Evelina’s lips quirked into a ghost of a smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes.

"Evelina?"

Ace’s voice broke through the System’s voice and diverted Evelina’s attention.

He was standing a few feet away, looking like a man standing on the edge of a cliff, his expressions solemn.

Ace watched her, the way she stood so calmly amidst such a great cruisis of the Empire.

"You told me to get the smiths," Ace said, his eyes searching hers for an answer, "Why? The rivers are gone, the crops are ash. What can a hammer and an anvil do against the sun at this point?"

Evelina stepped toward him, the hem of her silk gown sweeping over the soot-stained floor.

She reached out, her cool fingers briefly brushing the back of his hand, a touch so fleeting it might have been an accident, yet it made Ace’s heart stutter. "Come with me. I want to show you something."

The garden of the Alvarez estate had once been a marvel of Northern horticulture, but now it looked like a battlefield. The roses had shriveled into blackened charred knots. The fountain was a dry basin of cracked marble.

Evelina led Ace to a shaded corner beneath a crumbling stone wall. Here, nestled in the shadows of a dying oak, was a patch of what looked like shriveled wool.

"Dry-Leaf Moss," Evelina whispered, kneeling in the dirt despite the heat. She pointed to the mountain plant, "It’s a parasite of humidity. Most people ignore it because it’s ugly."

Ace knelt beside her, his large frame casting a shadow over the small patch of gray. The scent of him; leather, woodsmoke, and salt clashed with the dry smell of the scorched air.

Evelina was briefly distracted.

"It looks dead," he said hoarsely.

She snapped out of her reverie and touched a brittle gray frond, "This moss turns gray exactly forty-eight hours before the humidity in the deep soil drops to zero. It doesn’t care about the temperature of the air; it feels the withdrawal of the water table in the bedrock."

When she stood in the rain, even before she noticed the birds’ anomaly, she had noticed the strange condition of this moss.

Ace looked at the moss, then back at his wife. The orange light of the setting sun caught the sharp angles of his face, making him look like a statue of a grieving god.

"You tracked a weed? You bet the Alvarez fortune on a patch of moss?" He finally uttered.

"Nature doesn’t lie to save face or win favor," Evelina shrugged.

Ace looked at her with an expression that made Evelina’s heart give an unwanted flutter.

"You’re terrifying,you know," he murmured. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"And yet, you’re still standing here with me in this garden," she retorted, turning back toward the manor,"Does that make you brave, or just slow?"

"Probably a bit of both," Ace said, reaching out to catch her elbow as she navigated a patch of cracked earth, "But at least I’m the only one who didn’t call you crazy when you started buying up the Empire’s flour."

"You thought it," she challenged.

"I thought many things," he countered, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned in closer, "But I never doubted you were up to something. I just didn’t expect you to... have thought of so far-ahead."

"In fact, I had observed some other things as well..." she said, standing up and dusting her hands, "The ants moved their colonies to the lower cellars some time. The birds stopped nesting in the high eaves."

Ace stood as well, looming over her. The height difference was significant, forcing her to tilt her head back.

For a moment, the banter they usually traded like blades was absent. There was only the heavy and electric tension of two people standing under a burning sky.

"And the smiths?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low rumble, "What are you planning to do?"

Evelina tilted her head, her eyes flashing with a sudden brilliance, "I’m going to pull the water out of the stone. If the rivers won’t flow for the Empire naturally, then we can make them."

If the rivers won’t flow naturally, I can make them flow...

Just what kind of audacity did one need to be able to utter such words?

Ace stared at her as a slow and disbelieving chuckle vibrated in his chest.

It wasn’t a laugh of mirth, but of sheer admiration. "You really are a something, aren’t you? You never say much but when you need something, you would even snatch that away from nature...’’

"You..." she countered, her voice dropping to a silken purr as she stepped closer, tapping a finger against the silver sigil on his soot-stained chest, "don’t need tofigure me out. Instead, just make sure the smiths don’t stop hammering until I say so. Unless, of course, the great Duke of the North is scared and plans to go against me?"

Ace’s eyes darkened, his hand instinctively coming up to catch her wrist, his grip firm but not painful, "I’ve faced Northern blizzards and Southern blades, Evelina. I think I can handle whatever you are up to. Just don’t expect me to keep up with your madness without a few explanations."

"Explanations are for people who have time on their hands," she retorted, pulling her wrist back with a playful flick, "For now, I believe I have some blueprints that will make the Master Smith’s hair turn white."

The underground forge was the only place in the manor that felt remotely tolerable, though the heat from the furnaces still competed with the hellscape outside.

Master Alfred, a a man whose skin looked like weathered iron and whose beard was perpetually singed, looked up from a pile of scrap metal as the Duke and Duchess entered. He looked exhausted, his tools lying abandoned on the workbench.

"Your Grace," The old man grunted, bowing stiffly, "If you’re here about the horseshoes, I’ve told the Captain... the metal is too hot to temper properly. It’s brittle. We’re done for the day."