"Go and make the preparations. I'm going to Qixing Territory."
"Yes, Father."
Risis suddenly remembered something and called out to his eldest son, who had yet to leave, "Wait a moment."
"Father, is there anything else?" The young man stopped, turned around, and asked.
"Tell your aunt about this as well."
"Yes."
After the study door closed, Risis sat quietly for a while, only to find that he could no longer settle down to attend to his administrative duties.
He rose from his desk and turned to look at the map of Fire Beacon Territory hanging on the wall, his face full of emotion.
Before he knew it, he had been here for almost a hundred and thirty years.
When he thought back to the time he left Windsor Castle, he had been only a Low-level Silver Knight. Now, after all these years, he was a High-rank Gold Knight. Even within the family, his progress was considered fast.
"I'm getting old. So old."
"When I return this time, I should hand this position over to Galein."
As he admired the domain he had built, a sense of accomplishment welled up in Risis's heart.
In a manor north of Huofeng Ridge, a black-haired woman stood barefoot on the training ground.
Rain fell from the sky onto the bluestone paving, onto her loose black hair, and onto the two longswords thrust into cracks in the stone beside her feet.
She closed her eyes and tilted her face upward, letting the rain run down her forehead, over the bridge of her nose, and past her lips.
Once, she had disliked the rain.
Now, she enjoyed the feeling of standing in it.
She raised her hands, grasped the longswords on either side, and began a sword dance in the rain.
Listening to the raindrops