The White Continent sat draped in late winter light — a land of pale forests and glassy seas where crowns meant more than names. In the heart of Falemouth Empire, the King's Chamber hummed with the quiet arrogance of those born to rule. Tapestries stitched with victories hung like banners of inevitability; a long table bisected the chamber, its surface a map of inked provinces and old blood. At the head of it, Burk folded his hands and spoke like a man trimming the edges of a storm.
"Ninia," he said, words soft but edged, "what right have you to wage honor against a rising insect like that? Our name — our dignity — it is hanging by a thread."
Skols, standing by Burk with a face like a calm mountain, cut in before Ninia could flare. "I agree with him, Highness. I honor the Empire and the kingdoms under us. If we fan out in rage over one small kingdom's insult, we make a laughingstock of ourselves before the other empires and stronger realms. Think: will our reaction be a lesson or a mockery?"
Ninia's mouth hardened. "Let it be a lesson," she said. "Even if honor walks away after being paid, how dare such a worthless kingdom speak to our face? Is this your pride you protect, or mine? In days, I will be the Empress of this Empire. Will I be learning from others that my father was weak?"
Burk inhaled slowly. He smelled iron in her words — impatience wrapped in the steel of soon-to-be power. "Silence can be a weapon, Ninia. Some battles are won by not swinging the sword. Besides… Black Eye is not common folk."
The doors whispered as they opened and a slender figure padded in. He looked like Ninia — same tilt of jaw, same pale eyes — and when he moved, the room seemed to take a breath. Nihal, the younger prince, smiled as though he had just thought of something amusing.
He flopped into a chaise with theatrical flair, lifted a glass of sherbet, and spoke in a cool voice like a knife wrapped in velvet. "From my sources — spies who do not make mistakes — the founder of Black Eye is Ren. Cold mind, surgical. His aide, Arre, is something else entirely… a living terror in the water. And their pawns? Two of them: Eliza and Ito."
Ninia scoffed. "Rumors," she said. "Eliza powerful enough to devour five out of thirty of our top soldiers alone? Preposterous."
Nihal's grin didn't change. "Eliza once killed 'Chinenama' of the Velmouse House and hung him as a warning. All for crossing Cromon. That's not rumor; that's a body count with a signature."
Skols laughed softly, the sound thin and without mirth. "Then perhaps the Seventh Continental War is not far off."
Burk's shock had weight. "Why say that?"
Skols's smile went small and sly. "Did you forget — I can see the future when I choose. A small glimpse, but enough."
The room tilted. There was more than arrogance in the walls now; there was the real possibility of flames. Ninia's eyes darted between Burk and Skols, and for a breath she remembered that her father could peer into tomorrow. That kind of sight was a dangerous blessing — mighty yet limited.
"Then you want us to refrain?" Burk asked.
Skols shrugged, calm as the grave. "No. I want us ready."
A servant slipped into the doorway. "My Highness Ninia—your mother calls."
Ninia stood, voice clipped with royalty. "I'm coming."
Nihal chimed, lounging: "What shall we do?"
Skols's gaze sharpened. "We wage one war and see. If the future I glimpsed holds, we benefit."
---
Farther east, in the depths where ranks took their orders and steel was molded into resolve, Cross and the others prepared for war with a silence that tasted of iron. No one knew when the directives would arrive; no one knew which direction the first arrow would fly. The world, for them, tightened into the geometry of readiness.
On a lane of Cromon, Eliza and Ito sat on a low wall, watching soldiers march past like beads on a string. Her voice was small, honey laced with poison. "Ito," she said, "I have a task for you."
Ito tensed, the way a dog does when a leash is about to snap. He thought perhaps some petty mischief; instead his heart dropped into his stomach at her next words.
"Ninia, the Empress-in-waiting," Eliza said, licking a scrap of pastry from her wrist. "She is very lovely. Bring me one of her fingernails. Three days' expenses will cover whatever you need."
Ito's jaw dropped. "You're joking. Right?"
Eliza's smile was not a joke. "I don't jest. Were I to be cruel, I would take you to the dark room myself." Her eyes glinted with some private amusement.
Ito's skin crawled. He knew the trail of men this woman had left in her wake — men emptied of coin, of vigor, of sense. He felt a possibility of guilt coil inside him. Ninia's beauty was both blade and altar; he imagined the disgusting vanity of it all, and something in him felt ashamed.
He swallowed. "I'll… consider it."
Eliza leaned closer and whispered, voice almost a caress. "Do it. There is no telling what advantage a token of bloodline can bring."
---
Across the map at the Continental Knights' Headquarters, Minj sat heavy as a boulder while Folselor paced a narrow arc around him, worry a steady drum in his chest. "They stand against Black Eye," Folselor said, voice a dry wind. "Falemouth moves. We cannot ignore it."
Minj's expression tightened into certainty. "Of course they will. Black Eye threatens civilization itself."
Folselor's hand trembled as he tapped a queue of small, worn documents. "Our luck with them has always—" he began.
Minj cut him off. "Then we take it back. This time, I will have my vengeance."
Folselor's face tilted, stunned. "Sir Thomas will join us."
Minj rose like a man accepting fate. "Sir Thomas?"
Folselor's tone half-wondered, half-chastened: "For this mission, for reputation, for us — yes. We need a senior. The war is small, perhaps, but its implications are wide. He must go."
Minj's eyes narrowed into a strike. "Then have him. We'll see which side the gods pity."
---
On the scrubbed slopes of Mount Iki, Michael and Chris were no longer simply hunters of rumor and debt. They stalked through the lowered green of the jungle with Emilie and Enel at their backs, their boots whispering against damp leaves. Nixon — freed — followed at a distance, the stubborn knot of a man who had lost and not yet accepted the measure of it.
Michael's brow crinkled. Secrets flickered across his face like the shadows between trees. "Emilie, how old are you?"
Chris and Enel barked laughter like a chorus of boys at the sort of question that should never be asked of ladies.
Emilie only smiled, small and knowing. "Twenty-eight."
Michael teased, half-holding a grin. "So you're two-and-eighty, really? You look thirty-two tops."
She laughed. "My father fathered me at 138. So from that day — I have been twenty-eight."
Enel added with a boyish nudge, "My eldest brother Enos and Emilie are separated by seventy, maybe eighty years."
Chris waved them off, words falling like stones. "Stop. Don't. I think I'll be dead before any of you."
They slid into a cavern mouth, the air cool and smelling faintly of old salt and stone. Emilie paused by the threshold. "Don't tell anyone. This is a training dungeon. Those born with a stronger gift learn here."
Michael stepped inside: damp rock, the taste of time. The dungeon breathed around them, stone carving their shadows into lessons. This was no mere gauntlet — it was a place where the raw edges of power were sharpened against each other.
---
Back in the Cromon kingdom, the market boulevard hummed with gossip — always hungry for blood. Eliza toyed with the newspaper a soldier handed her, his cheeks flushing at a kiss she had left like a coin on his brow.
"Hainess," he murmured, fumbling. "How may I…?"
Eliza leaned, pressing a kiss to his forehead with practiced frivolity. "Hand your paper."
He did, simple as breath. She snatched it and with eyes that were knives skimmed the headline. Her fingers pressed the paper flat, the news a map of inevitable collisions.
"Continental Knights intend to insert themselves into our war," she mused, voice casual. The soldier, barely twenty, stared at her as though the world had rearranged for him. He did not understand the meaning behind her words, only the tenderness she had offered and the thrill of being touched by power.
Ito watched, gratitude and dread war-red in his chest. "Why did you kiss him?" he asked later, bewildered.
Eliza's laugh was soft, a thing that could cut. "I wanted to see his aim. He was harmless. But news is news — send word to Master Ren."
Ito's hands shook as he moved away. To steal an Empress's nail was madness. To think of handing it over to Eliza — or to Ren — was to ride the edge of a blade without a sheath.
Eliza folded the paper and lit a cigarette with casual grace. In the curl of smoke, a plan took shape: the Knights would come; Falemouth would respond; and Black Eye would be the shadow that fractured them all. She pictured Ren — his eyes iceberg, his mind a machine — and the outline of moves that would remake the board.
---
Night fell across the White Continent like a closing hand. In every camp, every hall, and every secret place, people counted their strengths and their debts. Ninia heard of the pawns and smiled like a queen unafraid, though inside her the ember of rivalry glowed hotter: the thought of an outsider daring to touch the Empire's honor had become an itch she would not ignore once she wore the crown.
Skols waited, watchful as a tide. Burk plotted his measures and curbed his temper to fit a longer plan. Nihal nursed his cup and kept his sources close — knowing that gossip could be weapon and shield both.
Eliza flicked ash into the wind, smile a curve of possibility. Ito felt the weight of a decision pressing at his back like a blade. Cross tightened his gauntlet in preparation. Minj sent for Sir Thomas and thought of revenge with a hunger that sharpened his thoughts. Michael stepped into the cavern and felt the stone measure his patience.
Across borders old tensions stiffened into a line. Across alliances, old debts called like famine. The world bent toward a war whose first flame could be a stolen nail, a whispered rumor, or the sight of a man's future.
In the hush before dawn, Ren's name hung in the air like a prophecy — cold, meticulous, and inevitable. Whoever moved first would not necessarily win. But they would set the scale. And once set, it would be impossible to pretend the scale had not been tipped.
Somewhere, in a room heavy with maps and promises, someone smiled and told themselves they were prepared for the weight of what was coming. Outside, the world began to turn toward whatever storm their choices had lit.
The chessmen shifted. The players took their breaths. And in the dark, plans stepped into the light, one small, vital move at a time.