Chapter 2
The sun of the Bernice Empire never set.
It was the most arrogant, and at the same time the most truthful, of the countless phrases used to praise the sovereign power of the continent.
Of course, it did not mean that night never came to the Empire—that Heaven itself had been defied.
It meant that when one sun fell, another would rise to fill the empty sky, and so the Empire would shine forever.
And now, at this very moment, one of those suns was receiving a funeral procession.
“The Empire has lost one sun—”
The imperial funeral hall had sunk so deep into silence that even the faintest breath felt like a disturbance. Cutting through the black mourning clothes of the guests, the bishop’s solemn voice rang out.
He paused for a moment, then continued in the same rehearsed, mechanical cadence.
“But another sun will rise to fill the void—”
Clench.
At those words, Silvia Bernice’s fist tightened until it turned white.
The bishop’s voice, devoid of even a shred of feeling, scraped at her nerves like a blade. Beneath the carefully tailored sleeve of her black mourning dress, eyes like jewels trembling in the dark shimmered with faint ripples.
“And the Empire will continue to shine brightly.”
Whoosh—
The instant that declaration ended, pale white flames blossomed atop the coffin placed at the very front of the hall.
Soundless and heatless, the sacred fire writhed like a living thing and slowly began to consume the birch coffin.
Every gaze in the hall turned at once toward the coffin swallowed in flame. That strange blaze, which gave off no warmth at all, was an imperial secret art that burned only the soul of the dead and guided it to the heavens.
Creaaak—
Watching the white flame grow more violent by the second, Silvia dug her fingernails into her tender flesh.
He was in there. But not in the form she knew—only his cold, lifeless body was being reduced to a handful of ash.
At last, she stiffly turned her head. Where her gaze landed was the portrait placed in front of the coffin.
[Evan Erche]
A silver-haired man staring straight ahead with a face so expressionless that no feeling could be read from it. Silvia traced the name engraved beneath it again and again with her eyes.
Evan…
The eldest son of the House of Erche. Commander of the imperial knight order, said to be the strongest in the Empire. And her fiancé. A man who had burned at every moment with the most beautiful light among the Empire’s countless suns. All the titles that had once described him now felt like nothing more than the bishop’s hollow echo.
Crackle— crackle—
Silvia stared at the birch coffin, which by now had lost all shape and become part of the white flames.
The official announcement said he had been killed after falling prey to a diversionary attack by monsters while deployed to the northern front of the continent.
That he had no imperial blood in him did not matter; the funeral was being held in the imperial funeral hall because he was, by all ceremonial definition, no different from the emperor’s own family. Everything was proceeding according to protocol.
But—
…Lies.
Silvia gritted her teeth. The Evan she knew was not a man who would fall for some monster’s scheme.
He had left this time too with an easy smile, as if it were nothing more than another long business trip.
And what returned was a mangled corpse beyond recognition.
A body hacked apart dozens, hundreds of times, as though someone had vented their fury on it. Too brutal to be the work of monsters, and somehow, terribly unnatural.
Squeeze.
“Silvia.”
“…Mother.”
Silvia noticed the hand gently enclosing her fist and loosened her grip before glancing to the side.
It was her mother.
The moment Silvia saw her face, tears welled in her eyes, but she bit down hard and swallowed them back.
In a place this crowded, the imperial princess could not afford to show tears.
Forcing her gaze away, she politely slipped her hand from her mother’s and slowly steadied her breathing. Then, with a hard expression, she swept her eyes across the hall.
The emperor and the other royals, the ministers of every department, the heads of the great noble houses that upheld the Empire. The power holders of the Empire had all gathered to mourn one man’s death.
Yet it was difficult to find any real sorrow among their expressions. Some wore duty. Some wore curiosity. Others… wore relief as they watched the white flames.
To let emotion show carelessly in a place like this would be like baring a wound before a pack of hungry wolves.
Evan wouldn’t have wanted to see her like that either.
Evan.
Silvia turned back toward the white flames that had nearly consumed the coffin.
Evan was no longer in this world.
The bright smile he had reserved only for her.
The silver hair that, when they kissed, would naturally mingle with her own platinum locks.
The steady voice that had told her, without hesitation, that no matter what happened, he would always stand by her side.
She could no longer see him, hear him, or touch him.
Something a maid had once said came back to her.
Losing the person you love is like losing a part of the world itself.
At the time, she had thought it sentimental nonsense. But now she understood.
She was watching half of her world turn to ash and disappear before her eyes.
“Ha... shit.”
With a trembling breath, one tear finally slipped down her cheek. And once it broke free, it would not stop.
Drip, drip—
Against her earlier resolve, tears spilled endlessly from Silvia’s eyes.
Squeeze.
Silvia turned around and held her mother’s hand even more tightly in return. It was no use trying to stop herself, no matter how hard she pinched her lips together and wrinkled her lovely face.
This was the first time she had ever known such agonizing loss. It was a pain too heavy to bear alone, without Evan.
Embrace.
In the end, unable to contain her tears any longer, the empress pulled her daughter wordlessly into her arms. Even in her mother’s embrace, Silvia’s eyes never left the white flames.
As though she were desperately praying that, beyond that blinding fire, he would appear again.
*
It was a night when the full moon had risen, but its light could not reach the ground because thick clouds obscured it.
The day darkness covered the world in the truest sense of the word.
Thwuk—
“Khhk—!”
Along with the skin-crawling sound of something being pierced through its soft flesh, a scream of pain tore through the air.
Thud.
With that dying cry, the guard’s body went limp and collapsed to the ground. A pair of blood-red eyes watched from within the pitch-black darkness.
Eyes floating in the air, burning with rage.
Those bastard wolves are already here…!
Whoooosh—
Cabin turned without hesitation and flew toward the mansion at full speed.
What entered his vision as he sliced through the damp night wind were lights trembling like mirages.
Dozens, no, hundreds of eyes were racing toward the mansion out of the darkness. A pack of wolves, charging with nothing but instinct to guide them.
“Damn it.”
Cabin clenched his teeth. So the wolves had really chosen an all-out war after all. The elder’s prediction—that neither side would dare move because a clash would leave them both catastrophically damaged—had been wrong in the worst possible way.
“Elder!”
Slipping through a broken window and into the mansion, Cabin searched for the elder in a panic. The elder, standing in the center of the foyer, turned to look at him with a calm expression, as if he had already known everything.
“Eli’s been taken down! The wolves are storming the mansion! Those mad bastards—!”
“Cabin. Calm yourself.”
“But at this rate—!”
Cabin could not understand the elder’s infuriatingly composed attitude. They needed to reinforce the barriers around the mansion immediately and gather whoever remained to prepare for battle.
“The mansion is already defenseless.”
“…What?”
“Every barrier and trap of the family has been disabled.”
“What do you mean by that… How could that happen?”
Cabin could not believe what he was hearing. He had spotted the wolves’ intrusion and flown back at once. No one should have been able to sabotage the mansion’s defenses before him. Which meant there was only one answer if this wasn’t an outside breach.
“There was a traitor within. The explanation is long. I’ve already ordered the others to leave this place and survive however they can.”
“…!”
From the elder’s words, stripped of even the will to resist, Cabin sensed that something irreversible had happened.
“Then you mean this mansion….”
“Yes. We must abandon it.”
“No way…!”
Cabin felt both confusion and rage at once.
What place was this? The mansion of the Meyer family, one of the few vampire bloodlines left, a house that carried the true blood of the original progenitor. And they were giving up that stronghold so hopelessly, so pathetically?
“I was too complacent. Cabin. Curse me if you must. I never imagined the people I trusted most would stab us in the back like this.”
“....”
Cabin had no words in response to the elder’s self-mocking tone.
The elder’s words seemed to be true.
He could already feel no presence inside the mansion at all.
Just as the elder had said, everyone had already left.
“You should go as well. Of all of us, you’re the fastest. You can still escape.”
“And what about you, Elder…?”
“Ho ho. That doesn’t mean I can do nothing as well. I’ll have to take one last gamble, won’t I?”
“…Then I’ll stay with you.”
Cabin said it firmly. The elder he knew was not the kind of man who would simply surrender everything like this.
Perhaps, beneath even his own understanding, some faint trace of hope had stirred at the word gamble.
The elder looked into Cabin’s eyes for a moment, then gave a soft, weary laugh and nodded.
“Then hurry and follow me.”
The elder’s steps, once he had made up his mind, held no hesitation.
Without delay, he descended into the basement of the mansion and opened the door to the stone chamber below, the one said to be accessible only to those permitted within.
“Elder, why are we going here?”
“There is an old legend in the Meyer family. It is a secret and glorious legend, known only to those who have not betrayed our bloodline.”
The elder entered the chamber as if it were a familiar path, then took the spiral stairs downward into even deeper darkness.
He moved so quickly that Cabin had no choice but to hurry after him.
“A legend?”
“Just as I said. It is said that when the clan faces a crisis of survival and extinction, there comes a chance to awaken the one who bestowed power upon us long ago and then fell into a deep and endless sleep.”
The elder went on quickly, as if reciting the words to himself. Even in this life-or-death situation, a strange smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
“The being who is both the beginning and the end of our race. The absolute ruler before whom all things kneel. It was said that waking that one from slumber would herald the destruction of the clan… but in our current situation, that would be a bargain indeed. Ho ho.”
“Wh-what?”
Beginning and end? The destruction of the clan?
Cabin, following the elder’s back as he muttered incomprehensible things, nearly collided with him when he suddenly stopped.
Wobbling, Cabin straightened himself and looked ahead over the elder’s shoulder.
At the end of the stairs, a huge coffin made of stone waited.
“There it is.”
“Elder…?”
“Ho ho. We have no time. Judging by that undignified sound of hearts pounding, the wolves must already be right on top of us.”
The moment the elder finished speaking, a chilling sound came from just beyond his shoulder.
Fwoosh—!
“Ah…?”
“Ghk, haa… ho ho….”
“E-elder…?”
It was the same sound Cabin had heard when Eli was taken down—the sound of a wolf’s claw piercing through Eli’s body.
He hadn’t imagined it.
The sticky, horrifying sound of flesh being ripped open was unmistakably close at hand.
“Please, my blood… as an offering.”
Drip, drip, drip—
Cabin could only stare blankly at the scene before him. Dark red blood gushing from the elder’s chest splattered like rain over the stone coffin.
“I beg for… the chance to avenge us.”
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The elder, already collapsing to his knees, shoved the lid of the coffin aside with the last of his strength.
“Our true ancestor… my Lord.”
With one final word forced out of his failing body, the elder fell forward and collapsed.
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