"Ah!"

A pained gasp filled the room as an elegant, middle-aged lady jumped up from her luxurious seat.

In front of her, a small stool—a humble type of pedestal—housed a small, green orb.

The orb shone with a gentle hue of inner, green light…

Light that had just flickered.

Then, it settled down.

Staring, blank-eyed at the artifact, the woman fell down on her seat, her knees no longer willing to support her body.

"Gods," Lady Mae sighed, her anxiety painted all over her weary face.

The aura of exhaustion surrounding her shoulders countered the effects of the elegant, dignified robes she wore, turning what was once a proud woman into but a shadow of herself.

She didn't even flinch when the doors to the chamber burst open.

"Wake up," the duke of the estate stepped in with a dead-tired look on his own once-dignified face. "We are having guests."

Mae merely glanced over before pinning her eyes right back to the orb.

"It flickered, just now," Mae's empty voice escaped from her heavy lips as she struggled to bring her hand up and point at the orb.

Uriel closed his eyes and breathed out.

Yet, even as he opened his eyes, his face revealed no answer to Mae's desperation.

All the way up north, in their family's estate, they could do nothing to help their son anymore.

And still…

"He will make it," Uriel moved closer to his wife's seat and gently embraced her from behind. "That's what we have to believe in," his face was grim, his eyes slowly cooking in the searing flames of his youthful wrath.

Even in the face of his perfect powerlessness to change his son's fate, he refused to just… lay down and take it.

"We might have fallen off since the days of our grandparents, but I'm not going to just sit down and take it either."

Uriel spoke, tightening his embrace over his wife's weary shoulders.

"But for now, we have one more duty to fulfill, no matter how tough it may be."

Evilbane's estate had long since fallen from grace, holding on merely thanks to the renown of their once-mighty clan.

Ever since the sentencing of their older son, however, this usually bright and relatively happy estate had turned into a grim reminder of what once was.

For their oldest son… was rightfully condemned for the act of fratricide.

An act that the duke's political rivals held nothing back to exploit.

"What is it?" Mae tiredly asked, raising her empty, exhausted eyes up to her husband's face.

"Lady Callane has arrived. And we owe her an explanation."

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Mae closed her eyes and heaved a sigh so long, it deflated her even further.

Right now, not even an iota of the once-charming, dignified lady remained, overtaken by anxiety and sorrow.

"That we do."

Mae closed her eyes and took a deep breath before freeing herself from the duke's arms and standing up.

"That we do," Mae stated again, only to turn to face the doors… or more precisely, one of the servants standing watch. "Bring her in."

Even though the Evilbane clan was but a shadow of its former self, the estate still operated in perfect accordance with noble etiquette. And in a matter of but three minutes, the delegation had arrived.

It wasn't just Lady Callane, though.

"I see he has yet to succumb," holding nothing back, the long-nosed, short official in extensively decorated robes spoke with a sneer.

Uriel's hand hovered over the handle of his sword, his eyes darkening.

"Shut!"

A spherical wave of shock exploded from the lightly armed, young lady's body, smashing the arrogant official into the nearby wall.

"You dare to…!" The fiery-haired countess conquered the distance in a single leap, grasping the official's throat as she slammed him against the wall for the second time.

"Lady Callane!"

Mae's strict, stern voice somehow stopped the girl.

Still, she refused to let go.

"What happened?!"

Snapping her eyes back to the ducal couple, the fires in Callane's eyes suddenly stalled before freezing and slowly dying down.

Ultimately, she relaxed her hand, letting the choked official drop down to the ground, only to desperately claw at his own throat as he fought to regain his breath.

"Disgusting," Callane spat at the man's feet before turning her eyes back to Theodore's parents. "What. Happened."

For all the glory that the house of Evilbane had lost, the family of Perell counts had grown.

Callane knew it.

And it just so happened, she was quite…

Protective of Theodore like no other, she was one of the few to know the full truth.

And because of this, she also happened to be extremely protective of her fiancé's… murderer.

Lord Theodore, the heir of the estate, had openly admitted to the killing of his younger brother, after all.

A crime that led him straight to exile.

"It's my fault."

Uriel stepped out, his head lowered, his gaze heavy with burden.

"If only I'd stopped them a bit earlier…!"

Tears appeared in the duke's eyes, only for the middle-aged man to wipe them clean with his sleeve.

"They were both our sons," Lady Mae spoke in a tired, monotone… yet strangely calm voice. "And it was our choice to turn our eyes away from Julius' doings. A choice that forced Theodore to make a much heavier choice in our place."

Mae closed her eyes and heaved out a long, heavy sigh.

"And now," she then raised her face to the young countess Callane, the armor-clad blonde beauty befitting the name of her generation's madonna, "he pays for the results of our failures as parents."

Uriel simply closed his eyes and turned his head down, overwhelmed with emotions.

Mae, however, kept her eyes interlocked with the girl.

"I know full well what he meant to you," she stated, refusing to buckle under the constant storm of her emotions, struggling not to look away to check on the orb.

Right now, this was the only proof that their first and now only son was still alive.

A genius of his generation, forever burdened by the haughtiness and crimes of his peer and counterpart, the generation's chosen one—Julius.

Callane didn't seem surprised. Her eyes, however, grew even further still and cold.

"Exile." She spoke, expressing no emotion, depriving the ducal pair of the privilege of her reaction to their confession.

Their murdered son was her supposed fiancé, while she just happened to be Theodore's greatest ally.

Pretty much the only person close to him that saw through Julius' ruse before its effects brought chaos and ruin to nearly all the villages around the estate.

And it was only thanks to Theodore's willing sacrifice that their family didn't cease to exist back then and there, either by the hand of their youngest or the king's execution order that would follow soon after.

While Mae took the green token as her last source of hope, the last real reason to believe her son was still alive, when Uriel's eyes burned with fires of grief-fueled revenge…

Callane's eyes first froze.

Only for the avalanche of fierceness to spiral out from the bottom of her pupils and overtake the girl's eyes as she turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving without another word.

"She wouldn't…" Connecting the dots, Mae twitched and then reached out her hand after the girl, as if to stop her in her tracks.

"There's no way," Uriel's expression darkened. "No matter how heated, she is not that stupid."

There wasn't a single doubt in the man's eyes as he looked at the girl's back.

"No matter how weak the monsters near the gate might be, especially for someone like Theodore…"

Uriel shook his head.

"The moment he spills blood once, it's only a matter of time before all hell will break loose. And four months…?"

The duke shook his head, his eyes emptying out of all life.

"No one can survive exile for that long."