Chapter 44
“Lord.”
Knock, knock, a knock on the door was heard. Ragnar did not answer.
“It is almost time for the evening ritual.”
Only Ragnar could endure the scent that filled his room. A scent so strong that the weak would lose their minds to hypnosis and hallucination. It proved Ragnar’s strength and mental fortitude, while also serving to protect him.
Not many could presumptuously enter this deep room where he drank blood.
“Is Del Rose ready?”
“He has begun preparations.”
Clink, Ragnar set down the unfinished cup on the table. The sound of metal touching marble was chilling.
“I will be there soon.”
“I will prepare.”
“…Today’s sin is deep.”
His last words did not reach his vassal’s ears. Ragnar, having finished his soliloquy, bowed his head.
He expressionlessly looked down at his e***t p***s. It was a clear reaction, its swollen form visible even through his Holy Knight’s attire.
Some demon had seized control of his sacred body and sown the seeds of sin like poisonous weeds.
Ragnar, with bowed head, watched the demon of his flesh. And imagined some hell.
A single hell that the demon parasitizing his body desired—a sweet hell he hadn’t even known existed until now. There was only one hell that stirred and swelled Ragnar’s demon.
A red glow from the stained glass poured across Ragnar’s face.
Arzeletta opened her eyes atop a pile of straw. The marks of beatings were clear on her arms, body, and calves. Because she had met with the lord, she failed to complete her tasks on time and, as foretold, was beaten for it.
This was nothing.
Arzeletta sat up. Her entire body was covered in scars. Adjusting her clothes and pulling them over her shoulders, she looked up at the window with only iron bars.
The moon was pale.
Suddenly, Arzeletta wanted to see Theogrim. It was a desperate longing.
Moving her bruised and bloodied limbs, she headed for the secret entrance Exion had taught her.
She climbed the spiral stairs endlessly. The darkness she groped through alone felt even blacker, but her senses had become sharper for it. Fumbling with her fingertips, drawing out her memory, she finally made her way to the heart of the castle, just as Exion had shown her.
When she opened the door, a familiar scent greeted her.
Soaked in blood from her wounds and damp with sweat, Arzeletta staggered inward. The ritual was already underway.
More vivid than the thick fragrance or the priests’ chant was the scent of the blood Theogrim had shed.
She looked at the young man’s tattered back. After the ritual ended, the priests would heal his wounds with the most sacred and potent holy water, and then his skin and injuries would be restored. Tomorrow, the pain would repeat all over again.
She had heard of the curse of a regenerating heart, eternally pecked at by a bird. She remembered it as a punishment once received by one who had sacrificed himself for mankind.
Arzeletta alternated her gaze between her own wounds, which never healed and only accumulated, and Theogrim’s, which vanished cleanly and had to be freshly endured each day.
Her gruesome back had protected her body, but Theo’s back suffered as if for the first time, every day.
She wanted to save him. Just as he had saved her life.
In front of the bleeding Theogrim, bound in chains, stood Ragnar, perfectly dressed in his formal attire. Arzeletta was already familiar with the sight of his back.
He was tall as a mountain—the god who had decreed Theogrim’s heart be torn apart forever.
“Save him.”
Arzeletta touched her forehead. She had clearly heard it. It was no delusion.
“Kill Ragnar. Kill the lord. Anyone, please.”
Theogrim’s cry rang out from Arzeletta’s heart. She grasped the heart that wasn’t hers.
“Kill him. Take him out of this pain.”
Her heart was giving the order.
“I don’t want to bear the sins of the world.”
It was Theogrim’s truth—one he could not tell anyone, an angel’s, a saint’s truth. Only Arzeletta knew.
She could not disobey the one to whom she offered her prayer.
“Kill him.”
That was the fate of a fairy.
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