Rachelna sat on the soft sofa in the study, tightly wringing the handkerchief in her hands.
Beside her, her husband, Viscount Ronald, stood ramrod straight, yet looked distinctly ill at ease.
Ronald did not dare let his gaze linger on the scene outside, but he could not stop his eyes from drifting back toward it.
Toward the harbor, the silhouettes of the Iron Fleet almost blotted out the horizon. Their black hulls loomed through the mist like rows of silent beasts.
Ronald swallowed, his calves tightening. Even as an Elite Knight, he could not help feeling a little afraid of such imposing monsters.
Rachelna's thoughts, however, had long since left the view beyond the window. Memories pulled back and forth through her mind.
In her memories, her younger brother Louis was still a boy who always kept his head down and hesitated for ages before speaking.
At family banquets, he sat in the farthest corner, yet still did his best to observe proper etiquette.
When she first learned that he had been chosen to become a Frontier Baron in the Northern Frontier, she had thought he was doomed. She had genuinely feared that her timid brother would not even survive his first winter after being sent there.
She had begged her husband for extra gold coins and given her brother the Life Potion she had secretly saved, hoping to offer him even the slightest chance of survival.
But the news coming back from the Northern Frontier grew more incredible each time.
At first, there had only been scattered rumors and Louis's modest letters.
The castoff whom the family had abandoned and sent into the wilderness had actually established a foothold in the Northern Frontier.
Starting as a Frontier Baron without even a decent domain, he had fought his way to