Chapter 12 · Time Rotting Away

Consciousness, sunken in darkness, surged above the surface with a scream.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

Isadel jerked upright as if in a seizure.

Her whole body was soaked in cold sweat, and a chill ran through her, while red threads of burst capillaries spread like spiderwebs around her eyes, which had not known sleep for days.

“Hah, hah… That dream again…”

Isadel cupped her face with trembling hands.

It was meaningless even to count how many times it had been.

The nightmare of that day, which returned without fail every time she closed her eyes, gripped her throat like a persistent evil spirit every night.

The prelude to hell was always there.

The metallic smell of blood that rose thick and sticky to the depths of her throat with every breath.

The marble so drenched in blood that her feet slipped.

And the chilling friction of sharpened metal slicing through living flesh and scraping bone.

It was the grand banquet hall of the imperial palace, where her nineteenth birthday banquet had been held.

Even with her eyes closed, Isadel could predict the sound that would follow.

The dull thud was so vivid it felt unreal instead—the climax of this nightmare.

Thud, roll. Thud.

As if a ripe fruit were falling from a branch, her father’s head rolled across the floor.

It traced the same trajectory every time, approached at the same speed, and finally came to a stop at Isadel’s feet.

Even that path embroidered in blood was eerily consistent every time.

Her limbs frozen, Isadel held even her breath and looked down at it at her feet.

Above the gruesomely severed cross-section, gray-blue eyes identical to her own looked up at Isadel.

“Ah… Ah…”

Only powerless air escaped between her parted lips instead of sound.

With no room even for tears to leak out, her thoughts numbed, Isadel blankly stared at her father’s grotesquely trembling face.

Then, through twisted lips, a chilling question forced its way out.

Why are you alive.

“Ahhhhh! Stop it! Please stop!!!”

Isadel screamed and clutched at her hair.

Don’t think about it, forget it.

She repeated it countless times and tried to soothe herself, but it was no use.

The guilt of having been a helpless bystander and the self-loathing of having survived alone tangled together and tore her mind to shreds.

The sense of self-destruction surging from deep in her chest burned her esophagus black like poisoned holy water.

If only I had died with them then… If only I had, I could have finally been freed from this terrible nightmare…

* * *

The nightmare that never grew familiar no matter how many times she endured it had already come dozens of times.

Now even the act of sleeping had long since become terror.

She would fall asleep from exhaustion, the nightmare would begin, and she would wake screaming—over and over.

It was after waking from yet another storm of a nightmare that she sat blankly leaning against the bedpost.

A single beam of light seeping through the gap in the window fell across Isadel’s face.

Seeing the reddened glow of sunset, it seemed mealtime was near.

‘They’ll probably come again with porridge or something, telling me to take at least one spoonful.’

Everyone seemed possessed by the ghost of someone who had starved to death.

She could not understand these attendants who kept forcing meals down her throat.

What meaning was there in pushing food into a corpse that was barely breathing anyway?

Wanting to moisten her parched throat at least, Isadel called for Roshe outside the door.

“Roshe.”

But only silence returned.

Roshe, who always guarded the door and came running the moment she was called, did not appear.

“…Roshe?”

She called the name again, but the expected answer did not come.

In the place where a warmth that had always been there as a matter of course had vanished, only stillness lingered.

Isadel’s eyes wavered, unable to find their bearings.

Roshe had always been at her side like a shadow.

There was no way she, who was almost foolishly devoted and never went anywhere without Isadel’s permission, would leave her post.

Had Erhan disposed of even Roshe in the meantime?

Or had something happened while she slept?

Ominous conjectures churned through her mind.

But the rising fear soon broke powerlessly.

Isadel twisted her dried lips and let out a hollow laugh.

“…She left, then.”

Of course.

Rather than rotting away beside a master who could not even look after herself, finding her own way to survive was the clever choice.

Her head judged it something to bless gladly.

But why was it?

The weight of that small, trivial absence was far heavier than the silence of the empty room.

Roshe had been with her all her life.

At least Roshe, she had believed, would stay by her side to the end—and that arrogance turned to bitterness and pressed heavily on her chest.

After sitting in desolation for a long while, Isadel suddenly raised her head.

Something was strange.

Apart from Roshe’s absence, it was strangely quiet outside the door.

The sound of the imperial guards changing shifts that had echoed through the corridor several times a day, and even the presence of the maids who monitored her every move—all had vanished as if washed away.

‘What is this.’

By now, a maid should have come in and forced porridge to her lips.

But beyond the door, no noise, no sign of anyone, could be felt.

Isadel staggered to her feet.

In stark contrast to the days when she had roamed the training grounds, the total fast of the past few days would not even permit her to straighten her back.

Eventually her vision spun, and she had to grip the bedpost and catch her breath for a long while.

Gritting her teeth, Isadel forced her feet forward.

At last reaching the door, she seized the handle without delay.

Creeeak.

The hinge, ungreased for a long time, opened with a scream.

As expected, what greeted her was only an empty corridor.

No tip of a guard’s spear blocking her way before the door was even fully open, no persistent gazes of maids monitoring even her breathing.

The long-stretching corridor lay in a dreadful stillness, like ruins abandoned since the beginning of time.

“…Hah.”

A bitter laugh burst out.

Should she feel insulted by the lax guard, or grateful for the unexpected chance to escape?

It was while she stood there chewing on that bitter smile.

Into the corridor, so quiet that even her faint breathing echoed off the walls, an alien noise suddenly seeped in.

At first she thought she had misheard, but when she focused her ears, the sounds grew clearer.

The gentle melody of string instruments, the light laughter of people, and even the clear ring of glasses clinking.

Judging by the direction, it seemed a banquet was being held in the central garden of the imperial palace.

It was probably a gathering of delegations from all over the continent to celebrate the emperor’s accession.

‘So everyone must have gone to watch. It doesn’t matter to me—I just have to stay cooped up here anyway.’

It was just as she was thinking how pathetic the servants were for abandoning their posts, excited by the entertainment the new emperor was hosting.

A flash of thought struck Isadel’s mind as she stared at the empty corridor.

Now was the only chance to slip out of this place.

She knew better than anyone that running away would amount to nothing but a meaningless desperate struggle.

The entire imperial palace was already in Erhan’s palm—with this body, she would clearly be caught before she could even leave the western palace.

But.

‘If I stay here, I’ll really go mad.’

No, perhaps she had already gone mad.

If she turned her head now, she felt as if her father’s head would be rolling on the floor, and as if her stepmother’s blood-soaked hem would be billowing by the window—it made her shudder.

Even knowing they were hallucinations, she did not have the confidence to face them.

No, she did not want to face them.

Isadel’s gaze turned downward.

The iron chain, once so solid it dug into her flesh, now hung loosely on her gaunt wrist.

When she twisted her wrist, the bone scraped against the sharp edge of the metal and pain spread.

But that was all.

Her hand slipped powerlessly through the narrow gap, and at last, with a sensation so hollow it felt light, her wrist gained freedom.

Clank.

The chain that fell to the floor rang out with unusual loudness.

“Hah…”

For a bondage so solid to crumble so easily.

Her hollow laugh was brief, and Isadel turned her back without regret.

It did not matter if she was caught again.

Even if she were dragged back the moment she stepped outside the door, she could not endure rotting alive in this room swarming with cursed specters.

Isadel stroked her reddened wrist and stepped toward the corridor where darkness had fallen.