“Your Grace, please. You’re naked and… I can’t control myself.”

Selen could hardly believe her own words. The duke seemed startled by her remark and glanced down at his nudity as though he were only just realizing it.

“Control yourself? What do you mean?”

Selen was genuinely astonished that her diversion had worked even better than she had hoped. Instead of suspicion, there was now perplexity in the duke’s gaze.

“Well… it’s just that you’re quite handsome, Your Grace.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at how ridiculous the situation felt.

The duke let out a soft chuckle and withdrew his sword from her throat.

“I’ll remember that you’re hiding something. You can try to play your feminine tricks all you want, but know this—here in the North, women like you please no one.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace. I shouldn’t have said such things.”

The duke gave a disdainful snort.

“I hope you understand that because of you, I had to get rid of two good knights who were at least twice as useful as you.”

As if I ever needed your help. Those two were dead men anyway, Selen thought.

“Forgive me, Your Grace. It is entirely my fault.”

“Your apologies are worthless to me. So make yourself useful during our raid against the heretics the day after tomorrow. And try to avoid restricted areas—or better yet, avoid my line of sight altogether.”

Selen watched him walk away, naked as the day he was born, to retrieve his clothes not far from there. That man was truly something else. She would have to draft a list of all the restricted areas in this castle—there seemed to be quite a few, she thought as she turned back.

After returning to the training grounds, she crossed paths with a passing knight. She stopped him, fluttered her eyelashes, and adopted the voice of a damsel in distress. The knight promptly told her every area that was off-limits.

What had that exhibitionist said again? That her charms wouldn’t work on men of the North? Pff. Selen stifled a laugh. If there was one thing she knew, it was that, in the end, men were all the same.

While the knight was showing her the restricted areas, he pointed out an annex located far from the rest of the castle. At that precise moment, Selen saw the duke’s advisor enter the building, accompanied by Rosie and the female knight who followed her everywhere. Even stranger, two guards stood watch at the door day and night. That piqued Selen’s curiosity more than anything.

That evening, on the eve of their expedition against the heretics, Selen could not sleep. The annex near the castle haunted her thoughts. She didn’t know why, but she felt certain she would discover something inside—something the duke and his sister were hiding. She had observed the comings and goings the previous day, and only the sister and her knight, the advisor, and the duke himself ever entered.

Selen threw off the blankets wrapped around her and decided to find out once and for all what was happening in that annex. Tomorrow’s expedition against the heretics was crucial to her plan; she couldn’t afford to be distracted by a mysterious annex, no matter how intriguing it was.

She put on a coat and slipped quietly toward the annex. Two guards stood at the entrance, so she decided to circle around to the back. There, she spotted a small glass opening high up in the wall. She couldn’t see anything—it was too high—but the light at least told her there were people inside.

Selen cast a sound-amplifying spell and pressed her ear against the wall.

“This one is almost half-dead.”

She recognized the advisor’s voice.

“If you hadn’t gone so far, he might have survived a few more days.”

That was Rosie’s voice. Then she heard a sound she knew better than anyone—the clatter of chains hitting the floor.

“We’re not here to coddle them. Stop complaining. He wouldn’t have revealed anything more anyway.”

It was the duke speaking.

“Burn it all. We’ll bring in more.”

Again, the duke—his irritation unmistakable.

Another exchange followed, but she couldn’t make out the words. Perhaps they had moved farther away. She was about to leave the biting cold and return to her room when she heard her name mentioned.

“The knight I assigned to watch her found nothing suspicious, Your Grace.”

The advisor again.

“Tell him to keep a close eye on her, especially tomorrow. The circumstances of her arrival are still unclear to me. The heretics who attacked their carriage were never seen anywhere nearby, and we know those vermin rarely leave bodies behind.”

Selen felt her heart pound. The duke and his relentless suspicion were truly a thorn in her side.

“Do you think she was sent by the Temple?” Rosie asked.

“I don’t know. But there’s something about her that bothers me. She’s hiding something—I’d bet my hand on it.”

Selen heard nothing more, and a few minutes later, the door opened. From the sudden absence of light, she realized they had left the room. She waited a few minutes before returning to her chamber. Trying to enter the annex now would have been pure madness. If she were caught, the duke would likely have her head without hesitation.

To think she had come here simply to satisfy her curiosity and finally get some sleep. Now she was even more unsettled than before. What was happening in that annex? Why did the duke think she had been sent by the Temple, when the duchy and the Temple were supposed to be allies in this war?

She tossed and turned that night and, unsurprisingly, slept very little.

The next morning, dark circles lined her eyes, and the journey to the attacked village lasted four hours. From what she had gathered, the heretics struck in small groups and targeted areas far from the duchy. She now understood the duke’s suspicion regarding the supposed attack that had wiped out all the knights accompanying her.

When they arrived, the first thing Selen saw was fire. Houses were engulfed in flames, and villagers armed with pitchforks were fighting hooded figures. So those were the infamous heretics. She hadn’t expected them to look like this, but it changed nothing about her plans.

“The duke is here—we’re saved!” a villager shouted.

Selen noticed that the heretics mainly used fire magic and, occasionally, shadow magic. Shadow magic was forbidden. These heretics were far more powerful than she had imagined. Knowing she was being watched, Selen waited until the battle reached its peak before acting. In the meantime, she observed the duke’s abilities in real combat and realized he was remarkably swift when it came to severing heads. If she ever had to face him, she would need to strike first—otherwise, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

When Selen saw that all the knights were fully absorbed in combat, she discreetly captured a heretic. She had spent the past two days training to transform her magical energy into chains. Turning it into a sword came almost naturally to her, but shaping it into chains had proven far more difficult.

She dragged the captured heretic into the ruins of a half-burned house. He struggled and tried in vain to cast spells. She pulled back the hood concealing his face and recoiled at the sight. Blue veins covered his entire face, and his eyes pointed in opposite directions.

“Can you hear me?” Selen asked.

He didn’t respond to anything she said. She even slapped him, but still nothing. Then she realized he seemed to be muttering something—a litany. She tightened the chains around him and leaned closer to decipher his words.

She barely had time to grasp what he was saying when she heard horses approaching. She had no choice. She pierced the heretic with a blade of magic and hurried to hide behind the ruins of the house.

“Go look for the villagers who took refuge in the surrounding forests.”

It was the duke’s voice. Selen felt like screaming in frustration. That man always had a talent for ruining her plans.

She heard the sound of a cart arriving.

“We found three who are still transportable.”

“Very good. Cover them well. We mustn’t let the incident from last time happen again.”

Again, it was the duke.

Selen listened as the horses moved away, and after a few minutes, she emerged from her hiding place. She glanced at the rest of the village. Only the heretics’ corpses remained scattered across the ground. The fires had been extinguished, and villagers were trickling back in—some in tears, others with completely blank expressions.

That evening, as Selen sat in her chamber at the castle, she kept replaying the phrase the heretic had been murmuring. She felt as though she were missing something.

“Cum malum imperabit, Sancta adveniet.”

No matter how she translated the sentence, the meaning remained the same.

“The Saint will return when evil reigns.”