The dazzling chandelier blazed with light like a chunk of wood burning in a fire. Though it was made of fine crystal and gold, it felt no different from a bundle of kindling. Nox Rainerio stared at the unsteadily gleaming chandelier for a moment, then lowered his gaze.
The women’s high heels rose sharply into the air, and the men’s polished shoes shone with lacquered gloss. Their backs, held as rigidly upright as their jeweled hair ornaments, and the smiles spread wide across their faces were a clear measure of how great their expectations were.
“Who could have imagined His Majesty the Emperor would go so suddenly?”
“Indeed. Still, with His Highness the Crown Prince already fully grown, what is there to worry about?”
“Oh, dear. Not His Highness the Crown Prince anymore. It is His Majesty the Emperor now.”
“Ah, what a terrible slip of the tongue.”
Ahaha.
Greedy laughter rang out. The Emperor, who had never been especially healthy to begin with, had apparently been recovering in recent days—only to die without warning. And yet not a single person gathered in the party hall looked sorrowful. Why would they, when the Crown Prince, born of the Empress, was already past thirty? Nothing was uncertain.
But what filled them was not relief.
It was expectation.
And greed.
“At last, the day has come for His Highness the Crown Prince to become His Majesty the Emperor.”
“I heard there was even mention of that diamond mine…”
“Of course. I heard he said the shares in that mine would be distributed according to each person’s contribution in this matter.”
They were hyenas circling the scraps left behind by a lion.
The Crown Prince, now in his thirties, possessed an unshakable power base and impeccable legitimacy. But his character and temperament were like those of a demon out of hell.
He lusted after women and amassed wealth through filthy means. He cut down the loyal ministers who offered earnest counsel, while lavishing rewards on fawning sycophants who wagged their smooth tongues at him.
That was the kind of people gathered here.
Not men and women of noble grace, but beasts warped by greed.
And standing among them, gazing at them with calm contempt, was one man.
“Nox.”
Nox Rainerio.
The only son of House Rainerio, Dukes of the Empire.
“Someone might see you. Smooth out that filthy frown.”
Nox lowered his eyes to the man standing beside him—his father, Doran Rainerio. Doran clicked his tongue once at the son who showed him not the slightest trace of respect, then quickly softened his tone, as though coaxing him.
“Well? Wasn’t everything I said right? There is nothing left now that could shake His Highness.”
Nox did not even bother to snort. He simply ignored his father. He could hear the man muttering under his breath beside him, but he gave no reaction at all.
This was a place where filthy creatures like his father thrived.
Without realizing it, a faint smile touched his lips.
Then what, exactly, did that make him, standing here among them?
“His Highness the Crown Prince will arrive soon. Don’t make a face like that in front of him.”
Giving up on scolding him, Doran settled for a light warning. Of course, Nox had no intention of openly souring his expression before the Crown Prince, the man who would soon stand at the pinnacle of the empire.
But neither did he have any confidence that he could smile brightly for him.
Only then did Nox turn his gaze to his father’s face and murmur quietly,
“Do you truly believe His Majesty the Emperor died of illness?”
The instant he heard the whisper, all color drained from Doran’s face. Forgetting even the eyes around them, he seized Nox by the arm and yanked him hard. Nox let himself be pulled along as though unwillingly, and the two stepped onto an empty terrace. After looking around, Doran snapped the curtain shut with an irritable hand.
“That is the kind of thing that gets your head cut off.”
“Everyone here probably already knows.”
“Even so, there are things that can be spoken aloud and things that cannot! How old are you, exactly?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“That is not what I meant!”
For the first time, Nox’s lips curved upward.
Standing on the dim terrace, his face half-veiled in shadow, he smiled like a serpent. In this den of snakes, he seemed like the largest and foremost among them.
But in truth, he was an outsider who belonged neither with the snakes nor with the cranes.
“The Emperor dies, and before even a coronation can be held, they throw a party first. Isn’t it a little too obvious what’s going on?”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Do you really think the missing Second Prince is dead?”
“Even if he is alive, what could he possibly do?”
“How long do you think the empire will last once that man becomes emperor? Go out into the hall and take a proper look. There are not even heads of serpents there—only tails at best. And becoming a serpent’s tail would be fortunate. Most of them are nothing but maggots swarming over rotten meat. What exactly do you expect to accomplish with nothing but insects at your back? Become the king of vermin?”
He sneered coldly, not a trace of laughter in his voice.
The colder Nox’s tone became, the redder Doran’s face twisted with rage.
Nox despised him.
Loathed him.
A foolish, witless father.
If only his mother had not taken to her sickbed, perhaps things would never have fallen this far.
“You wretched boy!”
Nox casually shoved aside his father as he lunged for his collar. A body trained by swordsmanship and discipline could hardly be compared to that scarecrow frame of a man. Barely managing not to topple over outright, Doran pointed a shaking finger at him, making no effort to hide his fury.
“You’ve always been like this. Pretending you’re the only clean one, the only noble one!”
His ragged breathing came out hot.
Nox hated even that—hated the feel of his father’s breath reaching him. Silently mocking the accusation, he answered in his own mind:
Really? I threw away any pretense of nobility long ago—back when I abandoned that child.
“My choice will soon prove itself right, and you will see it too! I will stand at the side of His Highness the Crown Prince, who is soon to become His Majesty the Emperor, and I will share in a glory more radiant than ever before!”
“Radiant glory? You mean the glory of being able to prey freely on children like trash?”
Nox laughed, his face twisting as if he had just looked upon something foul.
Doran’s face went crimson. He made as if to throw himself at Nox once more.
“You—!”
That was when it happened.
At the very instant his shout rang out, a scream burst from inside the hall.
Doran’s eyes flew wide, and he snapped his head toward the sound. Something disgraceful could not be allowed to happen in the party hall just before His Highness the Crown Prince’s arrival. He needed to go out at once, understand what had happened, and correct it.
But before the thought had even finished forming, another scream tore through the air.
Then another.
One, two, three.
Then too many to count, piling atop one another until they became a ceaseless wall of noise.
“Glory, hm. Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Doran did not even register that Nox had spoken. He rushed from the terrace in a panic.
Beyond the fluttering curtain lay utter chaos.
Nobles dressed as brilliantly as peacocks were being herded into the corners by knights with drawn swords. The knights prowled forward like hunters beginning the chase—or like beasts that had already driven their prey neatly into a dead end.
What the knights wore was not the gilded armor of the Imperial Palace Guard, but old, weathered armor. The gray plate, still stained with old blood and smeared anew with fresh, flowing red, was threat enough in itself.
“H-how dare you! What is the meaning of this inside the Imperial Palace? This is treason!”
When an old man, like some withered crow, finally forced out the courage to protest, mocking laughter rippled through the ranks of gray armor.
Those dark figures, like storm clouds before rain, parted.
And from between them stepped a man clad in pale gray armor.
It too was worn, but among them all it was the cleanest, the palest.
Without hesitation, the man removed his helmet.
At once, cries of shocked confusion erupted from every direction.
“The Second Prince…”
The Second Prince, with his reddish-brown curls and softly rounded eyes, narrowed them into a gentle smile.
“Treason, you say. Against whom, exactly?”
A face lit with kindness—utterly unsuited to the moment—smiled softly.
Those who could not comprehend why the Second Prince, who had vanished on the night the Emperor died, was standing here now, looked around in confusion, as if searching for some crack through which they might escape.
They were people who had gathered beneath the Crown Prince, but whose own lives mattered most to them in the end.
Nox followed his father out from the terrace and took a place at the very back.
Thanks to a height that put him a head above most others, he could see the situation clearly.
His father, Doran, who had pledged absolute loyalty to the Crown Prince, shoved his way through the crowd and boldly planted himself before the Second Prince.
“What is the meaning of this? His Highness the Crown Prince will be here any moment. I cannot imagine what gives you the confidence to behave so outrageously, Second Prince!”
“Ah.”
The Second Prince, Peltion Andras Daidalontz, deepened the smile on his soft face.
Because of his rounded eyes, he had always appeared kind.
Now, however, that face was stained with something darker.
Instead of answering Doran, he stepped a few paces aside and lifted one arm as if introducing someone.
“I was wondering what all the noise was about, but I see.”
As Peltion moved aside, someone approached.
He wore the same gray armor, but he stood two heads taller than the others. His dark cloak was soaked through with something, dripping red in heavy drops.
There was no need to ask what it was.
The moment he drew near, the smell of blood hit them.
Sharp. Fresh.
As if the blood itself were furious.
Doran, still unable to grasp the situation, darted frantic glances around.
The Crown Prince. Had His Highness the Crown Prince arrived?
The emperor-to-be, the one who was to raise him to greater heights?
But unlike Doran, everyone else’s eyes had gone to the blood-drenched man in gray armor who had suddenly appeared.
More precisely—
to what was in his hand.
The hall fell into a silence swept through with mute horror and terror.
“Your Crown Prince is here.”
Thunk.
Splatter.
It sounded like a lump of wet mud hitting the floor.
For a moment, Doran felt his hearing go dull. Perhaps it was only age—his ears failing after a sudden loud noise.
“O-of all the…”
No.
Perhaps his mind had simply begun to reject what he had seen, refusing reality outright.
That gold hair, stained red.
Those half-open green eyes.
There was no mistaking it.
It was the severed head of Crown Prince Beorantz—
the man Doran had staked his life on serving until this very moment.