? The one who had ascended the throne so young?
It was her.
How could she dare expose herself like this?
"The item — I'll take it away with me. And you?"
"Don't worry. Once the item is gone, there will be nothing left here to incriminate anyone. Rita's, as a vital institution of this hub city, will come to no harm," Rita said.
Sophia said nothing more. She turned and looked toward the exit of the sealed chamber, her eyes without the faintest trace of hesitation.
"Let's go, Irene. Before Olan realizes it's already become a rebel state in the eyes of history — we need to get out of this city."
The chamber's heavy stone door swung silently shut behind them, sealing Rita and her dark-violet eyes — filled with shock and a tangle of unnameable emotions — away in the darkness.
Sophia didn't hesitate for a single moment. She moved in a straight line through the dim corridor, each step landing at the very edge of the shadows.
Even dressed in a plain Olan robe, the aura that emanated from her — growing sharper and more glacial the deeper she moved into the dark, like a blade poised at any moment to open a throat — sent crawling waves of unease across the back of Irene's neck as she followed behind.
Irene gripped the heavy obsidian box as though her life depended on it. From the sheer force of her grip, her knuckles had gone white.
Her sapphire-blue eyes held no fear — only a soaring, almost violent exhilaration at the knowledge that she was about to participate in changing the world.
The two of them moved quickly through the rear courtyard of Rita's establishment, still drowsing in the early morning quiet.
Ornate cherry-laurel blossoms trembled in the morning dew — but they couldn't claim even a single second of Sophia's attention.
She vaulted into the saddle with clean, practiced efficiency. Two sharp whinnies rang out, and the black warhorses vanished like twin streaks of ink lightning into the thin mist still clinging to Cors at dawn.
The city gate at that early hour was more congested than when they had arrived, busy with wagons coming and going. Sophia kept the brim of her hat low, her body leaning slightly forward, moving through the gaps in the crowd with a naturalness so complete it even carried a touch of the disheveled look of a down-on-his-luck young lad.
Just as they were about to step through the city gates, a column of heavily armored cavalry came thundering down the main road — each chest-plate stamped with the soaring eagle crest of the Royal House of Olan, hooves beating like a war drum against the earth.
The clatter of armor was sharp and grating. The Olan riders wore arrogance like a second skin, their eyes sweeping carelessly across the high city walls and the commoners passing below. To them, these wretches struggling in the mud — along with lowly servants like this — were not worth a single second of their attention.
Sophia turned her head a fraction. Beneath the brim of her hat, her pale-gold irises grazed the lead Olan officer as they passed each other.
For one suspended moment, the air seemed to stop.
The officer's warhorse let out a nervous snort — as if it had sensed the presence of something at the very top of the predator hierarchy. But the officer only cracked his whip impatiently and bellowed at his column to accelerate into Cors for the routine sweep.
Not in their wildest dreams would they have guessed that the completely unremarkable young lad standing within range of their whips was carrying in his arms a weapon capable of destroying the Kingdom of Olan a hundred times over.
Irene, following close on Sophia's heels, felt her heart practically launch itself into her throat as they passed.
She could clearly smell the sour sweat of the Olan warhorses, could feel the killing intent crashing over her in waves.
Yet when she looked at the line of Sophia's back — not even the rhythm of her breathing had shifted by a single beat — that soul-deep worship detonated inside Irene all over again.
Her Majesty did this on purpose!
She didn't choose to sneak. She chose to walk right out in plain sight — during the moment when Olan's guard was at its highest, and yet precisely when the blind-spot-under-the-lantern psychology would be at its strongest.
Look at that expression. She doesn't even see this fully-armed column of Olan cavalry as worth her notice.
In her strategic calculus, these idiots who rely on armor to intimidate people simply cannot see through the civilian profile she personally calibrated.
This absolute calm — dancing on the tip of the Grim Reaper's blade. This godlike ability to play the enemy's own psychological logic against them in the palm of her hand...
Your Majesty, are you truly only sixteen?
You're not secretly an ancient emperor from centuries past, reincarnated to come settle accounts with these traitors — are you?!
Following Your Majesty, even a moment of cheating death like this becomes a dimensional suppression strike with the aesthetic quality of high art!
The instant they were through the city gates, Sophia gave the reins a sharp snap.
"Accelerate."
Her cool voice carried out from beneath the brim of her hat, carrying the finality of a mission accomplished.
"The border defenses of Yurilland will tighten quickly once that cavalry column enters. Before they notice and seal off the wetlands, we need to get back to the main force."
"Got it — ride!"
Irene let out an excited shout.
The two horses galloped across the open wasteland. The dawn light caught Sophia's silver hair, refracting it into a radiance that bordered on the sacred.
The wind howled across the wasteland, blowing the manes of both horses bolt-straight.
Sophia had no intention of slowing down. Even now that she was far from the walls of Cors, the vigilance bred into her by long habit kept her at peak marching efficiency.
"Your Majesty..."
Irene held the reins tightly, the obsidian box in her arms radiating a dense, oppressive weight.
She had been silent for a long time. The bold, half-mad theory that had been building in her mind finally broke loose, spilling out over the jolting rhythm of the horse:
"I've been thinking about what Rita said this whole ride...
That scroll — it's the Covenant of Nations, isn't it.
If the ancestors of those great powers were truly all usurpers... then how many kings on this continent are actually legitimate?
Or to put it another way — how many crowns were stolen?"
Sophia dipped slightly lower into her saddle to avoid a gust of cold wind hitting her head-on. Her tone remained as unmoved as ever — as though she were discussing a piece of broken furniture spotted by the roadside:
"In the chamber just now, I skimmed through that page of names briefly.
Setting aside the minor principalities that have already been completely wiped out in war — just among those that can be named in the northern territories right now, there are ten kingdoms."
Irene sucked in a sharp breath so hard that even her warhorse stumbled a step from the shock.
"Ten?!
Olan, Yuril— even... even those..."
"Including the one sitting in the Imperial Capital."
Sophia cut off Irene's cry of disbelief. Beneath the brim of her hat, her pale-gold irises held not a trace of amusement — only the glacial clarity of someone who had seen through to the core of things.
"Judging from the genealogical breaks at the end of the scroll, the bloodline currently occupying that highest throne cannot be confirmed as the legitimate line recognized by the Mother of Nations, either.
In other words — every ruler of this generation shares the same enormous lie."
The instant she heard that even the one in the Imperial Capital might not be legitimate, Irene felt every drop of blood in her body freeze solid — and then boil in a frenzy of pure, manic exhilaration.
What a bombshell of cosmic proportions!
I feel like the little pest that sneaks into a watermelon patch — except instead of getting chased off by the farmer, the farmer just keeps shoving watermelons into my mouth!
Still, it was a good thing this had ended up in Her Majesty's hands. If someone with truly vile intentions had gotten hold of it, Irene didn't dare to imagine the consequences.
In Her Majesty's eyes, the current map of power across this entire world was nothing but a sheet of paper scrawled over with fallacies.
The reason she could tell me this so calmly — it must be because in her mind, the progress chart for the global purge has already been extrapolated to its final step.
What Her Majesty holds in her hands isn't a scroll. It's a key capable of reformatting the legitimacy of every single regime on this continent.
This centuries-spanning method of reckoning. This once-and-for-all way of resolving every obstacle...
Your Majesty is the true sovereign.
Compared to Irene's almost airborne frenzy, Sophia's inner thoughts at that moment were remarkably plain.
She had previously been worried that when Mason moved to expand outward, those entrenched nobles and questions of international legal standing would be enormously difficult to navigate.
Feeling the weight of that hard-won advantage resting in her arms, Sophia's heart eased with a rare lightness.
Since no one is legitimate, things just got a great deal simpler.
Since every crown was seized by force, the one who takes it back by ability is simply the most logical candidate for rightful ownership.
Under that framework, unification was no longer conquest. It was housecleaning.
A justification this clean-cut would save at least half the public relations expense — and greatly ease Sophia's own peace of mind.
Inside the carriage, light and shadow swayed gently.
Victoria sat perfectly upright, her spine absolutely straight, the normally grand cascade of silver hair now pinned under a small, delicate golden crown.
Behind the Black Rose mask, only a pair of pale-gold irises were visible — irises that, even deliberately restrained, could not quite hide the noble bearing in them, and which now carried a touch of glacial cold.
The black Gothic gown fit her figure precisely, but what pressed down on her most oppressively was the several layers of coarse linen strips wound around her torso.
The sensation... it was honestly like being pinned between two slabs of raw iron.
Victoria complained bitterly in her heart. Each breath required careful management, because if she wasn't careful, the taut, strangling feeling across her chest would immediately remind her that her current identity was that of the petite, physically understated, emotionally frigid Girl Queen.
Thanks to her formidable capacity for psychological self-regulation, however, Victoria maintained a near-perfect composure even under this extreme physical discomfort.
To those who didn't know, this Sophia — sitting silently in the seat of authority without a word — radiated the aura of someone whose mere presence could freeze a soul solid and warn all living things to keep their distance.
There had naturally been soldiers who caught a glimpse of Her Majesty in the process of boarding the carriage, but a single glance revealed absolutely nothing amiss.
Look carefully? Who would dare to scrutinize a king so boldly — that was a capital offense.
Beside her, Willow was calmly sorting through a stack of documents, her gaze occasionally drifting to Victoria, a trace of satisfaction threading through her characteristic polite smile.
As expected of the Third Princess. Under Her Majesty's personal instruction and example, she has grasped the tyrant's bearing this quickly.
That austere quality the binding creates — it fits Her Majesty's Order-above-all logic perfectly.
Before departing, Her Majesty specifically had me stay behind. I suspect it was not merely to assist the Third Princess, but for me to witness with my own eyes how even a bloodline this proud — in the end — is corrected under Her Majesty's will into precisely the right shape.
Across from her, Daphne sat quietly at the side of the unconscious Delilah.
Holy Light flickered faintly and steadily around her hands. She wasn't slacking for an instant. She knew that General Delilah was of great importance to Her Majesty, and so she would not let her attention wander.
Meanwhile, in the second carriage behind them.
Bardess stood guard over the two children at her sides like a sentinel carved from stone.
Little Hailey was curiously sizing up the girl beside her — the one called Tulan.
Tulan was curled in a corner, both hands clenched around half a piece of honey bread.
Her eyes were still a little vacant, but compared to the corpse-like despair she'd worn when they first pulled her out, her pupils now reflected the gleam of Bardess's armor.
"Don't be afraid, kid," Bardess said in a low voice. The voice that normally carried a certain roughness had, in this moment, gone unexpectedly gentle.
"You told your secret to the most powerful person in this world. As long as she hasn't said the word to let you die, even the King of Hell himself would have to stand at the fortress gate and salute us Mason folk."
The sound of carriage wheels grinding through the mud echoed through the stillness of the wetlands. Tulan was curled inside a thick wool blanket, the half-piece of bread — softened slightly by the sweat of her palms — giving off a faint, sweet smell.
She lifted her eyes a little, glancing timidly at the iron-tower figure of Bardess in front of her.
"The most powerful person in this world..."
Tulan repeated Bardess's words in the silence of her heart. The thin line of her shoulders shivered involuntarily.
In what wasn't a particularly long memory, Tulan's father had been the Chamberlain of the Jasu Royal Palace — a warrior who could hoist a heavy stone lock one-handed and whose voice rang like a bell across the training grounds.
And those kings of Jasu — in the firelight of their festivals, seated high on golden thrones, wrapped in thick sable cloaks — had only to raise a hand to make the whole world bow.
In young Tulan's heart, those figures had once been the very embodiment of supreme power in this world — immovable mountains.
And the result?
Those mountain-like figures had been shattered like fragile clay pots under the heavy cavalry and alchemical fireballs of Olan.
Her father's dying screams as he fell into a pool of blood. The despair on the faces of the royal family as they were dragged to the gallows. All of it was hammering a cruel truth into Tulan:
In this world, there is no such thing as truly invincible.
She could sense the cold aura around that silver-haired queen — a cold that made it hard to meet her eyes. But Sophia was, after all, so slight, so young.
Could a frame that delicate — one that even carried a kind of refined beauty to it — truly hold back the iron tide of Olan that swallowed everything in its path?
Tulan took a bite of the bread. The sweetness dissolved on her tongue, but it could not smooth the terror lodged deep behind her eyes.
Bardess looked at Tulan — that small, hunched figure, clearly wanting to say something but holding back — and blinked, then let a knowing look settle across her face.
Look at this poor kid, scared absolutely witless!
She must have been completely knocked sideways by Her Majesty's prophetic foresight!
She's probably thinking: why did Her Majesty, who has never met her in her life, manage to pick her out so precisely from an entire pile of corpses?
The fear in this child's eyes isn't directed at the Olan people at all — it's directed at Her Majesty's calculations, which are on the level of a deity!
Makes sense, really. Anyone who realizes their own life is just a coordinate point on Her Majesty's strategic map would feel like they couldn't breathe.
Her Majesty truly is unfathomable — even rescuing a child becomes an opportunity to put Jasu's surviving people through a baptism of Order.
This isn't saving someone. This is personally forging a future true believer.
Tulan had no idea what had come over the big sister commander named Bardess.
She just kept feeling like the woman's eyes had suddenly gone very strange. Why did every single one of these older sisters get that intensely bright look in their eyes the moment Her Majesty came up in conversation?
The night sky pressed heavily down over the edge of the Yurilland wetlands. A campfire crackled and spat in the damp cold, its dancing light illuminating the perfectly uniform line of Mason Legion tents.
Even in the deep-night rest period, the entire camp still breathed with a suffocating sense of discipline.
The sentries stood as still as carved stone. The occasional snort of a warhorse was swallowed whole by the thick, clinging fog.
Then, from deep in the woodland at the camp's flank, a burst of rapid, rhythmic hoof-beats tore through the dead silence.
Willow, Daphne, and Bardess — who had just returned from an inspection of the rear — all went rigid at almost exactly the same moment.
Bardess's hand snapped to the hilt of her broadsword. Her sharp eyes locked onto the roiling fog and didn't let go. With the reflexes of a commander who suffered from severe perfectionism, she had already sketched out every last gap in a defensive formation in her mind.
But when two blurred shapes, moving like streaks of flowing light, burst through the mist and revealed the unmistakable flash of silver hair, all three of them exhaled sharply at the same moment.
The warhorses had not yet fully stopped when Sophia vaulted cleanly from the saddle.
The plain Olan overcoat she wore had caught a little of the morning dew. The expression beneath the dark wood hat remained as still and deep as mountain ice that has not thawed in ten thousand years.
Irene, following behind, looked somewhat more disheveled — but her sapphire-like eyes blazed with an astonishing light, and she held the heavy obsidian box clutched to her chest like a small beast guarding its treasure.
"Your Majesty!"
The normally composed and gentle Daphne abandoned any pretense of ceremony. Her jade-green eyes brimmed with tears. She rushed forward and threw her arms around Sophia, holding her tight.
Holy Light spilled involuntarily from her whole body — warm and urgent — sweeping over every inch of Sophia, checking whether her Queen had taken even the slightest wound.
"Oh, thank goodness... Holy Spirit above, you've finally come back... I was praying all night, terrified that those barbaric Olan people might have..."
Sophia's body went faintly rigid as she was caught in the tight embrace.
When she felt the faint trembling in Daphne's breathing — from the sheer force of her worry — she finally simply let that warmth wrap around her. A sliver of something that only she would recognize as rueful passed through her pale-gold eyes.
Willow stood to one side. She had not lost composure the way Daphne had, but the fingertips clutching her silk handkerchief had gone white from the force of her grip.
Only when she saw those dead-calm, rational eyes of Sophia's did the boulder in her chest finally, truly settle.
She stepped quickly forward and lowered her voice:
"Your Majesty, please come inside to rest.
Her Royal Highness the Third Princess has been waiting for some time.
No one in the camp — save for the few of us — knows that Your Majesty ever left her post."
She sent a glance toward Bardess. Bardess understood immediately, and with a few trusted guards, dispersed soundlessly to reinforce the defenses around the main tent — so thoroughly that not even a wetland mosquito would be able to slip through.
Bardess pressed her hand to her sword hilt, her gaze sweeping over the two horses — exhausted nearly to the point of collapse — and then over Sophia's back, still ramrod-straight even after a hard cross-country gallop. The surge of reverence in her chest flared up all over again.
So this is Her Majesty's mastery over time!
I specifically counted the arc of the stars just now — from the moment Her Majesty left to the moment she returned, it matched her projected marching window to the exact second, not a breath of deviation!
Look at that calm in Her Majesty's eyes. She didn't go storming a dragon's den. She went for a leisurely stroll through a rear garden and came back.
Taking Irene — the girl who spends all day fiddling with alchemical explosives — and slipping past Olan cavalry for a full round trip without leaving a single trace...
What Her Majesty holds in her hands isn't just that Covenant — it's the trajectory of this entire continent's fate!
Under the meticulous cover provided by Willow and the others, Sophia and Irene slipped like two ghosts through the back curtain of the main tent.
Inside, the alchemy warming stove exhaled thin threads of heat.
Victoria, sitting in the seat of authority with a slightly greenish complexion from the over-tightened chest wrappings, saw Sophia walk in — and the "stone-faced queen" expression she had been working so hard to maintain instantly collapsed. She let out a long, long breath.
"You finally came back..."
Victoria tugged at the heavy black Gothic gown, her pale-gold eyes brimming with aggrieved reproach.
"If you'd been any later, I think I might have gone down in Mason's history as the first royal stand-in to suffocate to death because 'the queen couldn't breathe.'"
The flame of the alchemy oil lamp in the tent diffused a warm, amber glow, casting everyone's shadows onto the rough canvas walls in overlapping, solemn shapes.
Sophia unclipped the chin-tie of her hat and handed it to Willow beside her without a second thought.
Because this mission had gone not just smoothly, but had yielded leverage far beyond what was anticipated, the corner of this habitually ice-cold queen's mouth curved — just barely, almost imperceptibly.
It wasn't a smile, exactly. It was more the satisfaction of a logical loop that had fully closed.
"Go take off those ridiculous things. You've earned it, Victoria," Sophia said, her tone still cool — but with a rare, faint note of leniency in it.
Victoria felt as though a death sentence had been commuted. Tears of sheer relief instantly welled in her pale-gold eyes.
Granted, the greater part of it was due to the strips of binding that had nearly strangled the life out of her.
She didn't even bother maintaining the poise expected of the royal family — she hiked up her skirt and dove behind the room divider screen.
A moment later, accompanied by a series of muffled exhales and the rustling of fabric, Victoria emerged and changed back into a slightly looser dress.
She was still kneading her aching chest as she looked at the heavy obsidian box resting on the table, a glint of sharp intelligence flashing through her eyes.
By now, the tent had entered a state of complete quiet.
The two little girls, Hailey and Tulan, had curled up in a thick wool blanket in the corner, their breathing soft and even — fast asleep.
Outside their dreams, several of Mason's most important figures were gathered around the long table.
Bardess, with the intensity of someone whose obsessive tendencies had fully kicked in, was smoothing out a rumpled section of the map on the table millimeter by millimeter, ensuring its edges were perfectly parallel to the corners of the table.
Her gaze kept cutting between Sophia and the box. Even without saying a word, the tightly wound aura of someone barely containing an excess of reverence was practically radiating off her.
Willow moved with practiced ease, pouring each person a cup of steaming red tea. The white porcelain cup landing on the marble tabletop made a crisp, precise sound.
Daphne had stationed herself at Sophia's side, her curiosity about the box barely contained.
Irene sat nearby, clearly running on fumes and drenched in sweat, yet still staring down the obsidian box with the ferocity of a dragon guarding its hoard.
Her pink hair was a little disheveled, but the fire burning in those sapphire eyes was nothing short of revolutionary.
"Your Majesty — this thing... do we look at it now?"
Irene kept her voice low, her tone trembling with barely-suppressed excitement.
"I've been thinking the whole ride back — if the old King of Olan knew we were sitting on his 'birth certificate,' do you think he'd literally fall backwards off his throne?"
Victoria settled back into her seat and took a delicate sip of tea. With her high emotional intelligence, she had caught the subtle shift in Sophia's bearing — something different from the usual.
She set down her ivory fan. Her pale-gold eyes were completely serious.
"Sophia — it sounds like this trip to Cors gave you more than just the key. Something brought back a change in your perspective as well."
Sophia extended one slender, pale finger. Her fingertip traced the cold carvings on the surface of the box.
"This world has been veiled in lies for far too long."
She lowered her eyes. Her voice was as cool as the first frost of winter.
"Olan's bloodline, Yurilland's territory, even those high-and-mighty covenants — none of it is anything more than fabricated evidence built on fraud.
Since there is no legitimate authority left in this world, Mason's will is the only legitimate authority."
She slowly opened the box a crack. A scent wafted out — slightly stale from long enclosure, yet carrying within it the weight of ancient, undeniable authority.
With this in her possession, there would be no more need to wrestle with the convoluted logic of declarations of war.
"...Not legitimate?"
Victoria's fingers — still absently kneading her chest — froze mid-motion. She forgot entirely about the lingering physical discomfort. Her pale-gold pupils contracted to pinpoints.
As the Third Princess of the Kingdom of Mason, she had received the most rigorous royal education since childhood. The purity of bloodline and the legal basis of rule were things etched into her very bones.
If Olan, Yurilland... even the one sitting in the Imperial Capital were not legitimate...
Then what were the wars, the imperial edicts, the divine right of kings — all of it, over the past several hundred years — worth?
The look Victoria fixed on that scroll was full of pure, vertiginous absurdity.
Her high-EQ, high-IQ mind was turning at full speed — and in an instant she grasped it: what Sophia had brought back was a blade capable of piercing through the dignity of every single royal authority on this continent.
Willow fixed her gaze on the ancient insignia faintly visible on the surface of the scroll, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the edge of her teacup.
I never imagined there could be secrets like this even among the royal houses.
Is this the ultimate Order Her Majesty has always been pursuing?
I once believed Her Majesty simply intended to conquer those unruly neighboring kingdoms by force — but in the end, I was thinking far too shallowly.
Her Majesty means to erase the very existence of her enemies from the root.
If the foundations of those kingdoms are all built on the lie of usurpation, then Her Majesty's conquest is no longer war — it is correction.
This scroll is not a document. It is Her Majesty's writ of judgment.
Following Her Majesty, what I am witnessing is not merely the rise of a single kingdom, but the collapse of an entire old era.
This kind of legal framework, laid out across the span of centuries — who else but Her Majesty could have calculated so far ahead?
But... if it means conquering all of them, won't that be terribly exhausting for Her Majesty?
Beside her, Daphne instinctively clutched at the fabric of her own gown at the chest.
In her pure worldview, lies were the greatest blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
If the kings of this world had all been ruling through deception, then their crowns were coated in filth enough to corrupt a soul straight into the pit.
Your Majesty... are you here to cleanse this filth on behalf of the Holy Spirit?
The look Daphne turned on Sophia, beyond its original reverence, had now gained an additional layer — something close to fanatical devotion.
Bardess, meanwhile, had practically molded herself to the edge of the table. Her hands — calloused from years of gripping a blade — were now trembling faintly from sheer, over-the-top exhilaration.
No wonder! No wonder I've always felt that the way those lords carved up their territories was crooked and wrong, that nothing about it ever sat right no matter how long I looked at it!
It's because their ancestors were a bunch of thieves who stole someone else's estate!
When thieves divide up their plunder, of course the borders are going to be a mess!
Her Majesty is going to take a ruler personally in hand and straighten out every one of this continent's twisted, skewed boundary lines — one segment at a time!
This act of forcing a dislocated history back into its proper alignment...
It fits perfectly with everything inside me!
Even if it means rivers of blood — as long as we can align the Order of this world, I'd die right here in this wetland and count myself lucky!
Victoria took a deep breath and steadied the sharp, breathless shock into something more manageable.
She looked at Sophia. The elder-sister teasing in her eyes had faded — replaced by something closer to submission.
"Sophia — you're telling us all this because you've already decided, haven't you."
Victoria gave a wry smile. Her high-EQ instincts were telling her very clearly: the war-chariot of Mason could not be stopped.
"Once this scroll is made public, Mason will no longer be anyone's ally — it will be the common enemy of every royal house in the world.
Unless... you can execute every single one of them with this truth before they have time to react."
Sophia stared expressionlessly at the dense, packed list of usurpers on the scroll. Her cool voice echoed through the tent:
"Not execute. Cleanse."
Sophia's fingertip traced over the column bearing the name of the Royal House of Olan. Her pale-gold irises held the dead, rational stillness of someone who had moved beyond all emotion.
"Since this Covenant has returned to my hands, the right of interpretation belongs to Mason.
Irene — put it away."
Irene snapped the obsidian box shut. The motion was brusque, but it carried the reverence of someone sealing away a divine oracle.
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