The Forgotten God's Scribe and the Shattered Light
The silence shattered as Carlyle spoke, his voice low and icy. “What do you mean, an imperial carriage has rolled right into our front courtyard?”
He snatched the letter from my hand as I stood there desperately trying to deny reality by staring at the clear blue sky. In an instant, his eyes froze over like the dead of winter.
“What kind of lunatic dares spout imperial orders at us? I made it perfectly clear how much my sister suffered last night because of those fake shadow bastards, yet instead of an apology, he openly summons her to the palace? It seems he thinks the Lucerne family is nothing more than a pebble beneath his feet.”
Carlyle gripped the hilt of Liber, the empire’s greatest named sword, which hung at his side. Blue sword energy leaked from the scabbard, flashing as if it might freeze the grass beneath our feet white.
“Brother, you’re not… seriously thinking of drawing that sword right now, are you?”
“I’ll slice the carriage wheels clean in half. As an example for spouting such nonsense, I’ll cut off the head of the knight who came with it and send it back to the palace. Elinor, the Lucerne family does not come when told to come, nor leave when told to leave. If the emperor isn’t possessed by some ghost, he’ll learn that lesson very clearly today.”
“No! Please calm down, Brother!”
I turned deathly pale and grabbed the edge of Carlyle’s sleeve. That man never made empty threats. He was perfectly capable of carving through the Imperial Guard and turning the entire empire into a field of ice. If he found out the emperor was using last night’s events as an excuse to confirm whether I was the maid who’d jumped the wall that day, my eldest brother might actually start a war.
Both my brothers really were…!
“Brother, please calm down! This is an imperial decree. If you swing your sword here, our entire family will be branded as traitors!”
“Little sister, don’t be afraid. Your big brother will protect you!”
At that moment, my second brother Cassian, who had come running after hearing the news, stepped to my side with his usual sly smile completely wiped away. His face had gone deathly pale, and his eyes, fixed on me, were filled with an indescribable guilt.
“Elder Brother, control yourself! The moment you lay a hand on that imperial carriage, my secret… no, our family’s very existence will be in jeopardy. Ugh, little sister. I’m sorry. That mad emperor must have finally noticed my weakness and is trying to use you as a hostage.”
Cassian had sunk deep into his own swamp of misunderstanding. He seemed convinced that the emperor had discovered his secret production of ‘forbidden artifacts’ and was now calling me in as leverage.
With Carlyle radiating sword energy and Cassian clutching my hand while wallowing in self-blame, I let out a deep sigh amid this absolute circus of a family meeting.
“Both of you, be quiet and listen to me.”
My low, steady voice made both brothers’ gazes snap to me at once. I suppressed my trembling heart and put on the most solemn, elegant expression I could manage.
“I. Will. Go.”
“Little sister!”
“Absolutely not, Elinor!”
“This is something I have to do. For the sake of our family, I will go see His Majesty myself and clear up any misunderstanding. So please put that sword down, Elder Brother. And you too, Second Brother, stop it.”
I’ll go there and stubbornly insist I’m not that maid, so please stop making a scene, you two!
My smile, hiding those true feelings, must have looked pitiful. Both my brothers’ eyes reddened. It was the perfect tear-jerking farewell scene: their frail little sister bravely walking into the lion’s den for the sake of the family.
Once I returned to my room to prepare, my hands shook as I pulled out the silver cylinder I had hidden deep inside my mattress. Leaving it behind made me uneasy, but taking it with me made my heart feel like it would explode from the fear of discovery.
What should I do?
In the end, I secured it tightly inside the secret pocket of my underskirt.
“My lady, please hurry and get ready…! The Imperial Guard is waiting at the main gate.”
The butler’s urgent cry reached me. A summons—no, an arrest warrant—in the name of an imperial decree was waiting for me.
I took the hand of my personal maid Lily, who was trembling like an aspen leaf, and calmed her before stepping out of the mansion with heavy feet.
The carriage lurched forward, and I bit my lip as I watched the Lucerne Duke’s Mansion grow smaller through the window. Carlyle’s hand was still wrapped around his sword hilt as he saw me off, and Cassian stood with a rigid expression until I disappeared from sight.
I’m sorry, Brothers. Your little sister is heading out first. If I don’t make it back from the detention center… then please put the meat pie I loved on my memorial table. The one with A5 Wagyu, you know? And make sure the juices burst when you bite into it!
The road to the imperial palace was disgustingly smooth. The golden sun emblem engraved on the carriage wall seemed to mock me. I had wanted to walk only on a flower path like the heroines in romance fantasy novels my whole life, but it looked like my genre had been permanently switched to a survival story.
Goddess Lucetia, please protect my life. I swallowed dryly as the massive golden roof of the imperial palace, radiating overwhelming majesty, came into view in the distance. I prayed over and over that my neck would safely make it through today.
Beyond the red curtain, Zahak lounged crookedly on the throne of darkness and murmured quietly. The subordinate reporting the failure was trembling like an aspen leaf, but instead of rage, a strange interest flickered in Zahak’s snake-like silver eyes.
“It must be the work of the empire’s hunting dog, Carlyle Lucerne. What a persistently annoying fellow.”
When Zahak lightly flicked his long, pale fingers, a chilly blue flame flickered to life above the altar. Within the flames, the vision of the crow he had planted was projected. The image showed the imperial carriage slowly moving away from the Lucerne Duke’s Mansion toward the palace.
“The holy relic containing Lucetia’s fragment is definitely in that young lady’s possession.”
Zahak’s bloodless lips twisted in a chilling smile. What he craved was not mere power.
“Once I corrupt the holy relic and complete the ritual, I will be able to summon the ancient demon god slumbering in the abyss into this world. And using that demon god’s immense magical power as a sacrifice… I will finally be able to call Lucetia’s soul, which I have longed for so desperately, back to this land.”
A fanatical gleam of obsession flashed through Zahak’s eyes. To drag the goddess who had vanished hundreds of years ago back into the mortal realm, he planned to stain the purest holy object with the foulest darkness.
“So the reclusive Emperor Kaelus has finally begun to shake the board himself…”
Zahak rested his chin on his hand and laughed softly, as if intrigued. It didn’t matter how the emperor had located the Lucerne young lady. What mattered was that the emperor, who possessed the most twisted energy in the empire, had begun to linger near the holy relic.
“It was the same in the past. You, who were endlessly noble, ended up miserably annihilated all because of that pathetic red-eyed human.”
A cold sneer settled in Zahak’s eyes. He remembered clearly the foolish history from hundreds of years ago, when the goddess had lost her heart to a mere human man and driven herself to ruin.
For a while, a bizarre sound—whether laughter or sobbing, it was impossible to tell—echoed across the altar. Zahak steadied his madly trembling eyes, then stirred the blue flame with his pale fingers. The blue flame surged up explosively from the tips of his fingers.
“I will definitely bring you back.”
His expression hardened coldly as he stared at the vision of the carriage.
“Even that little Lucerne brat who inherited Lucetia’s power is once again drawn to Kaelus. How amusing. What a stubbornly tenacious bond.”
When Zahak reached his hand toward the blue flame, it reacted to his touch and twisted grotesquely.
“This time, I will tear apart and destroy every last link of this tiresome fate. Lucetia, you are destined to become mine in the end.”
With an unpleasant caw, a single crow silently melted into the deep shadow of the carriage racing toward the palace.
The wheels of fate had begun to roll toward ruin—or perhaps reunion—that no one could stop.
The heavy door of the imperial carriage opened, and I stepped onto the dazzlingly bright marble floor. Just a short while ago, I had been desperately climbing walls and running to escape this place… yet today I was walking in proudly through the main gate, riding in the carriage sent by the emperor himself. Life really was unpredictable.
“It is an honor to escort the young lady.”
The man waiting for me in front of the carriage was Elik, the commander of the Imperial Guard. He was Carlyle’s childhood friend who had shared life and death with him in countless battles, and one of the empire’s most renowned powerhouses.
“Commander Elik, it’s been a while. My eldest brother asked me to send his regards. (Along with a silent threat to return his sister quickly before he turns the palace into a wasteland with his ice sword.)”
Elik’s eyebrows twitched at my words. He gave a bitter smile and nodded.
“Haha, that sounds exactly like Carlyle. It seems his terrifying greetings haven’t changed.”
Elik guided me with proper courtesy. But as I walked between the knights, a strange sight caught my eye. Near Elik’s shoulder and at the edges of the shadows cast by the knights following us, a very faint, sticky black thread-like energy was flickering.
Hah, what the hell is that now?
As expected, the Black Imperial Palace was already exceeding expectations from the very first step.