That Rashid should inherit the ducal title instead of Bled, that an unprecedentedly strong flame swordmage had appeared across generations bringing great fortune to House Penvernon, or even suspicious looks questioning if such strong power was really a good thing.

To Rashid himself, it was just a power like disaster. Especially when his father praised and boasted about Rashid.

Black hair and golden eyes like their ancestor, brave temperament and wondrous ability too. Every time the Duke praised him saying he was the most like Penvernon, hostility boiled in his brother’s eyes.

On such days, Rashid would come alone to the forest and quietly suppressed his emotions. Because his brother’s animosity was too confusing and intense for a young boy to handle.

In the forest where no one watched him, under the largest tree, he sat with his knees pulled up and thought,

‘Why do you hate me so much? I won’t do anything.’

His mother told Rashid countless times during days and nights that she shouldn’t have given birth to him.

I hate you so much. I’m afraid of you. Bled is trembling in fear because of you. Your father is secretly afraid of your power too. You’re not human. Your power is excessive. It’s the power of an evil dragon. The stronger the power gets, the more the dragon will devour you. You will be devoured.

People worried and feared as the evil dragon’s power grew stronger and would erode his mind, as the flames rising from the tip of Rashid’s sword grew more intense.

‘I won’t be devoured by this power.’

Rashid wiped his reddened eyes and climbed a tree. Though the largest tree seemed to touch the sky, the clever and agile boy had already conquered it long ago.

The boy quickly perched on a high branch and looked down at the world spread beneath his feet.

Vast forests and plains filled his vision. In the distance, he could see Camelli Castle. The camellia-patterned flag fluttered proudly in the wind, announcing who the castle’s master was.

Duke Penvernon.

Since his older brother would become the future duke, he wanted to be his reliable younger brother. He could have done well. If only he had been given the chance.

He could have been a good brother to Dana, and an energetic and dependable son to his parents.

It could have been possible. It might have been. But now everything remained only as hypotheticals.

‘Why does Mother only love brother? Because he resembles Mother? But I also inherited the family’s power like Mother.’

Since this was a problem too difficult for the boy to understand, he never found the answer.

Rashid only climbed down from the tree when the sun began to set in the west. Pink twilight was engulfing everything.

On his way back, after struggling to shake off his sadness in the forest, Rashid passed through the center of the castle town.

It was while he was riding his horse, ignoring the people who recognized him and either greeted or whispered about him—

“Mommy!”

A little girl ran from the opposite direction into the arms of a lady nearby.

“Buy me candy!”

“No, at night the black fairy comes to steal candy and breaks teeth. It will hurt.”

“Just one, please!”

The lady, who had been trying to soothe her somehow, finally bought her daughter one candy as if she had no choice. Soon, a man who appeared to be the girl’s father appeared and rubbed his daughter’s cheek.

Rashid stopped his horse and stood still, blankly watching them. It was a peaceful scene that seemed like it would never be part of his life.

‘Other people grow up receiving their parents’ love as if it’s natural. Even if the whole world turns its back, at least their family stays on their side.’

Anger welled up suddenly. He felt ashamed and pained that even his family didn’t love him.

The world blurred instantly and swayed like waves. Rashid bit his lip to suppress his turmoil. He truly felt like he shouldn’t exist in this world.

To discard that feeling, Rashid had to seek the forest again the next day.

The emotions that piled up day after day became distorted lines under their own weight. It was a stratum of sorrow and pain.

That day, while walking through the afternoon forest, Rashid discovered a cluster of wildflowers. He also saw a butterfly hovering around the flowers. The butterfly with blue wings looked so delicate it might break at a touch, but it was just as beautiful.

After fluttering here and there for a while, the butterfly approached Rashid and gently landed on the back of his hand. It seemed to have mistaken him for a flower. The butterfly remained quietly, and Rashid silently observed the scene.

Finally, as if realizing its perch wasn’t a flower, the butterfly began to flutter its wings again. At that moment, Rashid impulsively drew out the dagger from his chest and swung it.

In an instant, flames arose and the butterfly burned up. It disappeared into the wind as ashes without even a chance to scream.

‘Ah.’

A silent exclamation leaked from Rashid’s lips.

Life withered in an instant. It was his doing. With just one trivial action, so casually, the butterfly vanished from the world.

That’s when the boy realized.

‘I can do anything. I could kill anyone.’

Not just butterflies. Flowers, trees, rabbits, foxes, wolves, lions, humans—he stood at the apex of all food chains. Thanks to being born with the Dragon’s Strength stronger than anyone else.

It was a power he had never wanted. The brilliantly manifested power was an object of awe, and simultaneously the source of his solitude.

People praised him but cursed him as a monster behind masks. That’s why he hated this power. He was afraid of himself too. Afraid that he might really become inhuman someday, as people said.

‘I wish I hadn’t been born, if it was going to be like this.’

If everyone would fear him.

If everyone would hate him.

When he had never wanted or wished for it, why? Why?

‘God, for what purpose do I exist?’

While Rashid repeated these cruel thoughts, camellias bloomed, and bloomed again.

As flowers bloomed and withered, the boy grew and became a young man. Blooming as splendidly as a flower in full bloom, he became a being that shone like a fixed star.

In that flow of time, Rashid burned and killed many things. The stronger he became, the more intensely people showed their ambivalence toward him.

As he passed through countless days and nights of their endless chirping, Rashid began to despise people. Those who could easily fade away with a single gesture were all weak and trivial. Sometimes they felt worthless, sometimes hateful.

Meanwhile, his eyes grew increasingly cold as he looked at all things, and no matter what he saw, the world only sank hazily into gray.

Everything gradually became meaningless.

“Die, you monster!”

So when Bled tried to kill him, Rashid had no hesitation in burning him. It was the same when he beheaded his sister who had participated in the plot and imprisoned his mother.

‘In the end, I am alone.’

Only that fact became more firmly established amidst the fresh sense of betrayal.

Instead of charging him with murder for killing his family and seizing the family, the Emperor recognized Rashid as duke. It was an exceptional act of clemency.

The Imperial family had power to bind the ducal houses, and moreover, by making him indebted, they had effectively put a strong collar on him. If he became their mad dog, those sharp fangs would help rule the empire.

Rashid gladly accepted that proposal. All that remained to him now was the name Penvernon.

His existence seemed necessary only for that name which he had never wanted to have but couldn’t discard.

‘If it’s what brother wanted so desperately, if it’s the family he thought he could only fully obtain by killing me, I’ll keep it for life.’

It was revenge.

Also, if this cursed bloodline that gave him this power tells him to protect that name, if the reason he was born into this life he wished he hadn’t been born into was for that mission, he would do so. That alone became his driving force to live.

He raised his head and looked at the Penvernon flag again. Amidst all things that had lost their light, only the vivid red of the camellia remained clear. It was the color of blood.

Nothing else in his life would be allowed to have color. It was a life that had to be lived that way.

In the colorless world weighing down on him, Rashid closed his eyes.

It was all so fleeting, so fleeting.

* * *

The marriage was by others’ will.

“Alisa Legentia.”

Rashid murmured the name of the woman designated to be his wife. The unfamiliar name felt strange.

The Legentia family was a house whose name was being forgotten, weathered by time. Without power or wealth, they had only old and worn glory remaining.

It was Emperor Helios who ordered him to make the daughter of this steadily declining house his duchess.

The calculation was obvious. Worried that he might form marriage ties with a powerful house, they attached another woman to him beforehand.