Two Years Later
Abigail sat at the head of the long, ornate table, her spine stiff and her expression impassive.
The meeting hall was filled to the brim with the branch family members faces old and new, all wearing the same carefully measured expressions of respect masking the greedy gleam underneath.
A low murmur drifted through the chamber, but even that seemed afraid to rise too loud in her presence.
There was a commonly known fact among them: the power struggle between the main house and the side houses was at its absolute peak.
And with Abigail weaker than she had ever appeared, the branch families were bolder than ever.
The main house had lost loyal members over the years.
Its influence in the political battleground had shrunk to name only.
And the woman sitting at the head of the table the head of House Kira had stepped away from nearly every position of authority.
For the past two years, the already thin grip Abigail held over the political landscape had eroded further.
Every ounce of her focus had been devoted to one thing: training Nero.
She had withdrawn from committees, relinquished chairs, and appointed representatives in almost every role.
To the world, it looked like weakness.
To the branch families, it looked like opportunity.
But it was all an illusion.
No matter how much the side houses whispered, plotted, or preened, not a single one of them held real power.
If Abigail wished to crush them, she could do so with nothing more than a thought.
Not even the Wizard King would be able to stop her if she truly set her mind to it.
But doing so would be simply… inconvenient.
And so, she let them chatter among themselves..
She let them posture.
She let them believe they were inching upward in influence.
Their emboldened behavior was nothing but background noise...flies buzzing at the edge of her patience.
Annoying.
Insignificant.
Tolerated only because she chose to tolerate it.
The meeting of today was much different from the usual ones, though.
This was no petty power-squabble, no thinly veiled attempt by a branch family to slip their agenda under her nose.
Today's meeting would decide the direction of the entire Clover Kingdom.
The tension between the Diamond Kingdom and Clover had been rising steadily for months...border clashes, sabotage attempts.
Weekly skirmishes had become routine.
Rumors whispered that the next spark would ignite the entire border into war.
And yesterday…
Yesterday had delivered the spark.
A prominent member of a branch family...someone with political weight, wealth, and enough influence to matter..had been either killed or captured in one of those border clashes.
Details were still unclear.
The body had yet to be recovered.
Whatever the truth was, it didn't matter.
For the first time in two years, the branch families needed Abigail.
Or rather...they needed the power and legitimacy of the main house.
Now it fell upon the Kira clan to decide whether to push for retaliation…
…or to maintain the fragile peace.
That was the official objective of the meeting.
Abigail sat perfectly still, chin raised, eyes steady...like a doll carved from frozen marble.
A man from one of the mid-ranking branches rose first.
His robes were immaculate, his voice polished, but his fingers shook when he placed his hands on the table.
"L-Lady Abigail," he began, forcing a respectful bow. "With your permission, I shall begin the briefing on the situation. The incident with Lord Renard has pushed our borders into a precarious state. The Diamond Kingdom has grown brazen.... If we do not respond firmly, we risk looking weak."
Another representative spoke up, this one from a more ambitious branch.
"Our clan demands retaliation. A full strike. We cannot allow the Diamond Kingdom to treat us as prey."
Murmurs of opinions spread.
"Retaliation."
"We must answer."
"This is an insult."
"We cannot risk war."
"The kingdom is still recovering from the last war...."
"And the Wizard King has shown inclination toward restraint."
None of them dared raise their voices too loudly.
Not with Abigail seated at the head.
Through it all, Abigail remained silent watching them tear at each other like hungry dogs fighting over a scrap of meat.
She had given them two years to grow bold.
Perhaps too bold.
Finally, an elder cleared his throat.
"Lady Abigail."
He bowed deeply, voice trembling with the weight of the moment.
"We… humbly request your decision. Will House Kira enable retaliation? Or shall we push the Wizard King toward restraint?"
Dozens of eyes turned to her.
Expectant.
Fearful.
Hungry.
Abigail finally moved.
Her fingertips tapped once—softly—against the polished wood of the table.
The sound was faint.
Yet everyone froze.
Her voice, when it came, was calm.
Measured.
Unimpressed.
"We will not," she began, "be the ones who plunge this kingdom back into war… after enjoying such a relatively short period of peace."
A ripple of shock moved through the hall.
Several faces stiffened.
Others exhaled in visible relief.
But most simply stared, hungry to know more.
A chair scraped sharply against the floor.
A man rose—tall, sharp-featured, his family crest sewn in silver across his sleeve.
Lord Cassian Valtre, head of House Valtre.
Ambitious.
Ruthless.
Too eager for the main house to falter.
"Lady Abigail," Cassian began, the barest hint of accusation lacing his tone. "With all due respect—"
But he never finished.
Abigail's gaze cut toward him.
Just her eyes.
Nothing more.
Cassian's throat snapped shut.
The rest of his words strangled into silence.
Abigail continued as though he didn't exist.
"But that," she said, her voice dipping into something colder, "does not mean there will be no… payback."
The branch families stiffened.
A tension thicker than mana filled the room.
Her fingers brushed the edge of her armrest not quite a gesture, but enough that anyone with mana sensitivity felt a small tremor in the air.
"For two years," she said softly, "I have watched the Diamond Kingdom test our borders like children poking a sleeping dragon."
She leaned forward slightly, her shadow stretching along the table.
"Yesterday, they went too far."
No one dared breathe.
Abigail's eyes sharpened.
"But war benefits no one. Least of all the kingdom I am sworn to protect."
Cassian swallowed hard, gathering what little courage hadn't been crushed under her gaze.
"L-Lady Abigail," he said, voice low, careful.
"If… if retaliation by us is inevitable, then… how do you intend to do so without igniting a war?"
Dozens of eyes flicked to Abigail, searching her face for even the smallest hint of intent.
Instead, they found a smile.
A slow, elegant curve of her lips one that looked like it had been carved from ice.
Abigail rose from her seat with a fluid grace that made the closest branch members stiffen.
Her presence seemed to be different from anything they felt in the past two years, swallowing the room in a cold, suffocating pressure.
"How?" she repeated softly.
Her gaze slid to Cassian, pinning him in place.
"Simple....I'll go myself."
The chamber erupted in hushed panic gasps, muffled whispers, alarmed glances passed among the branch families.
Cassian turned pale.
"Y-You… personally?" he stammered.
"I will visit the Diamond Kingdom," she said.
"And make them… politely…understand the severity of the grave mistake they have made."
"Not through armies, declarations, bloodshed."
She smiled again, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"Just a conversation."
Every branch head felt the lie beneath those words.
Or rather the truth.
With Abigail, a "conversation" could mean anything from diplomacy to annihilation.
Cassian finally sat down, understanding he had opened a door he should have left shut.
The room fell completely silent.
Abigail spoke:
"They seem to have forgotten about it but I'll ensure they understand," she murmured, "that attacking a member of House Kira… is an error they must not repeat. "
------
It was a perfectly bright day in the Diamond Kingdom's capital.
Sunlight reflected off towers. Banners fluttered lazily in the breeze. Merchants haggled. Children ran. Soldiers lounged at their posts.
The Shining Generals had just stepped out of their council chamber, discussing new border strategies with casual arrogance secure in the belief of Clover kingdom pushing for peace.
They weren't wrong to believe that because that's what their intelligence had told them.
Suddenly the sunlight dimmed… as if the world blinked.
At first, no one noticed.
Then the shadows lengthened.
Someone pointed up.
"What… what is that…?"
Darkness crawled across the skyline like ink spilled underwater, thick clouds spiraling into existence.
They rolled and churned unnaturally, rotating around a single fixed point right above the heart of the capital.
It was a storm being born.
Conversations fell silent mid-sentence.
The wind stopped mid-gust.
Birds froze mid-flight wings locking as instincts of screamed.
The Shining General Dorian Vale stood in the garden below, his instincts honed by combat.
This was something else entirely.
The first raindrop fell.
A soft tic on his cheek.
Cold. Electric. Alive.
He touched it.
His fingertips trembled.
"…Mana," he whispered, horrified. "This is liquid mana."
The impossible conclusion cam to his mind :
It was raining condensed magic.
The temperature plunged.
Another drop fell. Then another until it was raining heavily.
Each bead shimmered blue-white, glowing faintly as it slid across skin or stone.
Every mage collapsed to one knee as a presence colossal and crushing descended over the capital.
The pressure was so absolute it felt physical, like an invisible mountain pressing downward.
Dorian choked on his breath.
His vision wavered.
His heartbeat stuttered.
Because above, in the swirling storm clouds, a shape began to form.
A woman standing effortlessly in the center of the vortex, as if the sky itself bowed to support her.
The clouds coiled around her like obedient serpents.
Lightning streaked behind her in branches of silver.
Her cloak fluttered in the storm's breath, each slow movement cutting through the darkness like a blade of light.
Her eyes pierced the entire capital from miles above.
She raised one hand slightly just slightly and the entire storm responded, spiraling tighter, lowering, darkening.
The pressure doubled.
The capital's defensive barrier practically melted.
The generals felt their knees buckling even as they fought to stand, their pride crushed under a weight they didn't understand.
A bolt of lightning exploded across the sky, illuminating Abigail's form with blinding clarity.
Floating above them with absolute control.
The Shining Generals five paragons of Diamond's millitary might stood united on the palace balcony, their grimoires opened in panic.
Beside them, the Chief Mage Scholar, an ancient wisp of a man named Elowen Voss, clutched his grimoire, his eyes wide with the dawning horror of a scholar who had just glimpsed the abyss's author.
They numbered six threats in total.
To Abigail, they were less than specs of dust.
Time seemed to stutter as she materialized before them.
One moment, the balcony overlooked a city frozen in awe; the next, she was there, boots against the marble as if she'd strolled in from a garden stroll.
Her cloak settled around her like the wings of some predator her crimson eyes amplifying the look.
The Generals reacted as warriors should: with coordinated savagery.
General Thorne, the brute with fists like siege engines, lunged first, his earth-shaping grimoire erupting stone spikes from the floor.
General Lirael followed, wind blades slicing the air toward Abigail's throat.
The others Kael with his flame torrents, Mira with liquid metal tendrils, and Dorian with his barrier unleashed their arsenal in a overlapping storm, a barrage that could not doibt level fortresses.
It took five seconds.
No more. No less.
One: Abigail's left hand blurred forward, fingers splayed like the claws of a raptor.
Thorne's spikes shattered against an invisible wall of compressed air, and her palm met his neck mid-charge.
Just the edge of her hand, honed by mana into being sharper than any blade.
Bone and sinew parted like wet parchment.
His head tumbled free, eyes still bulging in mid-roar, body crumpling in a spray of arterial mist.
Two: Lirael's winds howled, but Abigail was already moving, her right hand arcing low.
The wind mage's blades veered harmlessly aside, deflected by her sheer aura.
A casual chop effortlessly severed Lirael's head clean.
Three: Kael's flames roared up, but Abigail stepped through them untouched, the fire parting like water before a ship's prow.
Her left hand rose again, a guillotine in human form.
Kael's neck crunched under the impact, head shearing off with a wet thwack, embers dying on his lips as his body ignited from the inside in a mocking echo of his own magic.
Four: Mira's liquid metal lashed out seeking to bind her.
Abigail's eyes flared for a moment, and the metal was frozen in placce. She twisted, right hand descending in a vertical slice that bisected Mira's throat.
The head lolled backward, mouth agape in shock.
Five: Dorian, the last General, threw everything into his barriers layered shields of pure mana.
Abigail paused, just for a fraction, her gaze meeting his.
Was it Pity? Amusement? It was gone before he could parse it.
Her left hand chopped, and the barriers weret severed with overwhelming intensity of her mana.
Dorian's head followed, lopped free in a fountain of blood, his body slumping against the balustrade as the storm's rain washed his legacy away.
In those five heartbeats, the five shining general s of the diamond kingdom were ruthlessly wiped out .
Five heads, slick with rain and gore, lay scattered at Abigail's feet like discarded chess pieces.
The balcony reeked of ozone and copper, the air thick with the echo of spells dying unborn.
But the sixth Elowen Voss, the Chief Mage Scholar still drew breath, his hands trembling. "Y-you... abomination," he wheezed, his voice a rasp of outrage.
Abigail turned to him last, her expression unchanging, as if he'd been an afterthought. She extended a single finger, the tip glowing with raw, unadulterated mana.
She touched his chest, lightly, as one might press a thumb to a ripe fruit.
Voss gasped, eyes flying wide. The injection was instantaneous a flood of raw mana poured into his body, bypassing flesh and bone to ignite even his soul.
It started as a warmth in his veins, then a blaze in his lungs, then an inferno that consumed from within.
His skin flushed crimson, then blackened at the edges, steam hissing from his body as his blood boiled and his organs burned to ash.
He clawed at his throat, grimoire pages curling and igniting in spontaneous flame, but no scream escaped only a gurgling wheeze as his heart burst like overripe stone fruit.
Elowen Voss crumpled, a desiccated husk, his body folding inward as if the world had revoked his right to occupy space.
Abigail regarded the carnage for a moment, then knelt with the grace of a queen selecting jewels.
One by one, she gathered the five heads Thorne's brutish scowl, Lirael's defiant glare, Kael's smoldering fury, Mira's shadowed surprise, Dorian's wide-eyed shock cradling them in the folds of her cloak like macabre offerings.
Rain pattered against lifeless eyes, diluting the blood to rivulets that traced crimson paths across the marble.
The palace doors burst open behind her, guards and courtiers spilling out in a tide of armored panic, but they froze at the sight.
Whispers died. Weapons clattered to the ground. In the grand throne room beyond, the King of Diamondd kingdom pale, enthroned in opulence rose halfway from his seat, his crown askew, face drained of color.
Abigail strode forward, unhurried, the storm at her back a silent chorus.
Everyone recoiled in fear pressing against walls; the King sank back into his throne, hands gripping the arms as if they were the only anchors to reality.
She stopped at the foot of the dais, five heads dangling from her left hand by locks of sodden hair.
With a flick of her wrist she threw them forward.
They arced through the air in a grisly bouquet, tumbling to roll and settle at the King's feet in a semicircle of accusation: faces frozen in their final moments, staring up at him with empty judgment.
Abigail tilted her head, her lips curving into that same slow, elegant smile the one carved from ice.
"I'm here," she said softly, her voice carrying like velvet over steel, "to have a conversation."
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Power Stones and Reviews please