Chapter 3

“Miss, you have to get out, now! Just like you said, the fire… There’s no time to explain!”

Elena froze, overwhelmed by panic, unable to move. Unlike what she had seen in her dream, Emma burst into Elena’s bedroom, breathless and alarmed.

Thick, black smoke twisted behind Emma’s back, suggesting the fire had already engulfed the hallway.

“E-Emma…”

Fear gripped her. Her legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

Where’s Mom? And Dad? Why is there a fire? I thought everything would be fine if we went on that picnic… There’s no way there should be a fire now…!

Countless thoughts screamed inside her head but refused to escape her lips, collapsing in on themselves like a wave breaking inward.

“Miss, please!”

Emma scooped up Elena from where she had collapsed on the floor.

“It’s alright. The fire hasn’t reached here yet. We can still get out.”

Emma spoke in a trembling voice, trying to soothe the terrified, tearful Elena. But despite her efforts, Elena couldn’t calm down.

“This is all… my fault. I was wrong…”

“No, how could it be your fault? It’s okay.”

Tightening her grip around Elena, Emma began to move.

The acrid smoke entered their mouths, triggering a cough. Elena instinctively covered her nose and mouth with her hand as she coughed up the smoke.

“We’ll be alright. Everything’s going to be okay. As long as you’re with me, we’ll be okay.”

Emma’s hands were damp. Though she whispered reassurances, her voice still quivered, clearly rattled by the fire rapidly consuming the hallway.

“I’m scared. Emma, I’m so scared…”

“It’s alright. Just stay close to me.”

The flickering flames were terrifying. She was afraid she would die again.

What if the fire caught her clothes and both she and Emma burned alive? Or worse, what if they suffocated from the smoke already choking them?

She should never have believed that a simple plan like going on a picnic would be enough to avoid the fire. It was all her fault.

“Hold your breath for a moment. We’re almost there…”

Emma, staring at the corridor where the fire was raging, inhaled deeply. Following her lead, Elena bit back her sobs and took a deep breath, covering her nose and mouth just as Emma had done.

Emma shut her eyes tightly and picked up her pace.

“Ahhk…”

As the heat scorched her legs, Emma pressed forward through the hallway. Elena clung to her neck, eyes squeezed shut.

“Miss, you’re alright. Just a bit more, just a bit…”

“Mmh…”

The flames licked her arm like a flicking tongue. A searing pain bloomed where the heat concentrated. But Elena, unwilling to worry Emma, who held her so tightly, bit down on her lip and endured the pain, just as Emma had done.

“Hang in there. We’re almost there.”

They just needed to pass through the parlor and the drawing room. No matter how painful the escape, it was better than losing their lives. Gritting her teeth, Emma pushed herself to move faster.

Then Elena spotted something. The parlor door had been left open.

“Ah…”

She remembered. They said the fire had started in the parlor.

Who? Why? How? As they passed the room where it all began, a single image caught Elena’s eye.

A pair of red eyes gleamed from the fiery parlor doorway. Those folded eyes smiled, a smile completely at odds with the panic around them.

Ecstasy. Yes, that was the emotion gleaming unmistakably in those eyes.

Even the surrounding fire seemed to reflect beautifully in them. It was terrifying. She didn’t know why he was smiling at her like that, but the grin filled her with dread. Her entire body began to tremble.

“Dad…?”

“That’s…”

Elena’s murmured words brought Emma to a halt. She had noticed the presence inside the parlor too.

Ignoring the eyes locked on her, Elena spotted Aurin collapsed at the man’s feet. Aurin lay motionless, face-down. Thick, sticky blood pooled around him in a dark puddle.

Why… why is Dad…?

Tears welled up instantly, blurring her vision. But even through that haze, the horrifying scene was clear.

“Dad… Dad!”

“Elena!”

Emma held Elena tighter as she struggled in her arms.

The man still smiled at her, a bloodstained sword in one hand. In the other, Elena could sense a sinister magic beginning to concentrate. 

A fiery aura danced on his fingertips. In that moment, Elena instinctively knew he was the one. 

He stabbed her father. He started the fire. Everything… was his doing.

“Miss, now’s not the time!”

“But Emma, my dad is…!”

“We have to get out of here first. Please, Miss… please…”

Emma, straining to endure the pain in her legs, clung to Elena with all her might.

“Dad… he’s lying there! Dad!”

Those red eyes, drunk on something beyond joy, clung to Elena. But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

The man who stabbed her father. The man who set their home ablaze. She had to stop him. That thought alone moved Elena’s heart.

“Elena Vened… you again…”

The man’s dry lips parted.

“…What?”

Emma, glancing toward Aurin with a terrified expression, searching desperately for a safe path, didn’t seem to hear him. But Elena did. She heard the voice, soaked in ecstasy, loud and clear. 

It was as if he had cast a wicked spell. Her body tensed violently. Like prey before a predator, she froze, completely still, not even trembling anymore.

Faced with a horrifying sight she could no longer bear, Elena shut her eyes tightly. Together, she and Emma escaped the mansion, even as the flames spread like wildfire.

The jet-black mansion began to tilt, as though pushed over by a giant made of flame.

“I can’t, Emma, hic… I have to go back. I have to save my father.”

“Miss, no!”

With the horrible thought that this was truly the end, Elena stepped forward, her face drenched in tears.

“I absolutely cannot, will not, let you go back in there! No!”

“But…”

Emma, also on the ground, looked up at the burning house with the same hopeless expression as Elena. Then she suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.

“Dad… he was in there. He was lying on the floor, and there was so much blood. The floor was soaked with it…”

“I saw it too. But you can’t. If you go back in, you’ll die too!”

Only then did Emma notice the burn on Elena’s arm, hideously blistered. Even just escaping the fire had left them both badly hurt. Going back inside… that would be suicide.

Those who hadn’t made it out were already gone. Elena had to survive. That realization made Emma tighten her arms around Elena, dragging her down and locking her in an embrace.

“Hic… I saw him. I saw the man who did it. He stabbed my father… he set the fire. I saw everything!”

Elena broke down, sobbing into Emma’s arms.

She had known the fire would happen. She thought a simple plan like going on a picnic could save her family. It was a devastating mistake. Worse, she’d left her father behind to save herself.

Gasping for air, Elena cried uncontrollably.

“It’s alright now. It’s over. Everything’s alright now, Miss.”

“But… Dad and Mom are still in there. So I have to go. Emma… please…”

How could things be alright, when her parents were still inside? They could have lived if only she had tried harder.

Elena clutched Emma’s skirt, begging to go back in. Begging to save them.

“Miss… I… I don’t want to lose you too.”

“But… please…”

Emma, pitying her, began to cry as well. Kneeling down, she embraced the sobbing Elena, whose voice had gone hoarse and cheeks raw from tears.

* * *

It was Baron and Baroness Saulliren, who had worked with Aurin in the Anhal Ministry of Finance, who helped young Elena see her parents properly laid to rest. 

The funeral of Baron Aurin Vened and Baroness Floran Vened was held in solemn silence.

“Let us offer a moment of prayer for Baron Aurin Vened and Baroness Floran Vened, who have gone to the side of Lord Kaelnin, the god who once blessed Drac Nizena, the first guardian dragon of the Kingdom of Valra.”

Kaelnin, the god with the most followers in Valra, and Drac Nizena, the kingdom’s founding dragon, under their names, the clergy led the ceremony.

When the officiant finished speaking, everyone bowed their heads in silence toward the white-flowered coffins. Everyone except Elena.

She alone kept her gaze fixed on the coffins where her parents lay.

Mom… Dad…

She had cried so much before the funeral that not a single tear remained. She had scraped away every ounce of sorrow and rage in her heart and shed it in tears until now, she felt like an empty doll.

Elena folded her hands and prayed toward the two coffins. And in that moment, the memory of those horrifying, smiling eyes returned.

That day, in the parlor. The man with flames in his hands and a bloodied sword, grinning with Aurin bleeding at his feet, he was the one.

Only Emma and Elena knew the truth.

When the moment of silence ended, Elena walked toward the black coffins, guided by Emma’s touch. The flowers in the coffin matched those adorning the room.

A white flower was handed to her by the priest standing nearby. Thinking of that man, Elena placed the flower inside.

* * *

“Gasp!”

Elena, now an adult, woke with a start, drenched in sweat. She wished her dreams would stop. But every night, she was haunted by the same relentless nightmare, the fire that stole her parents.

“D**n it…”

She muttered with a dry, cracked voice.

Still half-trapped in the fog of sleep, Elena glanced around her soaked bed.

Of course. This was the dormitory for common-ranked knights in the Ridwan Knight Order’s headquarters.

That dream again…

Slowly, Elena looked around the empty room and forced herself to shake off the nightmare and return to reality.