When the yawning black pit appeared before his eyes, Shed knew at once he was dreaming.

The nightmare was too familiar.

He hadn’t had it for some time, but because of her, the old memories must have been stirred awake.

Shed stood still, staring down into the pit of darkness.

Then, from within that pitch‑black void, blood‑soaked corpses rose, shrieking.

“Save us, Shed!”

Hands clawed upward from the pit—faces too mangled to recognize. One reached out with a wrist hacked clean away, another screamed with a neck bent at an unnatural angle.

‘D*mn it.’

He’d seen this nightmare too many times to count, and yet in it, his heart still pounded so violently it felt ready to burst.

The thunderous beat, rattling with fear and dread, disgusted him.

‘If you’re dead, then just leave me alone.’

He wanted to rip the cursed heart out of his chest.

Hadn’t it gone on long enough?

Eight years had passed. And still, every time he slept, his throat would tighten as if he were about to vomit.

He no longer felt much of anything, yet the chaos behind his eyes forced tears to fall — hot drops splattering down like some pathetic farce.

Like some wretched melodrama, tears streamed endlessly from eyes that no longer knew why they wept.

He wanted to carve out those useless tear ducts.

As always, he lowered his head.

At his feet lay a broken statuette of a guardian — the little figure he had once given his brother as a gift.

“Shed, I told you to be careful!”

A man lunged from the pit, clutching his throat.

His face was crushed beyond recognition, but Shed knew exactly who it was.

The man strangling him was his brother.

The one he had trusted and followed above all others—Pamen Lupus.

His voice, raw with hatred, cried out at the coward who had survived.

This was no dream.

It was memory.

The pit was filled with the corpses of the Lupus clan.

His brother, his friends, his comrades—men thought missing, mangled beyond even recognition.

He had found them in a mass grave behind the lands of House Ideana.

The count’s knights had dumped the dead Lupus like livestock into that pit.

Eight years ago, on that day, Shed Lupus had lost everything.

The tears still would not stop, dripping down one after another. His heart throbbed as though stabbed by a blade. And yet… he was bored.

Like a story he’d read a thousand times, there was no thrill left.

‘It should be about time to wake up.’

Strangled by his dead brother, Shed thought with weary detachment. This was usually where the nightmare ended. He would wake, only to spend the rest of the night steeped in filth and unease.

But then—

“Did you truly believe that, as nothing more than a mere Lupus, you ever mattered at all?”

The world around him dimmed, and suddenly—she was there.

Golden hair gleaming. Clear green eyes shining like crystal.

The suddenness of her appearance froze Shed in place.

‘Why are you here…?’

This was a dream he had never had before.

Luise Ideana gazed straight at him, her face serene and expression unruffled, as though his turmoil were nothing.

He could not look away. If he looked away, she would vanish like smoke.

Instead, his lips moved soundlessly before a strangled voice forced its way out.

“You knew, didn’t you? That my brother and my comrades were being slaughtered by Ideana? You must have known about all those deaths.”

At his desperate plea, Luise Ideana smiled. The very smile he had once loved.

“They were just Lupus, weren’t they?”

Her head tilted ever so slightly, her voice lilting softly, like reciting a poem, and for that, it was all the more cruel.

To Ideana, the Lupus were nothing more than slaves. Disposable.

“Luise!”

Fury consumed him. He lunged at her but his reaching hand grasped nothing.

Like a cruel jest, she vanished in an instant, dissolving into a wavering mirage.

‘No! If you vanish like this, what will I have left? What am I to do with all my rage—and all my despair?’

“—Hah!”

Shed jolted upright.

The darkness pressed in around him; for a moment he couldn’t tell if he was still trapped in the dream or finally awake.

Breath ragged, he yanked the white blanket off his body and clenched his fist tight.

“D*mn it…!”

The veins bulged across the back of his hand. A filthy dream. Filthier than the nightmares he usually endured.

His heart pounded as though he had just run at full speed.

He lifted his head towards the window. It was too early for sunrise; night was at its deepest.

Soon, the long journey back to Ideana would begin again. This would be the last time he could sleep in a comfortable bed.

But after that nightmare, he could not sleep.

He got up and poured water into an empty cup. His throat moved several times as he forced the liquid down. Yet the lukewarm liquid did nothing to ease the weight pressing deep inside his chest.

He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair and frowned. No matter how often he steadied his breathing, the unease refused to fade. It felt as though he had missed something vital.

She pulled on a robe and walked to the window. Those who had been packing late into the night had already left to grab a few hours’ rest before the long day ahead.

The world was smothered in silence, as if nothing had happened at all. And yet, a single word shattered the stillness of his dawn.

‘Ideana.’

The cursed word lodged in his mind like an arrowhead, refusing to be dislodged.

He thought of her, the woman whose green eyes had trembled with fear, the woman who had vanished from his dream like smoke. The woman who kept stirring his unrest.

“There are times, my lord, when you truly seem like a beast.”

He remembered the day Hedrick, reckless as ever, had said those words to him.

“How did you know the enemy was hiding there?”

That day, with no intelligence, no signs to follow, he had found the enemy solely by instinct. They had called it sorcery, the way he cut them down. It wasn’t magic.

Just instinct.

Eclace said it was the result of endless calculations and a mind honed by years of survival. This included the days when he was forced to take part in hunts and battles against monsters as a slave.

He clawed his way through disaster after disaster just to survive.

Call it instinct, call it a magical ability, call it deduction — the name didn’t matter. What mattered was that it had saved his life countless times.

And now, that same sense was warning him again.

He could not ignore the chill in the air.

He pulled his robe tighter around him and stepped into the corridor. Everyone was asleep.

There was no sign of Steward Werner or the knights. It seemed that they were all conserving their strength for the long march due to begin at sunrise.

She hadn’t bothered to wake anyone else. There was only one thing he needed to confirm, and it would be simple enough. Besides, he wouldn’t rest easy unless he saw it with his own eyes: Liana Serpens.

They said the new maid had been given a small room separate from the others. Since her sudden arrival, she had been sleeping on a cot in a storage room at the back.

He made his way towards that room.

The path leading there was pitch black. All the lamps had been extinguished, so he could only rely on his eyes, which were accustomed to the dark. Through the faint glow of moonlight seeping past the clouds, he remembered the curse of his bond with Ideana.

‘Liana Serpens…’

He had repeated the name to himself countless times. And yet, it never sat right on his tongue.

Luise Ideana.

That was the name that truly suited her — it felt familiar and natural. However, if he dared to call her that, he wouldn’t be able to keep hold of her. She was the daughter of Count Felix Ideana, the traitor who had studied black magic. A branded sinner. A woman who deserved death.

‘And I won’t let her die so easily.’

If news spread that Luise Ideana was alive, she would be dragged away instantly. And the revenge he had waited years for would be stolen from his hands.

He reached the back of the manor and entered the cramped storeroom where the linen was kept. The air smelled faintly of soap, and the shelves were stacked high with freshly washed sheets.

He stopped at the door.

“Hah.”

A short breath escaped him. He had marched here with such force, yet now he stood outside her room like a servant awaiting permission, bowing his head. Like a slave before a lady’s chamber. The old habit, ingrained eight years ago, had returned unbidden, tightening his chest with tension.

Eight years. And yet, here he was. This was his domain now. She was his.

Grinding his teeth against the cursed reflex, Shed pushed the door open with a violent shove. He didn’t care if the maid woke up in fright.

The hinges screamed as the door burst open. A sharp dawn breeze rushed inside, sweeping through the small space. It swirled around once, then left only emptiness behind.

Empty. Utterly, mercilessly empty.

On the narrow single bed lay a neatly folded white blanket. It was so neat it was mocking.

Just as his chilling intuition had warned.

That intuition swiftly twisted into rage.

The doorknob splintered under his tightening grip with a crack. He left the door flung wide and strode back into the manor.

“Carlisle!”

His voice thundered through the vast hall, shattering the stillness of the dawn.

He stormed up the stairs, put on a jacket, and grabbed the sword that was always kept by his bed. Each of his movements was filled with fury.

A moment later, Sir Carlisle came rushing in, his shirt half-buttoned and his breath coming in gasps.

“My lord, what has happened?”

Carlisle wasn’t the only one who came running — other knights and Steward Werner soon followed. They feared an assassination attempt on their lord. But Shed’s chamber was spotless; there wasn’t a drop of blood to be found anywhere.

“Ready the horses.”

Carlisle bowed his head before the bloodshot eyes of his lord.