Perspective: Celia
Date: January 26, 2018
Time: 11:10 AM
Location: Aloria - Eastern Mountain Ridge / Sylvaris
The air in the bedroom turned to lead.
Kaiser.
The name rattled inside my skull like a loose tooth. It made no sense. It was impossible. It was a disgusting, vicious lie. Kai was the boy who bandaged my bleeding knee with a strip of his own shirt. Kai was the boy who carried me out of the abyss, who gave me clean clothes, who placed yellow wildflowers in my hair while his own chest was wrapped in gauze.
He didn't torture people. He didn't butcher mages with a hunting knife.
He didn't break a father's limbs in the mud while a village burned.
He wouldn't. He couldn't.
My breath came in ragged, uneven hitches. The floor tilted beneath my boots. Fiona was weeping against the bedframe, clutching the thick, jagged scar across her throat, and Elise was on her knees, her hands pressed over her face.
"Liars!"
"Celia, please look at us!" Elise sobbed, her fingernails digging into the wooden floorboards.
"Why would we lie about this?! We loved your father! He treated us like his own children!"
"I saw him, Celia," Fiona whispered, her voice cracking as tears cut pale tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"Your papa threw hot lamp oil in his face!" Elise cried, looking up with reddened, swollen eyes.
"And that monster didn't even scream! He just wiped the burning oil off his cheek with his sleeve, drove his dagger through your father's knee, and asked the exact same question again! He came here for you, Celia! He wanted every trace of you gone!"
Right behind me stood Lucifer.
Tall. Regal. Watching me with steady, unblinking crimson eyes.
A bolt of pure, frantic venom struck my spine.
This is him.
I spun around, stepping between the bed and the Demon Lord, black thorns bristling violently along my forearms.
"T-This is you!" The accusation tore from my throat, raw and fractured. "You did this!"
Lucifer just looked down at me, his brow faintly arched. "Celia—"
"Shut up! S-Shut your mouth!" I shouted, my hands shaking so hard the thorns rattled against the floorboards.
"How coincidentally did you bring me here today?! 7 years I've been away! 7 years! And you just happen to drag me across the continent on the exact day I find out Kai is a killer?! You're a demon! You used mind-tampering magic on Fiona and Elise! You planted false memories in their heads so they'd feed me lies about the only person who actually loves me!"
"Celia, stop!" Fiona cried out, reaching a trembling hand toward my skirt. "No demon touched our minds! We survived because we hid in the root cellar! Look at the cemetery on the hill! Look at the empty cottages! Your father is dead, Celia! That monster killed him!"
"I said shut up!" I screamed, tears scalding my cheeks.
I glared into Lucifer's face, begging him with my eyes to admit it. Begging him to smirk, to draw his blade, to mock me—anything to prove that this nightmare was just another royal demon scheme.
"Tell me you did it," I whispered, my voice breaking into a pathetic stutter. "Tell me you used hypnosis... tell me it's a trick to make me run to you... please..."
Lucifer sighed softly. He took 1 step closer, his expression stripped bare of all royal arrogance.
"I brought you here to understand why you hold so much venom in your heart, Celia," he said, his baritone quiet, heavy with an honesty that felt like a slap.
"I have no need for petty tricks. I didn't touch their minds. Look at them. That isn't demonic manipulation. That is 3 years of grief. You can hate me for bringing you here, but don't insult your own intelligence by pretending their agony is fake."
His words punched the air straight out of my lungs.
No.
No, no, no.
The walls of my childhood home closed in like an iron cage. Lyla's comatose face, Fiona's scar, my father's empty chair by the hearth—it was suffocating me.
"Get away from me!" I choked out.
I flared my cursed mana in a violent, blind shockwave. Living thorns slammed against the floor, shoving Lucifer back 2 paces.
Before he could speak, I turned on my heel and bolted.
I tore through the front doorway, kicked the garden gate off its rusted hinges, and sprinted down the lane. The villagers stepping onto their porches blurred into grey streaks. I didn't look at them. I didn't look back at Aloria.
I channeled pure dark mana into the soles of my boots, launching myself past the coastal orchards and straight toward the eastern mountain crags.
*
The salt air of the coast thinned into freezing alpine wind within minutes.
My lungs burned. Branches whipped against my shoulders, thorns tore at the hem of my black dress, and loose gravel clattered down the steep slopes behind me.
My body moved on pure instinct, climbing the jagged dirt path I hadn't seen since I was 8 years old.
The mountain was different now. The thick cedar canopy that once shaded the trail had rotted away, battered by years of coastal storms. The soft moss from my childhood was buried under sharp grey scree. Everything felt barren. Cold.
I stumbled over an exposed pine root and hit the shale on my hands and knees.
Sharp rocks bit into my palms, scraping the skin raw.
I looked down at the dirt. At the moss-covered boulder beside the path.
This is it.
The exact spot. 7 years ago, my little 8-year-old knee had scraped open right here on this root. I had sat in the dirt, crying into my hands, terrified of the dark woods.
A low, guttural snarl vibrated through the shale.
From the shadows behind the boulder, a massive crag-beast stepped out. Thick granite scales, 4 jagged horns curving over a bloodstained muzzle, and yellow eyes burning with territorial malice.
The same breed of monster that cornered me that night.
7 years ago, that beast looked like an invincible demon. I had screamed until my throat bled, cowering in the mud while a black-haired boy with blue eyes threw a rock, lured it away, and took a bloody claw-strike to his forearm just to keep me safe.
The crag-beast crouched, preparing to lunge.
I slowly raised my right hand.
With 1 cold twitch of my index finger, 3 spears of living black thorns erupted from the rock beneath the beast's belly.
Crack!
The thorns punched clean through its armored spine, impaling the predator in midair. A pulse of necrotic cursed flame flared along the vines, incinerating its flesh, bone, and organs into a cloud of drifting grey ash in less than 2 seconds.
The wind blew the ash over the cliff edge.
Nothing was left except scorched stone.
I stared at my bloodless, clean palms, and my entire chest collapsed.
I can kill these monsters with 1 flick of my finger.
I am the Queen of Curses now...
So why... why am I still that pathetic little girl sitting in the dirt?!
A ragged sob tore out of my throat.
My knees folded, and I sank against the rough bark of the cedar tree. I pulled my legs tight against my ribs, burying my face in the fabric of my dress.
They're dead.
The reality slammed into my chest, heavy and suffocating.
Mama is dead. Papa is dead. Lyla is trapped in an endless sleep.
There is no home to go back to. There never was.
And then the dark, sickening thought crept in, slithering through my skull like poison.
Did Kai do it?
Did he come here 3 years ago and slaughter them on purpose?
Did he break papa's hands and burn the village so I would have nowhere else to run? So that every bridge to my past was turned to ash, leaving him as the only person left in my world?
My chest hitched, cold sweat prickling along my neck.
And if he did... why doesn't it make me hate him?
The horrifying truth clawed at my throat.
I want him to be the only thing in my life. I want to belong to him.
That was why I worked until my hands bled. That was why I ran dungeons until I ran out of mana, hunting every scrap of experience, pushing myself to rank up. I wanted to be strong enough to stand beside him. An equal. Someone he could rely on, someone he would never abandon.
I always knew he was using me. He calculates everything...
But would he really go that far? Did he plan me from the very start?
And beneath that lay the terror that truly paralyzed me.
What happens when he brings Elfie back?
Once that dead bitch is breathing again... what am I to him?
Will he just look at me with those cold blue eyes and throw me away?!
The thought felt like a blade twisting between my ribs. I cried until my eyes burned. I cried until my ribs ached and the wind froze the tears against my cheeks.
Exhaustion finally dragged me under. My forehead rested against my knees, and the world went dark.
*
A faint crunch of gravel pulled me from sleep.
I jerked upright, shivering in the biting wind.
The sun hung high above the grey clouds.
Lucifer stood 5 paces away, leaning casually against a weather-beaten rock, his hands in his dark coat. He wasn't sneering. He wasn't gloating. He had simply been standing guard in the freezing cold.
I wiped my swollen eyes with my sleeve, my throat burning.
"H-How long have you been there?" I croaked.
"25 minutes," Lucifer replied smoothly. "Long enough to watch you cry yourself to sleep. It's turning 4 pm, by the way. You're gonna be freezing out here if you don't move."
"Shut up," I muttered, pushing myself up against the tree bark. My legs were stiff, but the fog in my head had hardened into a sharp, brittle ache.
Lucifer pushed off the rock, taking 2 slow steps toward me.
"You're not running because you think I lied down there, Celia," he said, his crimson eyes locking onto mine with piercing clarity. "You're running because you know they told the truth."
"I told you to shut up!" I snapped, black thorns sparking at my fingertips. "You don't know a damn thing about him!"
"I know what a master looks like when it realizes its pet doesn't want to play anymore," Lucifer countered, his tone calm, unbothered by my mana.
"You're terrified. Not of what he did 3 years ago, but of what happens if you let yourself acknowledge it. You've spent years breaking yourself in half because of his actions."
"He saved me!" The words tore out of me, sharp and defensive. "When everyone in that village abandoned me to die in the forest, Kai was the only 1 who protected me! He gave me clothes! He fed me! He gave me a reason to live!"
"And then he ensured you would never have another reason," Lucifer replied softly. "A manipulator gives rewards to the pet so it doesn't wander. But tell me, Celia... what happens when the master finds a prettier pet?"
My breath hitched. The mention of Elfie struck the exact nerve I had been bleeding from.
"He won't," I said, my teeth grinding together. "I'm going to become stronger than anyone. I'll make sure he can't walk 1 step without me."
"He wouldn't care. He will replace you like he replaced everyone."
"I didn't ask for a lecture from you!" I hissed, stepping past him onto the steep ascent.
Lucifer fell into step beside me, his long strides easily matching mine as the trail grew steeper.
"Going to the top?" he asked, glancing down at me. "For the flowers? What do you expect to find on a dead mountain?"
"Proof," I said, my voice tight as gravel crunched under my boots. "Proof that some things don't rot just because time passed."
"And if it is dead?" Lucifer challenged.
I didn't answer him. I couldn't.
10 minutes later, the trail leveled onto the high plateau.
My boots stopped on the limestone rim.
The meadow was dead.
7 years ago, this entire plateau had shimmered like a fallen sky—hundreds of luminous blue petals dancing under the moon. But years of harsh salt winds and coastal gales had withered them to dust. The soil was choked with grey stalks and dead briars.
Not 1 blue petal remained on the flat earth.
My heart sank into a familiar, hollow ache.
Everything from that night is gone.
I walked along the edge of the cliff, the freezing gales whipping Kai's red ribbon in my hair.
Then, a flicker of color caught my eye.
Down on a narrow rock shelf, 3 feet below the cliff's drop, nestled in a sheltered crevice where the wind couldn't reach it.
1 single blue flower.
Its sapphire petals shimmered with faint, stubborn vitality against the dark stone.
My chest tightened.
I dropped flat onto my stomach on the cold limestone. Loose shale clattered down the cliffside as I leaned over the drop, extending my right arm as far as it would reach.
The rock dug painfully into my ribs. My fingertips brushed the stem.
Just 1 more inch...
I pushed forward, half my torso hanging over the sheer drop, and pinched the thin stalk.
Snap.
I scrambled back onto the flat plateau, clutching the blossom to my chest, my pulse hammering in my ears.
The petals were soft and cool—the exact sapphire blue of the flower Kai had tucked behind my ear 7 years ago when he told me my smile looked better without the tears.
I didn't pick it because my doubts were gone.
I picked it because I had made my choice.
I will save Lyla. I will wake her from that cursed sleep.
I will pay for my father's grave.
And I am going back to Sylvaris. I am going to stand right in front of Kai, and he is going to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth himself.
With trembling fingers, I lifted the stem and tucked the blue flower into the right side of my hair, right beside Kai's red ribbon.
Even so... I need to control myself. I can't be losing my mind like this.
I stood up, brushing the dirt from my knees, and turned to Lucifer.
"I'm sorry," I said, the words stiff, but honest. "For screaming at you in the bedroom. I know you didn't tamper with their heads."
Lucifer smiled faintly, a glimmer of royal amusement in his crimson eyes. "I know. Apology accepted."
He raised his right hand, dark crimson spatial runes spinning into the air between us.
"Before we return, there is 1 condition," Lucifer said smoothly.
I narrowed my eyes. "What condition?"
Lucifer held out his open palm.
"I crossed an ocean for you. I stood watch in the freezing wind while you wept, and I listened to you defend the monster who butchered your family," he said, his voice laced with shameless aristocratic confidence. "You can pay your toll by holding my hand for 60 seconds."
My jaw dropped. Heat rushed to my cheeks.
"Are you insane?!" I sputtered. "You want payment in hand-holding?! What kind of degenerate Demon Lord asks for that?!"
"A handsome 1," he replied without a flicker of shame. "60 seconds, Celia. Or you can spend the next month walking back to Sylvaris on foot."
I ground my teeth. Every moment wasted on this mountain was another moment away from Kai.
"Fine!" I snapped, stepping forward and slapping my palm flat against his. "Flat palms only! Do not interlock fingers!"
Lucifer chuckled softly, his fingers curling slightly around the edge of my hand as he stepped into the spatial rift. "As you wish."
His palm was warm. Solid.
A sharp spike of guilt burned in my throat. Standing beside him like this made me feel like a traitor, like every moment my skin touched his was an insult to Kai.
Just 60 seconds, I told myself, tracking the pulse in my neck. 50... 49... 48...
*
CRACK!
A violent sonic boom echoed through the air as the spatial rift tore open, blasting a gust of displaced wind across the cobblestones.
Sylvaris.
We stepped out into the bustling heart of the commercial district.
The clock tower above the merchant exchange chimed: 4:50 PM.
The wide stone street was packed with people—wealthy guild traders, street vendors shouting prices for roasted chestnuts, and dozens of shoppers in thick winter coats.
The sudden thunderclap of our arrival made the entire street freeze.
Horses whinnied. Merchants dropped their wares. Heads snapped toward us from every direction, dozens of eyes locking onto the towering, dark-haired demon noble and the girl in black standing in the center of the road.
My right hand was still pressed flat against Lucifer's palm.
15 seconds left... 14... 13...
I shifted uncomfortably under the staring crowd, my free hand reflexively touching the blue flower in my hair.
And then my breath completely locked in my throat.
Across the street, standing just outside an alchemy shop near the mouth of a quiet side alley, stood a boy in a dark high-collared coat.
His hands were tucked casually into his pockets.
Kaiser.
He had stopped walking when the spatial rift cracked the air.
He was looking directly at us.
His sharp blue eyes dropped to our joined hands. He saw Lucifer's towering 195 cm frame standing close beside me. He saw my fingers pressed against the Demon Lord's palm.
My heart violently stopped beating.
Kai.
I waited for his jaw to clench. I waited for his eyes to flare with that terrifying, possessive coldness. To step forward and demand to why I was holding another man's hand.
He didn't.
Kaiser didn't move.
Then, his lips curved into a faint, knowing, icy smile.
A smile that said he already understood everything. A smile that said none of it mattered.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and walked into the shadowed alley, vanishing into the crowd.
A suffocating horror detonated in my chest.
N-No...
He thinks I chose Lucifer! He thinks I betrayed him!
That smile... he's leaving! He's abandoning me!
Every thought of Aloria, every question about my father, every shred of sanity shattered in an instant. The terror of being abandoned by Kai overrode everything in my soul.
"KAI!" I screamed, lunging forward with all my strength to chase him.
My arm jerked backward.
Lucifer held his grip firm, his fingers tightening like iron around my palm.
"The 60 seconds aren't up, Celia," Lucifer said, his voice dropping low, his crimson eyes flashing with genuine warning.
"Why are you running after the monster who slaughtered your father?!"
He's taking Kai away from me.
Anyone who takes Kai away from me... DIES.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!"
With a feral, blood-curdling shriek, I summoned my massive pitch-black scythe from empty air.
SHING!
A crescent arc of void-black steel flashed with blinding, sonic velocity.
The blade sheared clean through Lucifer's right arm at the elbow.
Blood sprayed across the cobblestones as his severed forearm—still gripping my right hand—tumbled free.
Before the severed limb could touch the ground, black cursed fire erupted from my palm in a roaring burst of heat.
BOOM!
The severed arm vaporized into a cloud of white ash in midair.
Screams erupted from the surrounding crowd as people scrambled back in terror.
I didn't look at them. I didn't look back at Lucifer.
I dropped the scythe into my shadow and bolted through the parting crowd like a rabid animal, sprinting down the cobblestones, screaming Kai's name into the gathering rain:
"KAI! KAI, WAIT! LOOK AT ME!"
*
In the center of the chaotic street, Lucifer stood alone.
He looked down at his right arm. From the bloody stump at his elbow, tendrils of crimson nether mana hissed, rapidly weaving fresh muscle, white bone, and porcelain skin back into existence within 3 seconds.
He flexed his newly regenerated fingers, listening to the desperate screams of the girl vanishing down the alley.
A slow, breathless chuckle broke from his chest.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his crimson eyes gleaming with absolute fascination.
"Amazing..." Lucifer murmured, a wide grin spreading across his face. "She's so fucking hot."
*
The rain began falling in earnest over Sylvaris, drumming against the slate rooftops and turning the cobblestones into mirrors of grey light.
The clock tower above the guild hall chimed 5:00 PM.
I sprinted through the crowded commercial district, my boots splashing through dirty puddles, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
He saw.
The terror burned hotter than any fever.
He saw me holding Lucifer's hand.
That smile... that cold, empty smile...
I shoved past shoppers carrying canvas bags, ignoring the angry shouts of cart drivers. I didn't care about the people staring at the blue flower pinned in my wet hair. I only cared about finding a high-collared dark coat in the crowd.
Kai! Where are you?! Don't leave me! Please, don't leave me!
Then, my eyes caught him.
Under the timber awning of an apothecary stall 20 paces ahead, Kaiser stood casually out of the rain. His hands were resting in his pockets, his hair damp at the tips, his gaze fixed on a display of small glass bottles.
"Excuse me, ma'am," his familiar, calm voice drifted over the noise of the drizzle. "Are you really giving out free sparkling mineral water?"
The merchant woman smiled warmly from behind the counter. "Yes, young master. 1 sample bottle per customer to promote the new spring intake from the northern hills."
"Really?" Kaiser reached out, taking a small green bottle from the wooden crate. "Hope your business thrives. If the quality stays this good, I'd get in line every day for free water."
I didn't wait for him to unscrew the cap.
I lunged forward, closing the distance in 1 desperate stride, and clamped my right hand tight around his wrist.
My fingers dug into his sleeve, gripping the bone beneath with frantic, bruising force.
Kaiser blinked, turning his head slowly to look down at me.
"Celia?" he asked, his expression mild. "What are you doing?"
"Come. With. Me." I choked out, my voice raw and shaking.
I pulled his arm, practically dragging him backward into the street.
Kaiser didn't resist, though he raised his free hand toward the bewildered stall owner. "Anyway, thank you for the free water, ma'am."
The rain pelted against my face as I pulled him through the passing crowds. My grip on his wrist was white-knuckled, my nails pressing through the wool of his coat.
"Celia, you seemed busy," Kaiser remarked smoothly from half a step behind me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" The fury tore out of my mouth before I could stop it, sharp and fractured. "Why did you walk away when you saw me?!"
"You looked occupied," he replied, his tone entirely reasonable, without a trace of irritation. "You were with company. I didn't want to disturb you."
I whipped my head around, glaring at him through wet strands of hair. "Is that how little you think of me?!"
Kaiser's lips curved into a faint, dry smirk. "Looks like someone made you very mad today. Where are we going, anyway?"
"Back to our room," I snapped, facing forward again and lengthening my stride.
"Is something the matter?" he asked.
"I'll tell you once we get there."
My chest burned, but as my fingers remained locked around his solid wrist, the wild, frantic static in my brain slowly began to quiet.
He was here. His pulse was beating steadily under my palm. He wasn't vanishing into the shadows, and he hadn't boarded a carriage to leave the city. Having him physically tethered to me brought back that relief.
He's mine.
We reached the rented lodge 5 minutes later.
I dragged him up the narrow wooden staircase, threw open the door to our private quarters, and pulled him inside.
Slam.
I shoved the door shut with my heel and twisted the heavy iron lock until it clicked into place.
Kaiser stepped into the center of the quiet room. He calmly took off his damp coat, folded it over the back of a wooden chair, and set the green bottle of mineral water on the bedside table.
"I had some scouting to do," he said, glancing at me with a mild arch of his brow. "But if you needed my time this urgently, you could have just sent a message."
I stood with my back pressed against the locked door.
My breath rattled in my throat. My hands were trembling so violently I had to curl them into tight fists against my thighs to hide the shake. The fear of confronting him—of hearing the 1 answer that would permanently destroy my entire reality—strangled every word in my vocal cords.
Kaiser studied me.
He took 3 slow steps toward me, his blue eyes softening into that patient, attentive gaze he only ever used when I was falling apart.
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly.
I looked down at the scuffed floorboards, my lower lip quivering.
"Come here," I whispered.
"Celia—"
"Come here," I repeated, tears blurring my vision. "Come give me a hug right now."
Kaiser stepped into my personal space, and wrapped his arms firmly around my shoulders.
He pulled me against his chest, tucking my face into the crook of his neck while his right hand gently rested against the back of my head, his fingers stroking my white hair with rhythmic care.
The familiar scent of rain and ink enveloped me.
Instantly, the suffocating boulder on my chest cracked. The sheer physical warmth of his body seeped into my freezing skin, making my knees go weak with relief. In his arms, the horrors of Aloria, the blood on Fiona's neck, and the graves in the mud felt distant—like a nightmare that couldn't reach me as long as he held me tight.
He's holding me. He doesn't hate me.
"What's wrong, Celia?" Kaiser murmured against my temple, his baritone soft, steady, and safe. "I'm right here holding you."
I raised my arms, clinging to the fabric of his shirt like a drowning girl clutching driftwood.
"Can you answer something for me?" I asked, my voice muffled against his collarbone.
"Of course," he replied without hesitation. "Ask."
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Why did you do it?"
Kaiser gave a faint, quiet chuckle, his hand continuing to smooth down my hair. "Why did I do what? Take the free water?"
Silence dropped over the room like an iron curtain.
My fingers tightened around his back until my knuckles popped.
I took 1 shuddering breath, then spoke the words that had been poisoning my blood all afternoon:
"Why did you kill my father?"
The stroke of his hand stopped.
Right in the middle of my hair, his fingers went completely still.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kaiser said.
His voice was even. Flat.
I pulled my head back, looking up into his face.
His blue eyes were looking down at me, clear and completely unreadable.
"I went back to Aloria earlier today."
"Someone went there 3 years ago. Someone broke my father's limbs in the mud, burned every record of my childhood, put Lyla into an endless coma, and sliced Fiona's throat with a hunting dagger. They said it was a boy with cold blue eyes and no magic."
My throat burned with acid.
"Why did you do it, Kai?"
Kaiser looked at me for a long, unblinking moment.
"Celia, I don't know what you're talking about," he said calmly. "And why are you digging up the past right now? You should focus on your future and focus on yourself, not on people who abandoned you to die."
He placed his hands on my shoulders and took 1 step backward, breaking the embrace.
The loss of his warmth hit me like ice water.
"Stop lying to me!" I shouted, stepping forward to close the gap.
"I'm not lying."
"Then why are you backing away from me?!" My voice cracked into a desperate, furious shriek. "Why did you break the hug if you don't know anything?! Why can't you look at me and say it didn't happen?!"
"I'm not avoiding you," Kaiser replied, his voice remaining measured, unnervingly steady. "I'm giving you room to breathe. You're hyperventilating, Celia."
"I don't care about breathing!" I slammed my fist against the locked doorframe behind me. "Why did you hurt my father and my sister?!"
Kaiser sighed softly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Celia, I told you long ago to let bygones be bygones and forget the past," he said, his tone resembling a patient tutor correcting an unruly child.
"Those villagers threw a little girl into the woods to be eaten by monsters. I don't know every detail of your childhood, but from what I know, they never saw you for who you were. They only saw a cursed omen. Why are you torturing yourself over people who discarded you years ago?"
"Are you even listening to me?!" I cut him off, tears of pure, burning frustration streaming down my cheeks. "Answer my question! Why did you do it?!"
Kaiser met my glare, his expression neutral.
"I cannot tell you that, Celia."
The air left my chest in a sharp, strangled gasp.
He didn't deny it.
The world tilted beneath my heels.
He didn't say it was a misunderstanding. He didn't say someone framed him.
He didn't even pretend to be innocent.
He just looked me in the eyes and refused to give me the truth.
I lunged forward, grabbing both lapels of his shirt in my fists, pulling him down until our faces were inches apart. I shook him with all the cursed strength in my arms, my teeth bared in an agonizing sob.
"Why can't you tell me?!" I screamed into his face.
"You hurt my family when they were trying to bring me home! When they actually cared about me! When Lyla was sick and begging to see me again! And you... you looked me in the eye and told me nobody cared! You told me only you cared! That only you wanted me happy!"
My grip tightened, wrinkling the linen of his collar.
"I believed you, Kai! I believed every single word that came out of your mouth! That's why I fell in love with you! That's why I gave you my whole life! Did you butcher my village just so you could use me?! Did you destroy my home so I would have nowhere else to run, and the only person left for me to love was you?!"
I searched his eyes, begging for even a flicker of guilt.
Nothing.
His blue eyes remained as calm and still.
Kaiser looked down at my tear-stained face, his expression completely normal, undisturbed by my screaming or the hands wrenching his collar.
"Celia," he spoke softly. "Can you trust me?"
I froze.
"Trust you?" The word sounded hideous in my mouth.
"Trust me," Kaiser repeated, his voice gentle, persuasive, and terrifyingly cold beneath the surface.
"Forget this. Walk away from it, and never bring it up again. Can you do that for me?"
Trust him?
The thought exploded in my skull like shards of shattered glass.
He wants me to trust him now?
Trust him while my sister lies in an induced coma? While my father's bones rot in an unmarked grave on the hill? While Fiona carries a jagged scar across her throat because she wouldn't tell him where I was?
He wants me to bury my father's murder just to keep his hands clean.
I let go of his collar, stumbling backward until my shoulders hit the door. A ragged, fractured laugh tore from my throat.
"How can I trust you?!" I cried out, shaking my head violently. "How can I trust a boy who has broken every single promise he ever made to me, and told me nothing but lies from the moment we met?!"
Kaiser lowered his arms, his brow knitting slightly. "Lies?"
"Yes, lies!" I pointed a trembling, accusation-filled finger at his chest. "You weren't from Celestine! The very 1st day we met in the forest, you looked me in the eyes and lied, saying you'd lived in this realm for years! But you've barely been in this world for almost 4 years! You lied that you were just a weak E-rank adventurer while you were stronger and more ruthless than anyone I've ever known! You faked your death and vanished for months without telling me! You treat me like some pet you have to feed and manage so it doesn't bite!"
The dam broke, 7 years of suffocating devotion and desperate insecurity flooding out in a torrent:
"While I... I loved you! I gave you my heart! My body! My soul! I ran dungeons until my mana core bled, working myself half to death every single day just so I wouldn't be useless to you! Just so I could be someone you wouldn't leave behind! And now I ask you 1 simple question—just 1—and you tell me you can't say?!"
My chest heaved as I fought for air, my voice dropping to a broken, pleading whisper:
"Then how can I trust you, Kai? How?!"
Kaiser stood motionless in the dim room, watching me break apart.
Then, he took 2 steps forward.
He reached out his right hand, his warm, calloused palm gently cupping my wet cheek. He wiped a falling tear away with the pad of his thumb, looking deep into my eyes with an intensity that made my heart ache with helpless, agonizing longing.
"Will you trust me, Celia?" he asked again, his tone unwavering.
I looked into his eyes.
A profound, sickening despair settled into the marrow of my bones.
I slowly turned my head, pulling my cheek away from his hand, letting his fingers fall empty into the air.
"No," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I can't trust you. Not like this. You have to tell me the truth right now. Why did you do it?!"
Kaiser stared at his empty palm for 1 silent moment, then slowly lowered his arm to his side.
His eyes hardened, turning flat, distant, and completely inaccessible—the look he gave enemies.
"I cannot tell you the truth, Celia,"
"There is no truth."
The words hung between us like a poisoned blade.
There is no truth.
He just looked at me with those cold, empty blue eyes and told me the slaughter of my father wasn't worth an explanation.
"You're disgusting," I whispered, my voice trembling with pure venom. "You're truly disgusting, Kai."
Kaiser didn't answer. He simply stood there, waiting.
The dam in my throat broke completely.
"Do you have any idea what I gave up for you?!" The scream ripped out of my lungs, echoing against the timber walls.
"Do you have any idea how much I cried when you faked your death in Levinton?! I dug through the ground with my bare hands! I screamed your name until blood came out of my throat! And while I was mourning you, you were already planning your next move!"
I took 1 furious step toward him, my chest heaving.
"I spent months in those bloody forests! I cracked my mana over and over! I let cursed chains rip through my own veins until I lost my mind in the dark, just so I could become stronger! If you had just asked me—if you had just looked at me and said, 'Celia, get strong for me'—I would have done it! I would have crawled through fire for you! But you couldn't even give me that! You lied straight to my face!"
Kaiser's expression remained completely neutral.
"You flirt with any woman you want," I spat, tears spilling hot down my cheeks.
"You do things behind my back! You do whatever you want right in front of me! And I swallowed it! I bit my tongue and smiled because I loved you so much! I threw away my past! I threw away my future! I endured the agony of every single curse in my body just to be useful to you! And after everything I did... after every single thing I sacrificed... you can't even tell me why my father had to die?!"
Kaiser looked at me. His gaze was steady, calm, and utterly devoid of remorse.
"If loving me is so hard, Celia..." he said quietly.
"You can stop loving me."
The air vanished from the room.
My heart felt like it had been broken.
Stop loving you?
After months of burning myself alive for you... that's your answer?
Before my brain could even register the motion, my right arm snapped forward.
CRACK!
The slap landed with vicious, bone-jarring force.
Kaiser's head whipped to the right, his dark hair falling across his forehead.
A sharp, crimson welt bloomed across his cheekbone.
Silence slammed down on the room like a tombstone.
My palm burned, stinging from the impact.
Kaiser didn't raise a hand. He didn't stumble. He didn't touch his burning cheek.
He slowly turned his head back to face me.
His eyes were flat. Untouched.
A sick, suffocating fury choked my throat.
He's humoring me.
He thinks I'm a child throwing a tantrum.
I just struck him with everything I had, and to him, it's nothing.
"Even now..." My voice broke, fractured and jagged. "Even now, instead of telling me the truth... you'd rather lose me?!"
Kaiser didn't blink.
"You never said it," I choked out, tears scalding my skin. "Not even once. You never told me you wanted me to stay. I made those decisions myself! I threw myself at your feet! And you just stood there and took it, didn't you?! How does that feel, Kai?! To have someone crawl through dirt for you while you don't give a fuck?!"
"You have the right to be angry." Kaiser said calmly.
"Shut up!" I screamed, slamming both fists against his chest.
"Don't give me that patronizing bullshit! After how much I loved you, you do this to me?! The only thing you ever cared about was using me! All those promises... all those sweet words... even in the Village of Soulmates! Telling me my smile was prettier without tears... making me feel special... it was all a calculated lie just so you could manipulate me!"
Kaiser looked down at my shaking fists against his shirt.
"If that's what you think I did those things for," he replied, his tone chillingly indifferent, "then you're free to believe it."
The casual dismissal drove a spike straight through my sanity.
"Why can't you love me for who I am now?!" I shrieked, clutching his shirt in desperation. "I gave you everything! I would give you my life right now if you asked for it! Why can't you look me in the eyes and give me the truth?!"
Kaiser didn't speak.
"You act like you're a god!" I laughed hysterically, shaking him.
"You act like you're the 1 above the entire world! But you can't even sleep properly at night! You wake up soaked in sweat, checking your pulse every 10 minutes, terrified that you're going to die! You're scared of dying because you can't let your past go and move on!"
His jaw tightened.
A cruel, twisted satisfaction sparked in my chest.
I hit a nerve.
"You're finally showing your true colors," I snarled, baring my teeth. "You've changed, Kai. You changed the moment we reached Sylvaris. The instant you found out there was a way to bring that bitch back, you stopped looking at me!"
Kaiser's brow furrowed slightly. "Who are you talking about?"
"Don't play stupid!" I screamed into his face.
"Elfie! That dead bitch you love so much that you're willing to fight the Primordial Beasts for! Do you think I don't know about her?! The ghost from your past that you still worship even when she's 6 feet under the dirt?!"
The temperature in the room instantly plummeted.
The faint, patient neutrality on Kaiser's face vanished.
His blue eyes dialated, radiating a freezing, suffocating pressure that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
"Don't bring up someone you don't know." Kaiser warned.
I didn't care. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to bleed the same way he had made me bleed all afternoon.
"I don't care! Shut up!" I yelled, spitting the words directly into his teeth.
"Take a good look at yourself! You're chasing after the rotting memory of someone who's gone, while ignoring the woman standing right in front of you! I'm alive, Kai! I'm breathing! I love you right now, and I would tear the world apart for you! But you'd rather chase a corpse and leave me than give me 1 honest answer!"
I shoved him back, pacing like a caged beast.
"What was I ever to you?! Just a tool! That's why you isolated me in that forest! That's why you made sure I had no home to go back to! And now that I'm strong, you're terrified! You're terrified that I'll stop needing you and walk away, so you keep feeding me lies to keep your leash tight!"
I whirled on him, my vision swimming with red.
"You're obsessing over someone who can't even choose you back! She left you like garbage, and I'm the idiot who bothered to love you! Deep down, you know you can't bring her back! That's why you're clinging to that bitch's memory—clinging to the 1 time in your miserable life when someone actually settled for your lying bullshit!"
Kaiser didn't flinch.
He just looked at me.
"You knew about her." He said.
The words weren't a question. They were delivered in a voice so dead, so chillingly devoid of humanity, that a shiver of instinctual dread locked my spine.
For 1 beat, my breath hitched.
Then the reckless, toxic agony in my blood surged forward.
"So what if I did?!" I screamed, tossing my hair back.
"It doesn't change anything! You're not going to succeed without me! That's the only reason you keep me around—so you can use my curses to bring your precious bitch back while pretending you give a shit about me! You're a joke, Kaiser! You're practically begging a corpse to wake up!"
I pointed at his chest, laughing through my tears:
"While you expect me to stand beside you and help you resurrect her, you're emotionally cheating on me every single day with a dead girl! How pathetic are you?! What kind of sick, broken freak begs for scraps from the dead?!"
I wiped the tears from my chin with the back of my hand, my chest heaving violently.
"I'm sick of your silence! Tell me the truth about my father! Move on and choose the future!"
Kaiser stood motionless.
He simply watched me with an expression of utter, absolute detachment.
"Are you hearing me?!" I yelled, stepping closer, my voice cracking under the weight of the silence.
"Talk back to me! Defend yourself like a man!"
Kaiser met my eyes.
"I would at least pretend to listen," Kaiser said smoothly.
"if your words actually sounded like words."
My breath caught in my throat.
I stared at him, my mouth slightly open, my hands frozen at my sides.
There was no guilt in his eyes. No pain. No desire to explain.
To him, my grief, my sacrifices, and my screaming weren't a tragedy.
They were just annoyance.
The silence in the room stretched until it cracked.
Kaiser looked down at me, his eyes dead and unblinking.
Then, he leaned forward.
He bent down until his face was barely inches from mine, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm murmur:
"You want to know why I don't look at you the same way?"
My throat locked.
"Because she had a heart," Kaiser said, every single syllable landing like a razor against my skin. "She had dignity. She had kindness. And you? You're nothing but a selfish, narcissistic, controlling woman who thinks she's entitled to whatever she wants."
My knees buckled. A violent shudder ripped through my chest, my hands shaking so hard my fingernails bit into my palms.
Kaiser didn't step back. He watched my trembling with cold amusement.
"Shaking already?" he whispered. "You get worked up over a small reply like this, yet you didn't hesitate to dig into my weak spots. Or are you just getting too used to throwing your authority around, thinking nobody has the right to talk back to you?"
Rage and humiliation tore through my veins in a blinding, messy torrent. Tears flooded my vision, spilling over my burning cheeks.
"S-Shut up..." I choked out, my voice splintering into fractured pieces. "Y-You... shut up! S-Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
I bared my teeth, stumbling back half a step, dark thorns sparking wildly around my wrists.
"G-Get away from me!" I screamed, my chest heaving with ragged, ugly breaths. "G-Get away from me, or I swear... if that bitch was still alive, I would have burned her alive right in front of your f-fucking eyes!"
Kaiser's eyes turned to black glass.
In less than half a heartbeat, his hand shot out.
His fingers clamped around my right wrist like an iron vise, crushing the bone until my dark mana shattered into smoke.
"That's enough." Kaiser said.
"I have already exhausted my patience with you."
"W-Why...?" I gasped, trying to pull away, my heels skidding against the floorboards. "S-Stop... l-let go of m-me—"
Kaiser tightened his grip, pulling me forward until our chests collided.
"Use you?" he said, his blue eyes boring directly into my soul. "You really think I have any need for useless tools? If you were just a tool, I would have thrown you away months ago."
My breath hitched.
"If I really wanted you isolated, Celia, let me give you a lesson on how it's done," Kaiser whispered, his words freezing the marrow in my bones.
"I would have severed your ties from the entire world. I would have locked you in 1 room where you had nobody to cry to, nobody to beg for mercy from except me. I would have stripped you of your future and your individuality until the only word your tongue could form was 'yes' to every demand I made."
He leaned in closer, his breath cold against my ear:
"And if you tried to escape, I would have hurt and broken you over and over, turning you into a masochist who craved my abuse just to feel my touch. But I didn't do that. Do you know why?"
He pulled back, his gaze raking over my tear-stained face with pure disgust.
"Because you're not worth going that far for."
A sharp, broken hiccup tore out of my throat. My vision blurred into streaks of grey.
Not worth it.
I w-wasn't even worth breaking.
Panic and fury exploded in my chest. With a feral shriek, I raised my left hand to claw his eyes out—
Kaiser caught my left wrist midair.
With 1 fluid, effortless pivot, he shoved me backward. My back slammed against the mattress, and before I could twist away, Kaiser leaned over me, pinning both of my wrists flat against the sheets on either side of my head.
"L-Let me go!" I sobbed, thrashing beneath his weight, my legs kicking wildly.
"L-Let me go! Kaiser, l-let me go!"
Kaiser didn't budge. He held me pinned with terrifying, immovable leverage, looking down into my panicked eyes.
"You don't want to be let go," he said, his voice flat, stripping away every lie I had ever told myself.
"You want me to chase you. Just like every single time. You start arguments, you manufacture fights, and you run away because you expect me to chase you back, comfort you, and reassure you—as if soothing your pathetic tantrums is a responsibility I was born with."
"T-That's not true!" I cried, hot tears soaking into my hair.
"T-That's a lie!"
"If I wanted to keep you as a tool, I would've had sex with you months ago," Kaiser countered, his words tearing through my dignity like rusted iron.
"I would've tied you to my bed until you were so obsessed with my body that you couldn't even look at another man without feeling sick."
My chest seized. My breath fractured into shallow, desperate gasps.
"All those times you wore sheer dresses," Kaiser continued mercilessly.
"All those nights you slipped into my room, crawling into my bed, trying to seduce me... I kept control. Not because you weren't desirable. Not because there was a lack of opportunity."
"It was simply because I didn't love you."
Crack.
Something inside my soul permanently splintered.
The blood drained from my face.
He didn't love me.
Not even then. Not for 1 heartbeat.
"Even now," Kaiser murmured, his grip pinning my wrists like stone cuffs, "if I were to wrap my arms around you and kiss your neck, you would break down, swallow your pride, and accept whatever scraps I threw at you. Because you're that desperate. You're that pathetic."
"S-Stop..." A ragged sob choked my lungs. "P-Please... s-stop..."
"You don't love me at all, Celia," Kaiser stated with chilling certainty.
"The only thing you love is your own controlling selfishness. You tell yourself you sacrificed your life for me, but that isn't love. You didn't train to keep me safe. You trained so you could hold power over me. You wanted to be strong enough to order me around, to dictate who I speak to, because having control is the only thing that feeds your sick ego."
He leaned down until his eyes were inches from mine:
"I let you believe whatever fantasy you needed, just so you could stand on your own 2 feet before I left. A selfish, hollow woman like you."
Kaiser released my wrists.
He stood up, stepping away from the bed.
The sudden absence of his weight left me curled on the mattress, gasping for air, clutching my bruised wrists against my ribs.
I rolled onto my knees, my dark skirts tangled around my thighs, my hair plastered to my wet cheeks.
"B-But you knew me..." I wept, my voice breaking into pathetic, stuttering fragments.
"Y-You knew me b-better than anyone! You knew what it f-felt like to be abandoned! Y-You promised me... you promised me you wouldn't leave... and you're saying this now?!"
Kaiser picked up his dark coat from the chair, sliding his arms into the sleeves.
He looked down at me crumpled on the bed, his expression as barren as winter stone.
"Why should I care just because you're crying?"
The question destroyed whatever remained of my heart.
The boy who wiped the mud from my scraped knee, the boy who held my hand in the rain... was dead.
He had never existed.
I pushed him too far.
The moment I said her name... I broke the only bridge between us.
I dragged myself off the bed, stumbling onto my feet. My knees trembled so violently I had to lean against the wooden bedpost just to stay upright. I wiped my face with trembling sleeves, desperately trying to pull the mask of the Queen of Curses back over my shattered features.
"W-What the h-hell is your problem?!" I spat, fighting through another sharp hiccup.
Kaiser adjusted his collar, his movements smooth, unhurried.
"My problem is you," he said bluntly. "I'm not wasting my life managing a selfish, unstable girl who only cares about herself and projects her insecurities onto everyone else."
"All you care about is yourself!" I screamed, pointing a shaking finger at him. "Did you ever consider my feelings?! After you made me think you loved me?!"
"I didn't make you think anything," Kaiser replied, his voice devoid of heat. "Those were your own delusional fantasies. It's high time you grow up and move on, because I will never love you."
He reached for the door handle.
"Go to that Lucifer," he said, not even turning his head. "Go to whatever Demon Lord or man comes chasing you now. I couldn't care less which man you end up with. Just don't bother me with your face or your voice ever again."
A cold, bottomless void opened beneath my feet.
He doesn't care.
He really doesn't care if I leave.
The agony turned into pure, self-destructive poison.
If he was going to discard me, I wasn't going to let him walk away with the satisfaction of breaking me.
"T-Then we're nothing!" I screamed, tears scalding my throat. "Get out! We're nothing now! I don't care! I don't want you anymore! You're nothing but a cheap, manipulative liar who never gave a shit about me!"
Kaiser turned the key in the lock.
He paused with his hand on the brass knob, glancing over his shoulder with 1 last, freezing look:
"We were nothing to begin with. There's nothing to break up about. I wouldn't want you in the 1st place."
Click.
The door opened.
Kaiser stepped out into the hallway.
Slam.
The door clicked shut.
His footsteps moved down the wooden stairs, calm and steady, fading into the drumming rain outside until there was nothing left.
My knees gave out.
I hit the floorboards hard, my hands slamming against the cold wood.
Gone.
He's gone.
A high, fractured wail tore from my chest. I pulled my knees against my chest, digging my fingernails into my scalp until it bled, sobbing into the empty room.
Seeing the way he looked at me was enough.
I didn't need an explanation. I didn't need a goodbye. His actions spoke louder than any words.
I became unnecessary. Unimportant. Easy to discard.
He never told me to walk away all these months, but he stopped choosing me long ago. He stopped caring how his distance felt. And like a pathetic, blind idiot, I stayed longer than I should have, praying things would change.
Love doesn't feel like being tolerated.
It doesn't feel like being forgotten.
Letting go was never my choice. It was something he asked for without ever saying the words.
I buried my face in my trembling hands, rocking back and forth on the floor as the rain battered the windowpanes.
I remember crying myself to sleep in the dark, wondering who he was talking to instead of me. Wondering what was wrong with me, why I wasn't enough, why he did me so wrong.
He would always come back, then vanish again—whenever it was convenient for him. And I didn't care about the world. I only cared about him. I saw the good in him and lost myself waiting for a boy who was never going to change.
He couldn't handle my love.
He never wanted it.
A ragged gasp shook my shoulders.
Deep down, the sickening truth gnawed at my ribs.
I slapped him. I brought her up. I said those vile, disgusting things about a dead girl.
I pushed him to the edge.
So w-why... w-why was he so cruel to me before that?
W-Why was it so easy for him to t-throw me away?
The silence of the rented room offered no answer.
Only the cold grey rain, washing over the city of Sylvaris, leaving me alone in the dark.
*
Hours passed in the suffocating dark.
The storm clawed at the windowpanes like a pack of wolves. Dinner had come and gone, untouched.
Around 8:00 PM, a hesitant knock sounded against the wooden door.
"Celia?" Lucas's voice called through the panels, muffled by the rain. "I've been searching for you. Are you alright in there? Did you and Kaiser—"
"Go away, Lucas," I croaked, my voice so hollow and raspy it barely sounded like my own. "Leave me alone."
He lingered for a few minutes. Then, with a quiet sigh, his heavy boots retreated down the corridor.
I stayed curled on the floor, my forehead pressed against the cold baseboard.
I cried until there were no tears left to shed—until my throat was raw, my ribs ached with every breath, and my skull throbbed with a dull, sickening migraine. Eventually, the sheer weight of exhaustion dragged my limbs toward the mattress.
I pulled myself onto the bed, collapsing on top of the rumpled blankets.
My left hand lay limp against the pillow.
In the dim moonlight filtering through the rain-streaked glass, the Ring of Empty Chaos rested on my finger.
The dark metal felt freezing. The deep cobalt swirl—the piece of his eyes that had once made me feel invincible—was dead. Dim. Cold.
I am going to move on.
I will start my life over. I don't need someone who treats my devotion like an annoyance. I don't need his love.
It wasn't my fault.
I repeated the words like a desperate prayer, staring at the ceiling.
It wasn't my fault. He killed my papa. He kept secrets. He broke every promise.
Yet, the image of his face wouldn't leave me.
His expression had remained impassive through every accusation, every scream, even through the slap that bruised his cheek. But the instant her name left my lips—the instant I dragged Elfie from the grave—his eyes had turned into an abyss.
Deep down, beneath the anger and the pride, the bitter truth remained: he would never have gone that far if I hadn't weaponized the dead girl he carried.
Even so... the truth had to be known.
At least I know now he doesn't care about me.
My eyelids grew heavy. My breathing slowed into shallow, trembling hitches.
Without realizing it, the dark finally claimed me, and I drifted into a dreamless, hollow sleep.
*
Perspective: Kaiser
Date: January 27, 2018
Time: 1:30 AM
Location: Sylvaris - Central Park
The storm had been battering Sylvaris for 9 hours.
Winds whipped off the coast, tearing tiles from slate roofs and toppling merchant stalls across the lower districts. The municipal mana conduits had failed before midnight; the entire city was submerged in pitch-black darkness, punctuated only by jagged flashes of lightning tearing across the clouds.
I wasn't in my room.
I sat alone on a weather-beaten wooden bench at the edge of the central park's pond.
Rain drummed violently against my shoulders, soaking through my wool coat and plastering wet black strands of hair to my forehead. The freezing water ran down my collar, biting into my skin with icy needle-pricks.
Just as I hoped.
That should be enough for her to walk away. Even if it wasn't what she wanted to hear, it was what she needed. And for me, that is enough.
If she hated me, she would grow up. If she viewed me as a monster, she would stop chasing my shadow and stand on her own 2 feet. An enemy was easy to leave behind; a savior... was a parasite that starved the host.
I looked down at my right hand.
My fingers were pale, numb from the cold, trembling slightly.
Between my thumb and forefinger, shielded beneath my curled palm, rested a small, worn photograph.
The edges were frayed, creased from years of being folded inside a pocket.
It was an Academy photograph from years ago.
In the picture, a younger version of myself sat on a sunlit bench, wearing the grey-and-gold uniform of The Asura Academy. My lips were curved into a faint, rare smile—an expression so bright, so genuinely at peace, that it looked like another person entirely.
And wrapped around my left arm, leaning her head against my shoulder with radiant, effortless smile, was a girl with flowing pink hair and blue eyes.
Elfie.
Her smile in the picture was... honest.
It was the only physical photograph of her I had left in this world.
I hadn't been able to sleep. No matter how much I tried tonight, and I guess that's because Celia had dragged that name into the light.
She had ripped open the wound I had spent years trying to forget through indifference.
Thunder rumbled across the sky, vibrating through the bench. Rain splashed into the black waters of the pond, rippling into fractured rings.
This was the quietest place in the city.
No guards patrolled in a storm like this. No guild associates would wander through a flooded park at midnight.
Nobody would find me here.
Nobody would care.
And that was why I was here.
I didn't want anyone to ask what was wrong.
Because even with all my knowledge, I couldn't answer them.
...
Being alone was better.
At least then... I don't have to worry about hurting anyone else...
*
Perspective: Eve
Date: January 27, 2018
Time: 2:47 AM
Location: Sylvaris - Lodge
H-Huh...?
Warm tears spilled over my eyelashes.
W-Why... why is my face wet?
I sat up in bed, my breath hitching in a sharp, painful gasp. I wiped my palms across my cheeks, but more tears kept coming. It wouldn't stop.
I'm c-crying?
B-But why...? Did I have a bad dream? No... I don't remember any dream...
Then w-why does my chest hurt so badly?!
My heart thumped violently against my ribs, each beat sending a sharp ache through my throat. I grabbed my neck with both hands. It felt tight. Constricted. I couldn't pull air into my lungs without small, choking hiccups shaking my shoulders.
I c-can't breathe...
W-What is this feeling? Why does it feel so lonely... so heavy... like someone's heart is breaking in the dark?
I reached for the soft Kaiser plushie on my pillow, hugging it against my chest with all my strength. I buried my nose into the soft fabric, squeezing my eyes shut.
P-Please stop... please...
The ache didn't stop. It throbbed harder.
It's not mine.
The truth hit me with sudden, terrifying clarity.
This pain... it's not coming from me... then who..
I c-can't just stay in bed. I can't.
I threw the covers off, my bare feet hitting the cold floorboards. I paced across the room, my teeth chattering, scrubbing my sleeves against my wet eyes.
Who is it...? Who is in so much pain?
I pulled a thick sweater over my head. I grabbed my yellow raincoat, shoving my arms through the sleeves, and snatched my umbrella from the corner.
A pulse of warm light caught my eye.
I looked down at my left hand.
The r-ring...?
The silver band of the Sea of the Heart was glowing. Inside the gemstone, the swirl of pastel pink and deep cobalt blue had parted. The blue wasn't swirling anymore.
It had formed a sharp, radiant line.
A needle... it's pointing.
I turned my hand toward the door. The blue needle immediately shifted, locking its direction toward the street outside.
My breath hitched.
The blue... it was leading me somewhere!
I ran down the stairs, unlocked the heavy wooden door, and pushed it open.
The cold wind hit me instantly. Rain lashed against my raincoat, soaking the hem of my nightgown within 5 steps. I opened my umbrella, gripping the handle with both trembling hands as the gales tried to tear it from my grip.
W-Where are you...?
I looked down at the ring. The cobalt light pointed straight down the flooded alleyway.
Whenever I took a wrong turn at an intersection, the light flickered and dimmed, turning sideways until I corrected my steps.
H-Hold on... I'm coming... please don't be alone...
Tears kept leaking from my eyes, hot against my cold cheeks, blurring the dark stone buildings. My chest hitched with every ragged breath.
Why are you hurting like this? What could make someone like you hurt so much...?
Please... just let me reach you...
The ring pulled me through the iron gates of the park.
The wind tore across the dark water of the pond. Every lantern was out. Everything was black and loud with rain.
And then I saw him.
There.
Sitting on a wet bench near the water's edge.
K-Kai...!
He was just sitting there in the pouring rain. No umbrella. No coat over his head. His dark hair was completely soaked, plastered to his forehead, his shoulders hunched forward. He was holding something small in his lap with both hands.
He's freezing.
He's so cold... he's going to get sick...
My fingers clamped over my chest, right over my pounding heart.
He isn't even moving. It's like he forgot he's alive.
I ran across the wet grass, water splashing up to my knees, until I reached the bench.
I stretched my arms high, angling the umbrella directly over his head.
The rain stopped hitting him.
The water dripping from his wet clothes slowed.
He didn't move for a few long seconds.
Then, his head slowly lifted.
His blue eyes met mine.
His face was so pale. So hollow and drained. Between his numb, red fingers, he was protecting a small picture.
Seeing him look like that made the tears in my eyes spill over all over again. A small hiccup broke from my throat, my hands shaking on the umbrella handle.
"W-What's wrong...?"
My voice was so small, barely carrying over the sound of the storm.
"K-Kai... w-what's wrong...?"