116.

Merke ran to the beach like someone possessed, only to collapse to her knees on the damp sand and begin vomiting.

“Urgh…!”

Her diet for the past few days had consisted solely of alcohol. Only the burning liquid came up as she retched violently.

“Princess Merke.”

Mack Bains had quickly caught up to her and addressed her in a quiet tone. By the time he reached her, she was utterly spent, sitting limp on the sand. Her vacant eyes stared into the black ocean, the waves crashing against her feet before retreating.

“I’ll escort you back to your room now,” Mack said calmly, lowering himself to one knee to meet her gaze. Yet, Merke seemed deaf to his words, her unblinking eyes fixed longingly on the sea.

“Your Highness,.”

He tried again, this time with more insistence.

His attempt was met with an unexpected reaction. The hollow expression in Merke’s eyes sharpened with a sudden jolt of focus—an alarmed and frantic one. Her body began to tremble.

“Princess Merke? What’s wrong? Your Highness…?”

Alarmed, Mack grasped her shoulders to steady her. Slowly, Merke turned her head toward him.

“Why… why now, all of a sudden?”

Her words were fragmented and nonsensical. She trembled like a brittle sapling in a storm before abruptly losing consciousness.

* * *

“Your Highness.”

Mack’s voice was cold and perfectly measured, devoid of affection or softness.

“Your Highness, it’s been a while.”

And yet, when he addressed her with the term “Your Highness,” a voice that did not belong to him resonated in Merke’s ears—a woman’s voice, melodic and sweet.

“Princess Merke? What’s wrong? Your Highness…?”

Disoriented, Merke turned toward Mack, incredulous at his use of the title.

“Have you been to your weekend prayers?”

This time, the voice was unmistakably from her memories, as if her long-forgotten stepmother, Adriene, was speaking directly into her ears.

Why? Why now? Why all of a sudden?

Merke couldn’t tell if her mind was playing tricks on her or if Adriene’s voice was truly haunting her.

Sometimes, the most trivial events trigger long-buried memories. Perhaps today was one of those days. Hearing herself addressed as “Your Highness” after so long had conjured Adriene’s melodious voice out of nowhere.

‘Now that I think of it… that did happen, didn’t it?’

With her eyes closed, she began to trace back the threads of an old memory.

Like most people, Adriene, the mistress of the imperial palace, treated Merke as though she were invisible. To Merke, who had no interest in the throne, it was a relief.

They lived in separate quarters within the palace, making accidental encounters rare. Adriene had spoken directly to Merke fewer times than one could count on a single hand. One such time had been in early spring of the year when Calliphe, the late Crown Princess, passed away. Merke had just returned from weekend prayers with her sister.

“Did your prayers go well?” Adriene had asked, her tone uncharacteristically gentle.

Though the question seemed like a mere formality, Adriene had added a few more words—a rarity for her.

“I heard the Crown Princess has a new officiant for her prayers today. Was everything all right?”

Adriene’s inquiries about Calliphe had seemed trivial at the time. Calliphe was infamous for her temper and often terrorized those around her. While the Emperor had done his best to contain her outbursts, Adriene, who had no familial connection to Calliphe, likely saw her behavior as a distant nuisance.

Thus, Adriene’s interest in the Crown Princess’s new officiant seemed unremarkable. Merke had given a vague affirmative and promptly forgotten the exchange.

So why, after all this time, did Adriene’s questions now seem laden with a different meaning?

Was she asking about the trouble Calliphe had caused? Or was she asking if something had happened to her?

‘What am I thinking right now…?’

Merke forced herself to stop the unsettling train of thought.

‘I must truly be losing my mind.’

Summers always brought her the worst nightmares—terrible memories she would do anything to avoid reliving. Without the numbing effect of alcohol, she felt as if she might go insane.

Whenever she closed her eyes, she would see Calliphe’s decayed body, smell the stench of rotting flesh, and hear the metallic whisper of her unintelligible words.

‘It’s this cursed summer, bringing back memories of my wretched sister. And being called “Your Highness” again has dragged me back to those awful days. I have to stop this madness.’

But her morbid thoughts refused to subside. If anything, her mind grew sharper, conjuring an unnervingly clear image of Calliphe’s final moments. Finally, Merke opened her eyes.

“Are you feeling better now?”

Instead of the ghastly visions of the imperial palace, she saw Mack Bains’s impassive face. His voice, much like his expression, was utterly devoid of warmth.

“…What happened?”

Her throat felt parched, as though it had been torn apart.

“You ran to the beach after drinking and collapsed. Don’t you remember?”

“…Right. How pathetic. I must be getting old—I can’t drink like I used to.”

Merke closed her eyes again and muttered, a faint note of jest in her weary voice.

“You were unconscious only for a short while. The physician will arrive soon, so please lie down for now.”

“Of course. You’re the only one I can count on.”

Mack found Merke’s unusually calm demeanor unsettling, but as she returned to her usual self with a joking remark and a chuckle, he allowed himself to relax slightly.

Not long after, Merke appeared to drift back into sleep. Observing her steady breathing, Mack assumed she had fallen into a light slumber. However, the silence was abruptly broken by her faint muttering.

“I must be gravely ill. Before I die, I want to see my daughter one last time.”

“That will not be possible.”

The unexpected declaration startled Mack, but he responded with his usual firmness.

“I won’t do anything rash. You know better than anyone that I’m nothing but a worthless fool. Just for a moment—a brief glance from afar is all I need,” Merke murmured, her tone desperate. Her daughter, protected under the auspices of the Diazi family, resided safely within the Hugo Temple. One of Mack’s primary tasks was to ensure Merke never set foot in the empire again.

“It is out of the question.”

Mack replied without a hint of hesitation. His severe tone prompted a stifled laugh from Merke. After a moment of laughter, she slowly opened her bleary eyes.

“Heh. I figured you’d say that, Mack Bains.”

Her unfocused gaze met his, but before Mack could respond, a flash of searing blue-white light, like a bolt of lightning, erupted above him. The next instant, the blinding illumination escaped through the gaps in the tent, briefly dispelling the surrounding darkness.

“…”

Mack struggled to cling to consciousness, his mind racing.

‘What just happened?’

Through his blurred vision, he saw Merke swing her legs off the bed and stand. He tried to reach out and grab her ankle, but his body refused to respond.

“You’re so predictable.”

Merke remarked indifferently, glancing at Mack’s faintly twitching fingertips.

“Don’t blame yourself for losing track of me. No one knows about my powers. I made a promise long ago never to reveal them.”

Calliphe had despised Merke during her lifetime, envying her abundant talents despite her lack of ambition. Still, Calliphe had spared her sister, abiding by their late mother’s dying wish.

“If you don’t want a battle for the throne, hide your power. That way, we won’t break Mother’s wish for us not to harm each other.”

The warning, delivered by a young Calliphe as she clutched Merke’s throat, was clear: reveal your power, and I will have no choice but to kill you. The moment Merke instinctively nodded in submission, a secret pact between the sisters was formed.

Shaking off those unwanted childhood memories, Merke brushed past the fallen Mack.

“Don’t worry too much, Mack Bains. I only need to confirm something. That’s all—just to confirm it.”

She wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or herself. As Mack slipped into unconsciousness, Merke, halfway out of the tent, turned back to leave him with one last comment.

“You’ll wake up in a few days. Catch up to me then.”

Merke strode out of the tented camp and came to a halt. In the distance, she noticed a man stumbling as though blind, collapsing with every step. He was one of Kano’s subordinates, caught up in the aftermath of her earlier attack on the tent.

“Impressive instincts,” she murmured, smirking. She had known Kano had planted someone to watch her, but his boldness today was unexpected. She decided to revise her plans.

Initially, she had intended to slip away on the first ship leaving Ikiyo at dawn. Now, she would burn every ship at the harbor.

That day, only one vessel would manage to escape Ikiyo Island, its departure marked by the flames engulfing the dock.

Merke hid behind a thick mast, watching as the fire spread along the Ikiyo coast. Slowly, she turned her back on the fiery horizon. The rising sun painted the sea and sky crimson, but she closed her eyes to the scene.

She had once stood alone, watching Calliphe’s body rot away. Unable to endure her sister’s suffering from a reversal curse that decayed her flesh, Merke had killed Calliphe on one sweltering summer day.

After Calliphe’s curse began, no one dared to approach her. Her corpse, too, was abandoned for weeks after her death. Calliphe had not perished in the cold of winter.

‘Surely this madness is just my guilt manifesting, a desperate attempt to absolve myself.’

With that bitter thought, Merke set sail, crossing the sea.

* * *

Clink—

The sharp sound of porcelain rang out as a teacup collided with its saucer. Adriene, ever the paragon of imperial etiquette, was uncharacteristically clumsy today.

“My apologies for such unseemly behavior.”

Adriene said, her flawless smile betraying none of her unease. For members of the imperial family, apologies were a rare and calculated act.

She was anxious. Her only child, Billinent, was approaching his coming-of-age ceremony. On top of that, she had received troubling news about “it,” sealed away in Baghdad.

Nyx, the weekend prayers, and Calliphe’s decayed corpse—all the horrifying memories Adriene had tried to suppress surged to the forefront of her mind.