The Wind Calms the Fire - Chapter 2

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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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Chapter 2
Deep in the night, Lea quietly opened her bedroom door.
A middle-aged man with ash-gray hair, who had been waiting outside, bowed his head respectfully. He was Kasim, captain of the Royal Guard.
Lea and Kasim slipped quietly down the corridor.
Thanks to Kasim’s intimate knowledge of the guards’ patrol routes, they reached the Sacred Sanctuary deep within the Royal Palace without drawing a single eye.
“We’ll keep watch from here.”
Lea took position in a shadowed alcove where she could see the entrance to the sanctuary.
Not long after, someone approached the guard posted at the sanctuary.
Kasim’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t the hour for a changing of the watch, and the newcomer was dressed nothing like a soldier due for rotation.
‘Hmm?’
Watching the guard and two of his companions abandon their posts, Kasim’s forehead creased deeper still.
“Not yet,” Lea whispered.
She held out a restraining hand.
Kasim nearly bolted forward to shout them down, but he held himself back.
It wasn’t long before someone else arrived.
A slender figure, unmistakably a woman.
She glanced around at the entrance to the sanctuary, then drew a key from her robes and opened the door.
Kasim’s jaw tightened once more.
The key to the sanctuary was kept in the royal vault—it could not be removed without the king’s permission.
The moment the woman slipped inside, Lea spoke.
“Now.”
The two of them rushed forward.
As Lea burst through the door, she cried out:
“Stop, Neria!”
The woman spun around in shock.
Her veil tumbled away, revealing familiar hair and features.
Neria staggered back, her face draining of color.
Neria’s lips pressed into a tight line. Gripping the Crystal Dagger, she rushed toward the altar at the center of the sanctuary.
Hovering above the altar was a sphere the size of a human head, emanating a soft, ethereal glow.
Neria raised the dagger in both hands.
Just as she was about to plunge it downward with all her strength, Lea reached out her hand.
‘Stop her!’
A spirit summoned a Strong Gust that struck Neria directly.
“Aaah!”
Caught by the violent wind, Neria’s body was hurled into the air, then tumbled down below the altar.
Lea kicked the Crystal Dagger far across the floor, then seized Neria by the collar and hauled her upright.
“How dare you.”
Fierce hatred blazed in Lea’s eyes.
Yet her heart was singing with exultation.
How long she had waited for this moment.
“How could you!”
With a fierce gleam in her gaze, Lea brought her full strength down and struck Neria’s face again and again without mercy.
“Ugh! Aaargh! S-stop!”
Crack! Smack! Crack!
Blood streamed from Neria’s nose, staining her collar crimson, and her face swelled grotesquely.
Lea recognized her own cruelty even as she struck—the pleasure she took in another’s pain—yet she could not stay her hand.
Only when Neria lost consciousness did Lea finally stop.
“Hah… hah…”
She had been holding her breath through the beating; now ragged gasps came pouring out.
Kasim stood motionless, half his wits scattered to the wind.
‘The… the princess?’
He had known Lea since she was a child.
The gentle, kindhearted princess he remembered—like a heroine from a fairy tale—seemed like a stranger in this moment.
“Captain Kasim.”
“Y-yes, Your Highness!”
Kasim snapped to attention without thinking.
“This is treason. The criminal attempted to destroy the kingdom’s Sacred Relic and—”
Lea searched Neria’s unconscious body and drew out a Signal Flare, her smile turning cold and sharp.
Once Neria destroyed the Sacred Relic, she would have climbed to the tower and fired the flare, signaling the waiting enemy forces to scale the walls and invade the palace.
Or rather—this had already happened once before.
Never again would that tragedy repeat itself.
“I tried to lure the enemy into the Royal Palace. You are my witness.”
Kasim straightened his posture, his expression hardening as he nodded, then drew a Flute from his robes and played it.
A deep, resonant note hung in the air around them.
Soon people would wake throughout the Royal Palace and kindle lights in every corner.
Lea looked down at her own reddened, swollen palms and clenched her fists tight.
Neria’s voice echoed in her ears.
⌜This is your one chance. I’ve wagered everything.⌟
‘I did it, Your Majesty!’
Her clenched fists trembled. Elation and relief, fear, a whirlwind of emotions tangled together.
⌜The moment you prevent the destruction of the Sacred Relic, a new time will begin. A new crisis will come.⌟
‘Yes, Your Majesty. I know that too. Today is not the end—only the beginning.’
To protect her brother, her nursemaid, Peni, and all those she cherished whom she had saved today, she could not rest here.
The one who orchestrated the fall of the Zephyros Kingdom.
The architect of all her hope’s destruction.
The enemy of Nortia’s king Nella.
Enoch—future Emperor and present First Prince.
Stopping his ascension had become Lea’s greatest goal in this second life.
* * *
King Aren of Zephyros ordered a thorough investigation, and the truth came to light.
Behind Neria stood the former queen, Jaran.
The members of Jaran’s faction who had conspired with her were revealed one by one.
Aren fell into profound shock. Without his knowledge, the kingdom had been rotting from within.
“Your Majesty. The princess requests an audience.”
“Show her in at once.”
Aren lifted his head from behind the desk where he sat.
His eyes were bloodshot—he had barely slept in days.
“I cannot fathom it, Lea. Why would the former queen do such a thing?”
Aren had treated his stepmother with the utmost respect.
He had given her a residence in the eastern wing of the Royal Palace and provided her with a generous maintenance allowance.
He had cherished her two children from her previous marriage as his own siblings.
“I know the reason.”
“What?”
“Rami is not father’s biological child.”
Aren’s mouth fell open in shock.
The youngest, Rami, had been born after the late king’s death—a posthumous child. He had just turned five this year.
“The Sacred Relic will not respond to Rami.”
Royal blood must receive the Blessing of the Sacred Relic before their seventh birthday.
All this time, Jaran had postponed the Blessing ceremony under the guise of mourning the late king.
Once the former queen’s illegitimacy was exposed, she would be cast out from the royal genealogy, and no one would accept her bearing such shame.
So Jaran sought outside aid to kill Aren and place her young son on the throne.
Once power was seized, there would always be a way to wriggle free from any trap.
Aren exhaled a long breath, buried his face in his hands, then looked up again.
“Did your Prophetic Dream reveal that as well?”
“……Yes.”
Lea concealed the truth that she was living a second life. Instead, she said she had received an oracle to dream Prophetic Dreams.
She did not want him to know of that agonizing life in which he had died and she had survived.
“I don’t doubt your word, but confirmation is necessary.”
He turned to his advisor and spoke.
“Take Rami to the Sacred Sanctuary this afternoon. Make the preparations.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
* * *
Lea descended into the Dungeon.
“Neria.”
Neria, who had been crouched upon a wooden bed in the corner of the cell, jolted up and rushed toward her.
Neria grasped the bars and burst into tears.
“Sister. Sister, please get me out of here. I was only doing what Mother ordered. I wouldn’t have destroyed the Sacred Relic. I would have failed, and nothing would have happened to the kingdom.”
‘No—you succeeded. The Zephyros Kingdom, which had endured for a thousand years, crumbled because of what you did.’
“Did you truly believe that by betraying the kingdom, you could become the First Prince’s consort?”
Neria’s eyes wavered.
“What are you saying, sister?”
“The First Prince of The Empire has no time to hide in this distant Desert Kingdom just to seduce one girl. The man you met was merely an errand-runner. And when things went wrong, he fled without a second thought.”
“…… He was truly a man of grace and gentleness. Wise and honest. He couldn’t have deceived me.”
Lea laughed coldly, and Neria’s face twisted.
“You’ll pay the price for your foolishness. The last sunlight you see will be the day you leave this place.”
Lea turned away coldly.
Hearing Neria’s shriek of despair, Lea slowly turned back.
“You’ve always looked at me that way. With that false smile, pretending kindness while despising me in your heart.”
Neria gripped the bars, seized by rage.
Watching Neria weep with resentment and desperation, Lea found herself laughing bitterly.
Inferiority. Nothing but that.
“Yes. So that’s how it was.”
Only she had thought of them as sisters.
Lea turned away once more.
Even as the desperate pleas echoed behind her like screams, she did not look back.
* * *
Neria and Jaran were executed. The five-year-old prince was revealed to be no child of the late king.
The guilty died. The innocent lived.
Aren announced to the kingdom that Princess Lea was the hero who had saved them from ruin.
In his private reception chamber, over tea, Aren spoke to Lea.
“It is all thanks to you.”
“You trusted my words and made your decision swiftly. You did all the work, brother.”
“It was your doing. Don’t diminish your own merit. That’s a royal command.”
“Yes…….”
Aren gazed at her warmly, then his expression grew somber.
“We’ve pruned the rotten branches, but the root remains. I wonder if we have the strength to stand against The Empire.”
Lea set down her cup and spoke.
“Brother. There’s something crucial we must be clear about. The orchestrator was not The Empire.”
“Not The Empire?”
“It was the First Prince, Enoch.”
“Lea. What’s the difference?”
“It matters. To be precise, the First Prince acted entirely on his own. He meant to use us as sacrifices to strengthen his own position through accumulated merit. The Emperor was not involved.”
Since the day Aren had said he received an oracle, his sister had seemed changed in some indefinable way.
She still smiled often, but not with the naive, luminous joy of an innocent princess as before.
Her eyes had the hardness of whetstone worn down by suffering and trial.
It no longer felt like looking at a younger sister to be protected, but at a person who had endured the weight of living.
“Brother. You must face reality clearly. We are not prey worth The Emperor’s effort to pursue.”
Aren sighed and nodded quietly.

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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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