Chapter 230: Aestrea Against The World (VII)

“Yo~! Where were you, man?” James called out the moment Aestrea stepped out of the woods, looking a little more… frostbitten than usual.

CLAP!

Without warning, James slapped his hand against Aestrea’s back with his usual enthusiasm.

CRACK!

“AGHHHH—!!” James howled, yanking his hand back as if he’d just smacked solid steel while being an ordinary human.

He stumbled in place, shaking his palm wildly, his face contorted in exaggerated pain.

“WHAT THE FUCK?! Why is your back so damn hard?! Are you made of dragon scales now?!”

Aestrea gave him a side glance, his glowing crimson eyes were calm as ever.

“Stop hitting people without warning.”

James clutched his wrist, half-laughing, half-crying. “That wasn’t a back! That was a mountain! I think I heard my bones cry!”

Derek, who had been sipping from a flask nearby, snorted.

“Told you not to sneak-attack him after he’s been brooding in the woods. That’s when he’s extra sharp.”

Aestrea kept walking, brushing off the dust from his coat.

“Ran into a rat.”

“A rat?” Derek raised an eyebrow.

“…The kind that talks too much and bleeds theater.”

James blinked.

“…Was it… that guy you told us about? That guy who practically dressed as a clown and wanted you to join the Dark Order?”

Aestrea didn’t answer. But the faint bloodstain on his collar and the cold aura still radiating faintly from his skin were enough of a reply.

Derek’s expression dropped a little, his eyes narrowing.

“…You okay?”

“Yeah,” Aestrea said shortly.

James lowered his hand, looking at Aestrea for a moment longer.

“…If he shows up again, we’ll be there.”

Aestrea only gazed at him with cold eyes.

He was practically saying that if he couldn’t make sure that Kagetaro dies, they probably couldn’t as well.

And James caught on, flinging his arm dramatically around Aestrea’s shoulder, though a little more carefully this time.

“Alright, edge-lord, enough with that. Come back to camp and eat. Derek made stew.”

“I made it,” Derek said dryly, “because you tried to cook and nearly summoned a fire spirit out of raw onions.”

“It was a summoning spell, okay? You wouldn’t get it.”

“You lit water on fire.”

“Don’t question my genius!”

Aestrea sighed softly, the barest smile threatening to creep onto his face as the twins bickered on either side of him.

But as they walked back to the lights of the camp, his eyes flicked back once, toward the damn forest.

’…That guy doesn’t give up, does he?’

He closed his eyes for a long moment before reopening them, and then followed James and Derek, before they arrived at some kind of campfire.

Crackle~

The fire crackled gently, casting golden light across the small clearing where a pot of stew bubbled on top of the makeshift campfire grill.

There, Derek sat on a log, lazily stirring the thick mixture with a large wooden ladle, the scent of seasoned meat and herbs drifting through the air.

“Alright, it’s ready,” he announced, scooping generous portions into three wooden bowls.

James was already hovering behind him like a starved ghost. “Finally! I’ve been emotionally wounded and physically crippled today. I need this.”

“You touched Aestrea’s back. You did that to yourself,” Derek replied flatly, handing him a bowl.

Aestrea sat a little further back, his black coat draped around his shoulders, expression calm but distant as he watched the fire.

Derek offered him a bowl wordlessly.

“Thanks,” Aestrea muttered, taking it with a nod.

The three of them ate quietly for a moment, the fire crackling between them. A strange comfort lingered in the silence.

And then…

“Mmm… not bad,” James muttered between bites. “You know what would make this perfect though?”

“No,” Derek said immediately.

“Spicy sauce.”

“No,” Aestrea repeated, scooping another spoonful into his mouth without missing a beat.

“You two are culinary cowards.”

“We’re sane,” Derek replied.

“You summoned a fire spirit with onions.”

“I was experimenting with the magical properties of sulfuric tears!”

Aestrea let out a small exhale through his nose.

Maybe it was a sigh.

Maybe it was almost a laugh.

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Inside the imperial palace, candlelight flickered across towering pillars and red carpets, and a quiet tension hung thick in the air.

In the center of the grand throne hall…

She walked.

Ella…

But not the sweet, snow-haired girl from before.

Now, her hair was ink-black, flowing like dark silk to her waist.

Her once-soft blue eyes now burned red like molten gems, mirroring the very same crimson glow that haunted Aestrea’s gaze.

Her steps were slow, yet strongly powerful. She wore a long black coat embroidered with swirling silver vines and blood-red petals.

The guards flanking the throne tensed the moment they saw her.

At the far end of the hall, seated upon her throne with cold poise, Empress Isabella narrowed her eyes.

“…Who are you?” she asked quietly.

Ella tilted her head with a soft smile.

“Does it matter?”

That was enough.

The Sword Duke, who had been standing beside the Empress like a shadow, took one step forward, his aura flaring almost immediately.

“Stand down, girl,” he commanded.

“Or I will be forced to subdue you.”

Ella blinked slowly at his words, tilting her head with a mocking smile.

Then… she raised a single hand.

FSSSSHH—

Black petals exploded from her palm like a cyclone, curling around the Sword Duke in an instant before he could even move.

“—!?”

He disappeared into the whirlwind of shadows.

The next moment, the petals dispersed.

The Sword Duke lay unconscious, gently cradled in a blooming bed of midnight flowers, his sword still glowing dimly beside him.

“…He’s lucky, he’s still useful,” Ella whispered with a small giggle.

The guards instantly reached for their weapons, but…

“Stand down,” Empress Isabella interruped them, her voice sharp and absolute, making the entire room freeze.

Her emerald eyes studied the woman before her… this thing that wore Ella’s shape but carried something far more dangerous.

“…So. What do you need for me… Miss…”

Ella’s smile widened at her words.

“You can call me… Yennefer~”

“…So. What do you need from me… Miss…” the Empress spoke carefully, choosing her words.

Ella tilted her head, letting her raven hair sway like a curtain of midnight silk. The red glow in her eyes pulsed once, faintly, just like a heartbeat.

And that wasn’t a comparison, as her eyes tracked Aestrea’s beating heart.

“You can call me… Yennefer~” she said sweetly, her voice laced with amusement.

“Very well then… Yennefer.” Empress Isabella didn’t flinch. “Answer the question. What do you want?”

Yennefer walked forward slowly, her black heels clicking gently on the polished marble floor.

Every step was soft… yet echoed like a drumbeat in the quiet tension of the hall.

“What I want, dear Empress, is… quite simple,” she said softly.

She stopped just a few feet from the throne, gazing up at Isabella without bowing.

There was no respect or fear in her gaze or voice…

Only a beautiful, terrifying calmness.

“I want you to listen,” Yennefer continued, her voice light as feathers, “and obey to me, this superior being.”

“Obey?” Isabella’s brow arched.

“You seem to be confused about how this works.”

“Oh no, no~” Yennefer cooed, clasping her hands in front of her. “You’re the one confused.”

CRACK!

The marble tiles beneath her feet shattered with a single pulse of mana.

A black ring of pressure exploded out around her in a perfect circle.

The chandeliers above trembled.

Cracks spiderwebbed along the columns near the throne. The petals on the floor shimmered, then slowly withered from the dark pressure.

Yennefer’s voice never rose.

“I’m not here to ask or to play politics like you ants do. I am simply… offering you a choice.”

Guards moved to surround her again, hands trembling over their swords.

“You can refuse me,” she continued, red eyes glowing brighter, “and I will paint this palace in silence and flowers. The kind that never bloom twice.”

She smiled wider, her lips curved like a crescent moon.

“Or…”

The red in her eyes dimmed slightly, just enough to let a sliver of gentleness return to her expression.

“…you can help me make this easy.”

“And what exactly,” Isabella said coldly, “do you want me to help you with?”

Yennefer turned her back to her briefly, walking a short circle through the throne room.

Then she faced her again.

“I want information,” she said softly.

“On everything regarding the other continent’s rulers. The military movements. The negotiations. The black ops. The secret pacts. All of it.”

Isabella narrowed her eyes.

“And if I say no?”

Yennefer didn’t answer.

She simply raised her hand and…

SWOOOSH—

All the guards in the room dropped their weapons.

Not because they wanted to.

Because the swords… had turned into petals.

They gasped, falling to their knees as black petals wrapped around their necks and wrists like manacles.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Yennefer said lightly, her eyes flicking toward one of the kneeling soldiers.

“But I will, Empress Isabella. I really will. For him.”

“…Him?”

Yennefer’s gaze darkened, her pupils narrowing ever so slightly.

“Aestrea.”

The name hung in the air like thunder.

“I don’t care about thrones. I don’t care about diplomacy. I care about him. I care about what’s going to touch his world. What’s going to scar it. And what I need to rip out before it poisons him.”

She took another slow step forward.

“You see… unlike you, who sits in a castle and commands from afar, I’m the type of girl who would crawl through corpses just to keep his smile intact.”

The hall fell utterly silent.

Even the torches seemed to flicker lower, as if afraid to speak.

Empress Isabella stayed seated for a moment, her eyes unreadable. But her voice, when it came, was sharp as a blade drawn from velvet.

“And what happens when he finds out what you’ve done in his name?”

Yennefer’s smile faded just slightly.

Then returned.

“…Then I’ll kneel in front of him.”

“I’ll let him slit my throat if that’s what it takes. But until then…”

Her eyes flared again with that hungry crimson glow.

“…I’ll burn this empire with love if I have to.”

Another pause.

Then she lowered her hand.

The petals dispersed instantly.

The guards gasped as the strange magic around them vanished like mist, leaving behind only the faint scent of something sweet and wrong.

“Well?” she asked.

“…You really are different now,” Isabella said quietly, her tone lacking even a trace of mockery.

Yennefer said nothing as if she had expected that she had realized her identity by now.

Isabella stood slowly, walking down the steps from her throne until she was at eye level with the black-haired woman.

“You’ll get your information. I’ll have it delivered in full detail by midnight.”

Yennefer’s eyes lit up in amusement.

“Now that’s more like it.”

“But,” the Empress added, leaning in just slightly, her tone colder, “if you threaten me again…”

“Then you’ll what?” Yennefer interrupted sweetly.

“Send another Sword Duke?” Her eyes glimmered.

“You’re running out of them.”

The Empress didn’t reply.

Only silence stretched between them, heavy and unbreakable.

Yennefer giggled, then stepped back, turning with a lazy swirl of her black coat.

“Good talk~”

And then she vanished.

Gone in a burst of black petals and crimson shimmer, like a curse whispered in a lover’s ear.

Isabella stood in place for a long moment before turning back toward her throne.

Her face stayed calm, but her hand… clenched just slightly at her side.

“…What have you become, Ella?”

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