Chapter 1
Daphne felt as if she were dreaming.
An expressionless face, a limping right leg, a subtly swaying gait. It was definitely him, the one she knew, yet he felt like a complete stranger.
Daphne simply stared blankly at Johannes, who was approaching her with a frightening momentum. Before she knew it, he was right in front of her.
Daphne muttered in disbelief.
『How… Joffrey, you’re supposed to be dead….』
Johannes’s face contorted as he roughly grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.
『Ah!』
And he started to drag her somewhere. Daphne almost tripped several times due to his rough movements. However, he didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
The place Johannes dragged her to was a balcony overlooking the entire city.
『Ah...』
Daphne let out a moan, lost in her thoughts.
The whole world was burning. The pungent smell of blood. The smell of burning, as if everything had turned to ash. The awful stench numbed her nose, and physiological tears streamed down her cheeks. Horrible cries and angry shouts, the screams of those facing death and the triumphant roars of victory. All those sounds swirled together, making her ears ring.
It truly felt like a dream. She had once thought that it might be better for this city to burn. However, she hadn’t wished for this kind of hell.
Daphne sobbed silently. Johannes, who was holding her shoulders as if to embrace her, whispered in her ear, his grip painfully tight.
“Why are you trembling so much?”
It was a rather gentle voice.
“Are you afraid that the man you thought was dead has returned?”
Daphne reflexively turned to him and shook her head like a madwoman.
“Jo, Johan. I….”
“Don’t cry.”
His hand wiped away her tears. A careful touch; finally, it was the him she knew.
But just as Daphne’s tension began to ease, as if that brief moment of gentleness was all an illusion, Johannes roughly grasped her cheeks. Then, lowering his head and meeting her gaze intently, he whispered,
“This is all your fault.”
Daphne’s tear-filled eyes wavered helplessly.
“You’re the one who made us this way.”
“…….”
“Why are you making that face?”
Daphne remembered what he had lost that day, all because of her.
“Did you betray me without this kind of resolve?”
“…….”
“Then you’re too foolish.”
His voice sounded calm, but Daphne felt as if he were screaming. That’s why she couldn’t say that she had never betrayed him, that she still loved him. She felt so terrible that all she could do at that moment was apologize.
“…I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I’m sorry… I, just…”
“Stop.”
But Johannes immediately cut off her trembling voice.
“Stop talking.”
He closed his eyes for a long time, as if enduring something, and then finally called her.
“Daphne.”
Johannes unknowingly exhaled deeply. How long had it been since he had said her name aloud? He slowly closed his eyes and repeated it.
“Daphne….”
My Daphne.
My victory. My goddess.
My soul. My love.
“I chose you.”
But she made a different choice.
“I understand you. You had no choice….”
“No, Johan. That’s….”
As if to stop Daphne from saying anything, he slowly covered her mouth. She moved her lips a few times, but couldn’t say anything more.
Johannes suddenly spoke.
“In the same situation, I would have done the same as you.”
He understood her choice. But because of that, his soul and love turned to ash that day.
Daphne silently shook her head vigorously.
Johannes silently watched her pitiful appearance.
The first thing he chose with his own hands in his life. It was the woman before his eyes. Since you’re the only thing left to me after all I’ve survived, I must hold you in my hands. And I will survive for a long time again, and live my whole life atoning.
Johannes decided to go through hell with Daphne.
“Princess of Bellares. From now on….”
Daphne couldn’t take her eyes off his unfamiliar appearance.
“You will be much more unhappy than you think.”
Forgetting even to breathe.
“…I will make it so. So you don’t have to forgive me. Don’t forgive me.”
He continued to whisper.
“Because I won’t forgive you either.”
Daphne’s face contorted as she sobbed and lowered her head. Then Johannes gently turned her head to face forward.
The world was still a sea of fire. Daphne couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong and where it had all started. Her heart pounded as if it would burst, and her vision was stained crimson.
“Don’t be too sad. We’ll be unhappy together.”
He smiled with a distorted face. It was a face she didn’t know.
💎
『God, grant her soul happiness and give her peace.』
Daphne stared, without blinking, at the wooden pyre, piled three stories high, as it burned. Her violet eyes seemed to be burning along with it.
『God, as she meets death, let her enter your world.』
The rapidly spreading flames soon engulfed the body of her older sister, Sione, who lay atop the pyre.
『Grant us peace.』
Soon, the flames soared fearfully towards the sky.
Spring a year ago. Sione, who had left her homeland as a new bride when the flowers were in full bloom, returned as a cold corpse after the long winter. Daphne had seen it with her own eyes, yet she still couldn’t believe her sister’s death. Thus, even at this moment, during the funeral, she couldn’t even shed a tear.
As the flames rose as if to reach the sky, someone whispered.
『She was covered in bruises.』
『All ten of her fingernails were pulled out.』
『I heard her neck was broken?』
They dared to whisper, fearlessly, at the princess’s funeral, that she had been beaten to death.
Daphne remained silent. There wasn’t a single falsehood in those words. Sione had been beaten to death by her husband. Her body was so mangled that its original form was unrecognizable.
Why did Sione have to die like that?
With that question in mind, Daphne lowered her head and looked at each of the nine princes, her brothers, who were hanging their heads.
The war with the Inacos Federation had been going on for ten years. And for ten years, her homeland, Bellares, had been on the losing side. The only reason Bellares had been able to hold out this long was thanks to the help of neighboring countries.
After two of his princes were killed in battle by enemy generals, King Bation of Bellares prevented his other princes from going to the battlefield. But he didn’t surrender either. The method he chose was to marry off his famously beautiful princesses to neighboring countries to form alliances and gain troops.
Among them, the power of the Razan, a nomadic people who lived on the vast grasslands west of the Westel continent and made their living as mercenaries, was absolutely necessary for Bellares, which lacked war experience. For the proud Bellares, who considered themselves God’s people, the very act of proposing a marriage alliance to uncivilized nomads was humiliating, but it was seen as better than being defeated by invaders from across the sea.
Thus, Equilla, the leader of the Razan, obtained Kesbe, the fourth princess of Bellares.
And while the fifth and sixth princesses were married off to other allies, Kesbe died.
Strangely, Equilla returned Kesbe’s body to Bellares. The reason was that the foreign bride, who couldn’t bear Razan warriors, wasn’t Razan.
The body was horrific.
Equilla dared to demand another princess. It was a blatant provocation. But Bellares still desperately needed the Razan’s strength, so King Bation meekly sent his seventh princess, Ariane, to marry him.
And Ariane died.
The body was horrific.
Equilla demanded another princess.
The war had to continue, and finally, it was the eighth princess Sione’s turn.
And Sione also died.
The body was horrific.
Thus, only two of the ten princesses remained.
When Kesbe and Ariane returned dead, Daphne and Thisbene hadn’t seen their sisters’ bodies. It was because Sione had stopped them, saying they were still too young. Therefore, Daphne had only known that her sisters had died because they couldn’t endure the environment of the grasslands and the desert. Only after seeing Sione’s returned corpse did she understand why Sione had prevented them from seeing their sisters’ bodies.
Did the other sisters die like this too? Daphne couldn’t help but feel instinctively afraid. Suddenly, she shifted her gaze and stared at Prince Joffrey, who was standing beside King Bation.
『…….』
Joffrey was the fifth prince, but due to the other princes losing their lives one after another, either in war or from illness, he was the one who would succeed King Bation and become the next king. It was also Joffrey who had urged the hesitant King Bation to send his daughters to marry Equilla, saying that only the Razan warriors could save Bellares from its crisis. Joffrey, looking at Sione turning to ashes, seemed to be grieving. The other brothers were the same.
However, Daphne was disgusted by their grief. It was because their grief was only for this moment. When the time came, they would, without hesitation, marry off their sisters again, no matter who the other party was.
Daphne hugged Thisbene’s head more tightly as she clung to her waist and sobbed.
There were only two princesses left. Next was Daphne’s turn.
□ Footnotes □
- Bellares language is indicated by 『 』.
- The common language of the Inacos continent is indicated by “ ”.
