Anya unconsciously swallowed. Somehow the noisy and busy shouting had faded away. He could only hear the appropriately deep voice of the elderly knight, speaking as if telling an ancient legend.
“But one day, the Emperor ordered us to break that rule. Though I’ve spent my entire life with the Dark Lions, I had never crossed the wall, not even for a moment. The day the Emperor’s message arrived in this land, I instinctively knew it was time to die honorably as a Lion beyond the wall.”
Ecle observed Anya carefully. The boy couldn’t understand why the knight was telling him such a heavy story. Though his insides were already burning from the strong alcohol, Anya couldn’t refuse the glass Ecle offered.
“Have you ever seen ‘them’?”
Anya couldn’t be certain if ‘they’ truly existed. Everyone said that ‘they’ beyond the wall had disappeared long ago.
“They were real, Your Highness.”
Ecle’s clouded green eyes seemed to plead, as if saying ‘see, we were right’ with an aggrieved expression.
“They… they…”
Ecle couldn’t continue and kept repeating the same words. He probably couldn’t find suitable words to describe that strange and terrifying alien race.
“When I actually faced them, I realized how pathetic my resolve had been.”
The wrinkled hand of the old man holding the wine glass trembled slightly. His eyes were unfocused as if looking into the distance, filled with fear.
“They were comrades who had endured the terrible cold together just hours before. I personally cut their throats so they wouldn’t resurrect as the dead. I buried their dismembered bodies in the snow, then retreated to the village to deliver the tragic news to their families. After hearing their bone-cutting wails, I set out again. I repeated this for four years.”
The glass was refilled. Ecle continued in a calm voice. He looked over his shoulder at someone sitting on the opposite side. Evernight was seated there.
“If it weren’t for the Commander…”
Just then, the melody changed. The strumming of a guitar cut through the air of the great hall, thick with gray smoke. The minstrel’s sorrowful voice echoed.
“Oh, God, oh God,
Please cut off my head and grant eternal rest,
Mercy, so that I won’t become a rotting corpse devouring my family,
Oh, grant it, grant it.”
A knight holding a longsword swung it wide. The head of an animal covered with a crudely sewn cloth resembling a human was cut in half. Blood spurted out as the head rolled across the floor.
“Great hero of the North! Please have mercy!”
Like a cold judge, the swordsman beheaded the kneeling Emperor and nobles one by one. They fell lifelessly like pieces of meat with short death rattles.
“Hurrah! The Emperor is dead!”
Other actors raised their hands high and shouted.
“Urgh!”
Anya hurriedly covered his mouth as nausea rose. The banquet hall floor was littered with people who had passed out, and the musicians had long since departed. The boy wanted to endure to the end and fulfill his role, but the alcohol he had drunk repeatedly with Ecle was churning his stomach.
“You may go now.”
Evernight finally dismissed Anya, who was continuously dry heaving. Anya hurriedly left, forgetting even to thank him. His legs trembled from the effort of carefully avoiding stepping on the knights lying on the floor.
Snow was falling. The silently falling snow seemed just like the tears of the people here. Anya stood in the middle of a long, dark corridor, watching the snowflakes densely scattered across the black night sky.
The boy finally understood why the people here disliked him. It was painful to understand their hatred, even though it felt unfair to be hated without having done anything.
Crazy Emperor.
That’s what they called his father. And Anya had that crazy Emperor’s blood flowing through him. It was an undeniable fact. Men who inherited the Claicer name easily fell into madness. It was an inescapable inheritance.
“Urgh!”
Anya considered himself a mutant, but was that really so? The anxiety that someday he too would change like them always resided in a corner of his heart. The people here probably thought of him that way too. He might have to live trapped in such gazes for the rest of his life.
Unable to vomit on the stone slabs, Anya ran to the desolate courtyard. The courtyard’s dirt floor was already thickly covered with snow. His shoes sank deep. Perhaps due to the alcohol, he strangely didn’t feel cold. Anya staggered forward diligently. Small footprints were imprinted one by one on the untrodden snow path.
After walking for some time, Anya stopped at the entrance to a forest. Since Tildyen Rock was a castle located on the middle of a snowy mountain, structurally one side of the castle connected to the forest.
The Nameless Forest.
He didn’t know the name of the forest. Anya grabbed a tree trunk and vomited everything that was coming up.
“W-who… who’s there?”
As he continued vomiting, a blue light flickered from deep within the darkness-shrouded forest. His fingertips gripping the tree trunk stiffened with fear. Anya couldn’t even think to wipe away the vomit with his sleeve.
《Human, can you see me?》
It was a strange voice. Neither a child’s nor an adult’s voice. His reason screamed to flee from this place immediately, but his body wouldn’t move an inch.
《I sense that one’s energy from you.》
The blue flame flickered and came closer. By now, he had a strong aversion to the color blue.
“G-get away. D-don’t come!”
Anya just screamed while struggling with a body that still wouldn’t respond.
《No, no. Is it that woman’s energy?》
Suddenly another voice was heard. They soon began to argue with each other. Then a ringing sound, piiing, echoed in his ears. His stomach was a mess from the alcohol. Anya covered his ears and slumped to the ground. The entities flickered and hovered around him.
《Human, human. I ask you again. Can you see us?》
Anya thought they were some kind of magical creatures. They weren’t grotesque, but magical creatures were still magical creatures. The boy trembled with fear.
《The human is afraid.》
《It’s a pity. A human who can see us after hundreds of years… it’s a pity. A pity.》
They became dejected. The blue light seemed to hesitate. Soon they carefully sat on Anya’s shoulders. Though they were merely flickering flames without form, it felt just like a gesture of comfort. As warmth suddenly spread, Anya’s head lifted cautiously.
《Human, human. The first human.》
They whispered like a song. Somehow they were like chattering children.
《We, we. The first friends.》
Are they comforting me?
In the midst of such an absurd thought, surprisingly, a small hand extended from the flame. A needle-sized hand caressed Anya’s cheek. Anya fell on his bottom in an ungainly manner. The impact made the snow on the ground splash up. The flame trembled and then disappeared as if being sucked into the darkness-filled forest beyond.
“Are you alright, boy.”
Just then, a cold hand reached out from behind. A chilling thrill ran down his spine. Anya fainted with a death rattle-like scream.
“Haha…”
A figure wearing a brown, worn robe stood frozen in place with his hand outstretched. At his feet lay a small body. He scratched his cheek and removed his hood. It revealed dry silver hair and a somewhat aged face. The old man soon turned his gaze beyond the ownerless forest, as if drawn by a magnet. The old man’s purple pupils contracted and shone fiercely.
‘Could it be…’
He crouched down and poked the fainted boy’s tender cheek.
“Young man. Did you converse with those things?”
The boy, rolling in the snow with vomit, gave no answer. The robe covering his skinny body looked quite expensive. As far as the old man knew, there was no one wealthy enough in Tildyen to indulge in such luxury fabric.
* * *
The servants gossiped that the mistress of Tildyen had finally been rejected by her husband.
“Which side did you bet on?”
“Since he doesn’t sleep with men, I naturally bet on ‘the end.'”
“But to have heirs, wouldn’t he have to do more?”
They hadn’t openly gossiped from the beginning. Without needing education, they instinctively understood the hierarchy. While carrying a bundle of laundry, or after serving meals, while standing outside the door. They just giggled or whispered quietly. So at first, their voices were as indistinct as the noise of windows rattling in the wind.
But when the mistress of this castle didn’t take any notable stance even after several days, the voices of the servants began to cross the threshold.
They were clearly looking down on Anya.
“Look at that appearance. Even if he’s a man capable of pregnancy, how could one feel affection?”
To those with limited knowledge, never having left the castle, the master couple of the castle was a very good topic of conversation.
“As for heirs… he’ll soon take a concubine.”
“Since our master has become an imperial duke, the North will develop further, and everyone will try to push their daughters into Tildyen Castle.”
“Anyway, heirs born from a man can’t inherit a castle.”
“Ah, then I should bet on ‘the end’ again!”
Although Anya and Evernight’s bedrooms were close and opposite each other, the two rarely met. Evernight would wake up at dawn and spend most of his time shut in the training ground or study. Only around the time when the moon hung in the sky would his voice occasionally be heard in the corridor, but Anya would burrow deeper under the covers.
It wasn’t much different from his life in the separate palace in Maneregia. Only the ‘surname’ attached to him had changed to Evernight, but nothing else was different. Anya quickly accepted this fact.
