Amanda’s internal monologue was one continuous prayer, pulsing in ti with her heartbeat: Please don’t co closer, please don’t co closer, please don’t co closer… She pretended to study the pattern etched into her glass with profound fascination, hoping her posture scread “Mortals, do not approach.”
Her hopes were promptly crushed.
A small delegation advanced toward her like ships drawn to the beacon of a lighthouse. Leading the way was Hikari Tsuba, wearing a shy but determined smile. Behind her walked Sayuri Hanasaku, cold curiosity glinting in her eyes. Flanking them like an honor guard were Aoi Midori and Yu Jinja. Four young won from the most powerful families in the duchy. An introvert’s worst nightmare.
Hikari perford a small, graceful curtsy.
“Lady Keeper, forgive the intrusion…” Her soft voice trembled with excitent. “I—we—we simply couldn’t help but admire you.”
Amanda slowly turned her head toward them. The mask hid her panic, but it could not conceal the faint stiffening of her posture. *Oh no. Group assault. What do I do? What do I say?*
Sayuri didn’t wait for an answer.
“Your attire… it’s breathtaking. Such an unusual cut. Is this… a traditional style from your holand?”
Holand? What holand? My wardrobe is literally in the guest chambers upstairs! Amanda’s mind scread.
“It… reflects a bond with nature,” she managed, hoping it sounded suitably mysterious.
Aoi Midori, who had been silent until now, nodded. Her green eyes glowed with genuine interest.
“I can feel it. The fabric seems to carry the whisper of leaves. And the mask… is it made of orichalcum? I’ve read that this tal can conduct and concentrate magical currents.”
Don’t cry, Amanda. Hold it together. Hold it together!
“The tal… possesses a will of its own,” Amanda replied, going full esoteric mode while cold sweat prickled down her back.
Quiet little Yu Jinja stared up at her with wide, wondering eyes.
“Is it true that you can speak with trees?” she whispered. “My brother says the ancient scrolls ntion beings who could.”
I can speak to trees only in the sense that I curse them when I trip over their roots!
“Everything in this world has a voice,” Amanda intoned, pouring every ounce of gravitas she could muster into the words. “One must simply learn to listen.”
Across the room, Randell, still trapped in the circle of heirs, kept one eye on the unfolding scene. He saw Amanda standing tall and unassailable, saw the four young won pelting her with questions. He noticed the faint tension in her shoulders and was ready to intervene at any second.
Kaito Tsuba, catching the direction of his gaze, smirked.
“It seems your Keeper is drawing no less attention than you are, Randell. The ladies are besieging her with the sa fervor we’re besieging you with questions about the battle.”
“Her power attracts the curious,” Randell said curtly, trying to mask his unease.
“Or perhaps her *solitude* draws those who see more than just power,” Ren Jinja observed quietly. “My sister would never approach a tyrant, no matter how mighty. But she approached soone who looks… a little lost.”
The words made Randell flinch. He looked at Amanda again. Yes, she stood proud. But there was sothing heartbreakingly distant about her solitary figure at the edge of the hall—surrounded yet untouched. And these girls, without even realizing it, had sensed it.
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anwhile, Amanda—parrying their questions with increasingly abstract and enigmatic answers—suddenly realized sothing. They weren’t trying to trap her. They were genuinely fascinated. A little frightened, even. And in their eyes she saw not only curiosity, but the first flickers of admiration. They were interpreting her silence and detachnt as profound, wise mystery.
Okay, she thought, taking another careful sip of wine. Maybe this isn’t so terrible. Just stay silent at the right monts and speak in riddles. Apparently, I can do that.
For the first ti that evening, the tiniest smile touched her lips—hidden from view behind the rim of the glass. Perhaps she might actually survive this banquet. Perhaps.
***
Sayuri’s question lodged in Amanda’s mind like a thorn—sharp, relentless.
Holand. I don’t have a holand. I have a dorm panel and student debt, the thought flashed through her, cold and sticky panic rising in her throat. She couldn’t invent a na, couldn’t describe a culture. Any lie would be fragile, easily torn open. And in that desperate scramble for an exit, her mind—stuffed to bursting with clichés from fantasy novels and ani—delivered the single most dramatic, most irreversible option available.
She slowly lowered her glass.
The modulated voice, stripped of all warmth, erged so softly that the girls instinctively leaned closer to hear it. Yet in the sudden hush that had fallen around them, every word carried.
“My holand… no longer exists.”
She let the silence stretch—long, heavy, soul-freezing.
“The song of the Last Forest Chorus fell silent centuries ago. I…” She paused, as though searching for a word that did not exist in their language. “…am the last. The Supre Keeper. The final guardian of the Grove of Oblivion. In this world… I am alone.”
She did not look at them. Her gaze turned inward, toward a nonexistent past she had just invented. But she could feel the air around them congeal.
Hikari Tsuba gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes. Alone… She’s the very last of an entire people? Dear gods… What loneliness. Centuries—entire centuries—alone?
Sayuri Hanasaku froze. The cynical, calculating mask on her face shattered like fine crystal. The last… Not rely a powerful being. A relic. A living artifact of a vanished age. Her value—no, her tragedy—is imasurable.
Aoi Midori went pale. For a girl whose entire life was woven into the cycles of forests, the words sounded like a funeral bell. The Grove of Oblivion… the final guardian… Her people were part of the forest itself. And they are gone. What have we humans done to this world?
Yu Jinja simply stared with such raw horror and pity that her own heart seed ready to break. Alone… on the whole wide world. How can she bear it?
The shock did not remain confined to their small circle.
Amanda’s quiet words had reached the sharp ears of Ren Jinja. He stood not far away, and for once his normally impassive face twisted in naked, speechless astonishnt. He actually recoiled as though struck.
“The last…” he whispered, voice cracking. “An entire people… gone? But that’s… impossible. A civilization of that caliber, that magic—they would have left traces! Artifacts, ruins!”
His whisper drew Kaito Tsuba’s attention. The mocking glint in Kaito’s eyes died, replaced by sothing rare for him: reverent dread.
“What? What did she say?” he demanded of Ren, but Ren only pointed with his gaze toward Amanda.
Akira Hanasaku, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, tensed.
“What’s going on? You all look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Hanasaku, shut up,” Kaito snapped, eyes never leaving the solitary figure in erald silk. “She… she’s the last. The very last of her kind.”
Akira froze mid-motion, his fan halted in the air. The last… Like the sole surviving flower of an extinct species. Her value… her uniqueness… this is beyond anything.
Even Randel, catching fragnts, turned. He had always known she was not of this world, but he had never truly grasped the scale. This revelation—this cosmic depth of her solitude—struck him harder than any display of power ever could. Alone… for a thousand years? His own problems, his dynastic squabbles, suddenly felt petty and insignificant in the face of such eternal, universe-spanning loss.
The silence around Amanda beca deafening.
She stood there—still flawless, still untouchable behind her mask—but now her solitude was no longer a pose. It was tangible, a physical presence as biting as frost in the air. She had not rely lied. She had erected around herself the walls of an entire tragedy, a necropolis of a whole race, of which she was now the sole heir.
And seeing the shock, the pity, the reverent terror on the faces surrounding her, she understood: she had crossed the Rubicon. There was no going back. She could no longer be rely “a powerful guest.” From this mont forward, she was the Last Supre Keeper. A living monunt to the fact that even the mightiest civilizations die.
And that made her simultaneously infinitely vulnerable and utterly untouchable. Who would dare raise a hand against the final blossom of an extinct garden? Who would dare insult the sole surviving mory of an entire world?
Slowly she lifted her gaze. Her crimson eyes—filled with feigned yet no less chilling sorrow—t Randell’s across the room.
And in that instant he understood that his desire to protect her was no longer rely masculine instinct or political calculation.
It was duty.
The duty of the living toward the face of eternal oblivion.
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