Chapter 1: The Prophecy

The torchlight cast wavering shadows across the stone wall.

Black silhouettes, flickering like the tongues of serpents, slithered endlessly over the surface, twisting and writhing as though driven mad.

How treacherous.

How deceitful.

As wicked as a scheme hidden beneath the edge of a blade.

Everything that existed felt vile enough to make my teeth grind.

In the suffocating darkness, I loathed everything.

I had long since lost count of how many days had passed.

Buried deep beneath the earth, this underground prison admitted not a single ray of light. Time had become impossible to measure.

Only the occasional jailer, appearing merely to confirm that I was still alive, reminded me that this was not some cruel nightmare.

Where had it all gone wrong?

What had I failed to see?

How had I not recognized the rebellion?

The price of ignorance had been unimaginably cruel.

By the time I sensed the treason moving beneath the surface, it was already too late.

Dragged away without the slightest chance to resist, I was thrown into this underground prison. All I could do was listen to the trembling walls and imagine the uprising unfolding above.

Pathetic.

This helplessness pierced my very bones.

Even if both my arms and legs were severed before I was cast into the abyss, it could not have been more miserable than this.

Grief churned violently within me before tightening around my entire body.

Unable to bear it, my twisted limbs scraped against the floor.

“Hngh…”

My fingernails split and peeled back.

Blackened scabs crumbled from my torn fingertips, leaving fresh crimson streaks across the stone.

Wet blood traced over stains that had long since dried.

Dark blood wound its way through the uneven cracks of the floor like a sluggish river.

And at the end of that river…

Someone stood there.

A shadow fell over my prostrate body.

It was enormous—far larger than an ordinary man.

Then came the smell.

The stench of blood.

Not the scent of someone who had killed once or twice.

No.

This was the reek of someone who had bathed in rivers of blood.

Like dried blood lodged beneath fingernails, impossible to wash away, it lingered in every corner.

A foul, metallic odor that only one steeped in slaughter could carry.

I braced myself against the floor and shot upright.

“…!”

It was him.

There he stood.

His savage eyes gleamed through tangled crimson hair matted with fresh blood.

The same man who had once stared at me through the prison bars with murderous intent.

Without a word, he casually tossed something into the cell.

It was round.

Connected by tangled strands like a knotted ball of thread.

Though not perfectly spherical, it rolled steadily across the uneven stone floor.

Only when it neared the bars did I finally recognize it.

It was…

A head.

Thud.

Roll.

Thud.

Roll.

The severed head rolled across the floor.

It rolled…

Toward me.

It finally struck the iron bars and came to a stop.

Blood-soaked hair slowly slipped aside.

Our eyes met.

Even in death, those eyes had never closed.

Clouded and stripped of all light, they still belonged to someone I could never forget.

“Ah…”

The hand I reached through the bars trembled faintly.

My mangled fingertips brushed against stiff, lifeless skin.

Even seeing it with my own eyes, I could not believe it.

Slowly…

Gently…

I stroked the cold cheek beneath my hand.

As though it might crumble if touched.

As though it might disappear if I breathed too hard.

I cupped that icy face in both hands, cradling it carefully.

My thumb traced the long eyelashes over eyes that would never open again.

Again and again, I pleaded in silence as I continued to caress them.

But Your Majesty did not answer.

There was no troubled smile.

No gentle expression that always appeared whenever I behaved so disrespectfully.

Death held no warmth.

For the first time since my imprisonment…

I cried.

One tear.

Then another.

Before long, they drenched both cheeks and fell heavily from my chin.

“U… ah… ah…”

No voice came out.

The despair that should have burst forth as a scream could not even become a shriek.

Only pitiful, broken moans escaped my lips like those of a fool.

Everything I wished to say to Your Majesty spilled out without becoming words.

“Uaaah…”

Where is your precious body?

Why are you lying upon this cold stone floor?

I told you time and again to cherish yourself.

Why do you insist on tormenting the heart of your servant like this?

Why…

Why?

Why?

“It’s because of you.”

The accusation, saturated with disgust, struck me like a hammer.

“He died because you loved him.”

I slowly raised my head.

At the end of the towering shadow, crimson eyes glared down at me.

The contempt in them proudly declared the deed.

Without the slightest hint of shame.

As though boasting of it.

Within my dazed mind, the events that had unfolded above while I languished in this prison slowly took shape.

Then…

Rage consumed me.

So it was you.

You were the one who beheaded His Majesty.

Even after receiving his grace…

Even then…

You…

You monster…

My trembling fingers rested upon His Majesty’s face when something cold brushed against them.

A hair ornament.

Once, it had neatly secured His Majesty’s long, silken hair.

Now it sat crookedly amid blood-soaked, tangled strands.

It was a long, slender hairpin.

The hollow metal shaft had snapped when the severed head struck the stone floor, leaving one end razor sharp.

Perfect for piercing flesh.

The moment I gripped it…

My hand stopped trembling.

Everything became strangely calm.

I had been imprisoned, powerless to do anything.

His Majesty had been beheaded.

And now…

His hairpin rested in my hand.

As though it had always been waiting for my final moment.

If my love had become the cause of the death of the one I cherished…

If His Majesty truly died because of me…

Then there was no reason left for me to live.

My sin was life.

My sin was love.

Then this…

This was only right.

“You—!”

I did not hesitate.

The sharpened tip of the hairpin pierced my throat.

A surge of scorching heat burst upward before sensation slowly faded from my body.

My upper body collapsed.

My head struck the stone floor with a dull thud.

As darkness gradually claimed my vision, I watched the crimson blood spreading along the grooves of the uneven floor.

What had begun as a thin trickle became a flooding river.

The blood flowed endlessly.

Above me, the roar of a beast shook the prison.

Death came like a crimson river.

Deep.

Cold.

Drawing me down into an endless abyss.

That…

Was my end.

And the beginning of the prophecy.