Side Story 1 – Your Death
Side Story 1
Your Death
The rainy season in the Sieries Empire was famous for having significantly more rainfall than other countries.
Streams across the nation swelled into rivers, and rivers swelled to cause floods.
Only villages that had established preventive measures in advance remained intact.
“Your Highness! That direction is dangerous!”
“Your Highness! Please, no further…!”
Hadel moved toward his destination regardless of how the knights tried to dissuade him.
Endless rain poured from the pierced sky. Trees buffeted by the typhoon swayed, continuously impeding his path.
Even the mountain paths, which should have been solid, were softening and collapsing from the downpour, but Hadel couldn’t stop.
There was no way he could give up. Even if his body shattered and his life ended here.
These two feet would not stop until they found her.
“Asha… Please.”
Unlike his unwavering steps forward, his face was filled with anxiety. The fear that he might never see her again wrapped around his entire body.
Goosebumps rose on his spine as his whole body trembled. His sword hand shook, and his once-steady steps faltered.
“Your Highness!”
“Prince Hadel!”
“Please allow us to handle the rest!”
“Even for Your Highness, continuing this search is too dangerous!”
Seizing the opportunity, the knights swarmed from behind. Having gone days without proper meals, his stamina was worse than usual.
To be exhausted by mere mountain hiking like this was unthinkable and unacceptable.
“Silence. I haven’t found her yet. Not yet. Not yet…”
I haven’t found her.
I can still go further. More. More…!
“Your Highness!”
“You are the last remaining imperial family member! Please think of the Empire!”
The last remaining imperial. At the knight’s cry, Lahadert gritted his teeth.
A half-blood imperial abandoned in a duke’s mansion for being blind.
And now, taken back to the palace on a whim for being the last imperial, and given eye treatment without consent.
The result was the downfall of the ducal family that had raised him like their own, and the disappearance of his beloved wife.
“Prince Hadel, you must consider the greater good. Your life cannot be threatened over some woman from a traitor’s household—Ack!”
The knight who had been running his mouth with unsolicited advice collapsed, spewing blood from his neck. His mouth remained frozen in the shape it had been when speaking.
In an instant, the other knights who had been so vocal fell silent.
Drip. Drip-drop.
Bright red blood fell from the tip of Lahadert’s sword, mixing with rainwater and soaking the muddy ground.
Eyes tinged slightly lighter pink than that blood coldly looked down at the fallen knight.
“Those mouths of yours.”
His eyes then rolled smoothly toward the other knights who had frozen behind him.
“Just because they have holes, do you spew whatever you please?”
After glaring briefly at the suddenly quiet knights, Hadel turned and moved his feet again.
He could feel the atmosphere grow heavier behind him, but that wasn’t his concern.
His only focus was on finding his beloved, Ashaella.
There was no way the Deache ducal family could have truly plotted treason.
It was surely someone’s false accusation and fabrication, but no one was trying to uncover the truth.
Upon hearing of Ashaella’s accident, he had rushed to find her, but the only information was that she had gone missing in the mountains.
Using his authority as prince, he entered the forest himself to find her.
It had been two days already. No matter how thoroughly he searched the mountains, he couldn’t find a trace of her.
“Asha. I won’t give up. I can’t. How could I…”
How could I abandon you, my everything?
Hadel gritted his teeth and ventured deeper into the mountains. He had received information that there was a village further in.
Perhaps she was resting in that village. If she were in that village…
Thus, Hadel led his exhausted body, trudging through the flowing rainwater.
“Your Highness! The village!”
As if his wishes had been heard, they soon discovered a small village in the highland area.
The rain had grown even fiercer, and night had fallen, but Hadel began searching the village like a madman.
However, he soon realized he didn’t need to rummage around everywhere.
Because everyone was gathered in the plaza, doing something.
“…My God.”
A knight following behind broke the silence. Following this, gasps of surprise erupted from various places.
In the center of the village being engulfed by rain, a small fire was burning in the wide plaza.
Like a strand of light desperately fighting not to be extinguished in the darkness.
Like a parent trying to protect their child amidst enemies.
“What in the world.”
“A cremation in such severe downpour?”
“And cremating so many people at once, what happened here?”
To the questions from several knights, the villagers simply answered that they were ‘corpses of people who had drowned in the floods.’
They also said it was their custom to cremate those who had drowned.
Hadel approached the burning flames more closely.
The fire blazed fiercely, evaporating and repelling the surrounding rainwater. Its redness pierced Lahadert’s pink eyes.
Watching the flames that would burn until they crumbled to ash and scattered, his heart suddenly sank.
A terror swept over him, as if his beloved might simply vanish like this.
His hands began to tremble again, and he was about to gasp for breath.
—Crunch.
Perhaps because he had gotten too close to the fire. When he stepped on the ashes piled at his feet, they crumbled.
It was a truly fleeting moment when he saw something gleaming in those ashes.
“Your Highness?”
The knights called out to Hadel, who was reaching toward the ashes with an entranced face, but there was no answer.
At first, he slowly inserted his hand into the pile of ashes. But soon that movement became urgent, and he covered himself with ashes like a madman as the pile scattered.
“…Ah.”
What he finally held in his hand was a blue jewel that even the strong fire could not consume.
The wedding token he had given her as soon as he returned to the palace and his eyes were healed.
A necklace he had obtained with difficulty, thinking it would match her clear voice.
“Why… is this here.”
Why is it in the ashes?
Why is it buried among the traces of corpses?
Why?
Why…?
Hadel held the necklace to his chest and lowered his head.
Thump. Thump.
Thump.
The blue jewel thumped and moved as if it were alive.
No. Perhaps it was his own heart on the verge of rupture.
“Ah…”
—Boom! Crash!
The whole world turned white, then flickered out.
The momentary light, as if mocking those struggling in the rain, went back into the ashes.
The village was buried in rainwater.
Hadel surrendered his body to the raindrops that were beating down on him madly.
Tears burst from his pink eyes and flowed, mixing with the rainwater.
Something impossible.
Something that should never have happened, had occurred.
Ashaella’s absence.
In the middle of the rainy season, when the storm was particularly severe.
Lahadert, the last remaining imperial of the Sieries Empire, lost his heart in the pouring rain.
“…del.”
His mind was blank. He thought he heard someone murmuring in his ear.
“Ha…del!”
That sound seemed like his name, and as he tried to regain his senses, he felt a warm touch on his cheek.
“Hadel, wake up.”
Simultaneously, a longed-for voice pierced his eardrum.
“…Asha!”
When those silver eyes filled his suddenly opened ones, Hadel unconsciously stroked his chest.
A dream.
It was a dream.
Beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead rolled down, and Ashaella was looking down at him with worried eyes.
“Why were you sleeping so restlessly? I couldn’t wake you up.”
It was the voice he had longed for over ten years. Though he had been hearing it constantly until he fell asleep, perhaps because he dreamed of the past after so long—
This moment, with Ashaella before his eyes, felt like an intense dream itself.
“Hmm? Hadel?”
Without a word, Hadel embraced Ashaella and inhaled.
Her warm scent penetrated his nostrils, calming his mind and body.
“Asha.”
“Yes, I’m right here. What’s wrong, Hadel?”
“Nothing. I dreamed of the past.”
“A dream of the past?”
He could easily imagine Ashaella’s expression as she asked with rounded eyes.
She shifted uncomfortably, sitting up, perhaps due to her swollen belly.
Hadel naturally placed his hand on Ashaella’s stomach, patting it gently.
“Yes. A really boring dream.”
One he never wanted to experience again.
A dream Ashaella should never know about.
“What? How anticlimactic.”
Ashaella made an exaggerated deflating sound and chuckled.
The full spring breeze blew gently. Sparkling stars were visible through the curtains that swayed timidly.
Days filled with warmth, comfort, and heartbeats at just the right intervals.
“Come here, Asha. Let’s go back to sleep.”
“But I’ve been having trouble falling asleep lately.”
“Hmm… then shall I sing for you?”
A pleasant singing voice flowed from the imperial couple’s bedroom.
The sound that drifted outside circled in the air briefly before dissolving into the atmosphere.
It was a night when the stars shone with peculiar intensity.
