——Charlotte, if something were to happen to me, meet the Gambinos. They’re on your side.
Those were his last words on the train that day, just before tragedy struck.
After days of agonizing over her brother’s death, Charlotte had finally mustered the strength to return to the University.
But lectures were the least of her concerns.
She wasn’t here to study, but to meet someone.
Tak. Tak—!
With her heart forcefully steeled, Charlotte walked through the university halls, the sound of her heels clicking rhythmically against the marbled floor.
“….”
It was then that she crossed paths with Silas Ainsley.
“Charlotte—” he reached out, but she stopped abruptly, turning on her heel to face him.
Her sunken eyes narrowed into a sharp glare.
“Are you happy?” she asked coldly. “Was this the conclusion you wanted?”
“….”
“Answer me.”
Silas’s mouth parted slightly, but no words came out.
In truth, buried beneath logic and excuses, a sense of guilt and shame gnawed at him to the point he had lost all courage to visit his sister.
After all, it had been his idea to arrange a meeting between their families, despite being well aware of his parent’s volatile nature.
But he had never imagined it would end like this.
This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go.
“As always,” Charlotte continued, voice trembling with anger. “You’re still spineless. Plotting, scheming, and for what? How ignorant. Did you not know what my brother did for your sister—”
“I know,” Silas interrupted quietly.
She froze mid-step.
“….What?”
“I know,” he repeated, his gaze dropping to the floor. “That’s why… it hurts more than you think.”
A heavy silence followed until Charlotte cut through the tension.
“Know this, Silas,” Charlotte said coldly, stepping past him. “I will not let this die down. Even if it costs me my blood, my flesh, my sweat, and my tears—I will see to it that you no longer have a name to be proud of.”
After that declaration, Charlotte turned on her heel and walked away.
“….”
Moments later, she stood before a lecture hall, taking a deep breath to steady herself before stepping inside.
The moment she entered, every eye turned toward her. Even the professor at the podium paused, glancing up with mild confusion.
“Yes? Are you enrolled in this class?” the professor asked.
“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “But would it be presumptuous of me to ask for Miss Anastasia Gambino’s time?”
“This is a lecture in progress, Miss,” the professor said, adjusting her glasses. “I’ll let this slide once, but I suggest you wait until the session has concluded—”
“My name is Charlotte Astrea.”
“The late Professor Astrea’s sister…” the professor murmured, her expression softening.
A brief silence followed as Charlotte’s presence settled heavily across the hall.
The professor hesitated, then offered a small nod in understanding.
“Very well.” She turned back to the class.
At that moment, a woman rose from her seat. Her jet-black hair flowed smoothly over her shoulders, and her crimson eyes glinted under the lecture hall lights as she turned toward the front.
“Please continue the lecture without me, Professor Rosanna,” she said calmly.
Professor Rosanna gave a brief nod in acknowledgment as Anastasia walked toward Charlotte, stopping just in front of her.
“You came to see me?” Anastasia said. “Then let’s talk somewhere private.”
Charlotte nodded without a word.
* * *
Margaret felt her heart pounding in her chest. In recent days, there had been a persistent ache, both physical and emotional, that she couldn’t quite explain.
Since the deaths of Johanna and Clevius, her entire Crusade Order hadn’t been the same.
“Here’s the financial audit, Grand Knight,” one of the knights, Oscar, said as he slid a document onto her desk.
“….”
Margaret stared at it for a long moment. Their finances were in poor shape after the Blood Moon, and there weren’t enough assignments to cover the debt that had steadily accumulated.
Even if she poured in her personal savings, it still wouldn’t be enough to sustain the Order. At this point, the most logical course of action would be to dismantle her Crusade Order and join another.
But Margaret couldn’t bring herself to do it.
There had been rumors circulating of corruption within several Crusade Orders. If those allegations were ever proven true, she knew she’d be swept up in the fallout, regardless of her innocence.
And even if she did disband her Order, she had no idea which Order she could trust enough to join.
More than anything, she didn’t want to dismantle it in the first place.
Because to her, this Order was the only family she had left. The last remaining piece of her father’s legacy. A formally documented establishment, gifted to her before his passing.
“Ah….”
She clutched her chest, feeling the pain gnaw deeply. It had been like this ever since the Blood Moon, which had kept her awake for several nights.
But never had it been this unbearable. So intense that even the smallest movement felt like an impossible task.
And for some reason, it had only begun after Vanitas’s death.
“….”
Vanitas….
A complicated feeling welled up inside her at the mere thought of his passing.
She had believed, perhaps foolishly, that he would know what she should do.
“….”
….But that hope was futile from the start.
* * *
The narrative had naturally drawn a connection between the explosion that occurred on the train weeks ago and the tragedy that had devastated the Zyphran Dominion, claiming over 200,000 lives.
Officially, at least.
Unofficially, however, was another story entirely.
But how long until the truth surfaced?
How long until the Empire discovered that it had all stemmed from a mere vendetta between two families?
….A vendetta that had led to the death of their second princess, Astrid Barielle Aetherion?
“….”
The car came to a gentle stop in front of the towering Imperial Palace, then quietly rolled away into the distance.
To plead a case without solid evidence was futile. To accuse a Marquess and a Duke’s family without official proof was tantamount to tyranny, and even the Imperial Family would be restrained in confronting families of that caliber so easily.
But Irene had no intention of relying on her title, nor on her bloodline, to bring judgment upon House Esmeralda and House Ainsley.
Because she intended to personally ensure that the blood was on her hands.
“Still no response, Zia?” Irene asked.
Zia, hands on the steering wheel, responded calmly, “Not yet, Lady Irene. But several of your men have already made contact with Gambino men.”
Irene gave a faint nod, then turned to the window.
“Good,” she said. “Make sure they know I’m prepared to negotiate… But if they refuse to meet with me… then even I won’t hesitate to make an enemy out of them.”
Zia glanced at her briefly in the rearview mirror but said nothing.
She didn’t need to. She’d seen that look in Irene’s eyes before.
The same conviction that had once burned down an entire criminal enterprise, composed of several kingpins without so much as lifting a finger.
* * *
“Nnh…”
Astrid stirred awake, unconsciously hugging her pillow, still dressed in her pajamas. Pajamas she had just recently bought after her entire luggage burned in the fire.
——♬♫♪♩
A distant sound echoed from outside her room, pulling her further from slumber.
“….”
Blinking groggily, she sat up and stared blankly at the unfamiliar room around her as her eyes slowly adjusted. It took nearly five minutes for the reality to fully settle in.
This wasn’t her room.
A wave of disorientation washed over her as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
Wiping the drool from her cheek, she finally stood and made her way to the bathroom.
“What the hell….” she muttered.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her wavy golden-blonde hair was unkempt, and a streak of dried drool was on the other side of her cheek.
“….”
She looked like a complete mess.
With a sigh, she turned on the faucet and began splashing cold water on her face, scrubbing away the grogginess.
Moments later, after carefully combing her hair, tying it into a neat ponytail, and adjusting her appearance, it was almost hard to believe she had looked like such a mess just moments ago.
——♬♫♪♩
A soft, melodic tune drifted through the air again, catching her attention.
“….”
She paused, then stepped out of the bathroom and quietly made her way out of the room.
The melody was clearer with each step. It wasn’t coming from a device, but was being played live.
Her brows furrowed in curiosity as she followed the sound down the corridor.
Eventually, she reached the source of the sound. A lounge room bathed in morning light, where the soft tune of a piano resounded.
——♬♫♪♩
There, seated at the piano, as his hands glided gracefully across the keys, was a man playing each note with elegant poise.
“….”
Astrid stood at the threshold, eyes fixed on the familiar figure.
“Ah, you’re up,” he said casually, glancing over his shoulder before returning to the keys.
It was none other than Professor Vanitas Astrea. For a moment, Astrid simply stared.
“….”
Then, quietly, she walked toward him and took a seat beside him on the bench.
Vanitas paused, lifting his fingers from the keys as she reached out and placed her hand gently on the piano.
“That was… Für Elise, right?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” Vanitas replied with a nod.
Astrid gave a small nod of her own, then shifted slightly and began playing a different melody.
——♬♫♪♩
As expected of a princess, piano lessons had been part of her upbringing since childhood. Vanitas watched her quietly for a moment, then leaned back slightly.
Ever since the incident a week ago, the two had been in seclusion somewhere in the Theocracy.
Vanitas, having already anticipated such a scenario, had secured a private mansion in advance with Astrid’s tastes in mind.
After all, he had asked her for a favor, and the least he could do was cater to her preferences. If he had gone cheap and simply rented some small tavern room, he knew full well she’d blow a fuse.
But truthfully, even Vanitas Astrea’s own personality would never allow something so lowly to begin with.
“How was that?” Astrid asked as she finished the melody, her fingers lifting gracefully from the keys.
“Not bad,” he said. “But your tempo dipped a little in the third measure.”
“….”
Astrid puffed her cheeks slightly, but said nothing.
Vanitas leaned forward again, his fingers brushing gently against the keys.
“If you press A, D-sharp, and G together,” he said, playing the chord softly, “you create a natural dissonance.”
He let the sound linger for a moment before resolving it with a gentle C major chord.
During the past week, Vanitas had devoted himself to personally teaching Astrid. Since she was forcibly removed from university lectures following the incident, he had taken it upon himself to fill that gap.
And truth be told, Astrid didn’t mind at all.
In fact, it was far better this way.
Having him as a personal tutor gave her freedom and a chance to ask questions, challenge concepts, and learn at a pace that the confines of a lecture hall would never allow.
And more importantly, she knew he couldn’t refuse her, not after the favor she had done for him.
“Like I said before,” Vanitas continued, fingers gliding softly across the keys, “Music theory and magic theory aren’t so different. Both rely on harmony and contrast.”
In simple terms, spells were like melodies.
“In a way,” he said, nodding slightly, “a spell is all about balance. Push too hard, and it collapses. Hesitate, and it fails. Just like playing a song out of rhythm.”
Astrid glanced down at the piano keys in deep thought.
“…And what about improvisation?” she asked suddenly.
Vanitas glanced at her, mildly intrigued. “What about it?”
“If spells follow structure like music,” she said. “Then what happens when you deviate and go off the sheet?”
A faint smile touched Vanitas’s lips, a glint of approval in his eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he replied, tilting his head slightly. “That’s where creativity begins. When inspiration sparks, deviation becomes innovation. And when that inspiration is refined, an original spell is born.”
He paused for a moment, letting the words settle.
“But most people don’t get that far. They spend their lives mastering the notes, but never learn to compose.”
——♬♫♪♩
“But that’s not inherently a bad thing,” Vanitas added. “Take the Archmage Soliette, for example. The only time she ever created an original spell was for her final year thesis, and even then, it wasn’t anything grand.”
His fingers glided over a gentle chord progression.
“Yet she became Archmage not through innovation, but through mastery. She perfected every difficult spell out there without compromise.”
Astrid listened intently, absorbing every word. But as he continued speaking, she noticed a faint burn mark peeking just above the collar of his shirt.
“….”
Her brows furrowed in concern. Without a word, she reached out and gently touched his shoulder.
“You should’ve told me, Professor,” she said softly.
“….”
Vanitas glanced down at her hand, mildly surprised.
Before he could respond, Astrid had already begun murmuring a chant under her breath. A soft glow emanated from her fingertips as healing magic flowed from her palm over the injury.
The burn mark gradually began to fade, and the scorched skin returned to its natural hue.
The wound was a remnant of the severe burns Vanitas had suffered while saving Astrid during the train explosion. In return, Astrid had worked frantically to heal him back then.
“You’ve gotten better at healing magic,” he noted.
“Well,” Astrid said with a smile, “I have a very demanding patient these days.”
Vanitas chuckled softly, and a brief silence settled between them.
“Did you know, Professor?” Astrid began. “My dreams aren’t as grand as most people think. I simply want to become a doctor.”
“Is that so?” Vanitas replied, raising a brow.
Of course, he already knew, but he chose to feign ignorance, remembering the several routes that were out there for Astrid.
As their morning lesson drew to a close, Vanitas gestured casually toward the door.
“Go have breakfast and get ready early today. We’re going out.”
Astrid tilted her head. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a theater performance today,” he replied. “You mentioned wanting to see a play performed in the Theocracy.”
“Ah.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips as she stood and made her way to the door.
“Thank you for the lessons today, Pro—” she paused, clearing her throat abruptly and looking away, a slight flush coloring her cheeks. “V-Vanitas.”
Vanitas raised a brow, the corner of his mouth curling in amusement as Astrid hurried out of the room.
“….”
But the moment she disappeared from sight, the amusement on his face faded into a faint frown.
There had been better ways to handle the situation.
But with how abruptly everything had unfolded, his options were limited. There were only so many strategies he could put into motion here in the Theocracy. A place where he held no solid network, no allies, no established foothold.
And that was precisely why, though reluctant, he had no choice but to use Astrid to his advantage.
He had done his research and formulated numerous plans in his mind. But truthfully, dealing with both the Ainsley Marquess Family and the Esmeralda Duke Family at the same time was nearly impossible.
Even the Gambino Family would hesitate to move openly against a Duke Family.
There was the thought of leveraging Franz, but he was a volatile variable Vanitas couldn’t afford to depend on.
Thus, the most optimal move was to rely on an unpredictable element like Irene. With the combined force of Irene and the Gambinos, it was only a matter of time before the Ainsleys and the Esmeraldas would crumble.
And truth be told, while he was often stubbornly overprotective, Vanitas made a conscious effort to discipline himself.
To see what his little sister was truly capable of.
* * *
Karina glanced down at the card in her hand, then looked up at the building in front of her. When the self-proclaimed publisher, Alex, had left her in the hospital that day, he had also left his business card on his seat.
“….”
Taking a breath, she stepped through the entrance and found herself inside a publishing office. The interior was modest but professional—lined with shelves of manuscripts and walls adorned with posters of various book titles.
Approaching the front desk, Karina placed the card on the counter and asked, “Is this person available?”
The receptionist glanced at the card, then nodded politely. “Yes. Just a moment, please.”
Karina gave a small nod and waited quietly. Moments later, the man she was looking for appeared.
“Ah, it’s been a while, Miss Maeril,” Alex greeted with a reluctant smile. “What brings you here today?”
Karina remained silent for a moment, her gaze fixed on him. She remembered how harshly she had dismissed him back at the hospital. Coming here now felt a bit shameless.
But she steadied herself. Regardless of how it looked, there was no shame in seeking the truth about her father.
“….”
Though deep down, she knew—reluctant as she was to admit it—this wasn’t just about her father anymore.
It was about the professor.
“I’d like to see the articles my father published.”