Grael's jaw clenched as he struggled to contain his emotions.
Two figures rushed past him into the wreckage — a woman of mature, elegant beauty—stern features, dressed in a maid's black-and-white, and beside her an elderly man whose grey hair and neatly trimmed beard marked years of service, his butler's coat immaculate even here, even now. The maid took me from Grael's arms without a word, as though she already knew, down to the second, what needed to be done. Her wand was in her hand before I'd finished being passed to her.
"Ἀναγέννησις"
(Regeneration.)
A circle of emerald light bloomed to life, green light flickering like a traffic signal glimpsed through rain. In that single breath the searing pain left by the dark mage's spell vanished, as though it had never existed.
The maid's expression didn't change.
Instead...
She lowered her wand.
"...I'm sorry."
Grael slowly lifted his head, gaze darkened.
"...I see."
His voice was quiet in the way a held breath is quiet then his eyes shifted toward Marianne.
"Now Marianne."
The maid returned me to Grael's arms and turned to the second casualty.
"Ἀναγέννησις"
(Regeneration.)
The wound across Marianne's back sealed itself, leaving only torn, blood-stiffened cloth to prove it had ever existed.
Marianne gasped back into the world.
Her smile, when it came, was thin and trembling. "Thank you, Zora." Her eyes found me, cradled in Grael's arms. "Is my baby all right?"
Grael remained silent.
"Zora — please." Marianne's voice cracked open with desperate hope. "Heal Ruby."
RESURRECTION PROBABILITY: 0.0003%.
REQUIREMENT: AUTHORITY BEYOND CURRENT PARAMETERS.>
I looked at Ruby — at the dark, purplish veins spreading beneath her skin like cracks through ice — and already knew.
Without a word, the maid knelt beside Ruby's still form, her expression steely with professional determination.
"Ἀναγέννησις"
(Regeneration.)
Nothing.
"Again," Marianne's lips parted.
Zora obeyed.
"Ἀναγέννησις"
(Regeneration.)
Nothing happened again.
"Again." Her voice was breaking now, syllable by syllable.
Green light bloomed from Zora's wand... then slowly faded away.
Each incantation carried the same quiet desperation, a rhythm beating itself against the blood-soaked stillness of the carriage. But the words kept dying in the air between Zora's lips and Ruby's body, and the silence that followed each attempt grew heavier than the one before, as if the universe itself had simply stopped listening.
"Again," Marianne begged through tears.
Zora lowered her wand. She didn't move. She only shook her head — a single mournful motion that said everything.
"Please...Zora. One more time. One more—"
"Marianne. Stop."
Grael's voice was barely above a whisper.
"...She's gone."
The scream that tore out of Marianne then didn't sound human. She gathered Ruby's unresponsive body against her chest and held on, embracing her into a hug, sobbing into hair that would never again smell of anything but blood. Eventually her hands found Ruby's eyes and closed them — a small, final mercy — and her lips moved in a prayer too soft for anyone but the dead to hear—a final farewell.
She tried to stand. Her legs didn't answer. She fell back against the carriage floor, and something in her face changed — the particular pallor of a body delivering bad news to its owner.
"Grael." Barely a whisper. "I can't feel my legs."
LOWER-BODY MOTOR FUNCTION: INACTIVE.
PROGNOSIS: PERMANENT WITHOUT DIVINE-TIER MAGIC RESTORATION.>
Shut up. I already know, Pandora. Her voice in my head felt less like information and more like an accusation — a reminder of everything I'd gotten wrong.
...Sorry.
<.....>
The moment those words left Marianne, Grael passed me back to Zora without so much as a glance and swept Marianne into his arms — bridal-style, like her weight was nothing at all, like she weighed less than the guilt visibly settling onto his shoulders.
"I'm sorry I couldn't make it in time," he murmured, and the words came out rough, like they'd cost him something to say.
Marianne's face was bone-white beneath the tear-tracks. Her fingers found his cheek, trembling. "It's okay," she whispered. "As long as our son is safe."
The words hung there, heavier than she meant them to be. Something shifted behind Grael's expression — a shadow passing over a landscape, gone as quickly as it came, but unmistakably there.
He leaned close to the butler's ear, voice low, meant only for the butler. "I want every wound documented. The traitors' families will feel exactly what mine felt. Bring me the mage's cloak. I want to know whose crest that is. Because as of now, that house is at war with House Wolfhard."
Marianne didn't hear a word of it.
We climbed out of what remained of the carriage into the grim business of aftermath. Reginald the butler — steady, unwavering, a man built for exactly this kind of duty — arranged our dead with a tenderness the carnage around him didn't deserve. Ruby among them. Their bodies, what was left of the carriage, and the truth of what surviving had cost.
The traitors received no such care. Their armor — stripped of the House Wolfhard insignia — was peeled from their capes, and their corpses were dragged into the shadowed depths of the woods like refuse, left for whatever lived in the dark to decide what came next.
Reginald gathered the fallen's weapons — Ruby's dagger among the coachmen's worn, honest swords — and buried each blade to the hilt in the earth, one by one, until only the handles remained above ground like a row of grave markers.
"Reginald," Marianne said, her voice unsteady. "May I have Ruby's dagger?"
He placed it in her palm without a word, without hesitation — the kind of obedience that comes from respect, not duty. Before he could turn away, she caught his sleeve and pressed a coin pouch into his hand.
"For their journey," she whispered.
Then the ruined carriage became a pyre.
Our dead were laid with their hands folded over their chests, Marianne's gold coins resting on their closed eyes. When the torch touched wood, the flames climbed fast and hungry, sending their spirits skyward in smoke and ember. Back on Earth, we'd have called this a cremation — I'd probably opt for it myself, no hassle, no burden on Grandma's pockets. But back in that world, nothing came free. Everything had its price, even the most basic of rituals — after your last breath, Death itself carried a bill.
No songs. No eulogies. Just the five of us, watching the fire earn its keep, until nothing remained but the cold steel of their weapons, half-buried in the earth.
We boarded a second carriage — as grand as the one now reduced to ash — and left the traitors' bodies behind to feed the woods. Even our slain horses were granted better ends than that: their remains burned alongside the servants who'd died protecting us, a dignity the traitors would never be given.
Before long the carriage halted before a sight that made any earthly palace seem trivial.
Winter Garden — The Wolfhard Main Residence
Winter Garden wasn't a residence. It was a town wearing a residence's name. Stone towers caught the sun in a dozen directions before we'd even reached the gates, countless wings stretched across hundreds of acres like a kingdom that had simply forgotten to call itself one.
Within its walls lay more than three thousand rooms: servants' quarters, barracks for knights and cadets, offices, libraries, armories, banquet halls, kitchens, bathhouses, a treasury sealed behind vault doors, studies, guest suites, wine cellars, food storage, a private burial ground, training halls, stables, kennels, mews, livestock barns, and other animal enclosures, a dungeon, courtyards, gardens, greenhouses — everything required to govern one of the Empire's five great houses.
Crystal-clear lakes mirrored magnificent architecture too vast to appear natural, as schools of vibrant, colorful fish swam peacefully through the pristine waters. Ancient forests embraced the estate beyond its walls. Enchanted gardens bloomed in every season, untouched by time. Marble statues of long-dead Wolfhard Patriarchs stood in silent rows, lifeless eyes watching generations rise and fall.
Banners bearing the family crest snapped overhead in the wind. At its heart stood a broad Baroque shield framed by symmetrical scrollwork, curling vines, and elegant leaf flourishes.
Twin black wolves flanked the shield like heraldic wings — one facing west, the other north — their muzzles lifted in a shared, silent howl, fur dissolving into the ornamental scrollwork as though carved from the same breath of gold.
At the shield's center reared a dragon rampant, hind legs braced, foreclaws poised to strike, jaws split in a soundless roar that bared fang and forked tongue alike. Bat-like wings swept out behind it; its tail coiled beneath, barbed tip trailing; its talons hooked the shield's lower edge as if the beast meant to tear free of the arms that bound it.
Behind the shield, a longsword stood planted on end, forming the crest's central axis — hilt and crossguard rising above the shield, blade vanishing below it. And crowning it all stood a knight in full plate, motionless in eternal vigil, his closed helm giving nothing away, both gauntlets resting on the pommel of that same sword — as though he had stood guard there since the house's founding, and meant to stand there still when it fell.
It took the better part of an hour by carriage just to reach the front entrance. I had never seen anything built on this scale, and I doubted I ever would again.
Marianne's warm hand found mine, her smile fragile and worn with exhaustion. "Arthur," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "We're home."
"Mobilize every covert asset," Grael told Reginald, before he'd even stepped down from the carriage. "Seal the borders of our territory. No one enters. No one leaves."
"Understood," Reginald said, without hesitation.
"The Patriarch has arrived!" someone shouted, and the entire courtyard froze mid-motion.
Servants lined the grand entrance and bowed as one, their greeting rolling across the stones like a single voice: "We greet the Patriarch."
Inside, three women waited in the entrance hall — the Patriarch's wives, each one poised, elegant, and radiating a tension none of them could quite bury. Among them stood the architect of the carriage incident. They bowed. It looked like respect. It felt like a lie.
Then Grael stepped through the doorway, Marianne silent in his arms, and the temperature of the room seemed to drop.
His pace was slow. Measured. Each step landing like something being rung on a funeral bell.
His face had gone to stone, eyes fixed dead ahead, his frown carved so deep it looked capable of cutting steel. Behind him Zora followed in silence as a held breath, carrying me in her arms. While something clung to Grael that had no name, pressing the light out of the hall around him like the cloak of death itself.
The air thickened, pressing against lungs and throat. Breathing became a decision rather than a reflex.
It wasn't simply killing intent. It was the plain, physical fact of a man whose rage had stopped being a feeling and become a force — something that could, without exaggeration, kill on its own.
Crack.
Every window on the ground floor fractured at once.
Crash... Crash... Crash...
Glass exploded inward, showering the hall with glittering shards as the pressure rolled outward through the mansion like a tide going the wrong way.
Outside, servants dropped to one knee, hands at their chests, gasping for air that refused to come. Some fainted where they stood. Others simply trembled, certain — with the kind of certainty that doesn't need convincing — that death had just walked through the front doors.
But it was the three wives who suffered worst.
The instant Grael's gaze swept across them, their knees buckled under his gaze — each of them seeing, with perfect clarity, her own head leaving her shoulders in a single, clean motion, like a neck-severing slash.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
They hit the floor together, cold sweat soaking through silk, hands clawing at throats that hadn't actually been touched, hearts slamming against ribs like something trying to escape. Every instinct screamed at them to run.
None of them dared to.
They already knew. The message was clear. One of them had crossed a line that should never, under any circumstance, have been crossed.
Grael said nothing. He simply kept walking, Marianne cradled against him, each step pressing the weight in the room down harder than the last. And in that moment, everyone present understood exactly why the Empire had built legends around the Wolfhard name.
He wasn't merely the Empire's current strongest swordsman.
He was its Sword.
And tonight, even monsters would have been afraid to stand in his path.
He walked past the collapsed wives as if they were furniture, climbing the stairs toward Marianne's chambers with the same detached, terrible grace. Zora followed, still carrying me.
"I'll sleep with my son," Marianne said softly. "Please, bring his cradle to my room."
Zora nodded, passing me into another's arms before turning to go. Grael's voice stopped her at the door, heavy with command.
"Zora. Once you're finished, you don't leave her side again. Not once. From this moment, you belong to Marianne. You live — or die — by her word."
Marianne's eyes flashed. "Grael, don't say things like that. He's joking, Zora, don't mind him." She shot him a look that was half plea, half warning.
"Am I?" His voice was low, almost genuinely curious, as if he hadn't quite decided the answer himself.
Marianne's composure held, but only barely. "Goodnight, Grael." Her tone was final.
He left without another word, spine rigid with the kind of pride that only comes from loving someone more than it's comfortable to admit.
That night would go down in history as the Wolfhard Carriage Incident. It hadn't quite claimed Marianne and Arthur's lives — but Grael, true to his threat, executed 0.005% of the Empire's population, thousands of lives, family trees pruned for the crime of sharing blood with ten knights foolish enough to raise a hand against his concubine and his son. The dark mage remained a mystery. His name, his past, the crest on the back of his cloak — scrubbed from the world as thoroughly as if he'd never been born into it.
"Zora." Marianne's exhaustion bled into every syllable. "Forgive me, but could you fetch Raina? I know you need rest — I hate to ask—"
"Of course, my lady."
Zora returned minutes later with a girl no older than ten, a black blindfold wrapped tight across her eyes. She moved with a precision that had nothing to do with sight, an apprentice's uniform marking her place in the household. She bowed, head tilted down, both hands gathering the sides of her dress.
"I, Raina, offer my respects to Lady Marianne," she said softly.
"Zora," Marianne said. "Please, hold Arthur."
She pushed herself out of bed, and her legs gave way, betraying her instantly, but when Zora and Raina both moved to catch her, she raised a trembling hand.
"Stay back."
Teeth gritted, she dragged herself across the floor to Raina's feet, every inch of the distance written across her face in pain, until she reached the child and broke — great, shuddering sobs, Ruby's bloodied dagger clutched in her hands, tears falling like rain onto the girl's small bare feet.
"Ruby didn't make it home." Her voice cracked wide open. "Your sister died protecting us. I'm so sorry, Raina. I'm so sorry I took her from you."
The girl accepted her sister's dagger with steady hands, holding it to her chest. "Please, rise, my lady. You needn't kneel for someone like me." Together, she and Zora guided Marianne back to bed, Raina's expression never once slipping from the calm, stoic mask House Wolfhard demanded of its servants.
Without tears, without hesitation, Raina gathered her hair in one fist and cut it away with her sister's blade. The dark strands fell like something being buried.
She paused, then spoke, voice steady with resolve. "May I ask two favors?"
Marianne nodded with understanding, eyes wet.
"I can't see — this curse took that from me long ago — and I know I'm unworthy. But might I serve the young master, the way my sister served you, when the Ceremony of Chosen Servants comes?"
Fresh tears traced Marianne's cheeks. "Nothing would honor me more."
Raina turned toward Zora. "And you, Head Maid. Would you help me grow strong — the way my sister was — so that I might protect him myself, one day?"
Zora's nod was grim, wordless.
"Prepare yourself," she finally said. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll wish you'd never asked."
Raina bowed once more and left the room. Only in the hallway, where no one could see her, did her composure finally break — sobs echoed, quiet, controlled, but utterly shattered all the same. The sound of it deepened something in Marianne's grief.
"She's stronger than most," Zora said softly, gaze distant. "She held herself together until the end, only breaking when no one could see. Most adults couldn't manage such restraint."
Raina — Ruby's younger sister, and the only family either of them had left.
Orphaned at a young age, Ruby survived by taking on whatever odd jobs she could find, sacrificing everything to raise her blind little sister. To Raina, Ruby was more than an older sister — she was her guardian, parent, and entire world.
Everything changed when Ruby earned a position at Winter Garden, where servants who possessed mana or aura were highly valued. The Wolfhard family paid their servants in gold and permitted them to bring their immediate families to live on the estate. Gifted with talent in aura, Ruby accepted the opportunity without hesitation, taking Raina with her in hopes of giving them both a better life.
Seeing how tirelessly her sister worked to provide for them, Raina secretly sought employment the moment her own mana awakened. She never told Ruby. By the time her sister found out, it was already too late.
The contract had been signed.
From that day forward, the Wolfhard estate became the only home the two sisters had ever truly known, bound to serve House Wolfhard for the rest of their lives.
I wrote this scene once to break hearts — to drag readers by the collar into grief and make them feel every inch of it. Now, watching it unfold in front of me, all I feel is the particular numbness of a boy who once wielded suffering as a plot device. Ruby was never supposed to matter. She was background. A body count.
If I could go back and rewrite it — give these people the mercy I never thought to give them — I would. Ruby would grow old and die quietly, decades from now, of nothing more dramatic than age. Raina would keep her eyes, keep her wonder, keep her sister, keep whatever was left of her childhood instead of losing it in one night. Marianne would walk on her own legs, into a future where the woman beside her was a friend first and a servant second.
But that page has already turned. All that's left is the weight of it — and the fact that I have to keep watching everything I once wrote in ink come alive in blood.