My heart beat erratically.

I couldn’t tell if I was feeling excitement or anxiety. Hope that Carden might be alive, despair that my Carden might hate me.

“Excuse me, perhaps…”

I needed to confirm it. Whether Lucifer and Carden were truly the same person.

But Terseon didn’t hear my question and turned his head.

“What’s this! Did rebels cross the border? Or monsters?”

I turned my head following his gaze. Then I saw dust rising from beyond the opposite side of the hill.

“Damn! An attack when I’m alone.”

“Monsters won’t harm me. So you’ll be safe if you stay behind me, right?”

I stepped forward without thinking. I felt I needed to help, even a little.

To avoid being hated by the people here any longer.

“What? Are you admitting you’re one of the dark clan?”

“No. Monsters avoid me because I’m a sacrifice meant for the guardian of the duchy.”

“What?”

“Monsters know what happens when they touch a sacrifice…”

Well, it would be hard for him to believe me.

My confidence faltered, and my words circled quietly in my mouth.

“Using me as a shield would be safer for you, Sir Knight.”

Terseon’s face twisted slightly.

“Do I look like someone who would use a woman to save myself?”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

“Besides, what if they’re rebels? What then?”

“Ah…”

Right. We’ve fought rebels more than ten times already, haven’t we?

My head dropped as I felt useless.

“Damn, I should have brought a horse.”

Terseon drew his sword and stared beyond the hill with a tense face. Soon we could identify those who had created the dust cloud.

“We’ve come to reclaim the princess.”

I would have preferred monsters. About twenty rebels glared at Terseon triumphantly.

“Princess, we’ve come to rescue you.”

How shameless. Who was rescuing whom…

“We must rebuild Belial with the princess at its center.”

“If we lose the princess, the duchy will truly be erased from this land.”

“We must never let the Holy Empire take her!”

“The princess is the hope of our Belial!”

At first glance, they might seem like people aiming to revive the duchy with me at its center. But I recognized the manic obsession mixed in the rebels’ eyes.

To them, I was still just a sacrifice.

Terseon’s eyes filled with doubt as he listened to the rebels’ words, seemingly not understanding what I had meant earlier.

“Tsk, this is why not even one royal should be left alive.”

I heard his slightly accusatory mutter.

I bit my lip for a moment. Being hated had already become familiar. But if something happened to the knight here, Lucifer might resent me again.

I couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m not going back to the duchy!” 

I shouted toward the rebels.

“I won’t become a sacrifice for you people!”

Terseon turned to look at me briefly. His face showed both disbelief and strange relief, in equal measure.

“I’m sorry, Sir Knight.”

“About that sacrifice thing…”

“They’ll be more interested in me than you. I’ll draw their attention, so escape down the hill first.”

The innocent knight shouldn’t get hurt because of me. Maybe it would be better if I were taken away as a sacrifice.

“What?”

“But please… bring Card… I mean, Lord Croisen quickly.”

I smiled weakly at Terseon.

“I really don’t want to be dragged away as a sacrifice and die right away. There’s someone I absolutely must meet again.”

As soon as I finished speaking, I ran to the side of the hill.

I clutched the hope in my hand tightly. Yet I cupped the flower with my other hand to prevent it from being damaged.

“The sacrifice is escaping!”

“Catch her!”

“We must catch that woman! We need to throw her into the lake before the guardian deity becomes angry, so the Belial royal family can live again!”

The rebels revealed their true colors.

Did they think I would follow them willingly if they pretended to serve me, the only remaining royal?

Contradicting all their previous words to me, they lunged at me with threatening momentum.

I looked back briefly, worried whether my plan had worked. Fortunately, they were chasing me eagerly.

But Terseon didn’t listen to me. He put something in his mouth and made a loud bird call. Then he attacked the rebels from behind with his sword.

“What’s this, Holy Empire knight! How dare you interfere with our business!”

Thanks to his attack, the number of people chasing me decreased. Using the moment when their attention shifted to him, I jumped into the small forest on the hill.

“Haa, where should I hide?”

Fortunately, the forest consisted of holly trees with dense leaves even in winter, making it good for hiding. There were also fewer fallen leaves compared to other places, so there was less rustling noise.

When playing hide-and-seek as a child, I used to hide here first. Then I would climb the hill using the green leaves as cover.

Drawing on those memories, I ran with careful but quick steps.

“Let’s go that way.”

The same choice as when I was young. I ran toward the large rock at the highest point of the hill.

The large rock appeared blocked from the front. But behind it was a hidden gap created by a smaller rock.

The gap that seemed large and wide when I was young had now shrunk to fit just one person. I squeezed myself into it forcefully. I crouched in the hidden space between the rocks.

Only after completely hiding my body did I exhale my hot, rapid breaths.

“Haa… haa, hup!”

But soon I had to cover my mouth. I heard footsteps running around, searching the area.

“Where did she disappear to?”

“Isn’t she still hiding in the bushes?”

“We’ve searched everywhere!”

“Damn, she’s fast for a sacrifice.”

My heart was beating so loudly I feared they would hear it. I held my breath as much as possible and minimized my movements.

My hand felt hot, probably scratched by the thorny bushes earlier. But if I tried to look at the wound, the chains would make noise.

I had no choice but to just keep my hands still.

“Damn, what do we tell our lord?”

“He said we must find her.”

Lord?

The Duke and Duchess of Belial and their heir Deltraen were already dead. I heard on the way here that the imperial knights had killed all the central nobles of the duchy too.

Then who could this lord be?

“We must offer the sacrifice to the guardian deity.”

“The great leader of Belial will surely be resurrected.”

Could they possibly be alive? As I turned my head in anxiety, suddenly a large black spider appeared from the top of the rock.

“Oh!”

Despite trying to swallow the sound, a scream escaped.

“Wait, what was that sound?”

“What? What’s going on?”

“Hold on. I heard a strange sound nearby.”

“What? There’s nothing but rocks here.”

This was bad. Because of my small gasp, I was on the verge of being discovered. The rebels’ footsteps grew closer.

My heart, which had just begun to calm, started racing again as frantically as when I was running. What should I do?

Without Terseon here, the moment I was discovered, I would be thrown directly into the unfrozen lake, without even getting to live the precious one year I had left.

“It was around here?”

“All I see are rocks.”

“No, there’s definitely something. Look, there’s the flower the sacrifice was holding.”

Oh no, I must have dropped the flower while running in a hurry.

Thunk. Suddenly I heard the sound of something heavy like a sword hitting the rock. As the dull sound came closer to me, the resonance changed subtly.

“That’s strange. Why is the echo different here?”

“Oh, you’re right.”

“Could it be hollow underneath?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. It seemed all was lost now.

Please, Carden… come find me! Hurry.

* * *

Terseon was facing about ten rebels. Their skills were pathetic compared to the knights who used to guard the Belial palace.

But even with poor skills, being outnumbered created many disadvantages. Especially against those filled with hatred and madness.

“How dare a dog of the false god block our path.”

“The duchy is in danger because you stole our sacrifice, are you prepared to pay the price?”

Terseon narrowed his brow. They had taken the princess after killing the dark clan. The accusation didn’t make logical sense.

But there was no time to debate such logic.

“Die!”

“Ugh!”

He pushed away four or five swords aimed at him simultaneously. Immediately, another group of swords targeted his neck.

Dodge and dodge again. But it was impossible to deflect more than ten swords.

“Ugh!”

A sword grazed Terseon’s shoulder. He endured the pain and deflected another sword.

A moment of regret crossed his mind. If he had run to the village to call Lucifer as the princess suggested, he wouldn’t have been injured.

Regret was useless now.

Thanks to him taking on some of the rebels, the pitiful princess had at least avoided being pursued for a while.

“Die!”

“Who’s dying?”

Terseon had no intention of dying. If he could hold out a little longer, Lucifer, the warrior of light, would come running.

Believing his completely trusted lord would come, he endured. And responding to that faith, the sound of hoofbeats was heard.

The rebels turned around, pausing their attack on Terseon.

“That bastard… urgh!”

An arrow from Lucifer’s hand pierced the enemy’s back.

Terseon smiled brightly, forgetting the pain in his shoulder.

“Commander!”

“Terseon!”

The time it took for Lucifer to jump off his horse and eliminate the enemies was shorter than the time Terseon had endured.

Along with the comrades who came running after. Terseon finally relaxed and began to stop the bleeding on his shoulder.

Then Lucifer asked with somewhat cold eyes, “How many rebels were there?”

“About twenty, sir.”

“Then where are the rest?”

“Well…”

“Where is the princess?”

“The rebels were targeting her… she made herself bait to disperse them.”

Lucifer’s gaze turned cold. Immediately, complaints from his comrades poured onto Terseon.

“Vice-commander, you believed that? She probably said that because she couldn’t admit she was going to rejoin the rebels and revive the duchy.”

“Good grief, did you let her go because she’s pretty? Were you bewitched by the princess?”

“You should have used the princess as a shield and held out, not lost her. Sigh, because of you, Vice-commander, we might have to return to the duchy.”

“No! She really said she was a sacrifice! That if she’s taken now, she’ll be thrown into the lake immediately, and she begged for the Commander to save her!”

Terseon’s eyes met Lucifer’s. He felt a flash of killing intent in Lucifer’s ashen eyes. Had he made a grave mistake, as his comrades suggested?

“Which way did the princess flee?”

When Lucifer slowly opened his mouth, Terseon trembled without realizing it.

“Th-that way, toward the forest…”

Lucifer glanced briefly in the direction Terseon pointed. He quickly mounted his horse.

“Huh? Commander, that’s not the right way!”

Terseon called out urgently.

But Lucifer ignored his words and rode away. Toward the middle of the hill with the large rock.