Aiden was walking down the corridor carrying a basket filled with clean towels. Ordinarily, tending to the purification chamber was the duty of the higher-ranking priests, but since he happened to be the one who had guided today’s unexpected guest — and had only just learned that man was the Empress — he had stepped up to handle it himself.
“Luan hyung……”
No, he supposed he should say His Imperial Majesty the Empress now. Aiden recalled the Luan he had met in the herb field. The person who had called him “Brother” and warmly taken his hand. The mysterious platinum-blond hair and those violet eyes — absentminded yet gentle — kept floating before his eyes.
I pushed a little harder than usual because I thought it would be nice to have an older brother like that — and he turned out to be the Empress, of all people.
It was then.
Woom —
The air in the corridor suddenly grew heavy, and a massive wave of energy crashed over Aiden. It was a sensation he had never experienced in his life. But he knew instantly what it was. It was neither wind nor sound — it was an overwhelming aura of light, like coming face to face with the sun itself.
“……Huh?”
Aiden stopped in his tracks. He had always been told he had a low sensitivity to sacred power and lacked talent for it. But the energy he was feeling now was so intense and vivid that even someone as dull as Aiden could not ignore it.
A tide of sacred power. He knew it instinctively. The source of this enormous force was right ahead — the purification chamber.
His Majesty?
The one inside the purification chamber was Luan. Could something have happened? Aiden, as if drawn by some invisible force, moved toward the chamber. Through the gap of the slightly ajar stone door, a blinding white radiance was spilling out. Aiden carefully peered through the crack.
And he saw it.
“……!”
Luan stood in the center of a basin, bathed in a cascade of sacred light. Luanisiel Requies — the one countless people never tired of praising. The one beloved by God. This level of sacred power was only possible from someone like him.
But the sight was not holy. It was harrowing.
“Cough! Ugh……!”
Luan was doubled over, vomiting dark blood. Clots of blood so red they were nearly black splattered across the surface of the holy water.
A pale face. Shoulders trembling finely. Groans filled with agony. To anyone watching, it looked like the final, desperate struggle of someone whose life was guttering out.
Blood…… he’s vomiting blood!
Aiden slapped both hands over his mouth to smother the scream that almost escaped him. It was a shock. He had seemed perfectly fine just a little while ago. No — he had been pretending to be fine.
While burning with pain deep inside……
And yet, in front of him, he had smiled as though nothing were wrong.
Just then, having coughed up all the blood, Luan weakly raised his head. He wiped the dark blood from the corner of his mouth, and his low, quiet voice drove itself into Aiden’s ears.
“Haa…… how much more do I have to purge……”
The moment he said it, blood rose and spilled from his lips again. Aiden’s eyes shook.
“Not much left now.”
Just hold on a little longer and it’ll all be over. At those exhausted, muttered words, Aiden stumbled back without even realizing it. Surely not……
Does he have so little time left to live? Is he giving up, saying that if he just endures this pain a little longer, it will all be over?
……!
Luan’s intent was simple — that there wasn’t much toxin left to purge, so just a little more and he’d be fully healed. But that was not how it appeared to Aiden’s eyes, bearing witness to that devastating scene. Those green eyes wavered, with nowhere to land.
Terminal.
A word he had never expected drove itself into his mind. It couldn’t be. Someone so beautiful and kind — enduring this pain alone, preparing for death in secret. Aiden felt tears threatening to burst free and quickly bit down on his lip.
No. I can’t go in.
His Majesty’s condition had deteriorated this severely, yet Aiden had never heard a single word of it until now. Then that could only mean Luan did not wish to show his suffering to others. The only act of consideration Aiden could offer right now was to protect that proud, noble dignity.
Aiden fled the corridor as if running away. His chest ached as though it were being torn apart.
He didn’t know how long he had been walking aimlessly. Still clutching the basket of towels, Aiden found himself on the path leading to the storage room behind the temple. His mind was filled entirely with the image of Luan’s hunched shoulders, alone, preparing for death.
Thud.
Lost in his thoughts as he walked, Aiden rounded a corner and collided with someone.
“I’m sor——”
“Oh, it’s Aiden. Good timing.”
The slow, insolent voice cut off his words. Aiden looked up to find three men standing there, wearing the same trainee priest robes as him. It was Jo — a senior who had entered a year before him — and his fellow classmates.
They were not faces he was glad to see. Especially not today.
“Senior…… hello.”
“Save the greetings.”
At the voice that came out picking a fight, Aiden quietly bit down on his lower lip. What petty excuse are they going to use this time? The unprovoked bullying had long since worn him down, but Aiden couldn’t tell anyone about it. If he caused trouble for the temple and got thrown out, he would truly have nowhere to go.
“You cleaned up the herb storage earlier, didn’t you?”
Jo slung an arm over Aiden’s shoulder and smiled, a sour twist to his lips.
“Yes, I finished everything as instructed.”
It had originally been their task, but they had dumped it on him — he had rushed through it, but he had clearly finished on time. Yet Jo’s face showed nothing but the intention to find fault.
“Cleaned up? That’s funny.”
“Is there some kind of problem……”
“Hey, why is the Silver Leaf stock missing?”
“What? That can’t be. I filled it exactly according to the ledger.”
Aiden answered, flustered, and Jo let out a heavy sigh, clicking his tongue.
“Aiden, use your head. If the ledger says it’s there but the stock isn’t, someone stole it.”
“What do you……”
“The storage key — you had it today, didn’t you?”
Jo’s voice was low and insinuating. Aiden was innocent, but he was not stupid. He caught on immediately. So the quiet, persistent harassment has finally come to this.
This was different from the usual torment. They were trying to pin the responsibility for the herbs they had pilfered on Aiden. This, he could not allow. He could take a beating and endure unreasonable tasks. But theft was different. It was a serious offense that could get him expelled from the temple. Aiden spoke quickly.
“The key — you said earlier you were taking it, Senior——!”
“You have proof of that?”
Jo cut Aiden off sharply.
“How dare you suspect a senior? You know your formal priest evaluation is next month, right? What should I tell the personnel officer?”
He was, after all, Aiden’s direct superior. Aiden’s reviews were written by him. But from the very beginning — for whatever reason Aiden had never understood — Jo had never written a single good word about him.
“Should I write that ‘Aiden has sticky fingers and helps himself to temple property’?”
“……!”
It was a despicable and very real threat. Aiden’s face went pale. The temple hierarchy was strict. The reason he had endured all the injustice until now was exactly this — a senior’s evaluation was directly tied to advancement. Being expelled from the temple was no different from a death sentence for Aiden, an orphan with nowhere to go if he were thrown out.
They knew his circumstances and wielded that knowledge against him in the most vile way. Aiden silently stared down at the ground.
“So let’s settle this nicely.”
Jo flicked Aiden’s name tag.
“Write a statement saying you lost it through negligent management. Then we’ll be generous enough to keep it from going to the disciplinary committee.”
Whether they would actually follow through on that was anyone’s guess. Already, through Jo and his group’s scheming, Aiden had been placed in a considerably difficult position.
“And…… if you don’t have the money for the fine, you’ll have to pay with your body instead?”
“……”
“Pull every single weed from the back courtyard by tonight. If it’s not done by tomorrow morning, know that it’ll be an embezzlement report going up, not a statement of loss.”
A blatant injustice. On any other day, he would have swallowed his resentment and answered, “Understood.”
But today……
He remembered the face that had smiled so kindly at him, despite being on borrowed time. Recalling Luan’s composed demeanor made his heart restless. Something began to boil inside him. Above all, the sheer unfairness of it was suffocating. What would he have done?
“……No.”
“What?”
“This is not my fault. I won’t write that statement.”
Aiden clenched his fists and raised his head. He absolutely refused to be the kind of person Luan would be ashamed to look at. Jo’s expression twisted into something ugly in an instant.
“This little——! I go easy on you and you lose all sense of the situation?”
Jo grabbed Aiden by the collar and shoved him into the wall.
Bang!
“Ugh!”
“Hey, you think life in the temple is a joke? Know your limits — don’t get cocky just because you have a pretty face. When a senior tells you to kneel, you kneel. Who do you think you are, talking back?”
Jo raised his fist. Aiden squeezed his eyes shut. He was scared. But he had no intention whatsoever of yielding to something wrong. I want to be like Luan.
“That hand. Drop it.”
It was then. A voice so cold it felt like the air itself might freeze cut through the atmosphere.
“Who the hell——”
Jo turned his head with an irritated click of his tongue. From the shadows, a man was walking out. He was pushing back platinum-blond hair that hadn’t quite dried yet, a thin linen robe on with only a light outer garment thrown carelessly over it. But the sheer pressure radiating from him was enough to root a person in place.
“The hell is this, some kind of pretty boy——”
The man’s face, revealed beneath the moonlight, was too precise and too unreal to belong to a human being. The platinum-blond hair, still damp and clinging to his cheek, gleamed like cold silver thread, and through it, a pair of violet eyes like an abyss of unfathomable depth pierced straight through Jo.
Jo, who had been playing at being tough, immediately recoiled — struck frozen as if by lightning.
R-Requies……?
The strength drained from Jo’s hand. A noble bloodline that had never once been absent from the history of the imperial temple. A legendary figure said to be the most beloved by God, born of the Requies family, and called the greatest talent in the temple’s history. And now, the one seated at the highest position in the empire.
This makes no sense. Why would someone like him be in a place like this?
With every step Luan took forward, Jo felt as if the air were being wrung from his lungs. The chill emanating from Luan’s body and his overwhelming sacred power bore down on Jo’s own meager sacred power, crushing it. The arrogance with which he had been threatening Aiden just moments ago vanished without a trace, and Jo’s knees began to tremble pathetically.
The blood drained completely from Jo’s face. The hand that had been clutching Aiden by the collar trembled violently.
“Y-Your Imperial Majesty the Empress?!”
At Jo’s cry — barely short of a scream — Aiden’s eyes flew wide open.
Aiden stared blankly at the man before him. It was a familiar face. The person who had asked him for directions just a little while ago and smiled at him with such warmth. But right now, that same man was freezing souls to the core with nothing but a look.
Luan stepped up until he stood right in front of them. He glanced pointedly at Aiden’s collar, still gripped in Jo’s hand, and spoke in a voice that was very low and very dry.
“I’m fairly certain I never said you could put scratches on what’s mine. Are you deaf?”
I haven’t even started building connections yet, and they’re already trying to leave a mark. What should I do with these insufferable fools?
Bullying within the temple, of all things?
Luan’s gaze as he regarded the men who were trying to ruin his plan — to carefully guide Aiden away from a death flag and prevent him from turning dark — right from the start, was ice cold.
