His voice grew thick with emotion. It was closer to a plea than anger.

‘Please, stop me. Hold me back. Tell me you don’t need the kingdom—just tell me to stay by your side.’

Isolet’s blue eyes screamed these words. Kyrie couldn’t look straight into those eyes. If she did, the oath she’d spent her entire life building would crumble.

So she made the cruelest choice a knight could make.

Thud.

Kyrie dropped to her knees at Isolet’s feet. The cold stone floor’s chill crept up through her knees. She bowed her head, staring at the toe of her lord and lover’s shoe.

“Your Highness.”

Her voice was dry. The perfect voice of a vassal, stripped of all emotion.

“I am your sword. A sword must cut down anything for its lord’s glory. Even if that something is… my own heart.”

“…Kyrie.”

“Please, become the sun. Shine from the highest place. On the day Your Highness ascends the throne, I will gladly become the shadow cast beneath your feet.”

Isolet’s hand stopped in midair. The hand that had been reaching for Kyrie’s shoulder dropped limply.

Her loyalty was noble. But to the man who loved her, it was the most terrible blasphemy. She was trying to buy him a crown by offering her love as a sacrifice.

Isolet remained silent for a long while.

The air in the room grew cold. When he finally spoke, his voice was frozen colder than the northern wind.

“…Fine. If that’s truly what you want.”

He turned away. His silver-white hair scattered through the air.

“I’ll become the king you wanted so badly. Just like you wish, I’ll sell my body to reclaim your homeland.”

Isolet walked toward the window without bothering to pick up the fallen chair.

“Summon the Herald again.”

Kyrie closed her eyes, her forehead pressed to the floor. The inside of her eyelids burned hot.

“…I obey your command.”

When she stood up, Isolet was staring only out the window. His face reflected in the glass wasn’t crying, but his soul was already shattered into pieces.

Kyrie walked toward the door with staggering steps. A single droplet fell onto the rough scars covering her palm gripping the door handle. But she didn’t wipe it away. Knights never learned how to cry.

Outside the fortress, the eagle banner fluttered. It seemed like the beating wings of the enormous fate were about to swallow them whole.

* * *

Preparations for departure proceeded in silence.

The fortress air hung heavier than the day before. Only the sounds of porters loading supplies onto worn carts and horses snorting puffs of breath scattered beneath the gray sky.

Kyrie sat in a corner of the armory, tending to her sword. The rhythmic sound of steel grinding against whetstone rang out. Scrape. Scrape. It sounded like the shaving away of time to come.

Her sword was unsightly. Not the ornate rapier used by the royal guard, but a crude b*stard sword like those wielded by northern mercenaries. The blade had countless nicks, and the leather grip had turned black from soaking in sweat and blood.

It resembled her life. An ugly piece of iron that existed only to slash and stab.

“You plan to take that thing?”

She sensed a presence behind her. Kyrie answered without stopping her sharpening.

“It’s part of me.”

Isolet stood leaning against the armory doorframe. He wore a traveling cloak—the deep navy fur made his pale skin stand out even more, making him look more like a nobleman. He looked down at Kyrie’s worn sword with furrowed eyes.

“Once we reach the Empire, you won’t need that scrap metal. The palace knights wear ceremonial swords studded with jewels. Walking around with that hideous thing will only earn you mockery.”

“I’m used to mockery.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Isolet strode forward and grabbed Kyrie’s wrist. The sharpening stopped. His hand was cold, but when it touched Kyrie’s warm body heat, it created a burning sensation.

“Kyrie, once we arrive at the Empire, I intend to give you a new status.”

Kyrie’s amber eyes wavered.

“A new… status, you say?”

“That’s right. I can’t let you live anymore doing menial tasks behind me under the title of a guard. Whether I have you adopted into a count’s family or create forged identification papers, I’ll make you a woman of respectable society. You’ll wear dresses, dance at balls, and live laughing and chatting like ordinary noble ladies.”

Isolet seemed to believe this was the best consideration he could offer her. The determination to pull her from blood-soaked battlefields and transplant her into a fragrant garden. It was one form of the love he could give.

But to Kyrie, those words were no different from a death sentence.

Ten years ago, on that snow-covered battlefield, the only reason he—then a young boy—had picked her up was because she was a ‘useful blade.’

‘Do you want to live?’

The memory from the past cut through her like a dagger.

It had been snowing heavily that day too.

A day when the entire world had turned pale white.

The blood of the dead melted the snow, then snow covered it again in an endless cycle at the edge of the battlefield. Sixteen-year-old Kyrie had been buried in a pile of corpses.

She had no name. No parents, no affiliation. Just a piece of trash dropped by a passing mercenary band. A meat shield used as an arrow-catcher who’d survived by luck. That’s what she was.

“…Still breathing, I see.”

The voice from above was cold like ice.

Kyrie forced open her blurry vision. Had the god of death come to collect her? But the being standing before her was far too small to be a reaper, and far too beautiful.

Hair whiter than snow.

Eyes painfully blue, seemingly absorbing all the light in the world.

A boy who looked barely ten years old. Wearing a nobleman’s cloak with luxurious fur, the boy radiated an incongruous nobility that didn’t match the filthy pile of corpses at all. 

Armed knights stood in formation behind the boy, but he’d dismissed them, annoyed by their escort, and stood alone.

Kyrie instinctively grabbed a broken dagger lying beside her. She wanted to live. She wanted to survive, slit that clean-clothed brat’s throat, and steal whatever jerky might be in his pockets. It was a beast’s k*lling intent.

“Ha.”

The boy—Isolet—sensed her bloodlust but didn’t avoid it. Instead, he twisted his lips into a smile. That smile didn’t belong to a child.

“Do you want to live?”

Isolet asked.

“…”

“I’m asking. Do you want to live?”

Instead of answering, Kyrie swung the dagger. But her body, starved for days, only cut through empty air. She crashed face-first into the dirt. It was a pathetic sight. The knights immediately moved to rush in, but Isolet raised his hand to stop them.

The boy knelt down in the mud and met eyes with her as she panted like a beast. Her wretched figure reflected in his sapphire-like eyes.

“Good eyes. I like them—like a starving wild dog.”

“…Food… give me…”

“You want food? Or do you want life?”

Isolet pulled out a piece of jerky from his coat and waved it before her eyes. Kyrie’s eyes rolled back. She reached out, but Isolet threw the jerky into the mud. Then he trampled it with his leather boot.

“Eat it.”

“…”

“Got some pride left? Then starve to death.”

Kyrie didn’t hesitate. She crawled to Isolet’s feet and frantically stuffed the mud-covered piece of jerky into her mouth. Sand crunched between her teeth and it tasted of fishy dirt, but she didn’t care. Watching her chew, Isolet whispered softly.

“That’s right. That’s how you survive. Even if you have to crawl on the ground, even if you have to lick someone’s feet.”

He stood up. His small hand tapped Kyrie’s cheek lightly. It was less a compliment than a mark of ownership.

“If you want to live, prove it. Prove you’re worth more than the corpses you’d be gnawing on. Become my hunting dog—bark when told to bark, bite when told to bite. Then I’ll let you live.”

It wasn’t salvation but a transaction. A contract for survival.

Kyrie wiped the mud from her mouth and looked up at the young lord gazing down at her. She didn’t yet realize that those blue eyes would become her leash.

‘If h*ll exists, it must be here.’

Kyrie fell asleep—no, passed out—thinking this every night.

Isolet brought her to the castle, but he didn’t give her a warm room. The place assigned to her was a warehouse next to the knights’ stables, covered with straw. Her daily routine began before sunrise.

“Again!”

The knight commander’s wooden sword struck Kyrie’s ribs. She tumbled across the ground with a grunt. Her entire body was covered in bruises. It felt like her ribs had cracked, but she couldn’t rest.

On the second-floor terrace of the training grounds, Isolet was always there.

He sat in a chair reading books or drinking tea, occasionally glancing down at her as she crashed into the dirt.

His gaze was indifferent.

It seemed to ask, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

Every time she saw that look, Kyrie gritted her teeth and stood back up. If she collapsed here, she’d return to that pile of corpses. Useless hunting dogs only get disposed of.

“Get up! His Highness is watching!”

She gripped the wooden sword again. The blisters on her palms burst, blood flowing out and soaking the handle.

Over three changing seasons, Kyrie learned how to kill before she learned how to speak. She mastered striking vital points before learning etiquette. She didn’t converse with anyone in the castle. Her world contained only the enemies testing her and Isolet observing it all.

It was a rainy day.

Kyrie defeated one of the formal knights in a training bout for the first time. The moment she held her wooden sword to her opponent’s throat, gasping for breath, applause echoed from the second-floor terrace.

Clap, clap, clap.

A slow, dry applause was heard.