The golden rays of the morning sun filtered softly through the grand stained-glass windows of the Artecus Capital Estate, casting vibrant kaleidoscope patterns of crimson, sapphire, and amber across the polished marble corridors.
Yet, despite the peaceful light gracing the Capital, an oppressive, suffocating weight hung in the air across two very different grand estates.
The violent political fallout of the previous night’s Gala pressed heavily on the minds of two noblewomen and their powerful lineages.
Far away from the glittering thoroughfares of the Capital, tucked within the quiet, rolling hills of the southern provinces, the Baleno Estate—home to a lesser noble family from which the current Duchess Nightbane had originated—was plunged into absolute chaos.
Lord Virius Baleno, head of House Baleno, brother to Duchess Nightbane, and a long-standing, trusted friend of Duke Valerius Nightbane, was pacing frantically through the manicured stone pathways of his inner garden.
His face was ghastly pale, heavy dark circles carved beneath his bloodshot eyes, and his rich velvet robes hung loosely on his trembling frame.
He was a man utterly consumed by an agonizing, helpless terror.
The soft, hurried crunch of leather shoes against gravel shattered the garden’s quiet.
A young man wearing a spotless butler’s uniform approached, bowing with stiff, anxious deference.
The moment Virius caught sight of him, he spun around, his voice tight with desperate urgency: “How is my daughter?!”
The butler hesitated, his eyes dropping briefly to the stone path before he spoke carefully.
“It is…
better than yesterday, my Lord.
But today, the episode still deeply affects her.
The high healers summoned from the Church are currently in her chambers, casting restoration arts to mend the severe mental damage.”
Hearing those words, Lord Baleno’s face drained of what little color remained.
“Why…?” he muttered, his voice breaking as he clutched his trembling head.
“What did my daughter ever do to suffer like this?!”
Lord Baleno remembered it all too clearly.
Two days ago, his daughter had returned home practically glowing with ecstatic delight after encountering that man again—the very same individual who had somehow survived an earlier, fatal attempt on his life.
She had eagerly displayed the staggering, unprecedented power she had acquired.
Virius had been overjoyed, even more excited than his daughter, who spent the entire day running from place to place across the estate to show off her newly awakened magic.
Distrustful of such sudden miracles, Virius had immediately tasked his confidential servants and covert informants with investigating her benefactor.
They returned with a single name: Barn—a person possessing strength so vast and abnormal that it defied standard tier classifications.
At first, Virius had felt immense gratitude toward Barn for breaking his daughter’s natural ceiling and bestowing such unbelievable strength upon her.
But that gratitude quickly curdled into horror when they uncovered the devastating consequence attached to her new power—a terrifying, unavoidable curse.
Whenever anyone was hurt by her actions, or suffered as a direct or indirect result of her newly awakened magic, the full, unmitigated psychological and physical anguish of those victims rebounded straight into her own mind.
He brought in high clerics, grand mages, and renowned curse-breakers, but every single one returned the exact same baffling answer: There is no curse here.
Her body was healthy, her mana pathways were pristine, and her core was uncorrupted.
Yet, when night fell, the nightmare manifested.
His daughter let out blood-curdling shrieks, completely losing her sanity as she thrashed violently on her bed, clawing at her own flesh in unbearable agony from the spiritual feedback of those suffering elsewhere.
Virius had been forced to use high-tier suppression magic just to physically restrict her, calling upon Church priests to cast continuous mental pacification spells to stop her mind from shattering completely.
In his desperation, he had even confided in his closest friend, Duke Valerius Nightbane.
The Shadow Sovereign had actually grown intensely amused upon discovering and confirming the strange phenomenon, offering his own formidable resources to investigate—yet even Duke Valerius could find no spell array or matrix that could be broken.
”My Lord…
I think it will be gone in a few days,” the butler said softly, pulling Virius out of his dark spiral of memories.
Virius snapped his head up, his eyes locking onto the servant.
“What do you mean?!”
”The head priest stated that he can feel the curse now, and it is noticeably weaker today,” the butler explained quickly.
“He believes there is a high possibility it will continue to fade and disappear entirely within a few days.”
The butler paused, adding gently, “The young lady is awake, my Lord, and she wishes to meet you.”
Lord Baleno let out a shaky, shuddering breath, adjusting his disheveled robes with trembling fingers.
“Very well…
I pray to the heavens those words are true.”
Setting his jaw, he turned and hurried toward his daughter’s quarters, praying with every fiber of his being that this nightmare was finally coming to an end.
PART II: LADY NYXARA’S PERSPECTIVE
Miles away, within the iron-fortified walls of the Nightbane Ducal Fortress, Lady Nyxara sat on the balcony of her private wing, sipping a cup of dark, bitter herbal tea.
Her long, dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing her pale, breathtaking face.
Her violet eyes—usually cold, distant, and calculating—were focused entirely on her right hand.
The same hand Barn had held at the Gala now had a soft, luminous veil of divine energy clinging gently to the skin, buzzing with a quiet, otherworldly warmth that completely defied the dark mana she had carried since birth.
”My Lady,” her personal shadow-guard materialized seamlessly from the corner of the balcony, kneeling on one knee.
“His Grace, Duke Valerius, has assembled the Vanguard.
The formal military withdrawal notices have been delivered to the Royal Citadel.
Prince Wilhem’s court is in absolute disarray.”
“Let Wilhem enjoy his Saintess.
He traded forty percent of the realm’s military backing for a girl who shines brightly in a room full of sycophants.”
She placed her teacup down on the iron saucer, her thoughts drifting back to the moment the betrothal broke.
’I can’t believe it…
if not for my father’s Shadow Guard telling me,’ Nyxara thought, her mind replaying the harrowing details she had received from the shadow report—critical warnings she had previously dismissed as paranoid court rumors.
For years, Nyxara had carried a suffocating weight.
Born with an overwhelming, volatile reservoir of Dark Mana, she had been branded by court gossips as a dangerous, unstable entity.
Prince Wilhem had treated her like a political tool, expecting her to suppress her nature and act as a silent shield for his crown.
She had sacrificed her time, her reputation, and her peace to build his faction—only to have him secretly attempt to poison her spiritual core with a curse item, using her dark mana as an excuse to execute her.
’He wanted me to go mad,’ Nyxara thought, a cold, lethal smirk playing on her lips.
‘He wanted me to destroy myself so he could play the heroic Prince saving his Saintess.’
But then…
he had stepped in.
Barn.
The moment Barn stepped into the frame, the curse matrix on Wilhem’s ring had vanished into nothingness.
But it was what happened when Barn took her hand that had truly shaken her to her very soul.
The second his fingers touched her skin, the volatile, dark corruption in her mana pathways hadn’t just been suppressed—it had harmonized.
Deep beneath her Dark Mana, her dormant, suppressed origin line had flared to life, filling her vessel with a strange, divine warmth she had never felt before.
She had felt his terrifying, infinite depth in that single second.
He wasn’t a noble, nor was he an ordinary High Mage.
Standing before him felt like staring up at a primordial sky that didn’t care about the laws of mortals.
’Father spoke of him as if he already knew his name,’ Nyxara pondered, her violet eyes flashing with intense curiosity as she looked down at the persistent divine glow wrapping her fingers.
‘Who is Master Barn?
And why did my core react to his presence as if it were finally coming home?’
Standing up from her seat, Nyxara looked out toward the northern horizon, where the spires of the Artecus estate stood in the morning light.
”Prepare my carriage for this evening,” Nyxara ordered her guard, her dark silk dress rustling as she turned toward her dressing chambers.
“House Nightbane will attend Lady Rosalina’s private gathering.
It is time we align ourselves with the true master of this realm.”