That woman was Man Le Fay.

  Of course! She was the woman the emperor was looking for. But she… didn’t at all seem like what Gahad imagined.

  Oh, yes. Her beauty was undeniable, a fact that even the gruff Emperor Burn, who usually reserved his pliments for his ons and war strategies, couldn’t help but aowledge—albeit grudgingly.

  Every single word of praise Burn sang about her appearance seemed unjust. But she wasn’t the... person... Gahad had in mind.

  “We o go now. My child needs me!” In a fre of maternal panic, Man clutched desperately at Burn’s clothes. Her voice carried the urgency of a woman deadly worried about her child. “Something bad could happen to my Yvain!”

  “What you do when you ’t even stand on your own?” Bured, his tone dripping with the patience of a saint at the end of his tether.

  Man, now using him as a substitute for her absent wooden bar, leaned heavily, her legs shaking like leaves in a storm.

  “I beg of you, Your Majesty!” she implored, her eyes wide with tragedy that could have won her every man’s heart.

  “My best meh him. I will also ght now if you let go of me,” Burn tered, obviously trying to escape the clutches of her ‘magic’ as much as her physical grip.

  “Take me with you!” she demanded, her voice a blend of desperation and and.

  “No. You’re just dead weight,” he shot back, as loving as a tax return.

  “Caliburn Soulnon Pendra—”

  “Are you threatenih your life right now?! You could die!” Burn was incredulous, looking as if he was deg whether she was more of a hazard to herself or to him.

  “I’m not! I promise I’ll be fine!” Man persisted, her determination as shaky as her legs.

  “Miss Momo!” Burn excimed, using her pet h all the affe of a man calling his wyer after reading a particurly bad tract.

  “Callih my pet name disdainfully won’t deter me!” she shot back, her tilted with defiahat could rival a cat in a standoff.

  Ahhh… what romance…

  To the onlookihe se before them was less a crisis and more a prime-time drama unfolding live.

  There they were, Burn and Momo, at each other’s throats yet somehow, iwisted view of the spectators, engaging in what looked suspiciously like flirtation.

  To the untrained eye, this could have been mistaken for a lovers’ quarrel, or perhaps a debate over their child’s custody in the weekends following a messy royal divorce.

  Ah, what romandeed—if your idea of romanvolves sharp tongues and sharper tempers, all ed up in a battle of wills that could rival any war Burn had ever fought.

  “I’m sorry that I’m weak, okay!” the woman excimed in a voice that was melodious enough to be featured on a tragic opera soundtrack.

  “But whose fault was it? Who made me this weak?! It was you who took everything away from me!” Her accusation could have frozen the very air between them, had it not been for the heat of her anger.

  FLINCH!

  Shiverrrrr…

  The men surrounding them suddenly found themselves questioning their life choices—specifically, the choice to be within earshot of this dramatic exge.

  They collectively felt the overwhelming desire to be anywhere but here, perhaps wishing for invisibility cloaks or at least a sudden, urgent call to arms.

  Yes. Her words definitely caused a major misuanding.

  “’t you at least take responsibility?!” she tinued, her voice rising as if she was addressing a courtroom rather than a single, increasingly unfortable man. “’t you please let me see my child?!”

  Yep. A huge misuanding!

  Burn, for his part, stood there, looking like he wished the ground would open and offer him sanctuary from the tempest before him.

  To the casual observer, it seemed less like a lover’s quarrel and more like a public trial, where the charges were emotional robbery and the jury was made up of awkwardly shuffling knights.

  SDALOUS!

  To Burn's men, who were now experts i of discreetly edging away, it looked as though they were witnessiher the world's most passionate reciliation or the preamble to a spectacur breakup.

  Either op would have been appropriate.

  But, in this situation, Momo still had one card up her sleeve.

  “You could’ve just kissed me more!” she excimed, tossing the statement like a greo the middle of the temosphere.

  GASP!

  HUH?!

  EH—

  Popping eyes, floored jaws.

  The reas ranged from shock to utter bewilderment, each ma blinking as if trying to reset their brains and make sense of what they just heard.

  “I’ll get better and stronger faster if you kiss me more—”

  “Why are you embarrassing yourself like this?!” Burn, utterly fbbergasted, exploded in anger.

  “What I do other than to grovel to you in this situation?!” Momo shot back, her voice a blend of frustration and ear plea.

  She stood her ground, having pyed all her cards, now relying solely on the wild card of whimsy. “I be of help if you help me get stronger faster!”

  She begged and insisted, p her heart out in a room where, sadly, only one opinion truly mattered—and unsurprisingly, that opinion wasn't hers.

  Moreover, the sole arbiter of her fate was the very perso moved by her distress. How utterly ve for him.

  There he stood, a paragon of indifference: cold, stern, and steadfast. His heart seemed immovable—but then, that would require him to actually have one, wouldn't it?

  With a trembling gaze, she wondered what grim nursery rhymes were sung to him as a child to shape such a heartless creature? What bleak ndscapes had cradled him te such icy resolve?

  She mused on how the world mao sculpt such a... monster.

  Here, her significe ainfully clear: she was valued only for her strength, only when she was useful. How wonderfully pragmatic of him to remember her existence just then.

  Even so.

  “Mmh—”

  He kissed her.

  Oh, what a magical, soul-stirring moment—except it wasn’t. Reading his mind when their lips touched had bee as routine for her as cheg the weather.

  As she absorbed all the Force he offered, she glimpsed the true nature of his thoughts.

  It was darkness, a profound void, as inviting as a bck hole. No sympathy, no affe—nothing that hinted she meant more to him than a ve source of power.

  Trapped in the pesky mortal shell of a human body, his attra to her robably more about aesthetics than anything deeper. And frankly, he despised that he found her face pleasing.

  If it was this man… maybe godhood was something within reach.

  No, if this man was a benchmark, godhood seemed not just achievable but a dht downgrade.

  “There’s a reason you’re so worried about Yvain, right?” Burn finally piped up, his voice as warm as an iceberg, reizing her desperation at st. “I’ll bring you there.”

  How generous, how magnanimous.

  Well, they were both adults. Burn figured that if she was throwing herself headlong into this Yvain debacle, she must really have something gnawing at her.

  This woman had been nothing but uanding, almost saintly in her patieoward him. And ever since she was awakened, all she did was to get ba shape and fix everything within reach.

  She wasn’t a selfish person.

  “You said there ort from him, right? I’ll read it. Prepare the others in the meantime,” Burn decred.

  Gahad, ever the eager beaver, zipped over with the reports post-haste. Burn skimmed through them as he walked, his pace that of a man who believed he could outwalk his problems—until, of course, the tent of the report spped him back to a slower, more thoughtful strut.

  “I told you, we have to hurry,” Momo chimed in from behind, apparently having telepathically devoured the report's tents too.

  Burn pivoted tard her, noting her quivering stance. “You still ’t walk?” he asked, with the tenderness of a drill sergeant.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But your body?”

  “I manage.”

  “Bring my chariot,” he anded Gahad, then turned bao with all the grace of a chess master making a pivotal move. “You sit with me.”

  Her lips trembled, perhaps in fear of being so close to him in a fined space again, but she muttered a resigned, “Okay, thank you, Your Majesty.”

  With a gesture that could only be described as knightly—if knights were known for their abrupt, no-nonsense rescues—Burn scooped her up and made his way to the chariot.

  This was the very same chariot that previously almost discarded, remembered mostly for the exquisite torture it had inflicted upon them.

  Well, no time to prepare another one.

  “No more dey. Let’s go.”