The battles that followed were a sweeping victory.

After capturing Black Rock Fortress, the kingdom’s forces were unstoppable. Rebel forces fled in terror or surrendered, and the people welcomed the prince’s return by opening their gates. 

Victory was sweet and revenge was exhilarating.

But that smooth progress was poison.

‘Red Gorge.’

The final gateway to the capital and the most treacherous terrain.

Kyrie rode into the gorge entrance and frowned. The fog was thick. The sound of hoofbeats echoed strangely muffled. A deathly silence flowed—no beast sounds, no wind. Nothing.

And that silence felt eerie to her.

“Halt!”

Kyrie raised her hand to stop the procession.

“Your Highness! Something’s wrong. The scouts haven’t returned.”

Isolet pulled the reins and stopped. His silver armor glowed dimly in the fog.

“Taking the detour wastes too much time. We need to strike before the rebels regroup.”

“But…”

Then it happened.

Fwiiing.

A sharp whistling tore through the fog. Before Kyrie could react, an arrow lodged in the throat of the knight at the front.

“An ambush! Raise shields!”

Boulders tumbled down from the cliffs. Boom! Boom! Massive rocks blocked their retreat. Simultaneously, shouts erupted from all directions.

“Take the prince’s head! K*ll the traitors!”

Rebel flags rose along every ridge of the gorge. Their numbers overwhelmed the allied forces. It was a trap. The enemy’s scheme to lure the imperial army deep and sl*ughter them with a feigned defeat.

“Form ranks! Protect the prince!”

Casian roared and drew his sword. But the terrain was too poor. Soldiers trapped in the narrow gorge fell helplessly to the rain of arrows pouring from above.

“Your Highness! This way!”

Kyrie grabbed Isolet’s reins. She’d spotted a narrow path through the rocks.

“This path leads to the forest. I’ll cover the rear, so go ahead with Commander Casian!”

“What are you saying! We go together!”

Isolet shouted at her. But Kyrie shook her head and spoke firmly.

“You’re their target, Your Highness. Without someone acting as bait to draw their attention, we’ll be annihilated.”

Her eyes held no wavering. The eyes of someone already prepared to die.

“Kyrie, you really…”

“Go! Please!”

Kyrie struck Isolet’s horse’s rear with her scabbard. The horse bolted in surprise. Isolet reached back, but Kyrie had already turned her mount around.

She threw off her helmet. Her jet-black hair scattered in the wind. She whipped her red cloak and drove her horse into the heart of the enemy formation.

“I’m here! Prince Isolet is here!”

She shouted a lie. The enemies’ gazes converged on her at once. A red cloak. Not silver armor but worn leather, yet on the chaotic battlefield, it was bait enough.

“There! Capture the prince!”

The rebels’ arrows and spears concentrated on Kyrie.

Kyrie drew her sword. She swung it like dancing. Deflecting arrows, beheading charging infantry.

One. Two. Ten. Twenty.

Her sword dance was desperate. Even as her body tore and blood sprayed, she didn’t stop. She threw herself into h*ll’s maw to buy time for Isolet to escape.

Thunk.

A spear flew from behind and struck.

“Guh!”

Kyrie tumbled from her horse. The impact of hitting the ground knocked the breath from her. She staggered to her feet. Her vision turned red.

Dozens of enemy soldiers surrounded her.

“What? It’s a woman?”

“Wasn’t it the prince?”

The enemies giggled in disappointment. Their spear tips aimed at Kyrie’s throat, but she fearlessly spat bloody saliva. She looked toward the forest. Isolet’s figure had already vanished.

‘Thank goodness.’

She smiled faintly. Blood trickled down from her lips.

‘Live… and become a wise king.’

The enemies’ spears rushed in unison. Kyrie didn’t close her eyes. With a gaze praying for her lord’s safety until the final moment, she welcomed the darkness.

The moment Isolet escaped the forest, he stopped his horse.

“Your Highness! You can’t stop!”

The guard knights cried urgently, but Isolet heard nothing. His pupils, staring blankly toward the gorge, lost focus and trembled.

The distant shouts subsided. The clang of metal, the screams—nothing could be heard anymore. It was a signal that the battle had ended. And he knew all too well what that silence meant.

She’d bought time.

Burning her own life as kindling, she’d created time for him to escape.

“Move.”

Isolet ground out quietly.

“Your Highness, if you go back now, it’s a dog’s death! This is the chance Dame Kyrie created with her life! You must join the main force…”

“I said move.”

Isolet’s eyes flashed strangely. The sound of the thread of reason he should maintain as a prince snapping seemed audible.

He roughly turned his horse around.

“If you cut off all my limbs and put a crown on me, does that make me a king? I’m just a horrible corpse. Without her… I’m nothing. Just a cripple who can’t even hold a sword.”

Isolet whipped frantically. The horse galloped, foaming at the mouth. 

The guard knights followed in confusion, but they couldn’t stop the rampaging prince. Wind cut past his cheeks like blades, but he felt no physical pain.

Only the place where his heart had been torn out ached bitterly.

* * *

The gorge he returned to was nothing short of a slaughterhouse.

The fog had lifted, but the fishy smell of blood vibrated through the air. Rebel soldiers, drunk on victory, searched through allied and enemy corpses for spoils.

Then, a silver meteor burst from the forest.

Isolet. He leaped from his horse while swinging his sword. Before even k*lling the impact of landing, his blade struck the neck of the enemy soldier at the front.

Slash.

The head shot into the air. Red blood sprayed like a fountain, staining Isolet’s white face.

“Huh? The prince! The prince returned!”

The enemies raised their weap*ns in confusion, but it was too late. Isolet wasn’t human. He was calamity given form by rage.

His swordsmanship was no longer the royal family’s elegant technique. He tore like a beast, ripped like a demon. Attacks that didn’t consider defense, a frenzied sword dance that gave flesh to take bone. Where he passed, severed limbs and corpses littered the ground.

“Die! I’ll kill them all!”

Isolet howled like a beast. His silver hair turned red, soaked in blood, and his once-noble face twisted with madness.

The rebels stepped back in terror. They couldn’t handle this mad prince who charged without fearing death. Instinctively, they began dropping their weap*ns and fleeing.

Isolet didn’t chase the fleeing enemies. Victory wasn’t his purpose. He searched through the pile of corpses like a madman, looking for someone.

“Kyrie… my Kyrie…”

His voice trembled like a child’s. Not caring that his nails broke and he became covered in dirt, he turned over corpses. Please no. Please don’t be among these cold chunks of flesh.

And finally.

He found her beside a broken wagon wheel.

Kyrie lay in a pool of blood. A broken spear protruded from her back, and her worn leather armor was tattered, exposing her skin. Her amber eyes were half-closed, staring at the ashen sky.

“Ah, ahhh…”

Isolet dropped his sword. His legs gave out and he collapsed. With trembling hands, he lifted her into his arms.

Her body was so cold.

Her body heat, always warmer than his, was cooling. That chilling sensation froze Isolet’s heart.

“Open your eyes. Please open them.”

Isolet pressed his cheek against her coldly cooling one. His tears, like chicken droppings, fell onto her face—a mess of blood and tears.

“I was wrong. You don’t have to wear dresses. You don’t have to be a knight. Just… just stay alive.”

He wailed.

Even if he had the whole world beneath his feet, it meant nothing if those eyes that held him completely went dark. 

Even if he sat on the throne receiving cheers from tens of thousands, without her he was just a lonely clown trapped in a splendid prison. She was the only ‘truth’ he possessed, the only ‘gap’ through which he could breathe in this suffocating world.

“Kugh!”

A black clot of blood gushed from Isolet’s mouth, staining Kyrie’s chest. The price for forcibly drawing extreme mana. His heart beat irregularly, threatening to burst, and blood flowed from his eyes and nose as his blood vessels couldn’t withstand it.

He recalled the earlier battle. The moment he sensed Kyrie was in danger, he’d committed the taboo of burning his life force to let his mana run wild. Enduring the agony of his blood vessels burning inside, he’d run over enemy corpses solely to reach her.

Kyrie was the only being worth preserving even by shaving away his own life.

With trembling hands, he pressed his ear to her chest. He heard a heartbeat so faint it could stop any moment. But it was still beating.

“…Your Highness…”

Suddenly, a crumbling whisper came from her.

But even at that tiny sound, Isolet’s head snapped up. Kyrie’s lips were moving just slightly. Her unfocused eyes turned toward him.

“You should’ve… escaped… foolishly… why did you… come back…”

She was alive and scolding him. Even that scolding sounded like heavenly music to Isolet.

“Yes. I’m a fool. An idiot who can’t do anything without you.”

Isolet held her tightly in his arms. His fingertips turned white with the fear of breaking her and the longing to never let go again.

Then, an inexplicable impulse overwhelmed him.

He wanted to confirm she was alive. Not simply by seeing with his eyes, but by swallowing her breath, her warmth into himself. In this h*ll vibrating with the smell of death, he wanted to prove that only she was his life.

Isolet roughly bent his head.

His lips crashed onto Kyrie’s bloodless lips.

“Mmph…!”

It wasn’t a romantic kiss. It was Isolet’s soundless scream, a ritual of life breathed by the survivor into the dying.

Isolet bit her lower lip like a beast. The fishy taste of blood spread through his mouth. That blood taste was so vivid, so hot that Isolet shuddered.

He thrust his tongue in to ravage her mouth. Sharing breath, sucking in her remaining breath. Tracing her palate, entangling tongues, he tried not to miss even a single faint breath she exhaled.

Kyrie’s mouth was cold, but heat bloomed wherever Isolet’s tongue touched. He licked each of her teeth, confirming her existence.

“Haa… Your… Highness…”

Kyrie’s hand rose with difficulty and gripped his clothes. Whether trying to push away or pull closer—an ambiguous weak touch, yet to Isolet that touch felt like a desperate plea for salvation, craving life.

He bent his head without hesitation. He roughly pressed his lips over her coldly cooled lips.