Chapter 8
Dies irae, dies illa — 131.
—
“….”
I couldn’t bring myself to read the words aloud. My lips only trembled in silence.
My legs quaked beneath me. The only reason I didn’t collapse was likely because I was too dazed, too stunned to fall.
—
“Your Highness…?”
—
The maid called to me again, seeing me frozen like a sheet of ice.
With trembling lips, I barely managed to form words.
—
“It’s… nothing.”
—
As always, I said it wasn’t. Then I touched the back of my neck.
Though the letters etched there were dark and densely packed, my skin felt completely normal.
That was why I foolishly hoped it was just a trick of the eye—my tired mind imagining things out of sorrow for this pitiful life.
I lowered my hand. But reality was cold. The dark letters remained in the mirror’s reflection.
The world before me blurred. I could only whisper to the maid who was watching me with confused concern.
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“It’s merely… a divine message passed on to me.”
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“Ah!”
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At last, the maid gasped quietly.
—
“So this is… what they spoke of. I mean, of course it is, but… it’s my first time seeing one. It’s more… awe-inspiring than I imagined.”
—
Her eyes sparkled as she looked at me. I could clearly read the reverence rising within them.
But the more they sparkled, the more a nameless emotion flared inside me.
Something I couldn’t express burned in me like a match—small and insignificant, yet steadily eating me away.
—
“What does it feel like, knowing the language of the gods? I can’t even imagine it.”
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No.
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“Truly, Your Highness is someone remarkable.”
—
I had never found knowing this language so hopeless—so devastating.
The maid gave me a sweet smile.
—
“Serving you from up close may be the greatest honor of my life.”
“….”
—
I had no reply. I simply closed my eyes.
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The Mark of God.
—
A divine prophecy, bestowed only upon those chosen. Those who could read the language of the gods were able to interpret it.
But this time, the prophecy was a seal. A countdown marking my return to the gods after a set time.
I was granted no more than 131 days.
My brief era was ending. A new one was beginning.
God had discarded me—me, who had sung their praises all my life.
That tiny spark had finally become a wildfire, consuming me whole.
130.
One day passed. The sun fell, the moon rose. And the number dropped, as naturally as ever.
—
In the early dawn, I sat alone in my room, touching the mark again and again.
The sensation of skin beneath my fingers was familiar. Yet something had undeniably changed.
I hadn’t lived long, and yet the past felt so distant.
My earliest memory was nothing but a haze of gray.
That day, I clutched my empty belly and sat alone in a filthy room, waiting for my mother.
Even after the sun set and the night deepened, she didn’t return.
Exhausted from hunger, I was blinking away tears when—
—
“Child.”
—
A stranger appeared from somewhere and pulled me into his arms.
Then, he offered me a snack I had never seen before.
The sweet taste that spread through my mouth… even now, I could never forget it.
I would later learn, after becoming the Western Princess, that it was a marron glacé—a delicacy served only in the palace.
—
“Where is your mother? Why are you alone?”
—
At his question, I simply shook my head, unable even to say thank you.
The man clicked his tongue and gently patted my head.
—
“To think she’s run off to smoke cannabis, leaving a child like this…”
—
That unnamed man stayed by my side the entire night.
My mother didn’t return until sunrise.
As always, she flung the door open half-falling, reeking of alcohol.
A laugh echoed through the room.
—
“Sweetheart, Mommy’s home~”
“Sweetheart?”
—
The man’s voice turned sharp as he echoed her words.
What kind of expression had my mother worn that day?
All I remembered clearly from that distant past was their conversation.
—
“What were you doing all night to show up at this hour? Do you even call yourself a mother?”
“Oh, please. I’ll raise my daughter how I see fit. What business is it of yours now?”
“Even if she’s a half-blood, she has royal blood. And you raise her like this?”
“Didn’t His Majesty say she isn’t even his? Though she looks exactly like him.”
—
Even my mother’s demeanor was different that day. No warmth. Only a sharp, cutting edge in her tone.
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“You—!”
—
His furious shout rang through the room.
Frightened, I crawled into a corner and curled up.
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“Do you think I send you money so you can waste it all on cannabis?!”
“Can’t I spend what I receive however I want? It’s barely anything anyway. If you think it’s not enough, give me more.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you with more, when you’re already squandering it? Am I to just sit and watch as all the capital’s cannabis flows into your hands?!”
“Do you even know how much cannabis costs? You’d have to sell the palace to afford that.”
—
Then, Mother crept over to where I was hiding.
Her familiar hand gently stroked my bony back.
—
“You say she’s royalty, even if only half. If you’re going to keep acting like this, send her to the palace already.”
“You’d better talk sense if you want me to listen. That will never happen. What, you want me to watch my daughter get eaten alive by the Queen?”
—
That argument marked the beginning.
From that moment to yesterday—the day I received my death sentence—memories came back to me, fragment by fragment.
—
“Ah…”
—
I couldn’t accept this reality. I collapsed onto the bed.
The scent of oil filled my nose. The texture of toughened animal hide beneath my fingers.
The feeling of you, seemingly lingering somewhere in this room.
Everything here had become part of me, bit by bit.
—
But suddenly, everything I’d grown used to felt strange and unfamiliar.
As if I’d wandered into a place I had never been before.
From that disconnect, I realized something inescapable.
And my shoulders began to shake.
I started to cry—without even meaning to.
—
I had always been the kind of child who didn’t cry.
Probably ever since before I could even recognize myself.
If I had learned that crying and throwing tantrums could solve anything, maybe I wouldn’t have spent my childhood waiting alone for a drunken mother.
But nothing ever changed from crying.
I would simply tire myself out and collapse.
So even tears were a luxury I was never allowed.
—
But now… I felt more helpless than in any of those times.
These tears couldn’t be stopped.
My time was far too short.
Even knowing that, I couldn’t carry on, couldn’t make meaning of it.
I was sinking into a despair I couldn’t escape alone.
—
My Largo.
It wasn’t until I found myself in this situation that I finally began to understand who I was.
Only now could I try to piece myself together.
—
In the past, I often wondered if I was broken somehow.
Back when I lived in the Western Palace, I never thought the Queen’s hatred toward me was unfair.
Even after she hurt my body with her cruelty, I accepted the maids’ advice to understand her.
If I were in her shoes, perhaps I would have loathed a bastard child, too.
—
I never complained that the King’s disregard was unjust.
Even when I met the King again after being abandoned by him, though I was disappointed—I couldn’t bring myself to hate him.
—
Even after my mother’s death—
The woman who once cherished me like a flower—I shed no more than a single tear.
Joy, sorrow, hope, despair.
I had never felt any of those things with urgency.
I desired nothing. I was greedy for nothing.
—
I simply walked the path laid out before me.
If life pushed me forward, I followed. If it crushed me, I endured.
I met everything head-on and accepted it.
—
The world I saw was always colorless.
Compared to the way I felt, things like sadness, loneliness, despair—they all seemed to burn hot and red.
But my world had always appeared muted and distant.
As if I weren’t really living in it, but merely observing from outside a glass case—transparent and pitiful.
My life didn’t feel like it was truly mine.
—
So I thought—
Maybe I could only feel so little because I was so far removed.
—
But when I watched people cry, laugh, scream, rejoice, and tremble with excitement over the smallest things.
Even when I watched the King—who said he held no regrets about me.
I began to wonder.
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Maybe… I really was broken somehow.
—
But there was at least one thing I now knew for certain.
—
When faced with an inescapable death.
When I saw that the divine mark granted me only a few months more.
When I realized the gods had declared my end.
When I knew I was truly going to vanish from this world—
—
I completely, utterly crumbled.
