The Rusted Steel Heart
"The demonic beasts are stirring unnaturally."
Raymon listened to the report with an exhausted, impassive face. Cassian turned another page of the documents, continuing his briefing in a grave voice. "They ran rampant out of nowhere last year as well, but this year..."
"I saw the reports," Raymon said curtly. "Even the species that usually slumber through the warm months and stir only in deep winter have abruptly awakened."
The northern territory of the Castrein Duchy was never anything less than an active war front. At best, there were periods when the fighting grew slightly less ferocious. Once the weather cooled, things usually offered a sliver of respite. Yet this year, the patterns were breaking in unprecedented ways.
Why now?
Yet there was hardly any need to parse the cause anew; the answers were always the same grim constants. The ancient barrier was fraying. Fools in the shadows were recklessly experimenting with demonic beasts, attempting to harness demonic energy. And imperial troops were pointlessly squandered because the Emperor made no secret of his desire to keep House Castrein in check.
If the crisis escalated any further, Raymon himself might have to abandon his post in the capital and march north. Not long ago, Duke Ortho had departed with a dark, brooding expression, saying there was a matter he had to look into personally.
"To be blunt, My Lord, it is impossible to believe this is summer," Cassian said.
Winter had always been merciless to humankind. Demonic beasts could charge across snowdrifts piled over a man's head as easily as on dry plains. Summer, by contrast, had always granted the northern wardens of Castrein at least a brief moment to catch their breath. Yet even that brief mercy seemed to be slipping away.
Dark shadows pooled beneath Raymon's golden eyes.
"What is the state of the knight order?"
"...Sir Leff deliberately kept the full truth from Lord Lisianthus, fearing he would fly into a rage and storm off alone," Cassian replied heavily. "Ten regular knights suffered grievous injuries, and two squires are in critical condition. Sensing the anomaly, Sir Leff ordered all squires in training to withdraw immediately."
"It is just as well that Lisianthus is not here," Raymon said. "He has never learned how to accept losing someone."
"...Indeed. He would have insisted that he alone could shoulder the burden if he pushed hard enough," the adjutant muttered with a weary sigh.
To an outside observer, the Castrein Ducal House must have appeared untouchable, unfazed, and peerlessly mighty. Yet behind that facade lay a desperate, ceaseless struggle. No matter how immense their wealth or martial prowess, gold could not grant their soldiers immortality. Even if they amassed fortunes mining and selling magic crystals to supply endless weapons and rations, human lives were a finite resource.
With every passing year, the beasts grew more vicious.
Save for the youngest, Lasper, and their adoptive sister, Bibi, nearly every bearer of Castrein blood was born extraordinarily powerful. They regularly accomplished feats that entire squadrons of seasoned knights could not fathom. Especially after Lisianthus mastered his blazing fire, he constantly insisted on throwing himself onto the front lines, arguing that he should take the field in place of Raymon, whose command duties kept him bound to the rear.
Like a wild, untamed colt, Lisianthus thumbed his nose at high society, doing whatever he pleased and forging deep, fierce attachments to the knights under his command. During one bitter winter, upon learning that the youngest knight was stranded by an avalanche, Lisianthus had charged straight into the blizzard without armor or escort, defying every order to stand down.
Back then, Lisianthus had not yet fully commanded the power of fire. He had nearly lost both hands and feet to severe frostbite.
When he returned, Raymon struck him across the face.
Because you are the second son of Castrein. Because you are the one destined to lead them. Look at the men and resources wasted just searching for you! If you were crippled today, do you have any idea how many more of your subordinates would die tomorrow because of your reckless choice?
Lisianthus had dropped to his knees, weeping bitterly.
The young knight he had risked his life to pull from the snow had been trapped in the freeze far too long. He passed away the following morning. Even on the day of the funeral, tears had poured silently down Lisianthus's cheeks.
"I can't be like you, Brother."
"Is that so?"
"I... I can't do it. I never will be able to..."
"Then don't. You don't have to."
"I'm sorry, Brother. I'm so sorry... But I... knowing he died because I was too late, or being told that I shouldn't have gone after him in the first place... I can't make that kind of calculation. I can't live like that..."
Watching his brother pour out his raw grief without shame, Raymon had felt a sudden, piercing pang of envy.
Everyone loved Lisianthus for his unabashed honesty. Even when they scolded him, clicked their tongues, and grew furious over the worry he caused, they loved him still. Unlike Raymon, from whom everyone kept a cautious distance, regarding him with solemn reverence rather than affection.
Then again, it was only natural.
The first hound Raymon had ever raised had its throat torn out in a clash with a beast. The skilled hunter who had personally taught Raymon how to fell monsters had bled to death in the biting cold after grappling with a beast shaped like a ferocious grizzly. Even the bright, capable squire whom Cassian had personally groomed to become Raymon's adjutant had met a similar end.
Because he was the future duke, Raymon had to make cold, calculated decisions and shoulder immense responsibilities in the Duke's stead. He could never indulge in personal fury or charge blindly through the battlefield. Yet because he was strong, and because the weight on his shoulders was so vast, the calls to fight were endless.
Raymon was indomitable, but the people who threw themselves forward to shield him were not. Over and over, men and women had died declaring their faith in him, vowing to protect him—like the hilt of the sharpest blade splintering before the steel ever dulled.
Sometimes, Raymon felt as though his heart was a trinket made of solid steel, cast adrift upon a frozen lake. That steel heart had been drenched in blood so many times that it was thick with rust, incapable of producing any sound or movement save for an agonizing, screeching groan.
And whenever that hollow ache set in, letters inevitably arrived from the Imperial Palace.
Raymon used to receive those scented slips of paper while rubbing freezing snow against his cheeks to scrub away the gore. Paper envelopes stuffed with dried herbs and rose petals to promote peaceful sleep. Rounded, girlish letters penned in pale green ink, practically trembling with breathless infatuation.
And once, brazenly declaring that since they were betrothed yet had never exchanged tokens, she had snipped off a lock of her own hair and sent it to him, demanding a lock of his in return.
A slender tuft of platinum-blond hair, neatly bound with a soft pink ribbon.
Staring down at it, Raymon had been seized by a bizarre, caustic emotion. Was it derision toward an imperial princess who laughed merrily behind secure palace walls while men bled out in the mud to keep her realm safe? Everyone knew how political marriages like theirs ended. A sword of Castrein, rolling through gore, iron, and permafrost, could never find a gentle ending with a tender sprout raised in greenhouse soil.
How could she claim so persistently that she liked him, that she loved him?
She knows nothing about me.
If she ever caught a glimpse of the carnage he walked through, she would shriek in terror and flee. She would brand him a monster and run for her life. She was merely dazzled by the tailored finery he wore during mandatory visits to the palace, captivated by an empty husk. She coveted him only because he was the celebrated young heir of House Castrein, whom all high society fawned over.
If she saw him drenched in black demonic gore, baring his teeth among a horde of horrors like a beast himself... what then?
Almost entranced, Raymon had picked up the lock of hair between his fingertips. The moment he touched it, dark crimson smeared across the pale strands. He had been scrubbing the blood from his skin with snow only moments before.
The moment the blood matted the silken, delicate hair, it looked utterly wretched. Like discarded rubbish.
Without a second thought, Raymon tossed the elegant parchment, the sweet floral fragrance, and the stained lock of hair directly into the hearth. For a fleeting instant, he felt like a fool for having even picked it up.
That was the reality of two souls who could neither comprehend nor love one another.
Raymon had to protect the people of his barren, frozen home. That was fine. It had to be done, and someone had to do it. Lisianthus had a soft heart deep down, and young Lasper was too gentle. There was no one else who could bear the mantle. He could not allow his father's lifelong sacrifice to come to naught.
He had believed that was all there would ever be.
"William is way too scrawny and useless for this!"
Raymon recalled how Lisianthus had looked just a short while ago, his slightly sheepish face breaking into a broad, eager grin.
"I'm going, Brother! Me! I'm telling you, she and I get along great now. Her health is fragile, so she needs someone bold and strong watching her back, not William. That's me!"
His cheeks had been flushed like ripe apples, his eyes shining bright. Lisianthus was always transparent, as honest as the fire he wielded. Even when he had returned from the Imperial Palace looking like a total wreck after storming off to put Titania in her place and rescue his brother from her tricks—his crimson hair singed by sparks, covered in soot and grime like a pup that had tumbled through a mud bog—he had casually thrown out those words with a sly, crescent-eyed grin.
"Man, she's actually pretty great. Fiery, cool, and totally unhinged!"
It was deeply unsettling. The fact that 'Titania' had changed was undeniably critical intelligence; Raymon had already reported as much to the Duke. The fact that even the skeptical Lisianthus had confirmed it meant Raymon's assessment was entirely correct. For House Castrein, locked in political tension with the imperial throne, this unpredictable shift was by no means bad news.
So why, then, had Raymon's chest seized up at the sight of his brother's unreserved, radiant grin?
As if that rusted, frozen steel heart had lurched on its hinges, groaning and vomiting dark, bitter rust.