Chapter 73
07_Hunter
I am a demon.
A demon who grants human wishes and in return takes a corresponding price.
Originally, I had no name, but one day, I was given one.
Hunter.
A precious name bestowed upon me by my beloved Prina.
* * *
Prina’s mother, Bianca de White, was the first queen of the Kingdom of de White, and she was an unhappy woman.
She was beautiful and noble, yet she never received the love of her husband, the King.
The King was a man ever thirsty for new beauty. He preferred the thrill of mysterious women over the steady devotion he might have found in his own wife.
Raised from childhood solely to become queen, Bianca could not help but be lonely. She strove to obey her royal husband, to carry herself properly. Even when anger and jealousy burned within her, she endured patiently.
She had to, because she was the queen.
Even so, she still held the dignity of being queen of a nation. The King’s debauchery was carried out only beyond the palace walls. At least outwardly, he sought to preserve the authority of his queen. So Bianca smiled generously, trying not to lose her nobility.
The King’s love and her reason for existence were two separate matters.
At least… until she met the concubine.
When the King openly brought another woman into the palace and flaunted her before everyone, Bianca felt as though her very existence had been denied. The beautiful armor she had so carefully forged for herself seemed to crumble from within.
The concubine came and went daily from the King’s bedchamber, sharing his nights.
Bianca, who had yet to conceive a child, was consumed with anxiety.
What if that woman bears a child before I do?
Will she take even this hollow title of queen away from me?
Empty as it may have been, the queen’s position was the last bastion for Bianca and for the safety of her family.
And the higher the seat, the greater the price for stepping down. There always had to be some plausible justification. Such was the way of things.
The King was already attending all official functions not with Bianca, but with the woman he so dearly cherished.
The shadow of that one woman gnawed away at the edges of Bianca’s crown until at last it clutched at her very throat.
In the end, the woman succeeded in ousting Bianca and securing the position of queen for herself. Now all that remained was the necessary pretext for deposing Bianca.
The excuse was pitiful, that she had used demonic sorcery to regain the King’s love.
For what she had not even done, Bianca’s family was executed. Her house was wiped out in an instant. All she could do, locked in a tower, was shed tears of blood and curse the two of them.
They said the concubine was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her husband claimed that no man could help but desire her.
Who could resist such allure?
It is an irresistible force. A thing no one can fight.
That was the excuse. The flimsiest of excuses. Not even a true justification, not even a proper lie.
And Bianca foresaw, faintly, the concubine’s ultimate fate.
In the end, you too will meet the same end as I.
Beauty is nothing but an illusion. When a woman more beautiful than you appears, you will feel the same unease, gnaw at your own flesh, and at last shed tears of blood.
But the true culprit of her misfortune was not the concubine alone. The root of it all was the King.
He too, for his habit of forever chasing after illusions, would one day meet his destruction.
That became Bianca’s curse. That became her wish.
Confined within the stone tower, Bianca stitched diligently upon an ebony frame.
In the dead of winter, the tower held no warmth. Her teeth chattered, her fingertips grew stiff with cold, yet she never ceased her needlework.
There was nothing around her. No people, no animals, not even a blade of grass.
Though she could step out of the tower itself, knights encircled the castle, and beyond them stretched only an endless white field of snow. The snow, so dazzlingly white, seemed as though it might blind her if she stared too long.
Absentmindedly, Bianca stepped out into that snowy expanse. Her legs, long unaccustomed to walking, could not carry her properly.
“Ugh.”
She let out a small groan.
The moment the sharp needle pricked her finger, a drop of blood fell onto the snow.
Drip. Drip.
On the white field, it bloomed like a single red flower.
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