The Predator's Lair, Flickering Curiosity
The massive doors of the imperial carriage swung open, and I stepped onto the blindingly opulent marble floor. Only a short time ago, I’d been scrambling over walls and sprinting for my life to escape this place. Today I strode through the front gate like I owned it, riding in a carriage sent by the emperor himself. Life really does have a twisted sense of humor.
“It is an honor to escort you, Princess.”
The man waiting for me was none other than Sir Elik, commander of the Imperial Knights. He and my eldest brother Carlyle had fought side by side through countless battles since childhood—life-and-death comrades and one of the empire’s most formidable warriors.
“It’s been a while, Sir Elik. My big brother asked me to send his regards.” (Along with a silent warning to return his sister before he freezes the entire palace into a wasteland with that ice sword of his.)
Elik’s eyebrows twitched. He gave a bitter smile and nodded.
“Haha, that sounds exactly like Carlyle. His terrifying greetings never change, I see.”
Elik escorted me with impeccable courtesy. Yet as we cut through the ranks of knights, something strange caught my eye. Around Elik’s shoulders and at the trailing edges of the other knights’ shadows, faint, sticky strands of black energy flickered like threads of ink.
What is that? It feels disgusting.
My instincts screamed that it was an impurity devouring both body and mind. The moment I passed Elik, I instinctively gathered power at my fingertips and flicked a tiny spark of Lucetia’s light.
Whoosh—
It lasted only a heartbeat—too fast for anyone to notice. The clear light that bloomed from my fingers incinerated the black energy clinging to their shoulders in an instant.
“……!”
Elik faltered mid-step. The mysterious stiffness and exhaustion that had plagued his shoulders for weeks had vanished as if by magic.
“Is something wrong, Sir Elik?”
I stared at him with wide, innocent eyes, the picture of perfect ignorance. He touched his shoulder with a puzzled frown, then shook his head and hurried me along.
“It’s nothing. Must have been my imagination. This way, please.”
Emperor Kaelus was still in his state council meeting, so I was led to the reception room in the Sun Palace—the same room I used to visit constantly while running errands as a maid. As I stepped inside, the vice-commander who had been trailing us leaned close to Elik and whispered.
“Commander, when the princess walked past just now… didn’t something feel strange? My body suddenly feels incredibly light and refreshed. It’s like the boulder that was crushing me has disappeared.”
Elik glanced at me through the open door, then at his own strangely weightless hand. A sharp glint flashed in his eyes.
“Don’t speak of this to anyone else for now. We’ll report it to His Majesty the moment he finishes the meeting.”
With a tense expression, Elik dismissed the vice-commander and stood before the reception room door.
“His Majesty will arrive as soon as he concludes his duties. Please wait a little longer, Princess Lucerne.”
Once both men withdrew, I was left alone in the enormous reception room. The moment the tension left my shoulders, I exhaled deeply and began to study my surroundings.
I had scrubbed every inch of this place during my month as a maid. It should have felt familiar. Instead, the room felt eerily alien—almost grotesque.
Wait… has that wallpaper pattern always looked like this?
I examined the golden vine motifs covering the walls. I had climbed ladders and wiped them thousands of times with dry rags. But today they didn’t look like mere decoration.
Whenever light hit them at certain angles, the golden threads twisted like living spiderwebs, strangling one another. The geometric patterns seemed to crawl across the wall like a living organism. And those tiny black dots embedded at every joint—if they looked like tens of thousands of watchful eyes, surely that was just my imagination?
This doesn’t feel like ordinary ornamentation. Maybe someone designed it this way on purpose…
Why could I suddenly see things that had been invisible before? The details stood out with skin-crawling clarity. Almost in a trance, I reached toward the spiderweb pattern.
That was when it happened.
The silver cylinder hidden in my petticoat pocket began to writhe violently, greedily drinking in the light inside me as though resonating with it. The moment the transparent glow leaking from my fingertips touched the darkness in the wall—
Sizzle—
An unpleasant scraping sound rang out. The sticky black magic lurking between the golden patterns shrieked and burst into flames at the touch of my light. Slowly but surely it rose like black fog, then scattered into the air and vanished.
“So this is… the impurity Cassian oppa mentioned?”
My heart began to pound irregularly. The imperial palace was radiant on the surface, yet it was rotting from within. What exactly was the darkness hiding behind these lavish golden walls? And did Emperor Kaelus truly know the horrifying truth?
A corner of my mind trembled with an inexplicable dizziness.
“Your Majesty, now that the empire has found stability, we must discuss the matter of imperial succession. It would be wise to welcome young ladies from reputable families as empress and consorts…”
The heavy doors of the council chamber burst open, and Kaelus strode out. The nobles trailed behind him, their persistent voices shattering the corridor’s silence. These were the same men who, only a few years earlier, had barely dared to breathe in the presence of the blood-soaked tyrant who had slaughtered his own brothers to claim the throne.
Now that peace had returned and the stench of blood had faded, they were already scheming to shove their daughters forward to satisfy their own greed.
Kaelus stopped abruptly and turned. The moment his blood-red eyes gleamed with chilling light, an awful cold descended upon the hallway.
“Empress, you say. Is standing at my side truly that tempting?”
His voice was low and languid. The nobles froze, holding their breath as one.
Kaelus continued with a sardonic smile.
“Very well. Gather every last one of your precious children and send them to the southern borderlands. Without a single attendant. If they can survive on their own for at least six months in that monster-infested hell and return alive, then—and only then—will I consider them as potential empress candidates.”
“Y-Your Majesty! Sending our tenderly raised daughters to hunt monsters?!”
“If she wishes to be my companion, shouldn’t she possess at least enough strength to protect herself from threats to the empire? If you dislike the idea, never speak of succession in my presence again. Before I rip out those tongues, that is.”
Leaving the horrified nobles behind, Kaelus strode down the corridor without hesitation. His head throbbed.
At the end of the hallway, Knight Commander Elik approached and offered a respectful salute.
“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”
“Those tiresome vermin. This should keep them quiet for a while, at least out of fear. Now then—where is Princess Lucerne? Did she arrive safely?”
“I escorted her to the reception room in the Sun Palace. However, Your Majesty…”
Elik hesitated before describing the bizarre phenomenon he had experienced while escorting her. After the recent southern monster hunt, his body had been weighed down by a terrible stench and black killing intent, heavy as a thousand pounds of stone. Yet in the brief time spent with the princess, that burden had vanished like magic. The vice-commander beside him had felt the same noble, pure energy at the exact same moment.
Kaelus’s eyes narrowed as he listened.
“The dark energy… disappeared?”
In his mind flashed the image of the dazzling platinum-haired woman he had encountered in the northern palace garden a month earlier. The strange creature desperately suppressing something while radiating waves of light.
The power of House Lucerne has only ever manifested in one person per generation.
It was an unbroken law since the empire’s founding. The current successor was undoubtedly Carlyle Lucerne—the empire’s greatest swordsman, wielder of the legendary blade Liber, master of freezing sword qi.
So why did he sense a sacred light reminiscent of the goddess’s own reincarnation emanating from the youngest sibling, Elinor?
“Princess Lucerne… just what are you hiding?”
Kaelus toyed with the artifact fragment in his hand. It was a shard of the broken device she had dropped while fleeing last time. Feeling the cool metal against his skin, he began walking toward the reception room like a predator approaching prey that had willingly wandered into his den.
In his crimson eyes, a dangerous and captivating curiosity flickered, completely eclipsing his earlier irritation.
He had just reached the heavy golden doors of the reception room when—
Crash!
The sound of something sharp shattering and skittering across the floor erupted from beyond the thick door.
Kaelus’s steps halted. Elik and the knights behind him widened their eyes. The air in the corridor stretched taut like a drawn bowstring.
“You dare behave this way in the imperial palace? Have you no shame, young lady?”
“Kyaa!! What are you doing?! You insolent—!”
A woman’s sharp, scathing voice pierced through the door, followed by an ear-splitting scream.
Kaelus’s brow furrowed. He had left her in the reception room with orders to wait quietly, yet she had already caused a scene? From the sound of that scream, things had clearly escalated far beyond a simple argument.
She was supposed to be alone. What on earth is happening in there?
With both sardonic interest and icy fury in his expression, Kaelus tightened his grip on the doorknob. In the Sun Palace—where even breathing required the emperor’s permission—someone was bold enough to take a hostage and cause chaos. He needed to see it for himself.
“…How noisy.”
His low murmur froze the tension in the corridor solid.
Without hesitation, Kaelus shoved the massive door open with brutal force.
Bang!
The predator’s crimson eyes locked dead center on the heart of the pandemonium from which the scream had erupted.