Chapter 2
All around was silence.
The only sound was the fluttering of countless flags in the wind; not even the breathing of the massive crowd could be heard.
The people packed densely along the avenue, and even the horsemen and attendants, stared at Siara in shock before shifting their interest-filled gazes toward the First Prince’s carriage.
Swaak.
As if in answer to her request, the pure white curtain draped over the carriage was drawn aside.
A woman, her body entirely covered by a headdress and veil, made a nervous gesture as she pulled the curtain back, then averted her eyes and quickly retreated inside.
Only then was the First Prince revealed.
Thump, thump.
Her heart beat so fast her chest heaved.
The First Prince, Axos, was completely different from what she had imagined.
He was so delicate and beautiful it was startling.
He appeared to be around thirty, his jade-white skin adorned with gold, silver, and jewels, making him look dignified and authoritative.
Most surprising were his hands.
They looked extremely soft, unlike the hands of her father or brothers.
Having believed in a ‘strength’ defined only by martial prowess all her life, his appearance was disconcerting.
But upon reflection, the highest authority probably had little need for physical strength.
He could simply command a hundred or a thousand people with superior martial prowess to do his bidding.
The ‘power’ this man possessed was a ‘strength’ of a completely different nature from what was valued on the plains.
The problem was…
The First Prince wore four thick jeweled bracelets on his left wrist.
This signified that he supported four women.
Seeing that, she flinched for a moment, but considering he was the Emperor’s eldest son, it wasn’t a large number.
He had probably been with a thousand women by now, and had only given bracelets to four of them.
Whether any of those four were his wife was unknown, but it didn’t matter to her either way.
Siara longed to become this man’s fifth concubine.
However, the words that came from Aksos mouth were the complete opposite of her desperate wish.
“Insolent wench.”
Axos glared at her, his disgust and revulsion plain to see.
“You filthy girl.”
A shiver ran down her spine at the intense anger lacing his tone.
“Are you telling me to possess a woman who has shown her face to the lowly market vendors and even beggars?”
The reason for the Prince’s fury was simple.
It wasn’t because she had blocked his carriage.
It was because a woman who dared to appear without a veil or headdress had arrogantly requested the position of concubine.
And worse, she had done it herself, without a male intermediary.
“No, Your Highness. That’s…”
She panicked and started to lift her head, then hurriedly averted her gaze again.
Only then did her brother’s clothes, filthy with dust, shabby and worn-out, come into focus.
She realized how she must look: cheeks hollowed from severe hunger, hair tangled and matted, her face caked with dried mud from hiding her femininity.
“How dare you insult me so publicly like this!”
Aksos’s voice roared with fiery rage.
“Do I look so easy that I would fuss over such a disgusting prank?!”
“A prank…?”
Siara immediately lowered her posture, kneeling, her voice trembling as she begged for forgiveness.
“That was never my intention, Your Highness!”
She could feel with a creeping certainty that things had gone terribly wrong.
“Not your intention? You, a beggar wench, chased down and stopped my, Aksos’s, carriage!”
Aksos’s roar was vicious.
“You’ve made me a malicious laughingstock before the entire world, and you say it wasn’t? Who paid you to make such a spectacle of me!”
It was said the brothers didn’t get along; he was misunderstanding this as a malicious prank orchestrated by one of them.
“N-No! It’s a misunderstanding!”
“Cut that wench’s head off immediately and throw the corpse into the latrine!”
“Your Highness Aksos…! Kyaah!”
At a gesture from one of the generals in charge of the princes’ security, soldiers abruptly grabbed her hair and arms, roughly dragging her away from the procession.
As the path cleared, the carriages began to move forward again.
Sreung.
One of the generals, without delay, drew a crescent-moon blade, its edge curved and sharp, for an immediate execution.
Her pale face was reflected in the sharp, silvery blade.
The blood in her entire body froze like ice, and she shrank in terror.
As a soldier viciously pressed down on the back of her head, the force instantly forced her to her knees.
Immediately after, the chilling blade touched the back of her neck once, coldly, before being raised high.
“Huh, Huhuk! Huhuk!”
Siara let out ragged breaths, seeing the shadow of the crescent blade cast on the ground.
Soon the blade would fall and strike her neck.
No.
It can’t be.
She didn’t want to die.
She couldn’t die so meaninglessly here.
But she was held too tightly to escape.
“Ugh!”
Her heart pounded as if it would burst, and hot tears welled up, but she clenched her teeth, determined not to scream.
If she had to die anyway, she was resolved to remain composed to the end, as the daughter of the Asra chieftain.
It’s coming.
She could feel it, a creepy sensation, that the blade was about to behead her.
“Stop!”
The moment she heard the deeply resonant command, sweat and heat surged through her entire body.
Her ears went deaf for a moment, ringing with a weeing tinnitus, and her long hair, soaked with sweat, stuck clammily to her cheeks and neck.
“Huh, Huhuk……. Huh.”
Siara, with great effort, raised her trembling head.
A sizable, open-topped carriage had halted within the bloody sunset.
It was a pitch-black carriage, as if ridden by the god of death.
She had memorized the colors of the carriages as the procession passed, from the Seventh Prince to the First… that ominous black definitely belonged to…
‘The Fourth Prince.’
The crippled madman, they said, who had no right of succession whatsoever.
As the soldiers again pressed her head down forcefully, the official in the blue outer robe who had led her to the alley earlier spoke up in a tense voice.
“Your Highness, Karl Lago. This is a matter commanded by your elder brother, His Highness Aksos. I earnestly request you to simply pass by and…”
“You.”
The moment Karl Lago’s voice rang out, the official seemed to cut himself off, swallowing his words.
Simultaneously, even the soldiers flinched, stiffening their bodies as tension grew taut.
In that dangerous silence, the Fourth Prince continued.
“Name.”
It was a command for her.
Said in a tone arrogantly implying that only he and she existed in this space, the voice of one who had spent a lifetime only giving orders.
“State your name.”
He had already commanded her twice.
She knew clearly he wouldn’t ask a third time.
She had to answer quickly…
But she couldn’t reveal her real name.
The wretched state of ‘Siara Asra’ would become gossip that reached even the distant plains.
How despairing would her mother and sister, already in a miserable and painful situation, be upon hearing news of her…
The mere thought made her feel as if her whole body was burning in a fire.
Ah.
Fire.
[When a person harbors righteous anger, a red fire is born in their heart,] her mother’s voice from a childhood tale suddenly came to her. [It is a fire the same color as the fresh blood flowing in a living person’s body.]
Her mother’s voice had then turned grim. [But,] she had said, [evil and twisted anger causes a black fire to bloom in the heart. It is a color like a winter’s night, and it stains a person’s soul dark.]
[Black… fire?]
[This black fire is a terrifying and cruel demon who wears a crown of thorns, named ‘Kasha.’]
[Kasha.]
[Yes. So, no matter the situation, you must never let yourself be ruled by that Kasha.]
The demon with the crown of thorns.
A cold chill swirled in Ciara’s gaze.
Originally, a woman should lower her gaze and avoid eye contact when facing a man.
But Ciara resolutely lifted her chin.
If the order for her death was given anyway, she had no desire to keep looking at the ground.
“Kasha.”
She looked toward the man inside the open carriage with eyes as black as the night sky and answered clearly.
“I am Kasha.”
