Gaven was an exceptional spy.

Among all of Trisan’s schemes to bring me down, this was the closest he’d ever come to success.

The adjustment punishment—I’d weathered that thanks to the Celestial Lightning Body.
Nereus was manageable, a rival I’d known for years.
But Gaven was different.

He wielded a new kind of weapon: regulation.

A foe I could neither outfight nor outtalk.

Had I not used Gluttony, I might truly have lost.

Of course, if not for Gluttony, Joy’s true identity never would have been exposed in the first place, and none of this would’ve happened.

Clack.

Jo shut the door.

Gaven gave a crooked smile.

“Judging by your face, you’re not here to take out your anger… You must have received an edict from the main house?”

“You may address me as Starseat Kyrie now.”

“You could have me struck from the rolls and buried, but another evaluator will simply be sent in my place.”

“Of course. Which is why I’m not going to strike you from the rolls. Nor will I bury you.”

At that, Gaven raised his brows.

“Jo.”

“Yes.”

I called her forward.

“Evaluator Gaven has developed severe hand tremors from the aftermath of the mutant ogre battle. He won’t be able to write his report. Assign a literate soldier to take dictation and let him only stamp his seal. Since it concerns my own evaluation, my involvement must be minimal. You’ll oversee the process personally.”

“Yes, understood. Until Evaluator Gaven recovers, I’ll ensure he’s properly assisted and that the fairness of the evaluation is maintained.”

Her tone was bright, almost buoyant.

“You mean to let the apostate who betrayed the Church and deceived the lord watch over me?”

“She won’t only watch you. She’ll attend you as well.”

“Attend?”

Gaven removed his glasses, baring his teeth.

A man steeling himself.

His hand dropped to his belt.

A dagger of carved bone flashed free—
a weapon meant to bypass my bio-radar.

It might have worked, once.

“If I can’t write, I’ll just break every bone you’ve got!”

If my radar’s resolution hadn’t improved with my new Starseat enhancement, maybe.

Crack—!

Lightning surged through my arm as I struck.

“Guh—!”

Gaven flew across the room, smashed through the wall, and slumped unconscious.

No matter how he struggled to rise, he couldn’t.

He would live—barely—by the grace of the very adjutant he’d planned to use against me.

“Put reliable men on him. Keep your guard up. Even with his arms broken, he’s still a squire. One or two guards won’t hold him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jo dragged Gaven out of the wall’s wreckage.

From now on, Trisan would receive a report completely devoid of code or cipher.

Send another evaluator if he liked—
that one’s limbs would break just the same and end up tended by Jo.

And now I was a Starseat.

Who would dare evaluate a man conducting an officially deniable mission?

Freedom.

Now I could focus on adoption.

Besides, I knew Jo—Joy’s—weakness. Commanding the unit would be easier than ever.

Up till now, if Joy had turned against me, she could’ve made me look a fool.
Now I had ways other than brute force to keep her in check.

“Joy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be counting on you.”

I smiled, satisfied, and patted her shoulder.

But her response took me completely off guard.

“Thank you, sir.”

She dropped to one knee before me.

What—?

A rebellion?

I flared my neural acceleration and bio-radar instantly.

She carried no weapon I could see, but the soldiers outside might have a flare ready.

Luckily, there was no such movement.

Still, I stayed alert—someone beyond my radar’s range could always pull a trigger.

“I am a sinner,” Joy said.

“I violated doctrine, deceived the lord, and broke the laws of my station.”

Something hot splashed on the wooden floor.

Even before I saw it, her words alone made me deactivate the radar.

“Even if, by your mercy, I avoid punishment this once, someday I might drag you down again.”

She bowed her head.

“But you said you would count on me. You offered a sinner who broke both creed and law the chance to change her fate. I may be of low birth, but I know the weight of that grace.”

I didn’t fully follow her reasoning.

“I have nothing left to offer—no name, no gender, no age, no title. Nothing true remains in me. So I’ll give you all my lies. Every truth I find from now on will belong to you. You alone saw truth in the liar I am.”

I still didn’t understand, but sometimes the only way to understand the incomprehensible is to accept it as it is.

“These two eyes can see, but not the world you see. So I’ll make you my world and follow you.”

Much like when the Thundering Star carved its stigma into my eye.

“Rise, Joy.”

I softened my tone deliberately—blurring “Jo” and “Joy” alike.

“You said you’d sinned?”

She wiped her tears and stood at attention.

“I don’t think it was a sin.”

“Sir.”

“Forever like lightning. A single life, a memory that lasts an eternity. That’s our house motto.”

I brushed the black eyepatch covering my right eye.

“You will become a knight. When that happens, I’ll call you ‘Sir Joy’ myself.”

You understand, don’t you?

I’m a Blue Knight who gave up an eye for ambition.
So there’s nothing shameful about your path either.
Lay the steel over your face and keep clawing upward.
Just don’t call my name if you’re caught.

We each twist the fate given to us—
helping one another only where we can.

“Sir Kyrie.”

But Joy clearly didn’t grasp what I meant.

“I don’t know how many more years I’ll live, but meeting you will be the greatest fortune of my life.”

Her eyes shone with guilt for breaking law and creed, with yearning to reach higher ground, with fear, excitement, devotion—all tangled into a single gleam.

It wasn’t a bad look.
In fact, it was a magnificent one.

For the first time, the woman who had lived by lies—name, rank, age, gender, origin—
had shown me something true.

Kyrie was a realist, but not an emotional cripple.

He knew from experience that morale directly affected performance.

“Preparations complete, sir.”

“Already?”

Still, he sometimes suspected he was insane.

“You didn’t push them too hard, I hope? We’ll be crossing the border, through trackless jungle, to hunt a mutant beast. Even after a priest’s healing, some are still recovering. Those haunted by the ogre’s nightmares are better left behind.”

“Yes, sir. You’re right. Soldiers ruled by fear are useless in the field.”

Only a day had passed since the priest’s visit, yet Joy had the unit fully reorganized and ready to march.

Magic?

Outside the house where Kyrie stayed, the combat-ready seventy of the 117th Border Patrol Company stood in perfect formation.

Rations and smoked meat were neatly portioned among their packs.

Damaged cannons had been repaired by mixing intact parts and mounted on single-wheel carts.

The hundred-man company was now reorganized into squads of five—optimized for wide-area search.

All this in one night?

From Joy’s face, Kyrie sensed a power not of lightning but of pure will.

“But sir, your soldiers are not so weak.”

Joy turned halfway toward the ranks.

Every soldier shouted in unison:

“We’re ready to fight again!”

“The captain spent his own silver to bring a priest—we’ll repay it with loyalty!”

“We’re ready to die for you and for the House!”

Their morale pierced the heavens.

Kyrie thought they’d all gone mad.

A display of strength?

He assumed Joy was showing off control of the unit—a veiled threat.

Yes. A threat. ‘Look how capable I am—don’t think of discarding me.’ Not a bad gesture. In fact, I encouraged this kind of self-assertion. No need to mention her weakness—she’s already aware, already careful.

He decided to reassure her.

“Speaking of which, I owe you an explanation of today’s mission.”

He switched the brooch on his cloak—from Star-Subordinate to Falling-Star—
a gift once given by Trisan himself.

“As of yesterday, I was invested with the Falling-Star Seat, ‘He Who Cuts the Dark.’ The order is to cross the border and pursue the mutant beast.”

A few veterans gasped at the sight of the brooch.

They distrust me—that’s fine. The more they doubt, the more they’ll rely on Joy. It strengthens her position.

Kyrie mistook their awe for fear.

“If we fail—or clash with House Rykenta—the family will disown us. But we will not disown the family. Loyalty is not a transaction for reward. I neither seek nor accept such cheap things.”

A falling star burns itself to shine.

“I’ll see this mission through not for the House, but for myself—to say that though I was born base and nameless, I lived without shame before my ancestors and the Thundering Star.”

The Falling-Star mission was a suicide charge by another name.

“So serve this mission for yourselves. Prepare for departure and rest while you can. We move after sundown.”

Were it not for the adoption goal, Kyrie might have pretended the brooch and orders never arrived.

He assumed the soldiers trembled with terror.

“To hunt the mutant beast!”

“Vengeance. We’ll avenge our fallen brothers. How fortunate we are.”

“To serve for ourselves, he said—he grants us revenge for our comrades. How honorable!”

On a humid day before the long monsoon,

This should put Joy at ease. I’ve trimmed my own reputation enough for her to breathe again.

“Sir Kyrie. You alone saw my heart. I’ll devote every false skill I ever honed to you.”

Knight and adjutant both believed they understood each other.

They smiled.

That was enough. Smiling was good.

The Astreion Main Keep.

The palace of Senior Heir Trisan.

“Damn it all!”

Trisan wasn’t smiling.

He hurled the secret report he’d just received into the fireplace.

Kyrie’s adjutant was a woman in disguise. Of course. That’s why Andromeda spoke up about giving more autonomy to officers commanding units without Blue Knights.

Sparks burst like a fountain, but he didn’t even blink.

His fury burned hotter than the flames.

I had him. An apostate woman who betrayed the Church and deceived the lord—Kyrie, who took her bribe and turned a blind eye. If only that report had arrived a little sooner!

Now it was too late.

Can’t touch him anymore. Gaven’s probably dead already.

Falling-Star Seats had been granted to Kyrie and several other Blue Knights along the border.

The Falling-Star assignment was suicide.

You couldn’t prosecute men who might die any day.

Their adjutants, too, were protected.

Blue Knights were rare resources.

Most companies were led not by Blue Knights but by knights, squires, or staff officers acting as substitutes.

A motion to grant them greater autonomy had recently passed.

If he started ranting now about a “woman in disguise,” it would only look like he was protesting that reform.

Even trying to trip up Andromeda with something that transparent would be humiliating.

Kyrie reported the mutant beast himself. He must think he can handle it. I can’t rely on him dying out there. I’ll have to kill him myself.

Trisan struck a bell to summon his servant.

“Bring me the brothers Prochus and Epichus. They’ll be toying with prisoners in the High Tribunal cells.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Thankfully, he’d already declared that he would dispatch a supervisory heir.

So he could send whichever “supervisors” he pleased—
and those two butchers in human skin were more than enough to deal with Kyrie.

And, as with every watcher and watched pair, there would be “some friction.”

As long as Kyrie doesn’t slip straight across the border before they meet him. But he’s still a new Starseat—there’s no way he can navigate those swamp-ridden jungles alone.

Among Blue Knights, even a little “friction” often led to duels.

“Hm?”

He glanced at another report the servant had brought.

The spice merchant Gluttony had met Andromeda, then begun heading south again.

He had ordered that anyone Andromeda met be reported to him.

A spice merchant seemed trivial enough.

No one mentioned that Gluttony was a smuggler carrying detailed maps of the borderlands.

That omission was… unfortunate.

Chapter 29

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