Chapter 27

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 27

TITA and the others were unable to find Yuki even after the sun set. Tita was exhausted from searching. She dragged her blistered feet until she arrived back at their inn.

Luca spent the whole day holding his ring out on the chain. Eventually, his ring directed them to a clearing in the grove where Yuki’s ring lay without its master. Beside her contract ring with Luca was the ring paired with Galian’s. And a little farther ahead of the rings were—

“…Terrible.” Tita was overwhelmed by sorrow when she remembered the gruesome sight. The boy who had scraped his knee—the boy whose name she forgot to ask—it was his corpse in the clearing. Collapsed directly beside him was the cruelly murdered corpse of the mother he had been searching for.

“She was likely kidnapped,” Luca said. His face held a twisted anguish. Ain and Luca stayed behind in the grove to search some more.

I’ve never seen Luca with that expression before. The fact he got angry, Yuki running away from him, and her kidnapping—he is very likely blaming himself for all of it.

“Yuki…” Tita muttered.

Tita was lost now. Only Yuki appeared to sparkle with life in this grim world of depravity and war. She was always cheerful and invigorated those around her with her smile. With Yuki gone, their group had lost sight of its guiding star.

In this situation, this situation without Yuki, am I going to have to go back to that place? Back to the castle without any allies? Tita dreaded the thought.

She zoned out as she dried her hair after getting out of the bath. Everyone had been silent on the way back to the inn—it was suffocating.

Someone knocked on the door. “Can I come in for a moment?” Ain asked from the other side. Ain was supposed to have stayed behind with Luca to look around the forest some more.

“Yes, come in.”

Did they find Yuki? Tita tried to gain control of her expectations, only to be let down when a dejected Ain opened the door.

“…She wasn’t there, was she?”

“Yeah. The grove is complicated with many intertwining animal trails, but it’s small. Yet we still couldn’t find her anywhere.”

Tita smiled a little at the nasally sound to his voice. Ain was saddened by Yuki’s loss, just like Tita.

“Prince Luca was acting strange as well. I told him not to let it get to him, but from the look of things, he is most definitely blaming himself…” Ain said, sadness etched on his face.

Tita smiled at him and invited him into her room. “Sit. I’ll prepare some tea for you,” she said, forcing Ain into a chair. Ain sniffled. Tita pretended not to hear as she prepared the tea.

“…You’re still always the crybaby,” she muttered.

Ain was always this way. Whenever he was teased by Nasette or treated coldly by Luca, he would come crying to her. And every time Tita would do her best to comfort him. Tita was saved by the fact there was one constant in her life among the constantly changing chaos of the world.

***

THE crackling of something burning filled the room. A bright-red flame swayed and popped. Yuki was slowly regaining consciousness. Her eyes flicked open with shock; her consciousness raced to make sense of the situation.

That’s right, I…was found by Prince O—no, that madman is no prince—Orga. He killed the boy and then something knocked me out from behind. I remember that much.

Yuki tried to move, but her body was stuck in place. She turned her neck to see her hands tied behind her back and her feet shackled together with an iron ball attached to the chain roughly half a foot away from her.

The sharp pain of a headache rushed to her head. She grimaced at the shackles restraining her and glanced at the swaying fire. Some sort of metal tool sat in the center of the fire. The tip of the tool burned red-hot in the menacing flames.

“Hi there, you up now?”

Yuki looked up when she heard a voice she really didn’t want to hear—on the other side of the swaying flames stood a smirking Orga.

“…Worst possible way to wake up,” Yuki said.

Orga’s coldhearted eyes simmered with stifled laughter. “I’m surprised you have it in you to be sarcastic in this situation.”

There’s no way I’m not scared, but I don’t want this psycho to know it.

Yuki’s teeth chattered against each other since she woke up. Orga’s black eyes stared at her—their depths seething with the same hatred since they first met. His shoes clattered against the cold stone floor as he approached her. Yuki edged back the best she could being shackled. Her heart raced.

“Haha, looks like you know how to show a cute frightened reaction after all.”

Yuki looked past Orga and saw someone standing behind him. The young man standing there had his long light-blue hair tied back and stared absently at Yuki with light-blue glass marble-like eyes.

“Let me introduce you, he’s one of Maruk’s princes. He came here because he said he wanted to take a look at the Legendary Witch.”

“The Legendary Witch? I’m not the Legendary Witch, you fool. You’ve got the wrong person,” Yuki spat. Orga burst out laughing at her. His loud, maniacal laughter reverberated off the stone walls.

“You’re an idiot, aren’t you? You don’t have to be the real Legendary Witch. You will be whatever I deem you to be. As long as we tell the people that Rvydom’s princess was actually a Witch.”

“…What’s with that sick logic?”

“Ahaha,” Orga laughed with glee like a young boy. Then with a smile like a devil he said, “All right, I’ll let you in on it. We’re currently having Rvydom’s prisoners of war fight each other. But you know what? The people of Rvydom are really foolish. They believe their king is still alive.

“That he will someday restore Rvydom to its former glory. Someday a king with violet eyes will appear again. And they die believing that. It’s not even laughable anymore,” Orga said scornfully.

“So we got the idea to capture someone with violet eyes and execute them. I didn’t think there was anyone else aside from the Legendary Witch with violet eyes. Plans were in place to capture her, but it’s not like she earned the title of Legendary Witch for nothing.

“But then you appeared with impeccable timing. That’s why we’re going to use this lovely coincidence to make you appear as a Witch and further drop the people of Rvydom into the utmost level of despair. Aren’t we nice?” Orga sneered.

“…You’re utterly mad! You’re totally insane! What’s fun about doing all that? What do you gain from it?” Yuki shouted.

Orga looked down at her and smiled cruelly. “What, you ask? Killing common trash is fun, but what I want to do is different. This world has no need for anything aside from humans. No need for Witches, Rvydom, or anything else.”

Orga elegantly rose to his feet and stood in front of Yuki. He drew his sword and sliced open the clothing covering her chest.

“…!”

Frightened, she winced in preparation for the slash, but there was no pain. A cold breeze merely caressed the exposed skin on her chest. Orga walked over to the iron pot holding the swaying fire. He picked up the bright-red branding iron that had been sitting in the fire.

“What? …No way.” Yuki’s teeth clattered so much she couldn’t get them to line up. She looked to the man with light-blue hair for help, but his glass-like eyes only stared at her in an empty daze.

“Do you know how you tell if someone is a Witch?”

“Stop it…”

Yuki tried to back away, but she couldn’t move. She frantically shook her head, but the red-hot iron relentlessly neared her chest.

“They have a seal in the shape of a flower somewhere on their body,” Orga said with a twisted smile.

“D-Don’t!”

The red-hot brand was pressed against Yuki’s chest. She screamed. The sound of flesh sizzling away and her shrieks of pain echoed off the stone walls. The moment the thought of how much it hurt reached her mind she felt only numbing pain. Her scream was more of a guttural roar than anything made by a human voice.

Someone. Someone. SOMEONE…save me.

Yuki’s throat ached, her whole body convulsed, but she had no idea how to stop screaming as the numbing was steadily overcome by a sheer burning pain expanding from where the iron touched her flesh.

How could she escape this searing pain? How could she escape the stench of her own flesh cooking? Her mind was a mess of racing thoughts—until finally her consciousness couldn’t hang on any longer.