He dismounted deftly, his movements crisp and soldierly.
He strode to Irene’s carriage, looked up, and in those golden eyes—so similar to Irene’s—there was genuine, overflowing concern and joy.
“By the gods! When I got the messenger’s news, I could hardly believe it! This whole journey… this whole journey, you must have suffered so much!”
He reached out, as if to take Irene’s hand in welcome, but stopped halfway out of formality, finally thumping his solid chest hard. “It’s good you’re back! It’s good you’re back! The Raven Family needs you, and this land needs its true master even more!”
His words were earnest, his bearing open, and the sorrow and sense of responsibility for the territory on his face seemed almost flawless.
Irene looked at him in silence, showing just the right amount of fatigue from her long journey and a trace of lost, sorrowful bewilderment at her homeland’s transformation, and nodded gently. “Cousin Vincent… I’m back. I just didn’t expect…”
Her words were interrupted by some villagers who had followed Vincent.
Though the villagers wore ragged clothes and their faces were thin and yellow, their gazes toward Vincent were full of undisguised admiration and reliance, as if looking up to the only water source in a drought.
They all spoke up, their voices hoarse from excitement and malnutrition:
“Lord Vincent! Is the young lady really back?”
“That’s great! Lord Vincent’s hair has turned white with worry these days, always watching over us at the mine, afraid we’d starve!”
“Yes, yes! If it weren’t for the lord finding iron ore, we would have…”
The villagers’ chorus of praise formed an invisible shield around Vincent.
He showed timely humility and embarrassment, waving his hands. “Don’t say that, this is just what I should do. Lady Irene’s return is the greatest joy!”
He turned to Irene, his tone sincere. “See, Irene, everyone’s been waiting for you to come back and take charge!”
The atmosphere seemed to reach a warm and hopeful peak.
Vincent warmly invited Irene’s convoy to the manor for a welcoming feast.
Irene’s companions—Knight Ansel guarding her side, mage Helga observing calmly as usual, and Rita nodding slightly at Vincent’s “responsibility” and the villagers’ support—felt the tense mood ease a little.
Rita even muttered quietly, “…He’s a good man.”
But Rita’s grandfather, the old exorcist, couldn’t help but let out a mocking sneer, as if laughing at his granddaughter’s naivety.
The old man looked at Irene, and, sensing the shadow in those golden eyes, realized that this young lady likely needed no reminder from him.
The old man’s cloudy eyes shifted a little. The encounter in Windmill Village had made him see the dawn that could tear through darkness in Irene, and he began to consider another possibility.
Crown Irene as Saintess.
And, coincidentally, she was also a friend of Losweiser; the old man wasn’t afraid she’d refuse.
*****
Just as the group was about to set out again, the horses’ hooves and wagon wheels about to roll over the cracked earth—
A few more villagers, equally ragged but unusually agitated, suddenly rushed in from the side.
Like stones thrown into still water, they instantly shattered the harmony that had just been built.
At their head was a burly, thick-faced bald man. He waved his stout arms, eyes bloodshot, pointing straight at Irene in the carriage. His voice was hoarse as a broken gong, full of bitter hatred:
“Lord Vincent! You’re out of your mind! How can you give the lord’s seat to this woman?!”
His roar was like thunder, stunning everyone.
The air froze. Even the wind seemed to stop wailing.
The bald man, heedless, spat as he ranted in the dry air: “It’s her! It’s Irene Raven! She angered the gods! She brought the curse upon our land! Otherwise, how could there be no rain for half a year?!
Why else would all the crops die?! This is divine punishment! The gods are punishing her sins!
She’s a witch! The witch who brings drought and disaster! Make her leave! Drive her out of the Raven Territory! Or she’ll doom us all!”
The people behind him immediately joined in, their voices sharp and malicious:
“Yes! Drive her out! Jinx!”
“Lord Vincent is our savior! Don’t let this disaster back!”
“It’s all her fault! My child died of thirst! Wuwuwu…”
A woman beat her chest and wailed, her cries piercing the desolate wilderness.
Vincent’s face turned deathly pale in an instant, as if smeared with ash.
The warmth and joy from earlier vanished, leaving only shock, anger, and the awkwardness of having his mask suddenly torn away.
He spun around, barking at the troublemakers in a voice warped with fury: “Enough! You bastards! Who gave you the guts to spout such slander about Lady Irene?! Get out of here!”
“To slander a noble of the Kingdom is a hanging offense!”
But his scolding didn’t make the villagers back down; instead, it seemed to give them some sort of signal.
The bald man stretched his neck, even more agitated, almost charging up to Irene’s carriage, still bellowing filthily: “My lord! Don’t let her fool you! She’s the root of all trouble! She’s…”
Irene sat upright in the carriage, looking down from above.
The initial shock and anger that surged in her chest burned for only a moment before being doused and tempered by a cold rationality.
Her gaze swept over the “righteously indignant” villagers like the sharpest probe.
The flaws were obvious.
The weeping woman’s rough fingers had perfectly clean nails, not a speck of dirt from labor.
The bald man in front, trembling with supposed fury, wore boots with only a little dust—yet the edges of the soles were suspiciously new, as if just taken from storage and only dirtied at the last minute.
And when they shouted, their eyes always darted, almost imperceptibly, toward Vincent, not with real hatred but with a nervous impatience waiting for orders.
A clumsy act.
The corners of Irene’s lips twitched downward ever so slightly, a fleeting, cold, mocking arc.
She understood.
This wasn’t public outrage; it was a meticulously staged show of intimidation, a crude performance directed by her “concerned” cousin, meant to provoke her and make her lose the people’s support upon her return.
And the rumors spread throughout the kingdom had become his weapon.
He wanted to see her lose control, see her rage, see her, like a spoiled, irresponsible noble lady, flounder helplessly under the “innocent” villagers’ accusations, or even do something even more disgraceful.
A heroic lord who saves the territory in disaster, versus a noble lady of pure blood but infamous reputation, ignorant of the world—where would the people’s hearts go?
A cold anger coiled in her heart, yet it made her mind all the clearer.
Anger? No, what she needed now was to strike back, to tear this web of lies apart completely.
As Vincent, beside himself with rage, tried to direct his attendants to drive away the “unruly” villagers, the scene devolving into chaos, Irene moved. She shook her head slightly at the grim-faced Ansel, signaling him not to act rashly.
She stood up slowly, her movements unhurried, as if not facing a hostile mob but about to deliver an elegant speech.
She stood atop the carriage shaft, her slender figure ramrod straight beneath the leaden sky, like a resilient, unbreakable gladiolus.
Irene didn’t speak at once, only swept her icy blue eyes calmly, almost compassionately, over the still-rowdy villagers.
Her gaze wasn’t sharp, but it pierced the soul.
The bald man, caught by her eyes, suddenly choked on his exaggerated roar, the rest of his words stuck in his throat. The others shrank back instinctively.
The entire scene grew even eerier in the sudden silence.
At last, Irene spoke.
Her voice wasn’t loud, even hoarse from travel, but it cut through the wilderness and entered every ear with a strange, chilling force:
“Oh? The drought and failed crops are all because of me?”
She let out a soft syllable, the ending slightly raised in just the right note of confusion, her eyes locking on the bald man. “Angered the gods? Divine punishment? What if I say—”
She paused, as if savoring the absurd accusation, then her lips suddenly curled upward.
“What if the punishment is because you believed rumors too easily?”
A few villagers tried to retort, but Irene continued, “Because your lord—that is, I—am the messenger who can hear the goddess’s oracle. Disrespect toward me is disrespect toward the goddess herself!”
“You—you, how can you prove it?” someone challenged.
Her voice was firm as iron, every word pounding the frozen air.
“Tomorrow at this hour! Right here! There will be rain!”