“If you choose to die here, I’ll kill everyone present. Are you fine with that?”
“Won’t everyone die anyway if the Inayari breaks the barrier?”
“Provoking me like this won’t do you any good, my lady.”
“If I die now, when will the next core of the barrier appear? A hundred years? A thousand? Perhaps never.”
Daysha’s jaw trembled, his teeth grinding audibly.
“Seize that boy, whatever it takes!”
“Argh!”
“Lant!”
At Daysha’s command, the Inayari lunged at Lant, who had no weapon to defend himself.
The defensive line, barely held by the Western warriors and knights, collapsed, plunging into chaos.
“Agh!”
“Got you.”
As I moved toward Lant, Daysha grabbed me, twisting my wrist brutally.
“Ugh!”
The dagger clattered to the ground. A satisfied smirk spread across his face.
“Your gamble failed, didn’t it?”
Biting my lip, I swung my free hand at him.
“You’ve got some fire, my lady. Annoying in a situation like this.”
He seized both my arms. I glared at him with murderous intent. Holding both my wrists in one hand, he grabbed my chin with the other, forcing my face up.
“Those glaring eyes make me want to kill you. You’re so like her—my mother, who threw away her life to destroy me.”
“Guh!”
His large hand slid from my chin to my throat, squeezing. I thrashed against the suffocating pain, but his iron grip didn’t budge.
“Strange, isn’t it? Irene looks more like her, yet you feel more like Pionia to me.”
“D-Does… Irene… resembles P-Pionia?”
“Heh, still talking like that in this situation? You haven’t grasped your predicament.”
“Urk!”
Releasing my wrists, he choked me with both hands. My breath failed, my vision blurring.
“You’re right, she does. From head to toe, she’s her spitting image. That’s why I favor her. But her personality? I’m not sure.”
I clawed at his forearm, my nails tearing flesh, but his expression didn’t change.
“The Pionia I knew was always mad.”
His beastly eyes gleamed with insanity.
Pionia wasn’t the only one unhinged. Daysha was already lost to madness.
“Y-You… plan to k-kill me like this?”
“Of course not. You have a destiny, don’t you? Fulfilling it is your duty to the world. It’s why we exist.”
He bared his teeth in a wide grin.
“Just as my mother’s fate was to bear a monster like me.”
My consciousness faded from lack of air. Was it a hallucination? I saw a silver thread in the distance.
With all my strength, I dug my nails into his arm again.
“Your struggle ends here—What?!”
His face twisted in shock. Seizing the moment, I kicked his shin and thrashed free. His grip on my throat loosened.
“Hah… hah…”
My heart pounded as oxygen flooded my lungs. Daysha glared, frozen.
“What did you do?”
I opened my hand, revealing the silver needle gleaming in the ring’s engraving, its tip still blackened.
“I’ll survive and live happily for a long time.”
I didn’t need poison that could kill me. I needed something to stall an enemy.
Pison Trading Company dealt in anything profitable, including herbs and poisons not banned by the empire.
The needle was coated with a paralytic, potent enough to immobilize an elephant in small doses. Not lethal, but with one key trait:
Instant effect.
It spread through the bloodstream instantly, perfect for a moment like this.
“This… won’t… change… anything…”
The paralytic slurred Daysha’s speech.
“It’ll change everything.”
Thud!
“Argh!”
Two blades pierced Daysha’s chest from behind. The silver thread I’d seen resolved into a figure.
“Bee!”
“My lady!”
Sys and Evan called out simultaneously. Soaked in sweat and blackened with soot, they looked like they’d fought through hell.
“Raaagh!”
Daysha roared in a final act of defiance. His slit pupils narrowed further, veins bursting in his eyes, turning them blood-red.
Red eyes!
A searing pain surged through my head.
As Sys and Evan withdrew their swords, blood sprayed like a fountain, drenching me. Time slowed, like a scene in a film. Their voices calling me stretched and distorted.
“Bee!”
“My lady!”
Blood-stained ground. Red eyes.
My head felt like it would split. Everything jumbled together, and darkness swallowed me.
I blinked several times. My dark vision slowly cleared, revealing a woman before me—or rather, her reflection in a large mirror on the wall.
Emaciated, haggard, with sharp, neurotic eyes and disheveled, brittle hair. Unfamiliar yet eerily familiar.
Bijonne.
My thoughts didn’t form words. It was my body, yet not mine.
“Aaaagh!”
“Bijonne” clutched her head, screaming. Her mad, green eyes glared at her own reflection with murderous intent.
“What did I do so wrong?!”
“The day I met you was the worst of my life.”
His voice echoed in my mind like tinnitus. Bijonne screamed again, convulsing.
The shrill sound pierced my eardrums, but no one entered.
That time!
This was when I was confined by Sys’s order.
Why am I back here? Was everything a dream?
My mind reeled, dizzy with disbelief.
Get a grip. This is just a memory!
A voice inside me shouted. As I focused, I realized it wasn’t reality. My body wouldn’t obey me, and every action, every word, matched my memories exactly.
For now.
“It’s not my fault. It’s not!”
Bijonne paced anxiously, muttering.
“It’s that wench’s fault. His change, my ruin—all because of her!”
She bit her already ragged nails, mumbling.
“What do I do? How do I make him love me again?”
“…Won’t you regret it?”
A low voice resonated in my mind, one I’d heard moments ago.
Daysha.
“Make him regret it. Die in Erharak Hall.”
My vision flickered. The memory warped, the room distorting like a twisted painting.
“No!”
I forced my eyes open, fighting the pull of the past. The pain in my head was real, grounding me.
This wasn’t just a memory—it was a trap, Daysha’s last act to break me.
I gripped the ring, the needle still in place.
“I won’t fall for it.”
The mirror cracked, Bijonne’s reflection splintering. The room dissolved, and I was back in the blood-soaked courtyard, Sys and Evan at my side.
“Bee, stay with me!”
I clung to his voice, anchoring myself to reality. Daysha lay bleeding, his red eyes fading.
The Inayari were retreating, overwhelmed by Kasan’s warriors.
I’d won this round, but the war wasn’t over.
“Lant, El—where are they?”
“Safe,” Evan said. “We got them out of the palace before the fire spread.”
Relief flooded me. I turned to Sys, his golden eyes steady, not a beast’s red.
“We’re not done yet,” I said, gripping his hand.
“No, we’re not,” he replied, squeezing back.
With Kasan’s men holding the line, we prepared for the next move, the barrier’s fate still hanging in the balance.
