It was late autumn in the southern reaches of the continent. Morning mist, soft as ribbon, wound around the low houses of Sangren Village and the yellowing branches. Not far off, the Silverthread River murmured along; its voice was much lower than in summer—more refined lady than sprightly girl.

Up before dawn, Lucia Sterling slung her old wicker basket over her arm and set out. She was headed to a patch of wild asters along the riverbank outside the village, to pick small blooms to sell to the peddlers who came from Autumnwind City.

Autumn is when asters bloom. The city peddlers came daily to buy whatever they could and hawk it at a markup in Autumnwind. Asters could go to the florists, but they weren’t worth much; the peddlers still had to keep a margin, so their price was lower. Lucia was only nine years old; even if it took her ten straight days of deliveries to earn a single copper coin, that was more than enough for her.

“Morning, little Lucia.” A woman straightened up from picking beans in her garden by the lane and greeted her with a smile.

“Morning, Aunt Marta.” Lucia paused and returned the greeting politely.

“Off to pick flowers again?” Marta asked. As always, her gaze flicked over Lucia’s pretty face and that striking hair—fiery red with a subtle purple fade at the tips.

“Mm.”

“Tell your father I’ll have that chipped brush-cleaver brought over this afternoon for him to fix.”

“Okay.” Lucia agreed. Her father, Eamon Sterling, was the village’s only blacksmith and also captain of the militia.

They said that when he was young he’d been a powerful adventurer who roamed the land—who knew if that was true—but his swordsmanship was excellent, and he knew a bit of magic. On idle days Lucia trained swordplay with him. That was the foundation of her status as “leader of the kids” in Sangren.

She continued toward the flower fields, reached the edge of the village, and passed through a small grove. Ten-odd minutes later, following the Silverthread, she came to an open space carpeted with pale purple flowers.

They stretched like a sea, unfurling along the riverbanks—a tasteful violet rug laid over the earth. The autumn wind brushed past and the sea of flowers rippled in layers. The shifting purples whispered like countless fallen stars.

Gazing toward the far edge of that violet sea, Lucia noticed a bare patch deep within—an unnatural gap that spoiled the unity of the view. Curious, she went over. There, amid the asters, a stranger was asleep.

The girl had long silver hair and a face of breathtaking beauty. Lucia had to clap a hand over her mouth to hold in the gasp, lest she wake her. Studying further, she saw the girl’s black dress and jacket were fine in make, glossy and smooth—clearly from a wealthy household, perhaps a noble young lady from Autumnwind City.

Worth noting, she’d clearly chosen to sleep there. She’d taken off her shoes—black ankle boots left off to the side—leaving ten pale toes exposed. A few bright butterflies had alighted on them, like nature’s own anklets.

How could someone this pretty be sleeping out here? And that hair color—so unusual. Lucia stared, not so much swooning as quietly entranced and appreciative.

To her, this mysterious girl was like a priceless painting. Man or woman, anyone who saw her ought to stop and look, if only to do justice to the Maker’s handiwork.

She watched for several minutes. Then the gold of morning fell, laying a holy sheen on the silver-haired girl’s clear white skin. Lucia came back to herself, sighed with envy, stepped away on tiptoe, and began to pick.

Not long after, a low, whining call drifted from the distance, breaking the quiet of the flower sea.

Lucia looked up at once and saw a pack of gaunt wild dogs moving through the trees. This breed was fierce. A single animal could be a real threat to a child or woman; in a pack they were dangerous enough that even grown men had to give them space.

As the sword-trained leader of Sangren’s kids, Lucia wasn’t afraid of a one-on-one with a wild dog—she could clock it between the ears. But once you had a pack, even she had to run or risk her life.

Her first instinct to bolt stopped dead a heartbeat later. Deeper in the field, that silver-haired stranger was still asleep. If she turned tail now and the dogs went for the girl, even if Lucia sprinted back to the village for help it would be far too late.

She gritted her teeth and decided almost instantly: don’t run. She dashed into the flowers, seized the girl by the shoulder, and shook hard. “Wake up! Wake up! Hey—!!”

Long lashes fluttered; the silver-haired girl slowly opened her eyes. What met Lucia’s gaze was a pair of calm, dark-red irises—clear as gemstones and deep as the sea. Lucia couldn’t read a single emotion in them; all she saw reflected there was her own tense, startled face.

The girl tilted her head, as if trying to be cute to express her confusion.

Lucia didn’t have time to waste. “Run,” she said, grabbed the girl by the wrist, and hauled her out of the flowers at a dead sprint.

Only then did expression reach the silver-haired girl’s face. She stared at Lucia in shock, then sensed something and glanced back.

Just as they barely broke free of the blooms, she saw her two black ankle boots in the distance—clamped in the jaws of wild dogs being carried off.

Ten minutes later, in the trees beyond the aster field, Lucia finally stopped, bent double and panting. “Hah—hah—scared me to death—hey, you okay?”

She turned. The silver-haired girl was looking down at her bare feet. Lucia patted her shoulder and tried to cheer her up. “If the shoes are gone, they’re gone. Better than being mauled, right?”

“Fair enough. Thank you.” The silver-haired girl’s voice was flat, edging on perfunctory.

“Wow, what a heartfelt tone and expression,” Lucia grumbled. “Whatever. I didn’t save you for a thank-you anyway—”

She pushed the irritation down and asked, “I’m Lucia Sterling. You are? Where are you from? Why were you sleeping in a place like that?”

“M-my name is Yvette Loxivia.” Yvette looked at her, paused for a moment, and said, “I’m—mm, I don’t know where I’m from. I woke up here yesterday with no memories, so I just found a spot and slept.”

“Amnesia?!” Lucia was stunned. She’d only ever heard bards tell stories like that. To see it for real—“Really? You’re not pulling my leg?”

Of course it was a lie, Yvette thought, but she kept her expression earnestly sincere. “Why would I lie to you?”

“Then you really have no one and nowhere?” Maybe it was the girl’s mysterious air, or that she clearly wasn’t local—either way, nine-year-old Lucia believed about seventy percent of it and her eyes filled with sympathy.

“Seems that way.”

“How can you be so calm?” Lucia complained. “If I were you, I’d be terrified!”

“I’m emotionally stable,” Yvette said.

Lucia clicked her tongue inwardly. You’re only a few years older than me—you’re not an adult—what’s with the fake maturity? Aloud she said, “So what’s the plan?”

“Mm—find an inn first, I guess.”

“Do you have money?”

“A little.” Yvette took a gold coin from the inner pocket of her jacket.

Lucia’s eyes went wide. She squealed, “A gold coin?! Are you serious?! What kind of gold coin is that?!”

She didn’t dare touch it, but she leaned closer to inspect that legendary hard currency.

The Kingdom of Kisul, where she lived, was a small nation in the south. After a currency crash, it had used the Southern Alliance’s common coinage ever since. The classic one–one hundred–ten thousand ratio: one gold coin to a hundred silver to ten thousand copper. At ten days per copper coin, one gold coin would take a flower-picking girl like Lucia more than two hundred and seventy years to earn.

You couldn’t sell her for that much money!

“No idea. Just take a look,” Yvette said, handing it over.

“For real? I can?” Lucia’s hands trembled as she stared at the shining little disc.

“You can.” Yvette nodded. She’d minted it from resources on Ish Island, copying the design of ancient coins she’d found long ago in the Adelock Great Labyrinth. Ancient gold typically fetched more than ordinary coin because of its collectible value.

She also had a neat trick: let the main body and the Waymark mother-body each bud off a secondary Waymark, then have the two secondaries swap places carrying goods. That way, with only a small expenditure of aberrant mana, she could teleport supplies from Ish Island here.

Sure, she could mimic gold coins or raw materials with shapeshifting, but that cost a lot more than just using the stockpiled resources she’d accumulated on Ish Island.

Seeing how casually Yvette nodded and handed over such a precious coin, Lucia finally believed the mysterious big sister wasn’t lying—there really was something wrong with her head.