"We are not here about horseshoes," Evelina said.

She walked to the center of the forge, her presence commanding the room. With a sharp motion, she cleared a space on the cluttered central table, pushing aside half-finished daggers and iron rings.

From her bodice, she pulled a roll of thick, heavy parchment.

The System dinged.

[Warning: Prototype Steam Engine Blueprints revealed]

[Potential Tech-Tier Leap: +200 Years]

[Calculating Heart-Wrecker Impact...]

Master Alfred leaned in, his eyes squinting. At first, he looked confused. Then, he looked irritated. Then, slowly, his jaw began to drop.

"What in the hells is this?" the master smith whispered, his thick finger tracing a line of a high-pressure cylinder. He staggered, his face going pale, "These valves... this piston assembly... it’s a pump? This... is actually ridiculous. You want to use fire to move water?"

"I want to use fire to create a vacuum," Evelina corrected, her voice ringing with the clarity of a bell, "I want to bore through the limestone shelf and pull the subterranean reservoirs to the surface."

Ace leaned over the table, his shoulder brushing against Evelina’s and it made his heart flutter uncontrollably.

He should have moved away but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at the level of intricacy of the drawings closely, the gear ratios, the cooling jackets, everything seemed so foreign yet sharp.

He looked at his wife, the woman who was being constantly mocked for her delusional hoarding, and found it hard to gather the thoughts in his heart.

Alfred looked from the blueprints to Evelina, his hands beginning to shake, "It’ll take every scrap of high-grade coal we have. It’ll take day and night shifts. It might even explode."

"Then let it explode," Evelina said, her eyes fixed on the blueprints, "But build it without any delay."

But from the look on his face, Alfred seemed like he was going to faint just by looking at the blueprints.

Evelina sighed inwardly, her brows furrowing.

The next morning.

The sun had barely begun its ascent, but the economic landscape of the Empire had already shifted irrevocably.

If the previous day was the start of a panic, this morning was the dawn of a new world order; one where the currency was no longer gold, but wheat. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

In the capital, the screaming had begun at dawn. The Imperial Council’s emergency session had ended in a brawl when the Minister of Trade revealed that the state’s strategic reserves were 40% sand and 60% rot.

Across the continent, grain prices shattered the ceiling. Within twelve hours, the value of a single bushel of common wheat had surged by eight hundred percent.

For the Alvarez estate, this meant that their liquidity was no longer measured in thousands, but in millions.

By hoarding grain when it was mocked as trash, Evelina had effectively transferred the Empire’s wealth into her own silos.

Overnight, the North, the ’backwards’ and ’frozen’ territory had become the wealthiest household in the kingdom

Ace walked through the inner courtyard of the estate, his boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.

The heat was visibly weighing down his shoulders but the man’s powerful gait hadn’t changed. And neither did the atmosphere inside the manor.

The servants moved with another respectful bout of energy they hadn’t possessed a week ago. They looked at the Duchess’s closed study door as if it were a shrine.

Ace detoured toward the massive stone granaries located at the rear of the estate. He had known Evelina was buying flour and grain, but he had assumed it was a modest amount bought on whim.

He pushed open the heavy iron-reinforced doors of Granary Seven.

The air inside was thick with the dry and nutty scent. Ace stopped in his tracks.

From floor to ceiling, sacks of high-grade wheat were stacked in perfect racks.There were no gaps left. Each row was labeled with a date and a moisture-content seal.

He walked deeper into the place. It wasn’t just the sheer volume that stunned him; it was the other detail as well.

He saw specialized ventilation ducts she had ordered installed months ago to prevent rot. He saw the ledgers hanging by the door, detailing the exact rotation of stock to ensure maximum shelf life during a prolonged crisis.

Ace reached out and touched a rough burlap sack. He realized that while the rest of the Empire had been dancing at balls and debating poetry, Evelina had been completely focused on a catastrophe nobody had seen coming.

She not only predicted yet, she was even trying to outwork it all this while.

Evelina was in the main storehouse, checking the seal on a secondary water cistern, when Ace found her.

She looked tired. A smudge of charcoal stained her cheek, and her hair was pulled back in a practical, messy knot that should have looked unrefined but somehow only made her look more stunning.

Ace stopped ten paces away. He looked at the bushels of grain, food that could keep an army alive for a decade surrounding and then he looked at her.

His words, usually so sharp and commanding on the battlefield, failed him. His throat felt tight.

He found himself staring at her with an expression of such visible, unadorned admiration that the System in Evelina’s mind began to chime like a cathedral bell.

[Note: Target Ace’s heart rate is 112 BPM.]

Evelina wiped her hands on a cloth, noticing his silence. Was the man anxious again?

She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing slightly, "You’re blocking the light, Ace. And you’re staring. If you’ve come to ask for an extra ration of bread for your soldiers, the answer is no. They eat according to the schedule I set."

Ace didn’t move,"I didn’t come for bread," he said, his voice a low, rough rasp, "I just saw the granaries..."

"And?" she prompted.

"I was wrong," he said simply, "I thought you were gambling. But it looks like, I misunderstood you... again..."

For a moment, the tension between them shifted. It was as if a decade of misundertsandings had stilled in that moment and two people were looking at each simply past all those barriers between them.