“Protect His Majesty!”
"Damn it, light the way!
Light the fire!"
“My body is so heavy...ah!”
The loud sound of weapons broke the dawn.
Shouts and screams echoed from all directions.
Yasiris couldn't understand what was happening, but she instinctively realized.
This is the moment..
You need to escape now.
Even if it cost her her life.
...Determined, as soon as the tent door opened, her wrist was grabbed and pulled.
“Empress!”
“Your Majesty?!”
Her voice stuttered with extreme surprise.
Yasiris tried hard to control her breathing, and she felt as if her heart would jump out of her throat.
Because of the rain, there were almost no live fires, so she had to rely on the faint moonlight.
Dark black forest.
A dark black man.
And red eyes.
Yesayes suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu but couldn't pinpoint what it was.
There was no time for that.
Kazan, muttering low curses, suddenly pulled it out and started running.
“The situation is bad.
The knights have been poisoned.
Follow me.”
“Your Majesty, wait, which group exactly… ah!”
Isaris, panting as she followed him, stumbled over the root of a tree.
No, she almost tripped.
“Careful!”
Kazan quickly grabbed her waist and lifted her into his arms.
“I don’t know who they are.
But they are all at least at the level of knights.
We were quite surprised.”
Kazan ran over, holding Yasiris in a princess-carrying position as if it was the most natural thing to do.
It took her a moment to understand what was happening.
“I understand”
“Yes.
For now, we need to escape, and find out later who they belong to.”
...Is she the only one who feels that this situation is strange and embarrassing?
Yasiris, who was lying in Kazan's arms, remained silent and sighed.
Since they were under attack, it was natural for him to act differently than usual.
It would be strange if he was aware of that.
Instead of questioning Kazan's strange position, Yasiris focused on another matter.
“Did you say poison?”
Could they have been affected by the sleeping pills she gave them?
If so, is she responsible for their deaths?
Yasiris asked with a creepy feeling, and Kazan frowned.
“It's not exactly poison.
It seems they mixed a stimulant in the food.
No wonder the knights were overly active.
I realized it too late.”
“Tonic?”
“Yes.
It forces the body to use energy, making one active for a certain period.
They were attacked when the side effects left them completely exhausted.”
'Cunning scoundrels'
Yasiris nodded at Kazan's terrifying voice.
So the sleeping pills didn't work at all.
Perhaps she had already neutralized the stimulant.
“Then what about your majesty...”
"I skipped the meal.
If I had eaten, I would have noticed and prevented it...
Ah!"
Kazan barely dodged an incoming arrow, his face grim as he changed direction and continued running.
Yasiris, who was asking questions because he was answering so calmly, closed her mouth and tried to assess the escape route.
Moans and groans indicated that the number of guards following and protecting them was dwindling.
The sound of rain drowned out the noise of the arrows, making defense even more difficult.
“Huff...huff, huff...”
Listening to Kazan's increasingly ragged breathing, Yasiris debated whether she should call for a takedown.
She didn't have the confidence to properly run through the rain in such limited visibility, but she was clearly a liability.
...But is there any need to risk himself for an enemy?
If we died together instead...
“Oh!”
“Your Majesty!”
Kazan faltered for a moment.
Yasiris called out instinctively when she saw the arrow stuck in his shoulder, then clenched her fist tightly.
He could have escaped on his own, but he was injured carrying her, a dead weight.
Although he could have escaped on his own from the beginning, abandoning his loyalty to her now was not an option.
“Put me down”
“No”
The moment Yasiris spoke with determination, a quick response came.
I was surprised for a moment by his quick refusal, and I calmly tried to convince him.
“It would be better if you ran alone rather than carrying me...”
“I said no, Empress.”
Why?
Kazan's face, which responded between clenched teeth, was hidden in the shadows of the moon.
Maybe it was because of the rain that was still falling.
The water dripping from his chin was thick.
“…Your Majesty”
“Fuck”
Yasiris shuddered.
She thought he was cursing her to shut up, but he wasn't.
Kazan, who stopped in his tracks, immediately placed her on the ground and swung his sword.
“Stay still, crouch down.
It's a cliff.”
Kazan, having cut off the oncoming arrow, completely moved away from her.
Facing the approaching pursuers, he raised his sword and asked, “Who sent you?
Was the invitation from the Herti Kingdom a trap from the beginning?”
No one answered.
The attackers, tightly wrapped in black clothing, were waving their weapons instead of their tongues.
Kazan responded with his own sword dance.
Klang-!
Klang-!
In the darkness, the moonlight reflected on the swords, and rain fell.
Sometimes, a liquid thicker than water splashed out as well.
“Oh...”
Yasiris covered her mouth with her hand, holding her breath.
Realizing that her presence was of no use at the moment, she crouched down and watched the battle as if dead.
Her eyes, which had adapted to the darkness, could distinguish shapes to some extent, but she could not follow the movements of a high-ranking knight's sword.
She couldn't help but realize that Kazan was not among those lying on the ground.
Two, four, seven, thirteen...
As more bodies fell, Yasaris noticed something strange.
No matter how many were killed, the number of enemies did not decrease.
“Many of them, endlessly”
Kazan's words, spoken between ragged breaths, rang true.
There were many enemies.
Yasiris frantically searched for an escape route, but they were surrounded on all sides.
It's an absolutely desperate situation.
“Oh!…Empress”
“Yes, Your Majesty”
Yasiris responded obediently to Kazan, who had been pushed back and was now close to her again, covered in minor injuries.
As he was about to speak after taking down another enemy…
Ring-!!
Two different voices rang out simultaneously.
Kazan tackled Saif.
Yasiris was hit by an arrow.
"Yes!"
Yasiris let out a belated scream as pain shot from her shoulder.
The impact of the arrow pushed her two steps back, and then she felt something wrong.
There was no ground under her feet.
“Your Majesty...!”
Under the moonlight, she saw his red eyes widen.
She wanted to warn him about the weapons raining down on him, but no words came out.
She felt a floating sensation, so she looked up.
She saw the dark trees, the heavy rain, and the sky filled with storm clouds, one after another.
Ah, so this is how I'm going to die.
Yasiris closed her eyes to escape the feeling of the rain hitting her face.
While she was facing death, even the pain in her shoulder felt unreal.
And in the slow, endless passage of time, I heard...
“Sari!!”
A voice calls out her dear name...
She suddenly felt a body hugging her tightly.
But Yasiris was unable to reach that place.
At least that's how I remembered it.
After she lost her memory of the day they broke their vow due to an accident and recovered, she faced...
Ken Genott's cold, lifeless body.
"Yes!"
Yasiris opened her eyes wide and raised her upper body.
She tried to shake off the nightmare and get up, but something heavy was pressing down on her, making her attempt futile.
The pain all over her body didn't help either.
Her right shoulder hurt so badly that she couldn't suppress a groan.
“Ah...”
What happened?
Frowning at the light rain hitting her face, Yasaris tried to understand the situation.
Just when I thought it would be difficult to make out things in the dark, dawn began to break faintly.
the forest. riverside. the earth.
And Kazan.
Yasiris covered her mouth with one hand to suppress the scream that was about to escape.
The thing that was pressing her so hard was Kazan.
He was covered in blood.
“Your Majesty!”
Only then did Yasiris remember the moment before she lost consciousness.
When she was hit by an arrow and fell off the cliff, Kazan hugged her.
He had cradled her head in his arms, protecting her as they descended toward death, though the exact details of their fall remained a mystery.
Kazan seemed to be trying something with one hand, but the soft thump and his groan indicated that he had failed.
After that, he held her as they hit something again and again, and then she lost consciousness when they hit the water.
“Oh...”
“Your Majesty, are you awake?”
Yasiris immediately responded to the soft moan.
There were so many things she wanted to ask Kazan about.
Where are we?
What happened to the pursuers?
What is his condition?
But above all...
Why did you save me?
Why did you throw yourself off the cliff with me?
Why did you protect me so fiercely from death, get injured in the process, and save me in the end?
“Your Majesty?”
...But Kazan did not answer.
His body, touching hers, was burning intensely.