Ayna walked down the narrow, smoke-and-medicine-scented corridors of the administration building. It felt unnatural for her to be inside such a massive structure - spacious, yet currently cramped to the limit with human sorrow. Wounded people lay directly on the floor in places, while in dark corners, frightened children slept exhaustedly, huddled together in small groups.

She turned and looked back at Zhan, who was silently following right at her heels.

“I hope our children will understand why we acted this way,” Ayna said softly, struggling to swallow the lump in her throat.

“Tanir will never forgive treason,” Zhan replied mournfully, lowering her eyes. “They won't return them to us anyway.”

“They won't return them to us either way,” Ayna answered fiercely, with desperate resolve. “Which is why we must at least try.”

Her hands clenched into fists until her knuckles turned white. She marched further down the corridor, striving not to look at those trying to survive this nightmare. Zhan followed her in silence.

Adelissa stood by a surviving window, silently watching the sorrowful procession of nomad women slowly haul wagons bearing the bodies of their fallen men. Floating over the outpost was their funeral chant - a mournful, drawn-out, and remarkably soulful song carrying all the grief of the northern steppes.

“I wonder what they are singing about?” Helen approached softly from behind and tenderly draped a warm down shawl over her daughter’s shoulders, shielding her from the draft leaking through the cracked glass.

“It is a song of mourning,” Adelissa replied, without taking her eyes off the procession.

Her mother looked at her with a surprised, inquiring expression.

“They are singing for the souls of these men to return to the great circle of life and take their rightful place among the ancestors...”

“You know their language, Miss Fornweir?” a polite, smooth voice sounded from behind.

Adelissa startled and turned around. Felix von Allen seemed to have materialized out of thin air - silent as always, impeccably dressed despite the recent fire, and bearing a faint, enigmatic half-smile on his lips.

“A little... To be honest, very poorly,” the girl answered, sheepishly lowering her gaze.

Felix gestured for her to continue, listening intently.

“I... I pieced together fragments of what they were saying earlier when they were arguing,” Adelissa spoke, feeling Allen’s sharp gaze upon her. “Their men left for some great festival and returned completely different... changed. They brought back that intoxicating drink with them and ordered everyone to drink. But Ayna, the wife of Khan, refused to drink herself and protected some of the women. And the next morning...”

The girl paused, casting a glance at Felix.

“What happened the next morning?” Allen prodded calmly, yet demandingly.

“Their children were taken. Every last one of them,” Adelissa said softly. “The men said they would be turned into ‘brave warriors,’ and that it was the greatest honor for the clan.”

Felix froze for a fraction of a second, a flicker of genuine surprise flashing in his eyes.

“All of them? Even the toddlers?”

“Yes,” Adelissa nodded. “Nomads have harsh laws: military craft is taught from childhood, and women fight alongside men. So they took everyone who could hold a weapon or even walk.”

Allen thoughtfully pressed his fingers to his chin, digesting what he had heard.

At that very moment, Adrian stood frozen in the corridor outside the half-open office door. He had intended to step inside, but stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing his daughter’s voice.

When Felix gave Adelissa a short nod and stepped out of the room, Adrian slowly crossed the threshold. He looked pale - whether from the effects of his severe injuries and unhealed ribs, or from a strange, terrifying dread that suddenly gripped him from within.

He stopped across from his daughter, leaning heavily on his cane, and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time in his life.

“Where... did you learn their language?” Adrian asked softly, barely audible.

Adelissa blinked in surprise, not understanding the reason behind her father’s astonishment.

“Didn't... you teach me? When I was little?”

Adrian slowly shook his head, a genuine horror reflecting in his eyes.

“I do not know this language...” he whispered, looking away to the side. “My father... my father knew it.”

Isaac Grant personally walked around the outpost once more, inspecting the condition of the surviving soldiers and assessing the extent of damage to the defensive structures. Exchanging a pair of routine phrases with the marquis’s newly arrived knight, he headed toward the administrative wing - it was necessary to learn what orders the commander had, as sitting idle after surviving such a siege felt unfamiliar and heavy.

Passing through the echoing corridor, he casually cast a glance to the side and slowed his pace. Adelissa was sitting on a bench alongside her younger sister Mira, softly playing something simple with her to distract the child from the recent horror.

Isaac immediately banished the nagging thoughts of how strongly she sometimes reminded him of that woman from the past.

No, not the same at all. Lis would never hide or run away... he cut his thoughts off sternly and firmly, reminding himself that standing before him was merely the daughter of a local official.

Yet the heavy sense of guilt and duty toward the late queen outweighed his restraint. Frowning, Grant strode forward decisively and loomed over the girls with his massive frame.

Adelissa raised her head in surprise, freezing under his heavy gaze, and had already opened her mouth to greet him when the knight cut in front of her.

“Starting tomorrow, you’re training,” he dropped as harshly and imperiously as possible.

Seeing the absolute bewildered expression frozen on the girl’s face, Isaac suddenly caught himself. Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat awkwardly and realized with frustration that, due to his new habit of speaking in clipped fragments, he hadn't shared his train of thought with her at all.

“I... well... anyway, you’ll be my apprentice,” he muttered, slightly less confidently, inventing an unconvincing excuse on the fly. “Your father... I mean, we all understand you don't want to get hurt again. So I decided I’ll take charge of your training. Be at the training grounds at six in the morning tomorrow. Lateness means penalty laps.”

Without waiting for a response, Isaac spun sharply on his heel and strode quickly down the corridor. Inside, he was burning with a deep, unfamiliar embarrassment for a battle-hardened warrior - he felt like a complete fool, but could do nothing to help himself.

Adelissa remained sitting there, astounded, gazing after him in confusion.

Little Mira watched the stern knight with a frightened look, then turned to her elder sister and, blinking her eyelashes, asked trustingly:

“Del... Are you going to be a knight now too?”