Chapter 1. Back in the World Once More

March, Year 1440 of the Alperg Kingdom Calendar.

A new spring had bloomed in full.

Spring had arrived earlier than usual, draping itself generously over the city, filling it with color. The royal capital, Quirinus.

At its very center, the royal palace stood adorned in splendor, like a single flower in glorious bloom.

Along the white marble balustrades of the terraces hung ceremonial velvet banners, embroidered with the royal crest in golden thread.

The green banners gleamed with a rich luster, so deeply verdant that they gave the illusion of dense summer foliage, though the season had barely coaxed its first leaves from the branches. It was a fitting color for Vesta, goddess of justice and flame, and founding ancestor of the royal line.

Celebratory cannon fire burst through the music, and the crowd roared.

This year, the Dionysia festival welcoming spring was to coincide with the coronation of a new king.

Everyone who lived in Quirinus knew this.

Eve, forgotten and locked away in some unnoticed corner of the palace, had not known it at all, not until she overheard the chatter of servant maids passing through the corridor outside.

A new king’s coronation.

Eve found herself wondering. Who was it that had ascended to the throne, vacant for the past ten years, to be welcomed by the people as their new sovereign?

If not me, then who on earth?

Eve Alperg was the legitimate princess and lawful heir of this kingdom. No one else had any right to sit upon that throne.

And yet, the maids had said it: all preparations for the coronation were complete, and the long awaited new king would finally take his seat today.

Apparently, while Eve had not been watching, someone had appeared to take her place as the “new and legitimate” claimant.

Then what becomes of me?

To the new King of Alperg, soon to reveal himself to the world, the existence of Eve, a snag at the ankle of his legitimacy, would be nothing more than an obstacle.

Not enough to trip over, but enough to catch and irritate, until it was pulled out and done away with.

Boom! Another cannon shot rang out, loud and close.

Eve lifted her head, let her gaze settle somewhere on the wall, then slowly rose from her seat and began to move with careful steps.

It was the middle of the day, not dark at all, yet her hands groped through empty air. Now and then she stumbled where the carpet had bunched underfoot.

At last, her fingertips met solid wall.

She traced along it, searching for where a window ought to be. Before long, her hand found the wooden frame.

The grain of the wood was rough, as though no one had tended to it in a long time.

Eve drew back the heavy curtain and felt along the frame and glass until she found the latch.

Click, click!

But the latch had been nailed firmly shut. No matter how hard she tried, it would not open.

Her hand fell away, limp, and came to rest on the windowsill before slowly rising again to press gently against the glass.

She wanted to see outside, where sunlight would be pouring down in brilliant sheets, and to know who the new king was, the one who would be welcomed by the people as flower petals rained down like a shower.

But Eve could see nothing.

Behind the eyelids her hands traced, her eyes were swallowed in deep shadow.

Ten years had already passed since she had lost all sight, so completely that she could not even tell when the curtains darkened the room in the middle of the day.

I’m here! I’m right here!

She wanted to cry it out, loud and fierce.

But that, too, was beyond her. On the day her sight closed, her voice had been sealed away forever.

Blind and mute, Eve had been forgotten by everyone.

To hear, and hear only, while being unable to see or speak, was a particular kind of torment.

Eve could express nothing, yet things were poured upon her without pause, all one way.

Once, Eve had been the heir of Alperg, second in rank to none but the reigning monarch.

But after her mother, the late queen, died, and Eve crumbled and withdrew into herself.

The cold mockery, the sneering laughter, the brutal violence had come pouring in as though they had been waiting, and they pierced the wretched Eve again and again.

It hurts.

Please stop.

Please.

Hundreds of times, thousands of times, she had pleaded, but her voice never left her throat. It remained only a soundless echo.

It never stopped. As though they felt a thrill in pinning beneath their feet someone they had once barely dared to look upon directly, and watching that person writhe in agony.

She had thought, more than once, that she would rather howl like an animal than be unable to speak at all, but it was no use.

A face likely twisted with terror, and warm tears falling from sightless eyes, that was the whole of what Eve could express.

If even that pitiable sight had stirred the faintest shred of pity, perhaps it alone would have been enough for someone to understand her fear, her dread, her wretchedness, her despair, her grief.

But the person who had reduced her to this had never once acknowledged her silent screams.

[My beloved Eve.]

A flat, cold voice would speak love to her. But the love that voice described bore no resemblance to the warm feeling she knew by that name.

[My beloved daughter.]

Hybris.

Eve’s father.

After her mother, Queen Pieta, died of illness and Eve, overcome with grief, shut herself away, he was the one who had installed himself as regent and filled the role of king for the past ten years.

Throughout those ten years, a warm cup of tea had been brought to Eve every single day.

Back then, knowing nothing, it had been a small comfort, a thread of warmth in a heart full of grief.

But what it had truly been, she now understood precisely.

With each teacup that cooled in her hands, the world before her eyes grew dimmer, and her throat grew quieter, losing its voice by degrees.

By the time she realized, and tried to shake off the grief and rise, it was already too late.

At first she had thought it was simply her body, grown frail from long neglect.

But after a night she woke from a crawling nightmare, drenched in sweat, Eve could no longer see anything, and could never speak again.

And under the pretense of treating her illness, she was locked away in a forgotten corner of the palace.

Why? Why any of this?

She had asked herself that once. But knowing the reason held no meaning.

Everything had already happened, and her circumstances worsened day by day, hurtling in a direction beyond all recovery.

She had been counting the days by the teacups brought alongside her meager daily meal, and that had already gone on for ten years.

So Eve remained frozen at twenty years old, and this year she had turned thirty, alone.

Creak.

Without warning, the sound of the door opening came from behind her.

“……”

The door, firmly shut and immovable at any other hour, only ever opened outside of mealtimes when that person appeared.

Unable to see, Eve slowly turned her body toward the sound of the door and raised her face. A short laugh reached her.

“Eve.”

The same flat, unchanging voice, no matter how many times she heard it. Ten years of hearing her name called that way, so there was nothing remarkable about it now.

But today was a little different.

“Eve, my dear. I have good news for you today.”

Eve, my dear.

It was what her mother had called her as a small child, while she was still alive.

Hybris spoke those words as though they cost him nothing, and his voice was so unnervingly, unusually tender that Eve shuddered without meaning to.

“Today, your father finally becomes King of Alperg.”

No one had told her. She had tried to look away from it. But the truth was, Eve had already known.

She had always known who had done this to her.

For a moment, she wished it could all be a lie.

That she had simply fallen ill, and Hybris had hidden her here to protect her, a helpless daughter whose claim to the throne might make her a target if she ascended in a weakened state.

But that couldn’t be.

Eve let a faint, barely visible smile cross her lips.

A smile of self mockery she had not meant to let out. She had no way of knowing how Hybris, with his sight intact, read it.

“Here. Take this.”

A familiar scent drew near.

The sweet fragrance of Merirose blossoms. The scent of the tea she had drunk every day.

There was nothing unusual about it, yet today the fragrance was unusually thick.