For a moment, Catalyna and Aerwyna's eyes met. Her stare burned.
She exhaled to keep herself calm. This was not the moment she would exact her vengeance; after all, she had had all the time in the world now.
His head thumped against the cold curve of her plate.
He made a small noise, more exhale than word—then went limp in her arms, consciousness slipping away under the crushing demand of his infant body.
Aerwyna's world shrank to the weight of him.
Her hands moved without thought—trained by sleepless nights and battlefield triage. One arm braced his back, her palm spanning nearly his whole spine. The other steadied his head, fingers sliding through his hair as she checked for blood, swelling—anything.
He was breathing. Fast, but steady.
Ribs intact. Limbs intact. No obvious breaks, no bruising.
His mana felt… strained, but he didn't suffer from mana depletion.
He was exhausted, but overall he was fine.
Something tight in her chest snapped loose, flooding her veins with a cold, shaking relief so intense it was almost pain.
"Ezra," she whispered, the name catching in her throat.
He didn't answer. His lashes fluttered once against her collar, then stilled.
He'd fought until he'd burned himself out, then trusted her to do the rest.
The rooftop exploded into noise around them.
"Milady!"
"Form ranks!"
"Block the street. Move to your positions; we will subdue to restrain."
Boots hit the street. Knights vaulted from adjacent roofs, armor clattering. Below, in the streets choking with stalled carts and gawking citizens, platoons of guards were slamming into formation, shields locking, spears lowering, funnels of steel closing off every alley.
Aerwyna barely heard them.
Her whole being wanted to stay right where she was, curl around the tiny, sleeping weight in her arms, and refuse to move until the world stopped trying to take him away.
She glanced back at Catalyna.
Catalyna's gaze didn't linger on her; it kept darting. Over the streets, the soldiers, the roofs—measuring. There was a coolness to her, almost confidence, as if she weren't already trapped and waiting to be beaten into submission.
This irritated Aerwyna thoroughly, but she drove it down.
Instead, she tore her gaze away from Catalyna long enough to bark orders at the Knight she trusted most.
"Evan."
Sir Evan landed beside her a heartbeat later, panting. His sword was already in his hand, knuckles white around the hilt.
"Milady!"
She turned toward him, still cradling Ezra.
"Take him," she commanded.
She pushed her son into his arms.
Evan froze for the space of a breath, as if she'd just handed him a live dragon egg. Then he gathered Ezra in, holding him tight against his breastplate with a care that looked almost reverent.
The baby sagged against him, dead weight, cheek pressed to cold steel.
Evan's jaw clenched.
"Madame," he said, struggling to keep his voice even. "We are enough to deal with the wench. You need not—"
"Ezra is the priority," Aerwyna cut him off, eyes like razors. "Escort him back to the castle. You will personally guard that room. No one approaches him without my explicit order. Not the stewards, not the healers. Only Lord Blackfyre is allowed in if he returns early; no guards. No one. If anyone argues, you run them through."
Evan swallowed.
"Yes, Milady," he said.
He hesitated one last time.
"Are you certain—"
"I will tear this whore apart with my own hands," Aerwyna hissed. "Do not make me repeat myself."
There was nothing left to say.
Evan bowed his head once, sharply.
"As you command."
He turned, cradling Ezra one-armed, and sprinted toward the nearest lower roof. Two knights shifted automatically to flank him, moving on instinct—she didn't have to order that. They immediately sealed off the retreat so Catalyna couldn't follow easily.
Aerwyna watched them go for two heartbeats.
Then she wrenched her eyes away.
She locked the raw terror of almost losing Ezra inside her heart.
When she faced Catalyna, she was no longer a weeping mother.
She was the Lady Blackfyre of Fulmen.
Catalyna stood twenty paces away on the same slope of roof, balanced on the ridge as if it were flat ground.
The black outer garment she'd worn during the abduction was gone, discarded somewhere in the chase. What lay beneath was no servant's dress. Fitted leather hugged her frame, overlaid with fine chain links that glimmered faintly where the light caught them. It was the kind of armor built for mages—protection without sacrificing movement.
Her mask still covered her lower face, but her eyes were bare, still darting around. She didn't even glance at Aerwyna twice, as if there was something more interesting in the vicinity.
Aerwyna stared at her with loathing so pure it made it hard to breathe.
Three years, she thought, bile rising in the back of her throat. Three years in my halls. Three years in my clothes, my kitchens, my nursery.
Catalyna's file flashed through her mind with brutal clarity.
She'd been nothing special on paper. A commoner woman from a village two days' ride away. Husband a farmer. One son dead in early infancy, when her milk had been at its richest. No political ties. No history of travel outside the domain. A clean recommendation from a minor steward who had known her in his youth.
Low risk. Quiet. Unremarkable.
The only thing that stood out was her beauty. She had high cheekbones, auburn hair, and sharp features, but she hid this well enough with commoner garments and plain fabrics. If you didn't stare at her, you wouldn't notice her features, especially most of the time she was unkempt.
Aerwyna had double-checked all of it. Sent word through three separate networks—her own house's spies, Reitz's informants.
Everything had come back the same.
Normal. Boring.
She'd chosen Catalyna precisely because she was the least likely person to be a knife.
Was any of that even real? Aerwyna wondered, eyes narrowing. Did a child die? Does a farmer husband sit at a table right now, or is that another mask?
Whatever the truth of it, the woman standing before her now was no cook, no laundress, no simple mother who'd fallen on hard times.
Her aura had swelled.
Catalyna's aura didn't spill or ripple. She had exceptional control. It stayed tight and close to her skin. Dense, compact, and still hiding.
Aerwyna sent a probing pulse again. Though Catalyna hid it well enough, right now she could identify her status.
A High Noble, at least.
Hiding in her nursery.
Aerwyna's lip trembled.
"Why did you abduct my son?" she asked.
Her voice was very quiet; she suppressed the instinct to shout.
The frost at her feet crept outward, hairline cracks appearing in the slate as water in the tiny gaps froze and expanded. The water in the air started to cool, forming puddles on the ground.
Catalyna tilted her head slightly. She didn't even bother to face Aerwyna, her eyes still darting around as if she was looking for something.
She didn't answer.
"Answer me, knave," Aerwyna snapped, eyes blazing. "How did you hide your aura for so long? Who are you working for?"
Her spear hand twitched.
Every fiber of her being screamed to thrust, to lunge, to put a hole through this woman's chest and watch the light leave her eyes.
She stopped herself.
Ezra was out of reach now, carried away in Evan's arms. That was the only reason she could afford even this much restraint.
"That's a lot of questions for someone who just lost a baby," Catalyna replied in her melodious voice.
Her voice was calm—bored even.
"I don't see why I should answer any of them."
Her gaze flicked once in the direction Evan had gone, as if tracking the faint echo of Ezra's presence.
"You should hand him back," she went on, tone light. "Do that, and nobody else needs to get hurt today."
Aerwyna stared at her.
The temerity! The impudence! Does she even understand her current quandary?
A lump formed in her throat.
"You dare threaten me?" she said, derision dripping from every syllable. "Lowborn scum. On what grounds do you bare your threats? Because you scurried through my rafters and tricked a few gate guards?"
Her aura surged, a frozen pressure that made the nearest Knights shiver despite themselves.
"In this world, martial might is supreme," she continued, stepping forward. The ice spread with her. "On that scale, you are nothing. You would not last three seconds fighting me."
Her eyes narrowed to slits.
"The only reason your heart is still beating is because you were holding my son."
Catalyna's shoulders lifted in a tiny, almost careless shrug.
"Three seconds is a generous estimate," she said. "For you."
Catalyna still wasn't listening to the speech. Not really.
Her eyes flicked across the surrounding rooftops, down to the streets, back up again. Measuring distances. Counting armor.
There were close to a hundred Blackfyre soldiers below, by her quick reckoning—shields and spears forming rough boxes to cut off any ground-level escape. More were spilling in from adjacent streets, funneled by the lockdown into a tightening ring of steel.
On the roofs, she spotted a few knights. Their auras burned brighter than the common infantry, their armor layered thicker, sigils bearing faintly at the edges of sight. Some had bows half-raised. Others stood, weapons drawn already. Bows, blades, and spell all aimed at her.
And there—coming from the same direction Aerwyna had appeared—more figures in distinctive armor loped onto a neighboring roof and took up positions two steps behind their mistress.
Their helms were stylized like open fish jaws, the visors gaping, the plate beneath worked to resemble overlapping scales. The metal itself had a faint blue sheen, catching the light in ripples.
Their auras moved differently. Fluid. Heavy.
The Riverrunners, the elite Knights of House Riverrun.
Aerwyna's personal retinue from her maiden house. They did not answer to Reitz. Only to her.
They should be on par with Bren's own Knights.
For Catalyna, they should have been a problem.
"Is this all the force you could muster?" she asked aloud, letting a note of mockery slide into her tone. "It's pretty quaint, considering the size of your domain."
A murmur went through the Knights. A few faces darkened.
Aerwyna ignored the bait.
"Form in," she said instead, without looking away from Catalyna.
The nearest lines tightened their semicircle around the roof.
In the wars of this world, common soldiers rarely decided the outcome when monsters like Aerwyna stepped onto the field. But they served a purpose: they overwhelmed, they distracted, they soaked stray spells, they punished openings.
Nobles killed nobles.
Armies simply made sure the killing stuck.
Aerwyna rolled her shoulders once, feeling her mana coil and gather.
She saw Catalyna's aura shift again—thicker, more focused, as if the woman were slowly tightening a band around it.
It… perplexed her.
Her mana pulled in tight against her skin, denser by the second.
Aerwyna's fingers tightened around her spear.
Whatever Catalyna's true rank was, she was still standing on a rooftop in Bren with no hostages left and steel and spell pointed vaguely in her direction.
Aerwyna was Duke-rank. Close to the line beyond. There were only a select number who could challenge her in the Empire and even more seriously threaten her in a direct fight.
None of them should be lurking in provincial wet nurse positions.
It would be like using a siege cannon to crack walnuts.
"Answer my questions," she said, voice dropping. "And you will die a swift death. If you do not…"
She bared her teeth in something that wasn't a smile.
"…I will freeze you piece by piece, and crush each part with my hands until you beg for the end."
Catalyna rolled her eyes.
"Are you done?" she asked. "Or are we going to start this? Your babbling sounds like a drunk whore in a tavern."
Several of the guards bristled at the insult.
Aerwyna's cheek twitched.
Her mana was already rising, cold and sure.
Fine.
Words had failed.
They could move on to the part she actually enjoyed.
She lifted her spear slightly, point angling toward the sky.
The air around her thickened as she drew in breath.
"[The waters covereth the sea and in the oceans…]"
The first line of the spell slipped from her tongue, low and even.
The reaction in the environment was immediate.
The humidity in the air screamed toward her.
Mist formed out of nothing around her boots; it raced upward. A glaze of dew appeared on every nearby surface—the tiles, the edges of chimneys, the exposed blades of knights' weapons—then peeled away in streaming threads.
"[The azure life-giver robes the bodies in abundance…]"
Water crawled up her legs like living cloth.
It coated the leather and steel in a clear layer an inch thick, sealing over joints and edges like a second skin.
Her braid floated for a heartbeat, freed from gravity by the rising tide, before the water pinned it down, slicking silver strands against the back of her helm.
"[Alloweth the waves that crash upon the land envelop this fleshly vessel…]"
She stepped forward into the last line, the words vibrating in her chest.
Her chantless mastery snapped into place, freezing the water and completing the whole piece.
The ice froze clear, then shifted into a deep blue with pale veins running through it. It thickened over her heart, throat, and joints, stacking into plates that locked together.
The temperature plummeted.
Frost exploded outward from her boots in jagged, branching patterns. Tiles creaked as cracks spread through the stone from the sudden cold.
"[Glacial Armor]"
Her new helm sealed around her head, leaving her eyes visible through a narrow slit. The blue glow behind them intensified, refracted through the crystalline casing until looking directly at her felt like staring into the heart of a glacier.
Even hardened Knights shifted uneasily.
"Wench," her voice boomed from within the armor, distorted and amplified as though echoing from the bottom of a frozen chasm. "You shall die here today."
Catalyna watched the display with a small, humorless smile.
Very noble.
Very theatrical.
Very convinced of its own invincibility.
Catalyna smirked.
Aerwyna probably grew up in a world where the Empire's strength was praised, where the light of the Aufsteigfrieden was heralded in every corner of the city—where nobles were ranked and categorized by power in the scrutinizing light of the sun. That was her conviction.
She didn't know of the powers beyond, the hidden blades and daggers that imperial houses kept under the cover of shadows.
She only knew the open rankings, the names spoken out loud by mouths of glory—of honor, of strength. She didn't know that when rising tensions plunged the Empire into chaos, those sheathed weapons would be unsealed.
She flexed her fingers once. Mana coiled under her skin. The air around her felt thick, pushing back.
Heat began to bleed into the air around her, subtle at first, then stronger.
The nearest guards grimaced as a prickle of dry, too-intense warmth brushed against their faces, fighting with the sudden cold surge from Aerwyna's spell.
The air itself seemed to ripple.
Aerwyna felt Catalyna.
She realized her folly in her arrogance. She wasn't condensing to hide her mana; she was compressing it to do something with it.
She opened her mouth to yell the retreat for the common soldiers.
But a bright, searing light had already congealed into existence.
[The brightness of ten thousand dying stars…]
[SUPERNOVA!]