Free Web NovelThe night in the Northern Lands was bone-chilling, and the towers of Frost Halberd City were shrouded in wind and snow.
Inside the study, a faint candle flickered, casting mottled light and shadow on the heavy curtains.
Duke Edmund sat in his familiar high-backed chair, wrapped in a thick blanket, yet his fingers still trembled uncontrollably.
His figure was like a dry branch, no longer possessing the imposing, city-wall-like presence he had just a few months prior.
He slowly raised his hand and poured the dark medicine into a wine glass; bitterness and potency mixed together. He drank it in one gulp, and a knife-like burning sensation coiled up his spine.
But Edmund didn't frown in the slightest; he just silently looked at the opposite wall.
There hung a map of the Northern Lands, a family lineage chart, and three portraits.
His father, Bertrand, fought three Snow Oath Elders for seven days and nights without rest or retreat, battling to the very end, his spear still clutched in his hand even in death.
His elder brother, Auden, was gentle and taciturn, yet during the barbarian invasion from the south, to cover the main army, he used his last shred of Battle Qi to detonate the enemy leader.
His eldest son, Maek, died in the Great Rebellion, detonated by a Magic Bomb set off by a traitor; the entire battle platform turned to ash, leaving not even a trace of his bones.
Edmund closed his eyes, and scenes of long-faded memories flickered in his mind.
Back then, he was still young, full of vigor, standing in silver armor on the Frost Halberd City wall, and once angrily rebuked his elder brother, Auden.
“Leave the task of attracting the enemy to me! The family’s honor cannot be extinguished in your hands!”
But his elder brother simply remained silent, and finally led his iron cavalry onto that mountain ridge, until his figure disappeared into the rolling flames of war.
After that night, he took over the Frost Iron Sword, and also the fate of the entire Northern Lands. But now, looking back on thirty years of guarding the border, all he saw was:
City walls broken during the Great Rebellion, the Council Hall burned down by the Red Oath fanatics, the flayed Northern Lands officials hanged, and the knights who eventually froze to death in the Snow Valley.
He also saw cities covered in corrupted demonic energy after the Disaster of the Insect Corpses, and the trembling backs of parents burying their sick children in the snow.
He personally ordered the burning of seventeen plague-stricken towns to prevent further spread of the insect plague, and personally signed the “Survival Rules” that denied entry to tens of thousands of refugees.
Finally, after the barbarians underwent a complete mutation, enemy forces surged in like a tide.
Frost Giant Beasts with bone spurs, barbarians entwined with vines burning with rage, and Frost Giants roaring under the sky.
The Northern Lands became a graveyard for countless people.
Edmund slowly opened his eyes; the pain had not subsided, and had even intensified.
He gazed at the old painting hanging on the wall; in it, a middle-aged man with golden hair and blue eyes stood back-to-back with him on the battlefield, behind them the burning snowfield.
Ernst August, who had not yet become the Emperor of the Empire at that time.
He himself was only fourteen then, fighting side-by-side with August on the barbarian cold plains.
August patted his shoulder and said, “You are the future Shield of the Northern Lands.”
He remembered that sentence his whole life, and he guarded the Northern Lands for the Empire his whole life.
But in the last decade, he began to doubt whether he and the Edmund Family were abandoned by the Empire.
When imperial aid for grain was delayed, when military supplies were repeatedly cut, when the death toll in the Northern Lands piled up like snow hills, while the Imperial Capital was busy with power struggles.
Edmund understood that they never intended to save the Northern Lands; they only wanted it to serve as a shield.
Shield of the Northern Lands, truly an ironic title.
But he still deeply loved this snowy land.
This land covered in white frost, these people toiling in the cold nights, these artisans who built city walls brick by brick, these knights who guarded it with their lives.
But he didn't like this era.
An era that turned knights into gold coins, honor into tokens, loyalty into foolishness, and human lives into livestock.
And he once thought those were the things he was meant to protect; now, he realized it was nothing more than a corpse dressed in new robes.
“After I die—what will become of the Northern Lands?”
Edmund had pondered this question for a long time.
He knew his days were numbered, but he didn't want this land to be buried with him.
And the face of that young man reappeared in his mind—Louis Calvin.
According ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) to Emily, her son-in-law always spoke with an undisguised reverence, describing Louis as if he were a saint from legends.
Initially, he thought it was just the filter of a young girl's eyes and didn't pay much attention.
But then, intelligence kept pouring in from his spies planted in Red Tide Territory.
These spies all came from his most trusted old subordinates; some disguised themselves as refugees, some became Red Tide officials, and there were also knights from the Broken Fang Knights.
But the news they brought back was so consistent that it made him suspicious.
This young lord was too pure, too upright, too perfect.
“A pioneering lord, who in three years took in 100,000 returning citizens, rebuilt farmland, established a complete military industry, and earned the loyalty of his people—
If it were an act, it would be a bit too perfect.”
So he also suspected that these were merely superficial projects, concentrated in only a few areas.
He even ordered a trusted old knight to personally visit the peripheral territories of Red Tide to see if the situation was consistent, or if it was only the core territories that were like this.
The result was that when the old knight returned, he only said one sentence: “That place is where I would be willing to retire and live out my old age.”
This sentence was more effective than anything else.
One can act for a month, or a year, but can one act for three or four years? Can one act for a lifetime?
Can one act so well that even farmers look on with respect? Can one act so well that not a single refugee wants to flee south?
Edmund looked at the map; the area of Red Tide Territory had been colored red from grey-white.
He didn't want to admit it, yet he couldn't deny it.
Louis had achieved what he had wanted to do but couldn't in his youth.
In just a few years, he had taken in exiles, cultivated wild lands, and united knights.
At least under Louis's rule, those people lived lives that he had never been able to provide.
Perhaps under Louis, the Northern Lands would experience a rebirth.
Thinking of this, Edmund couldn't help but sigh softly.
“Emily—” he murmured.
She was his smartest, most stubborn, and most like her mother of all his children.
Edmund had intended not to disturb her before he died, not to disturb her who was nurturing new life.
In this destined-to-end stage play, he didn't want her to see him grow old and collapse.
But now he suddenly wanted to see her; this thought kept recurring these past few days.
Between Red Tide and Frost Halberd lay the mud and ruins of post-war reconstruction, and even more, the ceaseless cold currents of the Northern Lands, day and night.
It would be too selfish to put her in danger.
But he still—wanted to see her.
After a long silence, Edmund suddenly laughed.
The laugh was like rusty armor, making faint clanking sounds in the still night.
“Never mind. Let me be—selfish one last time.”
He reached out, opened the bookshelf beside him, and after some effort, pulled out a secret compartment.
Inside, a letter, already sealed, lay quietly.
The pale red sealing wax bore the Frost Halberd crest, and the edges of the letter paper were slightly yellowed.
He had written this letter more than once, and revised it more than once.
Just seven days after the letter was sent, Red Tide’s carriage arrived at the gates of the Frost Halberd inner manor, and the first to jump out of the carriage was still the stubborn yet gentle young woman he remembered.
“Father,” Emily called with a smile, though her eyes were slightly red, “I’m back.”
Edmund squinted at her, said nothing, just nodded slightly, then extended his old, withered hand.
Emily gently took it, just as she had when she was a child.
In the days that followed, the Frost Halberd inner manor finally heard laughter after a long absence.
Emily brought pastries, a specialty of Red Tide; Elena personally brewed tea, and young Isaac chased the cat nearby.
Edmund sat in a chair by the window, like a quiet observer, watching this scene that seemed like a painting from his dreams.
At night, Emily played chess with him; she deliberately lost, but her father saw through it.
“Don’t go easy on me,” Edmund coughed twice, but showed a rare smile, “I don’t need you to fake it yet.”
She just nodded and smiled, but secretly clenched her fists in her sleeve.
Louis had actually come as well.
But this time, he deliberately remained “transparent,” neither disturbing nor drawing attention to himself.
All the necessary matters had already been settled during the night at Buried Bone Canyon six months prior, and through the secret correspondence during these six months.
Power, promises, future direction—everything had been arranged.
Therefore, he did not tactlessly intrude upon this warm family atmosphere.
He chose to stand outside the house, quietly guarding, guarding the man who was once the Shield of the Northern Lands, as he embraced the final peaceful moments of his life.
Until the morning of the seventh day, before dawn.
Emily came to her father’s room and found the door ajar, the hearth still warm.
Edmund, dressed in a casual robe, sat in the high-backed chair by the window, gently holding Isaac in his arms.
The child was still young, sleeping soundly in his embrace.
His withered hand gently supported the child’s head, as if protecting a spark.
Emily quietly approached and found her father with his eyes closed, a calm smile on his lips.
He had no pain, no struggle.
He had simply, overnight, like an aging eagle, quietly settled into the earth.
On the morning of the third day after the Duke’s passing.
Outside Frost Halberd City, on the southwestern hills of the old town—the “Guardians’ Graveyard.”
This was a silent white stone slope, surrounded by forest on three sides, facing the snowy plains to the north, burying the bloodline of generations of the Edmund Family.
At this moment, the entire graveyard was enveloped in a snow mist; it seemed as if heaven and earth had lowered their voices, fearing to disturb the peace of the sleeper.
There was no public mourning, no procession of distant noble carriages, no overwhelming obituaries or dirges.
Just as he wished in life.
Everything was kept simple, arranged only by the Frost Halberd inner manor, with only family, representatives of the three great knight orders, old subordinates and representatives of Frost Halberd officials, and a few Northern Lands nobles still stationed locally—a mere few dozens of people.
Everyone stood silently before the grave platform, no one spoke, even coughs seemed frozen in their throats.
The coffin was carved from a single piece of Northern Lands black fir.
Simple, silent, covered with coarse grey cloth, as if naturally born from the snowy plains and returning to the earth.
Standing before the wooden coffin, presiding over the funeral, was the Dragon Ancestor Archpriest of Frost Halberd City.
An old man over ninety, he wore an ancient ceremonial robe of dark blue and silver-grey, his staff carved with ancient inscriptions, and pale silver ribbons hung from its tip, dancing lightly in the wind with his slightly trembling gestures.
He did not declare loudly, but spoke in a hoarse voice, softly in the silent snow:
“In the coldest frontier, he raised his sword above his head; in the most silent battlefield, he guarded until the last man. He was not a perfect man, but he accomplished everything a loyal subject could do.”
The Archpriest paused here, tapped his staff, and it landed in the snow before the coffin: “Today, he will no longer bear burdens.”
Coincidentally, at that moment, the wind seemed to suddenly stop.
Emily stood before the coffin, her posture straight, her abdomen prominent, as if using all her strength to resist the cold wind and grief.
Her face was expressionless, for she was the daughter of a Northern Lands noble, the daughter of Edmund.
Louis stood beside her, saying nothing, just gently holding her hand.
His hand was warm and firm, just like the countless times the sleeping man had given her support.
Lady Elena, holding young Isaac, stood to one side.
She wore a dark black cloak, her expression blank, her gaze unfocused, her mind still dwelling on her husband’s laughter from a few days ago, not yet truly accepting the fact that this man had passed away.
And Isaac looked up at the sky, reaching out to touch a falling snowflake, but couldn't catch it.
When the Archpriest finished reciting the last vow, Ferran, the commander of the Cold Iron Knights, stepped forward through the snow, knelt on one knee, and loudly declared the oath:
“Duke Edmund has returned to the silent snow; we swear not to betray his will!”
The Broken Fang Knights, the Silver Fang Knights, the old subordinates of Frost Iron.
One knight after another removed his helmet and knelt in the snow.
Finally, several of the Duke’s personal guards slowly lifted the coffin and placed it into the pre-dug stone crypt.
There was no dirge, no drumbeat, only the dull thud of the wooden coffin slowly meeting the ice and snow.
The ceremony ended, and everyone silently withdrew; the knights bid farewell one by one, returning to their garrisons, while the old subordinates and old officials supported each other, leaving with worried expressions.
Elena led Isaac away, her gaze still vaguely turning back to the graveyard several times. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
And Emily remained standing in place, watching everyone leave.
Her expression was calm; she even exchanged pleasantries with others and comforted her stepmother.
Until she returned to the inner manor and pushed open the familiar study door.
Inside, the room still retained the appearance it had when the Duke was alive.
The old high-backed chair still rested by the fireplace, a thick blanket draped over its back, and on the small table beside the chair lay an unfinished medicinal wine, with an unfolded intelligence report pressed beside it, its corner slightly curled.
The fireplace was extinguished, but everything still carried the lingering scent of her father.
Her shoulders trembled slightly.
Then, as if an invisible string had suddenly snapped, Emily rushed to the chair, burying her face deeply in her arms.
Only then did the choked sobs, suppressed for too long, break free from deep within her throat, tearing through her lungs.
Emily cried until she was almost voiceless, as if tearing out all the emotions that had been pressing on her chest for the past six months.
Just then, a warm hand gently rested on her shoulder.
Louis appeared beside her at some point.
He said nothing; he just slowly sat down, opened his arms, and gently embraced his wife.
Emily didn't pull away, didn't even lift her head, letting her tears flow.
And the emotions that had formed a hard armor finally, in the familiar scent, quietly disintegrated.
The hearth quietly rekindled, little by little, illuminating the cold night.
