The procession through the Elysian Kingdom was aravagant affair, punctuated by giant circles that the Soulnaught Army had pompously drawn across the maps.

  The dispced popuce, like i mbs, trailed behind the army, all the way to the Soulnaught Capital. There, they were registered as if they were parcels in a delivery office, offered some aid—though it was more for the Soulnaught's public retions than out of any genuine kindness—and then shipped back to their homend.

  Only now, they were rebranded with a atus, as if someone had spped a clearaicker on them.

  The oners didn't see much ge. After all, when you're at the bottom of the social dder, there's not mu to fall. But the nobles, ah, the hey were in for a real treat. They, like the high-born from other fallen kingdoms before them, were subjected to a most eaining ge.

  Now, if you're imagining a rags-to-riches story here, stht there. This was more of a riches-ts situation. The nobles, once adorned in silks and satins, found themselves sing their velvet robes for cotton tunics.

  Their status, once as elevated as the tower spires they lived in, plummeted faster than a lead balloon.

  Their living quarters, once sprawling mansions filled with servants and luxury, were now quaint, pact spaces. Think of it as downsizing, but with ara pinch of humiliation.

  They had traded their fine dining for bread liheir horse-drawn carriages for on carts, their perfumed hankies for bor-worn hands.

  And the best part? They couldn't do a darn thing about it. That's the beauty of losing a war. It's a great leveler. It takes a rips away the veneer of aristocracy, and reveals the ordinary human underh, just as susceptible to loss and ge.

  A's be ho, there's something truly delightful about seeing the high and mighty brought doeg or two, isn't there?

  Including Duchess Delone.

  “That one.”

  A delicate finger poioward one of the ed sves. An old woman. “Brio me.”

  Duchess Delone was a favored daughter of the Elysian Royal Family.

  Now, it's worth noting that daughters from the royal bloodline were scarcer than hen's teeth at the time, but somehow her parents mao defy the odds and produot one, but two daughters.

  Yet, as life's twisted humor would have it, her sister she queen title, leaving our dear Duchess in the dust.

  Why? Well, the prevailing wisdom of the time was that her sister had the edge in the health department. Yes, they both had the same intelled beauty—imagiwo peacocks of equal plumage—but her sister was just a smidge more robust.

  trary to the gossiping tongues of the court, Duchess Delone didn't resent her sister for it. She went ahead and married Duke Delone in a dutiful fashion, ready to carve out her own slice of a beautiful life.

  Then, in a strange plot twist, her sister, the queen, kicked the bucket young after giving birth to a single son.

  Ehe young prince, who was instantly eyed with suspi, despite—or perhaps because of—his aptitude for literature and magic. The whispers of him being a tyrant prince began to flutter around the kingdom, like bats in a belfry.

  So, what did our Duchess do? She cocted a pn to marry the prince off to an obedient, smart noble daughter as soon as humanly possible, and then, of course, to get them popping out offspring at the earliest venience.

  And boy, did they pop. A son was born. Then another. And another.

  It seemed the Duchess had ied the 'no-girl' curse herself. Was this a hex on their royal family? Why wasn't the inal saint reborn? When and where would she show up?

  Sure, there was no solid proof or prophecy that she'd be rebain after her seveh ination, but she had mao pull it off seveimes into the same royal family. Why not aeenth?

  Especially now, when she'd be treated like a goddess, not like she was hundreds of years ago! What if she had cursed the Elysian Kingdom because of this? What if…

  Yes, our Duchess Delone was a true believer, ging to the prophecy with all her heart.

  And so, Duchess Deloook on a grand quest - a life mission, if you will - to 'manufacture' the inal saint.

  Meanwhile, the royal family’s male desdants were kept at arm's length. She picked them out with the precision of a hawk swooping for its prey, always seleg the most ordinary and obedient to be the in line.

  A's not fet, pushing them to sire a female heir.

  As for the male heirs? Well, they were pushed aside faster thaerday's news.

  And then, as if to throw spito an already simmering pot, the rumblings of war were on the horizon.

  Patience, once a virtue, was now a luxury Duchess Delone could ill afford. She needed a girl, the saint, and she needed her yesterday!

  So, she summohe noble women of the kingdom, as if calling in troops for a special mission. Their assig? To have the dubious honor of receiving the royal seed into their wombs.

  It was like some twisted fertility program, where the stakes were not just personal but involved the very survival of the kingdom itself.

  The Duchess's logic was simple, if somewhat desperate. Even if the kingdom did fall, and the odds were not in their favor, if the saint was reborn from one of these noble women and the royal seed, then surely the Elysian Kingdom would rise again!

  It was like a phoenix from the ashes, only with a lot more birth pangs involved.

  Ah, what lengths the desperate will go tlimmer of hope!

  “Sve number 578, e.”

  Without warning, her s were yanked in a dire trary to the human tide of fellow sves. Just like that, she lucked from the sea of downtrodden ex-nobles, like a single weed singled out for special attention from a garden of despair.

  As she shuffled forward, her aged bones protesting every movement, her eyes fell upon a sight that seemed out of p their grim reality: a carriage.

  It was elegant and luxurious, yet in a pin, uated sort of way. The door was invitingly open, and i a woman in bck.

  Her entire figure was shrouded, not a hint of skin on dispy. A round hat sat atop her head, and a veil of bck ce cealed her fabsp;

  "This one, my dy?" The man who had been her -dragging chaperone offered the question to the veiled woman, who responded with a slow, deliberate nod.

  Even in her advanced years, the once "Duchess" Delone had the wisdom not to lift her gaze and demand crification. She was a sve now, a survivor of the brutal lottery that was war.

  Especially after being forced to walk for miles and miles—witnessing the destru the army had wrought upon the nd of Elysian.

  Demanding expnations was a luxury she no longer possessed, a relic of a life that now seemed as distant as a half-remembered dream.

  "The inal saint."

  Delone's ears twitched at the utterance. She hadn't misheard, had she? The veiled woman ensced in the carriage was suggesting...

  "Did you try to reinate her bato the Elysian Royal Family?" the veiled woman queried, her voice a soothing blend of dream and allure.

  It was at this moment that Delone failed to adhere to her self-imposed rule of keeping her gaze lowered. Her eyes, as if drawn by a magic force, locked onto the woman ihe carriage.

  When her gaze met the woman's, the bck veil had been lifted, revealing a face of such beauty, it was like a pun the gut, a face Delone couldn't fet even if she tried.

  "O...inal saint...!" Delone gasped, sounding like she'd just discovered buried treasure.

  The woman in the carriage responded with a gentle smile. "How did ynize my face?"

  "O-of course I'd know! Y-you've always been..." Delouttered, her frail harieving a locket from around her neck. She ope and prese to the woman in the carriage as if a priceless artifact.

  "This is the only picture of you that's left! We, the daughters of the royal family, are duty-bound to memorize your face, so that when you return, we could spot you in a crowd faster than a hawk spots a mouse!" Delone was teetering on the brink of tears.

  "I see," the woman sighed, a wave of relief washing over her. "Aside from you, are there others who know of this picture and have itted my visage to memory?"

  "S-sadly, today, I am the st vestige of that memory. Others may have seen this picture, but I doubt they took the time to etch your fato their minds, Your Majesty!" Delone fessed, her voice quivering like a leaf in the wind.

  "Are you certain of that? Not eve desdants of the royal family?"

  "They are men! Who knows what they might do to you?! I couldn't even show this picture to my own sons!" Delone protested.

  "Alright," the woman ceded, accepting the locket and studying it for a moment.

  "Your Majesty, we've been waiting for you for ay! Please...! Please rescue us from this reign of terror...! This tyranny!" Delone pleaded, her voi the verge of breaking into a wail.

  But the woman in the carriage simply smiled and nodded. She gestured for Deloo draw hen pced her index finger on the old woman's worn, creased forehead.

  "And who will save the children from your tyranny?" Maioned, her smile evaporating like mist uhe m sun.

  "Y-Your Majesty...?" Delone asked, a look of pure puzzlement crossing her face.

  Man pressed her finger against Delone's forehead, her voice firm. "Fet about me. Fet my face. Fet the inal saint. In fact, fet everything, as a senile old woman ought to."

  Days ter, the onidable Duchess Delone was deemed unfit for sve bor due to severe dementia, and discarded into an unmarked pit somewhere, as one might toss out yesterday's garbage.

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