The Wind Calms the Fire - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 12
“……A wildfire could have swept over the Military Camp. It was a precaution for swift evacuation. Everyone was in such chaos they wouldn’t have paid close attention. I won’t make an issue of it. Just be more careful about keeping it quiet.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Last night…… the Princess assisted with a Life-Saving Rescue.”
Sedrick, a capable adjutant, had already grasped the general situation through careful inquiry.
He had heard that both of them had led the Forest Village residents back to the Military Camp.
He didn’t know exactly what the Princess had done, but she must have been of some help.
Otherwise, there was no way his lord would have condoned her unauthorized actions.
“The Princess has been confirmed to be in good health. There are no external injuries, and a maid informed me just moments ago that she is still resting soundly.”
‘Still asleep?’
Carrion felt his anxiety ease somewhat.
“I need to meet with the Princess myself and hear the full account of last night’s events.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I will arrange it.”
“Not in the office. Choose somewhere else.”
“A lunch setting would be appropriate. I’ll have the guest hall prepared.”
Carrion nodded silently.
After leaving the office, Sedrick quickened his pace.
There wasn’t much time to prepare lunch in the guest hall.
He personally directed the palace attendants to clean the hall and hurried along the meal preparations.
He had arranged a time through the Princess’s maid and relayed it to his lord.
Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly.
Until a soldier came rushing in, nearly at the appointed lunch hour.
“Chief Adjutant. The Governor of Poema has arrived.”
“……Now?”
“Yes. He is waiting outside the Military Camp. He says he came to express gratitude and pay his respects for the Commander-in-Chief’s efforts in containing the wildfire.”
Sedrick immediately informed Carrion.
It was the first time he had seen his lord’s expression twist into such an ugly grimace.
* * *
“Had the wildfire spread to the farmlands, the damage to Poema would have been catastrophic. Surely it was all thanks to the Commander-in-Chief’s swift response.”
Watching Markel, Poema’s Governor, cut into a perfectly seared steak, Carrion felt a quiet irritation rising within him.
The meal prepared for her was disappearing into this man’s mouth instead.
“Your Highness entered the very heart of the flames yourself, I’m told. How fitting for a Commander-in-Chief of your caliber. We were equally impressed by your quick decision to alert Poema so promptly. You can’t imagine how our people held their breath through the night, watching and waiting. When we saw the flames beginning to subside, everyone cheered.”
Carrion had found Markel disagreeable from before.
‘He talks far too much.’
Given time, he was the sort who could perpetually shower flattery with varied expressions, never ceasing his praise.
Even as Carrion ate in silence without responding, Markel’s garrulous mouth showed no sign of stopping.
“Your Highness. Surely you deserve recognition for this achievement. I shall report it directly to the Imperial Palace.”
“There’s no need to create unnecessary trouble.”
“But…….”
“Assessing the damage and determining the fire’s cause are the priorities.”
“Of course. A perfectly reasonable statement. I have every confidence that you will conduct a thorough investigation.”
By the time the long meal ended, night had grown deep.
Carrion instructed Sedrick to provide Markel with a guest room in the residence.
There was no way around it.
Sedrick would see to arranging the room so the Princess wouldn’t encounter Markel, and would alert the Princess’s attendants accordingly.
The moment Markel was shown into the guest room, his expression went rigid.
‘Damn it all.’
He knew the cause of last night’s fire.
A careless mistake at a smuggling operation he had been conducting in secret had sparked the blaze.
According to the subordinates he’d sent to the scene, a small spark had grown into a roaring flame before they could contain it, and they’d fled.
‘Useless dogs. Running back with nothing but their worthless hides intact.’
If only the massive wildfire had consumed everything, leaving no trace.
With the wildfire extinguished so quickly, the evidence of smuggling would almost certainly remain intact.
The Commander-in-Chief would undoubtedly investigate the fire’s cause thoroughly—it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
The Fourth Prince’s temperament, one that could not be swayed by bribes, posed the greatest problem.
‘What am I to do, what am I to do…….’
He had come hoping to probe the situation subtly, but the Fourth Prince remained as impenetrable as ever—not a crack to slip into.
Carrion, displeased that Markel’s arrival had disrupted his planned schedule, had shown him a rather cold demeanor.
Thus Markel had already begun to suspect that the Fourth Prince had caught a whiff of something suspicious about the fire.
Quietly, the door opened and a subordinate stepped inside.
Markel spun around sharply, fixing his gaze on the man across from him.
“What did you learn?”
“Slipping into the investigation team to destroy evidence at the scene is out of the question, sir.”
He exhaled heavily.
Markel’s fingers curled into his hair as though he meant to tear it out.
If word of this smuggling operation reached the Emperor’s ears, not only he but the entire populace of Poema would be put to the sword.
His anguished expression suddenly brightened.
‘If evidence remains, I simply destroy it.’
He turned to his subordinate.
“Once things quiet down later, go to the smuggling site.”
When Markel had come here, he’d brought a guide with him.
A capable one—someone who could find his way through a dark forest without losing the path.
“A wildfire that’s been suppressed often flares up again. We’ll burn everything away without leaving a trace.”
The subordinate swallowed hard and nodded.
* * *
Lea’s eyes snapped open.
Staring up at the dark ceiling, she breathed hard.
She wiped away the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.
She had dreamed of the day Penny died—a memory from her previous life.
Lea had been lost for days after losing Penny.
Penny’s death had shattered her, and Penny’s death had also raised her back up.
Because she owed her very life to Penny, she had to cling to existence with stubborn determination.
‘Enoch.’
Whenever she recalled the tragedy of her previous life, hatred for Enoch followed naturally in its wake.
The Enoch of that past life was no different from the Enoch of this one.
He had already extended his claws into the kingdom; this time he had merely failed.
If he ever became Emperor, the kingdom would surely fall into peril.
Preventing Enoch from becoming Emperor was her primary objective in this life—but she also desperately wanted to know why he had destroyed the kingdom in the first place.
If he had merely wanted to work behind the Former Queen and seize the kingdom for himself, why had he killed her and brought about its ruin?
‘Did he harbor some grudge against Zephyros?’
Moreover, even after the kingdom’s fall, the Empire’s hunters had pursued her with relentless persistence.
As though she herself were the target.
‘Why was that?’
Sleep had fled entirely, so Lea sat up.
She climbed out of bed, pulled open the lowest drawer of the dresser, and reached her arm deep inside.
Before departing, she had hidden a single item here from her luggage, just in case.
What she withdrew was a long bundle of rolled leather.
She unrolled it and lifted what lay inside into her palm.
Moonlight filtering through the window illuminated the Crystal Dagger with an otherworldly gleam.
It was the weapon Neria had attempted to use that night to destroy Zephyros’s eyes.
No one in the Royal Palace knew the origin of this unremarkable thing.
She hadn’t asked Neria—the girl had only received it from someone, and she wouldn’t know what it was anyway.
While the palace had been consumed with urgent purges—the Former Queen and her traitorous conspirators eliminated—this dagger had been left in obscurity.
When she’d finally had the leisure to examine it closely, a question had suddenly struck her.
Would Neria have been able to destroy Zephyros’s eyes in her previous life without this dagger?
Did this dagger harbor some force antithetical to the Spirit?
Unable to determine this any other way, Lea had considered experimenting on herself.
She’d been about to make a small cut on her finger when the Spirit had warned so forcefully that she’d stopped at once.
And in that moment, she knew for certain: this dagger had been prepared for a single purpose—to destroy Zephyros’s eyes.
She didn’t know how to dispose of it, and having left it behind in the kingdom felt wrong, so she’d brought it when she departed for the Empire.
‘Perhaps this is the clue that will help me understand the true reason the kingdom fell in my previous life.’
A breeze brushed across her face and made her start.
She quickly wrapped the dagger back in leather, returned it to the space beneath the drawer, and closed it.
As she turned her head toward the direction the breeze had come from, she noticed the door.
‘Who’s come?’
Penny had brought a water pitcher and tidied the bedding earlier, then retired to her own room, saying she’d sleep early.
Tomorrow they would need to move from dawn onward.
Late that afternoon, Sedrick, the commanding general’s senior aide, had informed them of the itinerary to the Capital.
⌜We depart for the Capital tomorrow at dawn. There is nothing special you need to prepare. Simply gather the luggage you brought.⌟
Curious to see who it was, Lea opened the door.
The figure pacing before the door came to an abrupt halt.
Though the surroundings were dim, recognition came swiftly.
“Your Highness?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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