Chapter 328: Tomb of the Snake (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 328: Tomb of the Snake (6)
Unwavering footsteps approached through the silence.
When one loses their sight, their thoughts tend to multiply. Thus, even in the brief moment it took for those footsteps to draw near, stray thoughts crept into Meilin’s mind. She had spent days submerged in darkness, yet even as the sound came so close, she still couldn’t see a thing. Perhaps, she mused, the saying about humans adapting to any environment wasn’t entirely true.
— Fwoosh!
Then, the moment the footsteps stopped, her thoughts were cut short.
A sudden, bright light illuminated the abyss-like space. Submerged in her reverie, she squeezed her blankly staring eyes shut, unable to identify the person who had approached her.
She had felt she would gladly give up half her life for a single ray of light, but now that it was here, pain came first. She unconsciously raised a hand to shield her eyes.
"Meilin Lonz."
The person who had approached in silence, lighting up the pitch-black space like daybreak, spoke in a low voice. The former president of the Secritia Mage Association—the woman who had summoned warriors from Zeon to attack Calian and Franz, the one who had tried to steal Louise's documents from Arianne—opened her mouth, her eyes still squeezed shut.
"Who…"
"Someone you will be very glad to see."
The soft, clear voice was unfamiliar.
It wasn't young enough to be a boy's, nor mature enough to be a young man's. It was a strange voice she had never heard up close. Curiosity compelled her to open her eyes, but she could only manage to lower the hand shielding them. The blindingly bright light still prevented her from making out what was in front of her.
It was only natural.
After being arrested and interrogated, Meilin had been dragged straight here. She had spent an unknowable amount of time alone in a place completely sealed off from light.
"The light…"
Her throat was raw from disuse. Meilin cleared it and spoke again.
"Could you dim the light? It's too bright."
"This is a torch, so I can't adjust it. You know magic doesn't work here, either. Besides, you're not in a position to make requests."
"Then please tell me who you are."
"I already answered."
Recalling his cryptic response—someone you will be very glad to see—Meilin said, "It's a voice I don't recognize at all, so I can hardly be glad."
"You don't have to know someone to be glad to see them."
Meilin fell silent.
They were speaking in riddles, but she didn't even feel annoyed. Even this conversation was a welcome reprieve. She hated to admit it, but it was true. When someone brought light and spoke to her like this, wouldn't she be glad to see them, even if it were the Evil God himself?
She waited, hoping her eyes would adjust, but when she tried to open them again, the blinding light filled her blurry vision and forced them shut.
The only things she managed to glimpse were a pale face, pitch-black hair, and crimson eyes.
"Are you… perhaps the 3rd Prince of Kairis?"
No answer came. Instead, she heard the faint rustle of clothes—the sound of someone walking over a floor covered in old straw.
Taking the silence as confirmation, Meilin spoke again. A voice like scraping sand rasped from her throat, unused for days.
"I do not know what business the Prince of Kairis has in a place like this, but I have nothing more to say."
"You seem to have forgotten what I said."
"What do you mean?"
"Ah… I'm someone who doesn't like repeating himself."
He chuckled, his tone impossible to gauge, and continued.
"I told you that you'd be glad to see me. I figured that if you were glad, you'd also have something to say."
"Why would I be glad to see the 3rd Prince of Kairis?"
"Because I can help you."
"Help me…?"
"On your own, you can't leave this place even in death. Never."
Meilin recoiled instinctively. She couldn't tell if it was because Calian's voice was so chilling, or because of what his words made her recall.
"You know where this is, don't you?"
Where this place was.
Her expression tight with dread, Meilin slowly opened her eyes.
Yes.
She knew.
When she was first imprisoned, she had expected guards, but there were none. At first, she had found it strange. Then she realized that no one even brought her meals. Food would roll down from an opening near the ceiling and drop with a thud. As she had fumbled through the darkness following the smell, she had suddenly realized where she was.
"...The Abyss."
"Yes. You know it well."
The Herund River flowed outside the outer castle of Secreta. Somewhere beneath it lay an endlessly deep underground prison built by the Great King of Secritia. People called that place the Abyss.
They said that if the surface had the Tower, the underground had the Abyss.
The worst criminals of Kairis were sent to the Tower; in Secritia, they were locked away in the Abyss. It was a place where one could not even take their own life, where all magic was blocked, and from which not a single person had ever escaped.
It was a hell for the living.
It was said that in the Abyss, all prisoners were completely isolated, locked away alone so they could never exchange a single word. Not even a single knight guarded the iron bars. This place was exactly like that.
"Once you're locked up here, they don't even check if you're alive or dead. But they do send down food regularly, because you're supposed to die of old age, not starvation. Even if you survive for decades and eventually die, you can't leave this place. They just leave you to rot and turn to dust. That's why it's called the Abyss."
Meilin covered her ears.
Calian's words were not wrong. Meilin also knew that while many were locked inside, none ever came out—it was a place one could escape neither in life nor in death.
"Even if Sir Castrin couldn't do it, I can. I can get you out of here."
The words filtered through her palms.
Meilin opened her eyes without realizing it. Shadows fell across Calian's face, thrown by the bright light. From within those shadows, his red, snake-like eyes stared intently at her.
A terrifying gaze.
It was by no means the look of someone who had come to rescue her.
"Do you mean… as a corpse?"
"Is it because you used to practice magic? I like how quick you are to understand."
Calian let out a small laugh and continued.
"Devlan said he killed you. He said he interrogated and summarily executed you. Yet here you are. Why is that? Why did he hide you away here instead of killing you? Was it because you instigated the assassination of foreign princes and tried to stab him in the back, or… is there another reason?"
A snake's chilling gaze followed his loaded words.
"I…"
She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Seeing this, Calian pulled out his pocket watch, checked the time, and spoke.
"I don't have much time. My older brother is sleeping rather deeply, and I don't know when he'll wake up. I have to get back quickly, before he does something unexpected while I'm away."
"…Zeon. I know how to contact them. We exchanged messages via carrier pigeons. Because I didn't reveal that, Devlan kept me here. He probably locked me up thinking that if he kept me here and kept asking, I would eventually speak."
How typical of him.
They really are exactly the same.
Muttering in a flat, monotonous voice, Calian nodded.
"Devlan won't be able to come see you. He's in no position to worry about you right now. A ghost has attached itself to him."
Not understanding, Meilin stared blankly at Calian.
"Just tell me. Everything."
"If I tell you, will you…"
She hesitated, trying to bargain for her life, but that only made Calian's smile deepen.
— Step.
Turning around without a shred of hesitation, Calian began to walk away. He wasn't testing her. His retreating footsteps did not pause.
"I'll tell you!"
In any case, Devlan would never let her out of here either.
She had felt she would gladly give up half her remaining life just to see a single ray of light. So, if she could escape this place right this instant, what was stopping her from giving up her entire remaining life?
"I'll tell you everything."
Calian's footsteps stopped.
Meilin began to speak. And then, she too stopped.
A moment later, the torchlight glinted off a small silver blade. The reflection lasted only an instant before everything plunged back into darkness—a deep, final darkness.
* * *
A faint light dawned at the edge of the dark sky.
At the hour when birds, huddled against the cold, began to stir, even the most restless sleepers would finally find peace.
Whether it was worry, contemplation, or perhaps anger.
Lost in something unknowable, he could not easily fall asleep. The sleep incense that had brought him peaceful dreams for nearly half his life was gone, and because of this, any drowsiness that crept in was easily startled away by the slightest sound.
That dawn was no different.
Unable to let go of his anxiety for even a moment, he had not yet fallen asleep. Only when he felt the sky faintly brightening did he finally feel a sense of relief and lightly close his eyes.
— Drip, drip, drip.
Had it been barely five minutes since he tried to sleep? Or perhaps ten? Feeling something tapping against his face and trickling down, he woke from his shallow slumber.
A thick, viscous substance that still retained warmth.
An unpleasant scent faintly wafted from it.
As his slightly opened eyes caught the faint shadow of something, his eyes, which had been about to drift off, snapped wide open.
"Don't get up. We've barely seen each other these past few days, so there's no need to welcome me so warmly."
"Besides, if you get up, you'll probably die."
The whispering voice was remarkably tender. So much so that he experienced a brief moment of confusion, wondering if the words he had known all his life held a different meaning.
If not for the short dagger pointed right between his brows, its tip dripping blood onto his face, he might have truly been confused—wondering if this was what a son's affectionate words to his father sounded like.
"You said you would come every day, but I did not expect you to truly come every single day."
"I thought you would have realized by now that I'm not very good at lying. I expected you to trust me and wait, so I was almost disappointed to find you asleep."
"I did wait. I only just lay down, thinking you wouldn't be coming today."
"You tossed and turned, then. Terrified that I might show up today as well."
"It would not be wrong to put it that way."
A laugh, sounding like raindrops trickling down a windowpane, echoed. And so, Devlan suddenly grew curious. Not about obvious things, like whose blood stained the chilling blade or whether his own would be next.
"Why are you laughing?"
But rather, what was so amusing?
"I usually sleep late in the mornings. But now that our roles have been reversed, I find it quite amusing. You are now experiencing what it feels like to only sleep in peace once the day breaks—how could I not find that entertaining?"
Even as he spoke, the tip of the blade did not waver. Though no more blood dripped from it, the warmth of someone else's blood trickling down his temple made it difficult for Devlan to clear his head. Despite his calm demeanor, his fingertips were growing ice-cold.
Devlan had not lied.
He truly had been unable to sleep out of fear. Calian's promise to return every day had become a ghost haunting his waking hours, preventing him from closing his eyes. Whether Calian appeared or not, the ghost remained.
"Besides, I get to see the King of Secritia so terrified. It's been quite a while."
"Are you not worried about listening ears? If it becomes known that a prince of Kairis speaks such words, it will not reflect well on you."
"There is no one here who can hear my words and carry them elsewhere."
"You are overly confident for someone who hasn't even cast a spell. Especially after seeing me, who collapsed like this from a single moment of carelessness."
"I am trusting my sword's ears, not my own."
Saying this, Calian gestured with his chin.
Standing straight where his chin pointed was an expressionless knight. Devlan did not know his name, but in the end, he had no choice but to nod. Since Calian was incapable of lying, Devlan knew that his claim of there being no one else here was also the truth.
"And I'm saying this because you still seem to be playing dumb. This isn't a tower that collapsed from a single moment of your carelessness, but a tomb you have been steadily building with your own hands for a very long time. You already know this, don't you?"
A man who would never repent, even at his final moment.
A man who would blame no one else, yet would never blame himself either. That was Devlan. Calian knew better than anyone that he was that kind of person.
Devlan laughed.
Kyrie noticed that the edge of that laughter was slightly different from what he had heard on their first day at the royal palace. He instinctively glanced toward Calian before turning his head back. Calian's face showed that he had already picked up on the same thing.
"You will have many visitors today. So, how can you remain in such disarray? On the very day your world comes to an end."
The whisper, which had been deceptively tender since their first meeting while always foretelling his end, finally ceased.
— Drip.
The final drop of blood fell onto Devlan's head.