But the moment he saw the light Alicia emitted, Roshan realized. Alicia would certainly heal Yerena. The bursting light was brighter than any he had ever seen before.

The eyes of Jane and the physician, who were outside the bedroom, also widened. The golden light was so bright that even the cloth hung over the arched doorway of the bedroom couldn’t block it.

The light, which by itself could make one call out to the goddess, began to gather around Alicia’s arms and soon her hands. Then, creating a golden wave, it moved like a living thing and wrapped tightly around Yerena’s arms.

The mass of light transferred from hand to hand soon spread throughout Yerena’s body. It reached her hair, which swayed gently as if mimicking the light.

Even Roshan, who rarely showed surprise, opened his eyes wide and watched the scene unfolding before him. After some time had passed, the light that had been enveloping Yerena burst once at her injured hand and then moved toward her closed eyes.

Roshan stared at this with bulging eyes. Something seemed wrong. The light lingering around Yerena’s eyes bothered him.

“Priestess.”

He opened his mouth and called to Alicia. But she maintained her initial posture and said nothing. Roshan belatedly noticed blood dripping from between her tightly clenched lips.

“Heok……!”

The minute hand of the clock had rotated more than halfway. Alicia released the sleeping Yerena’s hand with unstable breathing and blood spewing out, as if she might collapse at any moment. Simultaneously, the light gradually subsided, and Yerena’s expression, which had been stiff with pain, relaxed.

Roshan felt relieved seeing the color return to her cheeks and lips. Her breathing had also become much slower and more stable, indicating her pain had subsided.

“Well done. As I said before, I’ll grant whatever you wish within my power.”

Roshan turned around and spoke to Alicia. Again, she couldn’t respond. Instead, she bowed deeply and covered her face with her hands.

* * *

Her head felt like it was about to split. Yerena wandered in a hazy consciousness, unable to lift her eyelids, which felt heavier than iron.

The remnants of a nightmare still tormented her at the boundary between reality and dreams. She twisted her body, trying somehow to wake up. But the nightmare, as if making its final struggle, gradually approached her in the form of her blood-soaked family.

‘No! Mother. Don’t go!’

Though she recognized it as a dream, witnessing her family’s final moments was agonizing. Yerena shouted at her mother, who was crumbling. Then her mother, who had been lying limp like a corpse, seemed to rise in a grotesque manner and approached her, blood flowing from empty eye sockets. Startled, Yerena gasped. And simultaneously, she fully awoke from the dream.

‘Where is this……’

Though she knew she wouldn’t be able to see, as usual when waking up, she raised and lowered her stiff eyelids several times. But something flickered before her eyes. It was a light very similar to the fireflies she had seen in the garden one night, holding her brothers’ hands.

‘Huh?’

Thinking it must be an illusion, Yerena remained dazed for a moment when the light didn’t disappear, then began to focus on the light before her eyes.

‘The lighting……?’

The mass of light never stayed still. Looking at it carefully, it moved very gently, creating the shapes of objects. Though the only colors were the darkness she had seen since becoming blind and the contrasting golden light, they were clearly depicting the forms of things. Yerena turned her motionless head very slightly. Then she saw masses of light shaking erratically from the side, drawing something.

‘What is this……’

Only then did she begin to somewhat comprehend what was happening to her. Though in a bizarre form, she could see. There were no colors, and due to the constantly moving light, she couldn’t see details like patterns or wrinkles, but she could at least discern what objects were.

As she blinked in surprise, unable to react, and began to twitch her fingers slightly, there was a rustling sound from beside her, followed by a man’s low voice that awakened her dazed mind,

“……Are you awake?”

* * *

“Lady Alicia. If you’re very tired, why not rest inside?”

“That’s right. Do you know how unwell you look right now?”

Alicia shook her head. Supporting herself with trembling legs, she asked Jael and Juul,

“Juul. Jael. Please help support me.”

Juul and Jael quickly stood on either side of Alicia. They gently took her arms and supported her.

With their help, Alicia stepped outside. During this process, she nearly fell when her hem caught under her foot, but Jael quickly held her firmly, preventing a fall.

“Be careful.”

Juul also supported Alicia with stronger force as they walked. After taking a few steps with the two, Alicia stopped abruptly before reaching the stairs.

“Are there stairs ahead?”

“What?”

Jael reflexively questioned Alicia’s inquiry. Though Alicia was said to be blind, she had no significant difficulties in daily life. Her early training after losing her eyes as a child had helped, but above all, she often used her holy power to see.

Most people, unaware of this fact, pitied her. Alicia didn’t go out of her way to tell them she could see, so many even within the temple misunderstood that she couldn’t see.

But Juul and Jael, who had been with Alicia for a long time, knew she didn’t greatly need others’ help in daily life. Not only that, but befitting a priestess fully blessed by the goddess, Alicia could even read and write despite her missing eyes. Of course, when doing so, she would tire very quickly, sometimes even gasping for breath.

“……I’ve nearly exhausted my holy power, so I can’t see anything right now.”

“Ah……”

At Alicia’s brief explanation, Jael finally nodded and looked at Juul. After exchanging glances, the two supported Alicia more carefully and guided her.

“The stairs start here.”

At Juul’s words, Alicia cautiously extended her foot. But her attempt to descend the stairs failed as she misstepped.

“Ah!”

“Lady Alicia! Are you alright?”

Startled, Alicia screamed and sat down. Juul and Jael, finding her trembling both unfamiliar and concerning, bent their waists to examine her.

“Lady Alicia?”

Alicia was holding her face with both palms. After a moment, when she raised her head, her blindfold slipped down, revealing eyes that had been sewn shut with beads. Turning her face toward the direction of Yerena’s room, she murmured in a weak voice,

“It was my choice, so why…… Goddess. Please forgive me for my greed.”

* * *

The heir of the radiant queen died. The girl who was born first between Helena and the blue-haired elf Raul, who wore the crown of crown princess, slipped and drowned in a lake on her sixteenth birthday.

‘It’s all your fault, Mother! Father’s death too! And my eyes becoming like this!’

The last words the fifteen-year-old blind girl spoke to her mother were full of resentment. The radiant queen wept bitterly, clutching her chest as she closed the eyes of her daughter who lay dead with a bluish pallor.

‘Rosaline Sedas. I appoint you as my successor.’

But the queen still didn’t think her daughter had gone blind and died because of the mage’s curse. So she gave the scepter of succession to her second daughter, who became the eldest in place of her sister.

‘Y-Your Majesty! Something terrible has happened. Rosaline…… Princess Rosaline……’

‘What about Rosaline?’

As if mocking the radiant queen, her second daughter also went blind not long after. Then she lost her life on her seventeenth birthday. Her last words were also resentment toward Helena, along with a s*icide note saying she couldn’t bear the nightmares of her sister.

‘Find the mage! Call the sorcerers! Find someone who can break the curse, whether they’re a different race or human!’

Only then did the radiant queen clearly recall the curse of the blind mage.

‘You and all your future daughters, all princesses of Sedas will be like me. The radiant princess will be cursed. She will go blind and drown in tears from her eye sockets, struggling until she eventually strangles herself with her own hands.’

The curse wasn’t directed at her alone. Her daughters were also tightly bound by the noose of the curse.

Despite the radiant queen’s efforts, her daughters continued to fade away. The third daughter threw herself off a cliff after receiving a unilateral letter of broken engagement from a prince of some country after going blind. Her last words were also resentment toward her mother Helena.

‘I was wrong. Punish me! Blind my eyes and stab a dagger into my heart! Please…… Not this child. Rachel is my only remaining child.’

Helena clutched her only remaining youngest daughter and begged the blind mage, her former lover and betrayed subject who was watching her like a curse. But instead of answering, the blind mage continued his traceless t*rture, draining her blood.

‘M-Mother…… Like my sisters, I too, I too, my eyes……’

Several years passed. The queen’s youngest daughter went blind at nineteen. And she endured for 364 days after turning twenty. It was the day before she would turn twenty-one.

‘Mother. Don’t worry. I’ll overcome all of this.’

Unlike her sisters, the youngest daughter’s last words were comforting. She who always smiled and never showed pessimism about her situation in front of her mother was suffering from sleepwalking due to anxiety she swallowed alone. The queen witnessed her youngest daughter’s end as she threw herself from the top of the palace with a blank face and screamed.

‘No! It can’t be! Not this child! Aack!’

The radiant queen cried out. Her daughter’s blood from her head soaked her. Yet even then, she had to watch everything without going blind herself.

The radiant queen wished that her eyes would go blind. But her jewel-like eyes became even clearer, making her witness the tragedy that had struck.