Day 23 of the Fourth Month, Year 1016

Dustor City, Grizzle Province

ONE second, Luz had been full of excitement with her discovery. She tracked the trail of substance in Major Andres’ office to an isolated warehouse in the city and was about to go back to report.

The next second, it was all dark and she lost consciousness.

She cursed herself for being too lax. She should’ve kept her guards up. It was foolishness if she thought this was less dangerous than it was.

When Luz regained her consciousness again, she was in a small, dark room. She felt the floor under her and noticed the roughness of stone. Her head felt like it was just hit by a million bricks. Worse yet, she couldn’t move her hands, or her feet for that matter.

Oh dear.

It was perhaps a few minutes, or a few hours, she couldn’t really tell. But at last, someone entered the room.

Well, Luz wasn’t sure she should be relieved or not about it.

The person who entered brought lit candles into the room. The sudden light pierced her sight, making her wince. She looked up a bit and saw… “You…”

“Ah, you really shouldn’t have meddled, Senior Northenaway,” the voice was of a female, saying that lightly. “I regret that I have to eliminate a close aide of the Princess.”

Luz was sure she knew who stood in front of her. She recognized the voice, but even as she racked her brain, she couldn’t remember who it was. “Why…?” She asked.

The person shrugged. “The money is good.”

Luz frowned. The candlelight flickered, letting her a blink of a look towards the face of the person. “Lady Grant?”

“Ah, you recognize me,” her captor said. “Too bad you won’t live to tell anyone.”

Trina Grant. Her brain worked faster to reorganize that information. She was one of Victoria’s classmates in the Academy, making her Luz’s underclassmen. That explained why she called her ‘senior’. Money, she said she was doing this for money? “But your father is wealthy,” Luz spluttered.

“Not anymore, unfortunately.” Trina clacked her tongue.

“Do you know what you’re doing is treason? You’re going to get all of your family killed!” Shouting made her head hurt, but it was the least of her worries. Marquis Grant, Trina’s father, was one of the nobles with territory in Grizzle. Meaning, if Lirsk got to them already, it would be easy for the Grants to suddenly attack… Then Dustor would be attacked from two directions—from outside the Kingdom, and inside the Kingdom.

“My father is old and frail,” Trina spitted out that sentence. “He hasn’t died yet but the vultures already circled around, siphoning him off his funds. This easy money would allow the marquisate to go back on its feet,” she said, and then added lightly, “and if Lirsk won, I can even hold a duchy.”

Luz felt chilled. Trina had quite the ambition. Luz herself would never dream to take the title from her uncle—it was hard enough to navigate from being calculated by him. But after years of facing her similarly ambitious uncle, she knew there was no talking with this girl.

Luz didn’t want to die, though.

She felt herself weakening, so as soon as she loosened the rope on her hand, she immediately went for a punch. But Trina Grant was also a graduate of the Academy and she was no easy foe. Moreover, Luz was injured. It wasn’t even a few minutes later and she found herself on the losing end.

Luz gritted her teeth.

Trina pressed a sharp blade onto her neck.

“If you kill me,” she said hoarsely, “a heavy investigation would be held, and when they found me, they’ll find that it was you. It would be hard to avoid blame and punishment.”

Trina laughed. “Then I just have to make sure your body could never be found, right?”

The blade drew blood from her neck.

Luz threw one last punch—although it was quickly derailed. “You are still not giving up,” Trina sighed. “I was going to let you go the easy way. But if you prefer painful one…” She raised the blade high, and started to move it fast towards Luz’s right hand.

Luz held her breath, bracing the stabbing pain to come to the hand she used to hold blades. She would never be able to use it again…

But the pain didn’t come.

She blinked. Someone composedly held Trina’s hand tightly and took the blade from her hand. Trina, on the other hand, spluttered. “What… How… No one is supposed to find this place!”

Luz felt someone knelt beside her the second after. “Are you okay?”

She turned and found Ethan’s worried face. She couldn’t help the smile on her face. “You came,” she said.

“Of course I came! Do you think I would leave you to die alone?” Ethan untied the rope on her feet as he said that.

The bubbling laugh inside her broke, causing her to chuckle. She let herself fell to Ethan’s embrace as he propped her up to face her captor.

“How… How did you find this place!” Trina seemed like she went insane. She was restrained tightly by Victoria’s bodyguards, but she still tried to trash around.

Victoria looked at her blankly. “Trina… Why?”

But the girl was long gone. She was screaming, convulsing, crying, and a mix of everything else. The Princess couldn’t comprehend what was being said, and after all that happened, she didn’t seem like she wanted to.

Victoria sighed. “Bring her back to the compound,” she said to her bodyguards, then paused. “Wait, no. Bring her through the back door of my mansion inside and lock her up.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

They left one bodyguard behind to guard Victoria. Luz sighed heavily. “I didn’t expect it to be her.”

“Neither do I,” Victoria said glumly. “Wait, you’re okay, right, Luz?”

Luz nodded. “Just a little scratch.”

Ethan looked at her disapprovingly. “You’re bruised and bleeding! It’s not a little scratch.” He turned to Victoria. “We have to treat her soon.”

“Yes,” Victoria nodded in agreement, and so they went back to her small mansion near the military base.

Ethan carefully wrapped up her wounds as Luz recounted the story for Victoria. “I’m worried,” she admitted to the Princess. “Lirsk could’ve gotten to many more people, convincing them to betray the kingdom…”

Victoria bit her lower lip. “We need to find those traitors.”

They fell silent.

“Or at least the one that caused all that poisoning mayhem,” Ethan said suddenly. “From your story, we can assume that there was someone else paying Grant to plant the poison in the Major’s office.”

“Yes,” Victoria nodded slowly. “We have to find that person.”

“But who?” Luz asked out loud. “There are numerous citizens in Dustor—any one of them could be the traitor.”

“No,” Ethan said. “It had to be someone inside the base. They could poison the weaponry, and also the well in the training field. That means they had access to those places.” He paused. “That narrowed it down to hundreds of soldiers inside the base.”

“Not helping much,” Victoria mumbled.

“It’s a start. Their leader is inside the military. They got to Colonel Grant, too. But I wonder why they’re not doing it themselves.”

“Right,” Victoria nodded. “Why do they need Trina to plant evidence? They must be inconvenienced to go anywhere.”

Ethan stood up. “I’ll… ask her.” There was another meaning in his words, one they were all aware of.

They all nodded. Ethan was obviously livid, so Victoria added, “Don’t bring her any physical harm. I already gave my word that we should follow military regulations.”

“You are the Great General,” Ethan sighed. “You are supposed to be the military.”

“The title is no use if they don’t trust me.” Victoria shook her head. “Never mind. Just go, Ethan. I’ll take care of your Luz for you.”

Ethan grinned, pleased at the words. “Please do,” he said, winking at the injured girl.

Luz rolled her eyes, but she also couldn’t help her smile. When Ethan was out of the room, she heard the princess sighed. “I envy your love story,” she said. Victoria was talking the horrible machinations of her uncle that caused Luz and Ethan to be virtually engaged. Well, the happening wasn’t without its merit, but still…

Luz whacked the princess’ shoulder and accidentally moved her wound in process. “Ouch.”

“Shouldn’t have hit me for stating the truth,” Victoria mumbled. “Alright, go rest, Luz. You’ve done well. I’ll handle the rest.”

As the princess walked out of the room with a blank expression, Luz sighed. That girl who was younger than her held an even heavier burden—yet she rarely wanted anyone to help. Luz knew the princess felt guilty because she almost got hurt, despite the fact that this was her job. Victoria seemed like a reckless unreliable princess at times, but Luz knew that she was responsible—well, in her own, weird way.

She laid back down on the bed and drifted to sleep. []