Spring was warm, and sunlight scattered like flecks of gold across the Knight Training Square at the center of the Red Tide Fief.
A temporary platform reinforced with oak and black iron nails stood quietly in the middle of the square.
On the platform, Louis wore a red-and-black cloak, his posture straight as a spear.
Eight boys and girls stood behind him in full armor, their expressions solemn.
Their shoulders and backs were straight, and longswords hung at their waists.
These were the eight who had passed last year's Blood-Drop Stone trial.
A year had passed, and they were all Apprentice Knights now.
The most outstanding was naturally Vale, who had already advanced to Mid-Rank Official Knight.
The boy stood at the front, sunlight falling on his stern profile, the Red Tide Emblem on his breastplate gleaming.
In the square below, more than seventy boys and girls stood packed together.
They were young and frail, their faces bearing the faint shadows of malnutrition, yet also brimming with excitement, emotion, and an indescribable longing.
They all came from the six Vassal Territories under the Red Tide Fief. They possessed knight bloodlines verified by the Blood-Drop Stone, lucky souls upon whom fate had occasionally shown mercy.
Yet they knew better than anyone that, without the lord on that platform, they would not have been standing there today.
They were merely the children of slaves, craftsmen, and refugees, among the "dead fish" destined to perish in hunger, cold, and war.
Before last year's winter had arrived to strip everything away, war had already ravaged their homes. Their parents had stooped to gather firewood in the bitter wind, arguing and pleading over food on snowy nights.
Many of their brothers and sisters had vanished into that winter without even leaving a name behind.
But