In the very depths of the ruined palace lay what had once been the royal residence of the king of Nati Woods.
The tall columns that held up the ceiling had been half-destroyed by fire, leaving great gaps where starlight poured through. The cold light of the stars fell on row after row of identical bedchambers.
The knights and attendants, who could only fight shoulder to shoulder with the comrades right beside them, could no longer see anyone else nearby. And those who had sunk completely into the illusion couldn’t even see their own teammates anymore.
The brown-haired knight lowered her head and looked at the lady chamberlain who was writhing in agony.
The woman rolled across the floor as if she were dodging blows from an invisible whip. But that evasion was utterly hopeless, as if there was nowhere she could hide, nowhere safe to go. From her throat came wounded, animal-like whimpers, pitiful beyond belief.
The white robe that always remained immaculate and dignified was now smeared with dust. The face that always put on a frail act while secretly wearing a sly little smirk was now filled with nothing but pure pain and terror.
It shouldn’t have been like this.
Leif had never imagined the lady chamberlain could ever look this haggard and broken.
Like an oyster pried open, its hard shell torn away, leaving only the tender flesh inside—where even the lightest breeze or the smallest grain of sand would cause searing pain.
“…Gan-gan, what are you looking at?”
That familiar yet distant voice kept calling to her.
Leif froze.
She had thought she would have forgotten it long ago.
Counting the time over both of her lives, it had to be close to thirty years now. Yet somehow, the man’s voice was still so clear. So clear it felt like if she just turned around, she’d crash into that embrace smelling of sweat and kitchen oil. She could almost feel the prickly stubble on his chin, the hairy forearms, and the little scar on his jaw where the family cat had scratched him…
She had truly believed she’d already forgotten it. In front of Bai Xinxin, in front of everyone, and even in front of herself, she’d insisted she had forgotten.
The brown-haired knight lifted her hands and covered her ears.
“…Gan-gan, hurry and get in the car.”
Even with her ears covered, the voice still rang clearly by her ear, as if it wasn’t coming from outside at all, but speaking directly from inside her heart.
Seeing the lady chamberlain suffering like that, Leif had wondered before: if the Fire Cloud Lark’s dream was so hard to escape, to the point people would rather die than wake from it—how could it be a nightmare? If it was a nightmare, why would anyone willingly stay?
Now she understood. Our greatest desires often hide the greatest despair. And only in the deepest despair can the strongest desires be born.
Things you tell yourself you don’t care about. Things you tell yourself you’ve already forgotten. Dreams that are meaningless, dreams you can never reach no matter how you struggle toward them. Realities you can’t change no matter how much you reject them.
You’re supposed to forget them. You’re supposed to stop caring.
Knowing you should let go, and still being unable to—that is where humans are fragile.
She could not allow herself to be lured in by this illusion.
Leif looked at the tortured lady chamberlain, then at the two corpses on the ground, still locked in each other’s arms. If she let herself be tempted, she would die here together with the lady chamberlain.
“…Gan-gan, if you don’t get in the car, the policeman uncle is going to give Daddy a ticket. Then Daddy won’t have money to buy you biscuits.”
Leif was about to take a step forward when the lady chamberlain’s figure began to fade. In its place, a crowded school gate appeared before her eyes.
It was dismissal time. Parents and grade-school children with backpacks packed the gate so tightly not even water could leak through.
She looked down and saw the red scarf and school badge on her chest.
The scene in front of her was so real. So real it felt like everything she had just gone through—the ruined palace, the bird’s shadow, the agonized lady chamberlain—had only been a dream, and this was reality.
“Dad!”
She only hesitated for a moment. Then the little girl bounced up, pulled an award certificate from her backpack, and yanked open the backseat car door.
On the passenger seat, a fair-skinned woman turned and smiled gently as she handed a brown teddy bear into Leif’s hands.
The man looked at the two certificates and said,
“The thirty-sixth annual sports meet. First place in the Grade One girls’ triathlon. Shot put, broke the school record… Gan-gan is just as amazing as Daddy was when he was little.”
Then he asked,
“So where does our little Gan-gan want to go today?”
“It’s Gan-gan’s birthday. We promised to go to the amusement park,” the woman in the passenger seat said, imitating the girl’s tone. “Did Daddy forget?”
Bai Gangan hugged the teddy bear.
“I want big sis!”
She turned her face toward the backseat window and saw her younger self reflected there—tiny face, tiny limbs and features.
This was her seventh birthday.
So many years had passed, and yet she still remembered this day with perfect clarity. That in itself was strange.
“But your sister’s already in high school. She lives on campus now,” Mom said. “She’s not coming back.”
Leif watched the little girl in the glass start to pout, round eyes suddenly filling with tears.
She hadn’t seen her sister for a long time. She missed her so terribly.
“Mommy’s just teasing you,” the man said at once, having noticed his daughter’s disappointment. “It’s your birthday. Of course your sister already asked for leave. And she even prepared a little present for you.”
Leif tried her hardest to control her body—but neither her movements nor the words coming out of her mouth listened to her at all.
She clenched her teeth so tightly she could have crushed them. Her eyes bulged so hard they felt like they’d bleed. But all she could do was watch the details of that day play out again, exactly as they had.
Maybe because she was struggling too hard, she suddenly felt herself slowly peel away from the little girl’s body, floating alone in midair, watching everything unfold below like interlocking gears.
Bai Xinxin’s school was in the outskirts. After the car took a few turns, the number of vehicles and pedestrians on the road dwindled.
As Leif kept trying to tell herself that everything before her eyes was only her memory, a seductive voice suddenly sounded by her ear:
“You should know what happens next. Since Heaven has given you a second chance, perhaps you could do something to make what follows… better?”
The voice was neither quite male nor female, as if someone were deliberately pinching their throat to speak.
“You liar,” Leif said in her heart.
She looked toward the road ahead. She’d traveled this route more times than she could count. She knew that all misfortune began three intersections ahead.
Through the car window, Bai Gangan saw a cotton candy stall by the roadside.
“Daddy, Daddy, pink cotton candy! Gan-gan wants some.”
“Too much sugar is bad for you,” the woman said. “You already have a cavity. If you keep eating sweets, your tooth will start hurting again.”
“But it’s her birthday,” the man said, and quickly pulled over.
He hopped out, ran to buy a big pink cotton candy, then handed it to his daughter like a treasure.
“Listen to Mom. You can only eat half.”
Bai Gangan nodded obediently and began licking the cotton candy in her hands.
But Leif clearly remembered: when she was five, even though she hid lots of candy, she would never have dared eat it in front of her parents.
Soon after the man got back in the car, they heard a loud crash in the distance. They followed their original route and, after passing three intersections, saw that a truck had plowed into a roadside house.
The truck’s front end had been crushed inward. The driver’s survival seemed unlikely. Fortunately, there had been no other vehicles on the road when the accident happened, and the nearest pedestrians had been far away. A small crowd had now gathered by the truck, using their phones to call the hospital and the police.
The man clicked his tongue a few times and glanced at his wife.
“Poor guy…”
He pressed his younger daughter’s head down as she tried to peek out the window, speaking with a trace of lingering fear.
“If we hadn’t stopped to buy cotton candy just now, we might’ve…”
“What are you talking about? It’s not that much of a coincidence,” the woman said, patting his hand.
Then they turned the car around and took another road to Bai Xinxin’s school.
Bai Xinxin, in a light blue top and white school uniform skirt, was already waiting at the school gate.
Leif looked at that familiar face—so much younger than in her memories. At this moment it was so vivid and bright, not yet tainted by the slightest shadow.
She watched as her five-year-old self ran into her sister’s arms. Her sister lifted her up, and she planted a sticky, pink-sugar kiss on Bai Xinxin’s cheek.
Seeing their two adorable daughters, the couple exchanged a smile, hand in hand.
Just moments ago in the car, they had half-joked about how they’d wanted to have five kids when they were engaged. But after having two little troublemakers, they’d found them more than enough to handle.
Bai Gangan had protested that she was already a big girl at seven and not a little troublemaker at all. If she had younger siblings, she would be a very good big sister.
Leif watched the family of four walk happily into the amusement park. Then that strange voice sounded by her ear again.
“Why won’t you believe me?”
“Because they,” Leif clenched her fists, “have already been dead for a long time.”
“In that case, as you wish,” the Fire Cloud Lark said, malice in its voice. “I am the incarnation of desire. You’ve given up your one chance to save them. It seems you actually want your parents to die. How could I possibly go against your will?”
The orange-yellow sunlight shone on the family of four heading toward the amusement park. The little girl tugged on her sister’s hand, dragging her toward the carousel, while the couple walked slowly behind, fingers intertwined…
With a cracking sound, the scene before her eyes shattered like a painting on glass struck with a hammer, breaking apart piece by piece.
Time rewound.
Leif was once more looking at her reflection in the car window—her small face, little limbs and features, fingers pinching at the leather seat. That childish face now reflected the agony of knowing her fate and being powerless to escape it.
She watched the cotton candy stall slide past outside the window. Knowing her mother wouldn’t let her eat sweets, she said nothing.
A few minutes later, the world spun as if turned upside down. Her parents’ screams filled her ears. A sea of blood rushed across her vision, and then darkness swallowed her.
…
She woke up to the harsh burn of alcohol in her nose. Opening her eyes, she saw a dizzying field of white. She fumbled for the bed rail to sit up, only to feel a numbness from the waist down.
Bai Xinxin sat by her bed, eyes swollen from crying. Seeing her try to pull off the covers and sit up, she grabbed her hands, then pulled her into a tight hug.
Leaning against her sister’s shoulder, Bai Gangan saw the people crowded around her bed.
Neighbors. Her parents’ colleagues. Distant relatives she only saw on holidays…
When they looked at her, they wore a very strange expression.
Once, they had passed a dog run over by a car in the road. When Bai Gangan tugged her to take a detour, she’d had that very same expression on her face—unable to bear looking directly.
Only much later did Bai Gangan learn that expression’s name: pity.
The little girl had no words for her panic. All she could do was clutch her sister’s shirt and ask,
“Where are Dad and Mom? Why are there so many people?”
She heard Bai Xinxin say,
“Don’t be scared, Gan-gan. I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you. I’ll stay with you forever.”
“But where did Dad and Mom go…”
The little girl seemed to sense it. She struggled wildly, clawing at her sister’s sleeve, even biting down on her shoulder. Then she broke into heart-rending sobs.
“I want Dad and Mom!”
The doctors and nurses were used to seeing life and death. Their expressions didn’t change. They only took out a document for Bai Xinxin to sign.
Over the next few days, unfamiliar adults came and went, leaving fruit baskets and wrapped gifts by the bed. Only after they left would Bai Xinxin open the gift bags and pull out the bills tucked inside, putting them all in a small wallet.
Bai Gangan cried herself to sleep again and again. Every time she woke, she called for her parents.
It wasn’t until a nurse came to change her dressings that she realized there was another nightmare she had to face: she had lost her left leg.
Even so, she would often still feel as if that amputated limb was still part of her body. It couldn’t help her stand, couldn’t help her run and jump on the track anymore. But when it rained, it would throb with a piercing pain, and sometimes it would itch—but her scratching fingers always closed on empty air.
Later she learned this had a name: phantom limb pain.
For years, her parents who’d died in the crash were like that amputated leg. After waking in the middle of the night, she would still call for them and jerk awake. She would imagine that if she called loudly enough, they’d push open the door, come in, and hold her.
Bai Xinxin had tried to get her to go back to her old school and class, but her classmates’ stares—maybe not malicious, but still cutting—made her shrink deeper and deeper into herself.
She refused to go out, refused to see anyone, refused to speak, refused even to lift her head.
Their parents had no close relatives. After their deaths, the sisters went to live with an aunt in the same city. For more than two years, Bai Xinxin would take leave every noon to rush home and take care of her, then hurry back to school. At night she told her stories and didn’t start studying until her sister had fallen asleep.
Later, after overhearing some unpleasant words her aunt said to Bai Gangan, she moved out with her as soon as she started university.
Once in university, Bai Xinxin studied while taking care of her. They scraped by on their parents’ savings and the help of relatives and friends. Life was always tight.
Only after Bai Xinxin graduated and started working did things slowly improve for the two of them.
One day, her sister brought her boyfriend home—a colleague from work.
When he saw the pale, frail girl in the wheelchair that Bai Xinxin wheeled out of the room, he froze for a moment, but still smiled and said to Bai Xinxin,
“So this is your little sister?”
He pulled a beautifully wrapped present from behind his back, crouched in front of Bai Gangan, and said,
“Xinxin said you like games.”
Bai Gangan had talked herself into acting like a normal kid.
But she immediately sensed it: the way Bai Xinxin looked at that man… it was the same way their mother used to look at their father.
And she couldn’t keep pretending anymore.
Leif watched the girl in the wheelchair twist her face into a smile so forced it was almost distorted.
She wanted to turn her head away. But it felt as if an invisible hand were clamped around her throat, forcing her to look straight at that memory.
She watched herself sobbing as she snarled,
“So you don’t want me anymore, huh? You have someone you like now and you don’t want me…”
“Bai Xinxin, you liar! You promised you’d take care of me for life…”
“You want to go back on your word? Big Sis, I only have you. You want to be happy on your own and leave me behind… Tell him to get lost! Or just kill me!”
Then she broke down and wailed like a seven-year-old again, ripping the wrapping paper to shreds and smashing the game console toward the man’s head.
“Yes, such a wonderful sister,” the strange voice chimed in again by her ear. “Of course you should keep her all to yourself. How could you share her with anyone else? I just love children as selfish as you. You’d sacrifice anyone to satisfy your own wishes, wouldn’t you? Just like everyone else in this world…”
“No.”
Leif’s eyes were bloodshot.
“That’s not what I wanted.”
“Gan-gan, it’s not like that…”
Bai Xinxin couldn’t explain anything to her sister in that state. All she could do was lead the man out.
Leif followed her sister’s footsteps down the apartment stairs.
The man rubbed his sore head and looked at Bai Xinxin with a strained smile.
“Xinxin, you really have it tough.”
His tone was full of heartache.
“But I’m not going to give up. I think if I just have a little patience, someday she’ll accept me.”
“No.”
Bai Xinxin gently pulled her hand out of his.
“No, I think… we should…”
Before she could finish, a sudden clatter came from upstairs.
Bai Xinxin froze, then bolted up the stairs.
“Gan-gan!”
The wheelchair rattled and bumped down the steps, smashing into the turn of the staircase a few times before toppling over.
Leif watched as Bai Xinxin shoved the wheelchair aside and ran up. Her sister was lying on her back on the stairs. Under the dim light in the stairwell, blood was spreading beneath her head.
She rushed over and lifted her dazed, half-unconscious sister onto her lap, letting out a helpless sigh.
“Gan-gan, what do you want me to do?”
Bai Gangan just did what she’d always done: she curled her fingers around her sister’s and leaned into her arms with absolute trust.
Later that night at the hospital, Bai Xinxin still pulled out a fairy-tale book to read her to sleep. Her expression was the same familiar gentleness as ever, as if nothing at all had happened.
In the story, the knight braved every danger to escort the princess to the prince. At the end, the princess and prince lived happily ever after.
Bai Gangan had always pictured herself as the princess. But that night, she found herself wondering: after sacrificing so much for the princess, where did the knight go? When the princess and prince were living happily ever after, did the knight set out alone again, lonely on the road?
In fairy tales, when the knight faced a spoiled, willful princess, he would always say indulgently:
“As long as the princess is happy.”
But who cared about the knight’s feelings?
“What about that man?” Bai Gangan asked.
Bai Xinxin closed the book.
“He won’t be coming back.”
“But Sis, you really like him.”
“Will you hate me because of him?”
“How could I?”
Bai Xinxin shook her head.
Seeing her sister’s downcast face, she held her hand and said,
“Gan-gan, you have to understand. In this world, I can let go of anyone’s hand easily—but I will never let go of yours. Because you are the most important person in my heart.”
The Fire Cloud Lark said,
“You really are clever. What a beautifully executed self-sacrificial act. That man lost to you completely. And I doubt anyone else will ever come along to take your sister away.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Leif watched the scenes before her eyes whirl faster.
In a blink, she’d grown taller, and slowly come to accept reality. She’d found things she liked doing, and learned how to take care of herself. Her sister’s job was going better and better: promotions, raises, and eventually a bigger apartment.
But always, she lived alone.
“It wasn’t like that,” Leif said. “I just wanted her to hate me. I wanted her to live for herself, not for me.”
“You don’t know. Before the crash, my sister was an incredible violinist. She’d already been accepted into a conservatory. She gave that up because of me. Her grades were so good. She could’ve gone to a better university, but she only applied to a local one, because she was afraid I wouldn’t adapt.”
“She never told me. But I knew. Like my aunt said—I dragged her down. If I had died in that crash, or if I’d agreed to go to a special school for kids like me, my sister’s life would’ve been much easier.”
“I was too young then. I thought that if I was disobedient enough, she would throw me away. I never imagined it’d only bind her even tighter to me.”
“Sounds like your sister must really love you,” the Fire Cloud Lark’s voice sounded again. “You’ve been gone so long. She must miss you terribly. And you must miss her too. You must want to go back.”
“I know exactly what you’re doing. You can’t tempt me.”
Leif said, “She’s in another world.”
“You’re not an honest girl, Leif.”
The Fire Cloud Lark’s tone turned mocking.
“You’ve seen all this in the illusion, and you still don’t dare face your own desires?”
In a city-center apartment, two rooms had been knocked together into a combined bedroom and game room. Bookshelves lined the walls, packed with manga and figurines.
Leif watched her younger self sitting at the desk, headphones on, fingers flying over the keyboard and mouse.
On the screen, the avatar was a brown-haired, black-eyed woman wielding a sharp machete. She had long, slender but powerful legs, and the way she leaned forward to sprint through the forest made her look like a young leopard.
The brown-haired knight landed the final blow. The monstrous creature collapsed with a crash. The screen shook slightly.
After the dust cleared, the victory emblem appeared. The monster disappeared, and the female knight scooped up the loot, stuffed it in her bag, then vaulted onto a chestnut horse and spurred it toward the monster’s lair.
After rescuing the terrified princess from the den, the brown-haired, black-eyed knight dropped to one knee and offered up the treasure she’d acquired.
The beautiful princess said,
“Oh, Leif, brave knight. If not for you, I’d have been eaten by that monster.”
“Your Highness, protecting you is my duty,” the knight replied. “The Queen is very worried about you. Please don’t run around again. I’ll take you back to her now.”
With that, she helped the princess onto the horse, and the two of them rode toward the distant lands.
Level clear.
“What a satisfying game, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve thought it a thousand times: ‘If only this were real…’”
The Fire Cloud Lark spoke.
“What do you mean?” Leif watched the story scenes skip by at such speed under the mouse clicks they were almost impossible to make out.
The girl at the computer always liked to skip the cutscenes and focus purely on the monster fights.
“You want the game to be real,” the Fire Cloud Lark said. “Even with a prosthetic, you can walk down the street without anyone noticing anything different. But what you long for is to be able to run freely, like the avatar you control.”
“And not only that,” it went on. “You never really wanted to be the princess. You wanted to be the knight. Why is that?”
“I don’t want to be protected anymore. I want to be the one protecting others,” Leif said, unable to stop the words. “Like my sister…”
“And I want… she said she’d never let go of my hand. Only if I let go first can she go hold someone else’s.”
“That too is desire. And a powerful one.”
The Fire Cloud Lark let out a cackling laugh.
“Desire is like that. Reality can become false. Illusion can become real. Perhaps you came to this world because of that very desire. So to go back and change fate… if your desire is strong enough, it’s not impossible.”
“What are you saying?” Leif asked.
Accompanied by its eerie laughter, she watched time reverse once more. The scenery slid backward. The scenes she’d just witnessed rewound before her eyes. She and her sister shrank, as if they’d taken some pill of reverse aging.
…
At last, everything returned to the day of her seventh birthday.
The little girl was waiting at the school gate for her parents to pick her up, eager to show off the sports meet certificates in her bag.
People came and went on the asphalt road.
A white car pulled up in front of her.
Leif recognized the license plate and instinctively started running into the street.
The front window rolled down. A slightly chubby man stuck his big head out. His buzz cut, square face, and thick eyebrows might look scary at first glance.
He stretched out a sweaty arm and smiled, a dimple showing on his cheek.
“Gan-gan!”
Leif’s feet stopped dead.
The man stared at her, confused, then got out of the car and crouched down.
“Gan-gan, what’s wrong? Hurry, get in the car.”
The Fire Cloud Lark’s voice still echoed in her ears.
“Desire… reality can become illusion, illusion can become reality… To return to the past and change your fate, all you need is enough desire.”
“Then I should…”
Leif asked dazedly.
She forced her eyes wide, looking around frantically, as if the answer were hidden somewhere in the surroundings.
“What should I do?”
“It’s simple. Just say one sentence…”
The Fire Cloud Lark coaxed.
‘It’s too beautiful. Please, let it stay.’
“Reality can become false, illusion can become real…”
Leif shook her head hard and reached to her back. Her fingers found only a schoolbag, not her blade.
“It’s too beautiful…”
“No.”
“Reality is reality. Illusion is illusion. I can tell what’s real and what’s fake.”
“Can you really?” The Fire Cloud Lark laughed with scorn, its voice suddenly sharpening.
“How do you know this world isn’t a dream? How can you be sure the illusion you see isn’t the truth?”
Her mother stepped out of the car and came to stand beside her father. Her sister ran toward her from the corner of the street, lifting her violin and playing as she ran, light as a drifting cloud.
Grandma Samantha somehow appeared as well, bending with a beaming smile.
“Little Leif, I made you a dress. Come, try it on.”
Step by step, they closed in on Leif. One by one, they loomed tall over her, almost blocking out the sunlight falling at her feet.
“Gan-gan, don’t you want to be with Daddy and Mommy?”
“Don’t you want to try on this pretty dress, little Leif?”
Leif rasped,
“But you’re already dead!”
“Gan-gan, Sis misses you so much. I only have you…”
Leif looked up at the woman in the black suit and whispered,
“But Sis—you’re in another world…”
They all spoke at once.
“As long as Gan-gan—Leif—is willing, you can live here with us.”
They kept coming closer.
“You’re not willing? How heartbreaking…”
Leif shut her eyes.
In her mind she saw once more the lady chamberlain writhing on the ground, her body twisting in the dirt, hints of phantom fire licking across her form.
Maybe because the pain was too much. Or maybe because of the person she kept calling to. She wanted to burn herself alive.
The lady chamberlain’s mouth had opened and closed like a fish roasting alive over flames, left without water. She had spoken in a language unlike any Leif had ever heard, perhaps from another continent entirely.
But somehow, Leif understood her.
She was calling to someone, and saying:
“If I die, will that make you happy? If so, then I’ll kill myself…”
The invisible Fire Cloud Lark continued to stir the air, lending strength to the illusionary four.
“Leif, you can’t tell what’s real and what’s illusion. No one can. You should follow what you want…”
“I can tell.”
Leif’s eyes snapped open.
Her hand shot to her back, and this time it closed around the hilt of a bright, cold machete.
“No, what are you doing?!”
The Fire Cloud Lark’s tone turned shrill with panic.
“I can tell!”
Leif raised the blade high over her head at the four figures closing in on her.
“I have someone I need to protect. So this dream… ends now!”
The blade fell.
The four figures in front of her split apart like paper screens, cut clean through.
That slash felt like it had struck her own heart, slicing her past in two.
Like every knight who ever set out on a journey, she rode on alone toward the horizon—as if she had no past at all.
…
Leif felt a hollow open up in her chest. She rubbed her aching eyes and realized that at some point, she had walked all the way into the inner chamber of the royal bedchamber.
The brown-haired knight looked around. A faint red glow suffused the inner hall. It was clearly light from the Fire Cloud Lark’s flames.
Perhaps because this was its lair, the inner hall was remarkably intact. Which meant she had, indeed, made it through the second trial.
And yet, her surroundings were utterly silent, not even a whisper of wind. The bird that had always spoken so smugly by her ear had gone dead quiet at the very moment it should have come out to face her.
Leif heard a faint sound from the royal bed.
She tightened her grip on the machete and lifted the tattered layers of canopy.
Her gaze swept the bed. She had expected to find some huge, monstrous beast lurking there. But there was nothing.
“Fire Cloud Lark, I know you’re here. I heard you. Come out.”
Leif was certain she hadn’t misheard. Her voice was low and threatening.
“Not many people must’ve made it to this trial. But since I’m already here, I won’t be leaving easily. You’d better show yourself…”
Behind the jade pillow, a small shadow twitched.
Leif lashed out instantly, stabbing toward it.
Something about the size of a plump mouse tumbled to the floor, its body far too fat for its tiny wings to get it airborne.
“I’m already out! What more do you want?!”
The little thing scrambled behind a pillar, only half its head peeking out. That half was enough for Leif to see the multicolored feather on top.
Compared to its fearsome reputation, the Fire Cloud Lark’s appearance was painfully ordinary—no different from any sparrow on the roadside. If anything, its most accurate description would have been “fat and ugly.”
And that glaringly bright, multicolored feather on its head didn’t look grown at all. It looked… stuck on.
Noticing Leif’s astonished gaze, the Fire Cloud Lark puffed its neck feathers up in outrage.
“Don’t look at me like that!”
Leif clicked her tongue, then said what was probably the last thing this bird ever wanted to hear in its life.
“So the legendary Fire Cloud Lark is… this ugly.”
“How can you say that?!”
The Fire Cloud Lark sniffled, stamping its feet furiously on the floor.
“You’ve hurt my feelings!”
“Oh, so you do know what it’s like to be hurt?”
Leif reached out and pinched the weeping bird in her hand.
“I’m not just going to hurt your feelings. I’m going to kill you.”
“You can kill me, but you can’t insult the thing I care about most—my looks!” the Fire Cloud Lark protested loudly.
“But you dared to toy with the people I care about most.”
The brown-haired knight squeezed the fat neck in her fingers. With her other hand, she slid the machete back into its sheath, then grabbed the long, multicolored feather on the bird’s head.
“All these years, you’ve been using what people care about most to devour them, one life after another…”
“How do you know I was lying?” the Fire Cloud Lark squawked. “Everything I said was true!”
Leif froze.
“Haven’t you heard the rumors?” the Fire Cloud Lark went on. “About the great fire a century ago… about why the dynasty changed… all thanks to my power.”
Its black eyes gleamed as if it too were falling into a dream.
“My best friend, sweet Deloris—she was the most beautiful girl on the continent. With her song, she drew the king to her and became his favorite concubine.
“But no one knew that she was singing the song I taught her.
“And she killed me for it. Even after she bore the king a child, she still feared he’d learn the truth. She had me burned alive.
“Maybe I missed her too much, so I stayed in this world… sweet Deloris. I adored her.
“Of course I wanted her son to inherit the throne. But the queen’s son stood in his way. So I set this palace on fire…
“That boy became king.
“You see? Even such enormous desires can be realized through me. How could I not grant your desires?”
As it spoke, the Fire Cloud Lark twisted free of her grip.
Its body was plump, but surprisingly agile. Its tiny wings flapped frantically as it scrambled out into the outer chamber.
Leif drew her blade and chased it down, quickly forcing it into a corner.
“You lying little bird,” she said coldly. “You don’t have a truthful feather on you. What are you really?”
“I’m born from human greed and their yearning for the unreachable,” the Fire Cloud Lark stammered, holding its wings up like shields. “Leif, why must you kill me? I’m your ally. So what if they all die? The glory you alone would win would be far greater than any shared with a team. You can spread the word, then bring me a steady stream of food…”
“If you do that, I’ll make any wish of yours come true…”
Leif turned her head.
The lady chamberlain lay on the ground, face deathly pale, her breathing faint.
Even with so many questions in her mind, Leif had no desire to waste more words on this bird.
She steadied her breath and swung her blade down.
With a single strike, the Fire Cloud Lark vanished. Only one multicolored feather remained on the ground.
“Talkative little scrap,” Leif muttered.
She sheathed her blade, picked up the feather and tucked it into her shirt, then bent and lifted the unconscious lady chamberlain into her arms.
The woman in white seemed to feel that the posture was strangely awkward, and squirmed a little. Then she slowly stirred awake in Leif’s arms.
She looked up at the knight—uninjured, but clearly exhausted and disheveled—and said in amazement,
“This… Miss Knight…”
“Looks like I was right from the start.”
Leif managed a grin.
“Lord Natiaveda really does need me to protect her after all.”
