Three in the morning had recently struck, swallowed by the sepulchral silence enveloping the entire east wing of the royal palace.
Hayjin walked at a slow pace down the main gallery, dragging himself forward as though his legs were made of lead. His heavy, blocky gray iron greaves produced a dull, solitary metallic sound with every impact against the polished marble, echoing against the high pointed vaults of the ceiling before dying away into the darkness of the side corridors. He kept his head lowered, hands shoved deep into his trousers pockets, streaks of black and white hair falling untidily over his eyes and hiding the deep dark circles carving his face.
The boy's mind was a graveyard of thoughts. The words Wilder had confided to him in the royal garden that ruthless tale of a thirteen-year-old kid who had fled in terror before a Demon King, only to return and discover his father had died believing him a coward kept spinning in his head like a razor-sharp wheel. Hayjin wanted to feel contempt, wanted to keep hating the silver knight for the arrogance with which he had confronted him that morning, but he couldn't anymore. Beneath the polished surface of the grand court warrior lay a man just as broken as he was, held together only by the blind determination never to yield to his own mistakes.
"The past never really goes away..." Hayjin muttered under his breath, his breath forming small clouds of vapor in the freezing corridor air. "But if I don't stop looking back, I'm going to drive myself completely insane."
The castle at this hour was entirely deserted. The grand wall torches, which burned brightly along the corridors by day, had been doused by the pages before midnight. The sole source of light was the full moon filtering through the enormous stained-glass windows lining the left side of the gallery. Flashes of silvery light carved sharp, ghostly geometric shapes across the floor, interspersed with chasms of dense, impenetrable shadow where even the contours of statues and decorative suits of armor seemed to warp.
Hayjin took another ten steps, then came to a sudden halt.
A faint shiver ran down his spine, starting at the nape of his neck and spreading to his fingertips.
It hadn't been a loud noise. It had been a microscopic shift in the air. A change in pressure, or perhaps the faintest, almost imperceptible rustle of rough fabric scraping against the coarse stone of the walls.
Hayjin held his breath, freezing in the middle of a patch of moonlight. Slowly, he brought his right hand to the hilt of his plain iron sword, feeling the chill of the metal against his palm.
"What was that?" he thought, his heart beginning to race. "A rat? A patrolling guard?"
He strained his hearing to the utmost. For five, ten agonizing seconds, nothing could be heard except his own ragged breathing and the whisper of the night wind pushing against the gallery's windows. Then, again.
Shhh... slink…
A dragging, wet, rhythmic noise coming from the far end of the corridor behind him. A sound that belonged neither to the leather boots of the palace guards nor to the muffled steps of the servants. It sounded like a heavy, waterlogged cloth being dragged across the marble, punctuated by the faint metallic clack of something striking the floor.
Hayjin whipped around, drawing his sword halfway with a rasp of steel.
"Who's there?!" he shouted, his cracked voice ringing hollow and trembling down the dark gallery. "Is someone there?!"
No answer.
The gallery stretched back behind him for more than fifty meters before turning toward the banquet wing. Beneath the moonlight, the gold and silver suits of armor positioned along the alcoves appeared like headless warriors, motionless and ominous. The darkness between windows was so dense it seemed almost solid, a black liquid ready to swallow anything that ventured inside.
Hayjin stood rooted to the spot for half a minute, his eyes wide as he desperately tried to pierce the gloom. Tension pounded in his temples. His trauma tied to the time loops, the decapitation he had suffered at the hands of the Cult of the Brand in limbo, and the constant agony of being hunted like an animal surged back with the violent force of a heatwave. He tasted the metallic tang of his own blood in his mouth again; he felt the terrifying cold of the blade tearing through his neck muscles once more.
"Stay calm..." he whispered to himself, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "You're inside the royal castle. There were guards at the gates. It's just paranoia. Exhaustion is making you hear things that aren't there."
He forced his legs to move again. He sheathed his sword with a rigid motion and resumed walking toward his room, picking up his pace slightly.
But as soon as his iron footwear struck the stone once more, the sound returned.
Shhh... slink... clack.
This time it wasn't far away. It was closer. Much closer.
It no longer came only from behind: Hayjin had the terrifying impression that the dragging sound was moving along the ceiling, or perhaps within the deep shadows cast by the grand royal tapestries lining the walls. The temperature in the corridor plummeted dramatically within seconds; Hayjin's breath began condensing into increasingly dense plumes of vapor, and a pungent, nauseating odor a mix of rusted iron, snuffed candles, and stagnant flesh filled his nostrils.
Hayjin froze again, spinning right and left with terror etched across his hazel eyes.
"Enough... stop! Show yourself!" he screamed, but his throat tightened into a knot of pure panic.
In the shadowed alcoves between the windows, dark shapes seemed to stretch out, creeping across the floor like grotesque black fingers attempting to reach his boots. Hayjin felt a gust of icy air strike the back of his neck the exact spot where the Cult's blade had decapitated him in his first death.
That was the final straw. What little rationality he had left shattered completely under the weight of a primal phobia.
Hayjin spun on his heels and bolted with all the strength left in his body.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
His heavy iron greaves slammed against the marble in a frenzied, deafening cadence, shattering the night's silence entirely. The boy ran headlong, his chest burning and his heart hammering against his ribs like a jackhammer. He no longer cared about etiquette; he didn't care if the guards thought he was insane or if Isabelle scolded him the next morning. The only thing that mattered was reaching the door to his room, slotting the key into the lock, and barricading himself inside.
He glanced back over his shoulder for a fraction of a second: the shadows along the corridor seemed to pursue him, twisting along the walls like black fluids moving at terrifying speed.
He veered left at the intersection with the guest-of-honor wing, taking the corner too sharply and scraping his shoulder against the coarse stone wall.
Just as he regained his balance to sprint down the final straightaway, a tall figure wrapped in heavy dark robes suddenly emerged from a side door.
Hayjin didn't have time to brake.
BAM!
The collision was violent. Hayjin slammed chest-first into the other person, rebounding backward from the impact and nearly crashing hard onto the marble floor.
"Whoa! By the light of Opes!" exclaimed a deep, warm, authoritative voice, as two strong hands grabbed Hayjin's shoulders to keep him from tumbling to the ground.
Hayjin forced his eyes open, hyperventilating, sweat dripping into his eyes. Standing before him, illuminated by the faint glow of a small brass lantern held in his left hand, was the sage Arkon. The old scholar wore a nightgown of navy blue velvet embroidered with gold thread, his long white beard neatly combed, and an expression of profound bewilderment etched across his wrinkled face.
Hayjin was shaking so violently that his knees knocked together, producing a faint metallic clinking against his armor.
"Hayjin?" Arkon asked, furrowing his bushy gray eyebrows as he raised the lantern to illuminate the boy's face. "Whatever is going on? Why are you sprinting like this at three in the morning?"
Hayjin didn't even meet the old scholar's eyes. His mind was entirely consumed by terror of the shadow pursuing him down the corridor.
"I'm sorry! Sorry! Forgive me, Arkon! I have to... I have to go! Sorry!" Hayjin stammered, his voice broken by ragged gasps, offering no real explanation.
He shoved himself free from the old sage's grip and, without waiting another second, resumed sprinting headlong down the dark corridor, nearly slipping on the red carpet of the royal wing.
Arkon stood motionless in the middle of the hallway, watching the boy's silhouette recede into the dark with deep concern. He raised the lantern and called out after him in a firm yet fatherly tone:
"Hayjin! Watch your footing! Go slowly down these corridors you risk seriously hurting yourself running in the dark like that!"
Hayjin didn't answer. He didn't even look back. His brain had muted every sound except the noise of his own desperate footsteps.
"...Good night, my boy!" Arkon added with a long sigh, shaking his head as the youth vanished around the corner.
Hayjin covered the final twenty meters of corridor like a bullet. He reached the solid wood door of his bedroom, seized the brass handle with sweat-slicked hands, and threw his weight inward.
He burst into the room, slammed the door with enough force to shake the hinges, and instantly turned the key in the lock.
CLACK! CLICK!
He turned the key twice, then frantically threw the heavy wrought-iron bolt at the top of the doorframe.
Only when he felt the metal slide firmly into the stone socket did Hayjin let his shoulders drop. He leaned his back against the wooden door, sliding slowly down until he was sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out.
He let out a long, agonizing sigh of relief, letting his head rest back against the closed door.
Haaah... haaah... haaah…
His breathing was the only sound filling the room. The bedroom reserved for guests of honor was submerged in absolute darkness: the heavy, dark velvet curtains were drawn across the grand arched window, blocking even the moonlight from entering. Only the blurred contours of the walnut wardrobe, the corner desk, and the large canopy bed frame against the opposite wall were vaguely visible.
Hayjin remained seated on the floor for nearly ten minutes, listening with obsessive intensity for any sound from the corridor outside.
Nothing. No footsteps, no rustling, no voices. Only the muffled, protective silence of his private chamber.
"It was just paranoia..." Hayjin whispered softly, running his palms over his sweat-drenched cheeks. "Just fucking paranoia. I need to sleep this off. If I keep this up, I'll end up passing out again like last time."
He struggled to his feet. With slow, clumsy movements, he unbuckled the leather straps of his gray iron greaves, letting them drop onto the rug with two dull thuds. He removed his bolo tie, black vest, and combat boots, leaving himself in just an unbuttoned white shirt and light trousers. He didn't even bother lighting a candle on the nightstand; all he wanted was to sink into the pillows and shut out the outside world for a few hours.
He approached the canopy bed, pulled back the heavy wool blankets, and slipped beneath the sheets.
He closed his eyes, determined to finally sleep.
But sleep wouldn't come.
The minutes began to tick away. Five. Ten. Twenty-five.
Hayjin's body was exhausted spent from the physical toll of sparring with Wilder, the emotional weight of the day's conversations, and the rush of adrenaline from his flight through the hallways. Yet his brain flatly refused to shut down. Every time he tried to let go, every time his muscles teased relaxation, a sense of impending dread forced his eyes back open.
Hayjin kept glancing around anxiously, staring into the dark chamber with wide, hyperactive eyes.
The canopy bed felt like a cage. Shadows cast by the dark bed drapes morphed into strange, disturbing shapes in the gloom. The faint creaking of the wooden ceiling, brought on by the night's changing temperature, sent his heart leaping into his throat.
"There was something in that corridor..." his mind repeated in an unbearable, vicious cycle. "It wasn't an illusion. I smelled it. The scent of iron and dead flesh. It's the exact same smell that filled the Cult's temple before they chopped off my head."
He rolled onto his left side, clutching the pillow to his chest. Then he rolled onto his right, staring at the handle of the locked door. He turned flat on his back, gazing up at the ceiling beams.
The minutes slipped away ruthlessly, dragging the night toward its end without granting him a single moment of peace.
3:30 AM passed in agony.
4:00 AM arrived as Hayjin kept rubbing his eyes, feeling his eyelids burn with extreme dryness and fatigue.
4:15 AM found him still awake, hands gripping the edges of the blankets until his knuckles hurt, listening to his heart hammering in his ears.
It was only when the grandfather clock in the castle's main tower struck a gloomy chime for 4:30 AM that Hayjin's physical endurance finally collapsed.
The cumulative exhaustion of the past forty-eight hours overwhelmed his paranoia. His eyelids, heavy as millstones, sank shut. His breathing grew deeper and rhythmic, and his muscles finally loosened into the feather mattress.
Hayjin closed his eyes. The darkness of mind enveloped him, promising a few hours of undisturbed oblivion.
It lasted less than ten seconds.
A sudden, unnatural, terrifying blast of icy air slammed into his face, carrying a suffocating smell of putrid flesh, ozone, and scorched parchment.
Hayjin felt a weight. A physical weight, intangible yet undeniable, pressing down on the air above his chest.
He snapped his eyes open.
Hovering above him, less than twenty centimeters from his face, suspended in the darkness between the bed drapes, was a shadowed figure gazing down at him in total silence.