By the time Emis and I reached the hidden chamber entrance in the inner courtyard, the scene that greeted us was one of ruin. Dying embers still flickered across the ground, and more than a dozen handmaids lay scattered where they had fallen — some clutching their wounds, others already unconscious.

  My estate housed women exclusively, and every handmaid I had taken in was trained in proper martial arts. For all of them to be subdued without exception spoke volumes about this fairy's true capability. What made it worse was that the holy fae were known for their love of peace — and yet she had cut down over a dozen humans without hesitation.

  Whatever fury had been building inside her, it had long since passed the point of restraint.

  I had anticipated this. She was using the handmaids as bait, drawing out whoever held authority in this estate. She had shown enough mercy not to kill them — I would grant her that — but the irritation settling in my chest was not so easily dismissed.

  ◆

  A cold scoff rang out from directly behind us.

  We spun around at once, but a wave of deep blue vapor was already rushing toward our faces, carrying a chill that bit straight to the bone. Emis reacted first — yanking my arm back with one hand while her lips moved into a chant with the other. Fire erupted from her pale palm and coalesced in an instant into a massive fireball, wide enough that four grown men could not have wrapped their arms around it. She hurled it straight at the encroaching mist.

  Fireball — the most powerful offensive spell in the first-tier arsenal.

  It should have worked. It didn't.

  The moment that building-shattering sphere of flame met the frozen vapor, it shuddered, contracted, and solidified into a lump of ice that dropped to the ground and shattered into a carpet of glittering shards.

  Middle-tier water magic, at minimum. Only something of that rank could have snuffed out Fireball so cleanly.

  The stone beneath our feet glazed over with frost. The temperature plummeted. If that blue mist swallowed us whole, we would end up exactly like that fireball — frozen, beautiful, and permanently on display.

  Then the truly frightening part began.

  From within the fog that could extinguish fire itself, a silhouette tore free — and split. Five identical afterimages fanned out across the darkness, each indistinguishable from the last, surging toward us alongside the killing cold. There was no ambiguity in it. No performance.

  She actually intends to kill us.

  Beside me, the color drained from Emis's face. I caught the look in her eyes — not fear exactly, but the quiet surrender of someone who has already begun to accept what is coming.

  I couldn't blame her, honestly. Even I was surprised.

  Afterimage Step — I had always assumed that technique required the raw, stupid speed of a high-tier beastkin warrior. The kind of body built for nothing but force. And yet here it was, being executed flawlessly by a fairy. A female fairy, no less — someone whose physical strength, by any conventional measure, should have made this impossible.

  Just who is this woman?

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  ◆

  Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have lasted three exchanges against her. But standing there in that moment, I felt nothing resembling fear.

  "Are you finished?"

  I raised one hand.

  The five afterimages collapsed back into a single figure. A soft cry escaped her lips, and she crumpled to the ground, unable to rise. The oppressive force pressing down on the courtyard dissolved all at once. I caught Emis, pulling her back with me until the ice fog finally dissipated as the interrupted spell ran dry.

  She struggled briefly in my arms, then went still and said nothing — choosing silence over the palm she would have preferred to leave on my face.

  "How... how is that possible? Wasn't she already crippled?"

  "A kiss, and I'll tell you."

  Crack.

  My cheek had never really stood a chance.

  ◆

  After seeing to the handmaids — medical care, rest, and the usual arrangements — and sending Emis on her way, I settled into a guest room in the inner courtyard and sat quietly beside the woman who had just tried to kill us both.

  Past midnight. I woke her without urgency.

  "You... it hurts... you — it was you, you did something to my body — you — huh?"

  The moment her eyes opened, she registered that I was watching her — watching, specifically, the bare skin left exposed when her clothes had come loose during treatment. She seized the blanket and pulled it up to her chin, cheeks flushing immediately. For all her bluntness, she had an unexpectedly sweet voice.

  "Who are you? Why did you do this to my —"

  "I saved your life. And in return, you attacked my staff and nearly killed me. Give me one good reason I owe you an explanation."

  "...You saved me?"

  "That night. Black-wing fae assassins, front and back. You were left for dead. Don't tell me you've forgotten."

  A quiet sound escaped her — recognition slowly surfacing. She pulled the blanket aside and looked down at her arm, brow furrowing in confusion.

  ◆

  "The golden bracer on your left arm is the Ring of the Water God — a water-attribute divine artifact, and a famous one. Your left hand was severed at the joint. Without that artifact fused to the bone, do you honestly think you'd have been able to cast anything?"

  She looked unconvinced. That was understandable. I was, in all likelihood, the most capable and least recognized alchemist on the continent — and the kind of work I had done on her body simply did not exist within fae knowledge. She wouldn't have even heard it described.

  "Stop being embarrassed. I've seen every inch of you already. Come here."

  The faint taunt was enough to deepen the color in her cheeks, though the hostility she'd carried into the room seemed to have burned itself out. I took her hand and led her — bare, unhurried — to the full-length mirror across the room.

  "Want proof? Look at your right eye."

  She didn't like being told what to do. I could see it in the brief tension that crossed her face. But she reached up anyway, swept aside the silver hair veiling her right eye, and went still.

  The eye that looked back at her was the deep, luminous green of polished jade.

  She forgot, in that moment, that she was standing unclothed in front of a stranger. She simply stared at the reflection — at someone she did not entirely recognize.

  "Your left eye is lake-blue. It always has been. Your right eye was the same, until someone drove a blade through it." I kept my voice even. "I used a forbidden technique from the old alchemical texts. The Fresh green jade — an earth-attribute divine treasure — was refined and set in place of what you lost."

  It was the sort of claim that should have sounded absurd. But she was looking at the proof. Two eyes, different colors, both undeniably hers.

  "Your eardrums were ruptured as well. The gold rings at the back of your ears are the Windwhisper Rings — they restore hearing. The small gold pearl in your navel is not decorative. It's a light-attribute elemental artifact, and an extraordinarily rare one. Your internal organs were nearly destroyed. Without it, even a full recovery would have left you with damage that never fully healed."

  ◆

  She had stopped processing the words and started processing the implications. What she had assumed were strange, questionable ornaments were, in fact, some of the most valuable objects she had ever been in the same room with. The fae lived simply by nature — wealth and treasure were not things they accumulated. What was currently on her body likely surpassed everything she had encountered across her entire lifetime.

  She stood before the mirror in silence. I regarded my own handiwork with quiet satisfaction.

  She was, it had to be said, extraordinarily beautiful — though she had clearly never given it much thought. Before tonight, there had been something unfinished about her, a loveliness that lacked definition. Now, the golden bracer rested against her left forearm. The delicate rings caught the light at the tips of her long fae ears. The small pearl nestled in her navel completed something that had always been missing. And those eyes — one blue, one green — changed everything about the way she read. A face that had once been striking was now impossible to look away from.

  Then there were the five gold rings: two set at the peaks of her breasts, three placed lower, each one catching the candlelight with quiet elegance. They lent her an air of sensuality that was difficult to look at directly, and impossible to dismiss.

  She pressed one arm across her chest, color rising in her face again. "What... what are those for?"

  "Those are my own invention. Thunder Rings. Forged from ultra-steel and inscribed with lightning runic script. One simple incantation from me, and they discharge — enough to put you on the floor. A contingency, in case you decided to repay my hospitality by tearing me apart." I paused. "As it turns out, that contingency was well-founded. Without them, tonight would have gone very differently, and I'd have died regretting my own generosity."

  ◆

  Her expression shifted. The arrogance was gone. Something quieter had taken its place.

  "I... you're right. I'm sorry. I was out of line. Please forgive me."

  "Mm." I looked at her. "What's your name?"

  She met my gaze, and when she spoke, her voice was soft and clear.

  "I am the Holy Maiden of the Sacred Fae." A brief pause. "My name is Lilia."