In the clear and wintry land, there weren’t any clouds to block the frightening moon that couldn’t be followed by a step. The kind that even if you run away and turn around to look, it follows. The moment heavens hang high aloft, and clouds darken, the last flock of doves disappears into the distance, bringing harsh winds blowing from the mountain up North. An edge to this murkiness engulfed the vast realm of Baerysian, bordered by the empire’s daunting iron walls.

  Out on the country side far away under its ruled was Cleareta sitting across the deep sea water that winter, churning tides splashing on shores in icy particles, rocking on a bed of darkness anyone could drift away from. There lies the Valentina's estate cover by rich meadow pastures and rows of trellised linden trees led to a stream nearby. Behind it was once a garden filled with Aemions, a sacred national flower of the empire was now being set highly aflame to ashes as black smoke rose freely toward the nearly cloudless sky.

  The familiar sound of a sharp blade resonates across the stone floor inside, dragging itself closer as it awaits the next victim, when suddenly a deep voice can be heard echoing through the structural stone wall of the foyer.

  “Come here.” The man said while pulling forward a sword dripping with thick essence of blood. At the same time, Alice held onto her bleeding stomach, momentarily inching away until her frail back helplessly hit against the hard flat surface of a wall.

  “I’m sorry Alice,” he said almost in desperation, but there was no response to his crying plead. The man standing before her is Johnathan, a loyally devoted guard, accompanying side by side with her father in the Valentina's household is holding onto the holy sword he has used to slice her precious sister’s head off earlier, along with a haggard and worried look always lined in layers across his tired forehead.

  In front of the ferocious fireplace flickering, a disdainful shadow morphed into the face of a devil, peering down with those eyes she once trusted now turn a motionless grey. “Now,” he persisted toward her trying to get away.

  “Alice, please.” His nudging turns into frustration, making the more ominous aura circling the air around them. “Child, you entered this house a fillet of society, servants, and attendants at your own feet without a care in the world. This heart-wrenching pain I have to endure every dreadful day because of them only double, and at the least of all, you wouldn’t understand why I have to do this. So give me the key, Alice.” He repeated in the dizzy, head-resounding, deep silence.

  Johnathan had said the same thing earlier, but Alice had already promptly hid the key to her father’s safe away, while right now she couldn’t seem to wrap around the fact he had beheaded every single members in the house just a few hours prior.

  What did he mean by the word ‘them’? Something so vaguely said that it irritably occupied her mind to find out why this once soft spoken old man, who has sworn loyalty to the Valentina's family, have cared for Alice and her sister since they were little dim-witted children, would turn into such a vindictive monster.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “No.” Shaking her head in disbelief.

  Did he have some apprehension? A shadow? And why hadn’t she noticed these past few years that the spirit of this man was no longer within him anymore since father passing three months ago? His soul had already gone cold.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just hand it over to me, then it will all be over!”

  “Who is ‘them’ Johnathan?” She asked again, her persuasive voice try nudging him for answers.

  Squeezing his eyes tight shut, the man came closer as if losing patience; he grabbed her by the throat with a sharp upward thrust and forced Alice up on her tiptoe as she gasped for air. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Alice, because I promise you the truth would only be more painful than your own death. Now tell me, where’s the key?!”

  “I…don’t know.” Alice stuttered, clawing at his strong fist wrapping around her throat. “Let...go!"

  “Fuck this!” As he yells and threw her back on the ground, Johnathan tried avoid making any more contact with that sullen face before having the courage to take a massive heap, angrily raising the sword upward before swinging it down mercilessly toward Alice inevitable death. But a sudden impact reverberates, almost blasting him backward, strong wind blew rocks particle onto his cut face when the heaviness of the steel blade ceases in Alice’s vigorous grasp, her right hands clutching onto the burning metal.

  Even Johnathan was too shaken to retreat as strange lights began appearing in front of him. Using every strength imaginable, she started pulling the man thrice her size to inch closer; the holy radiance magic had already begun boiling her flesh and blood, but the determination to rip their distance apart was even stronger.

  Raven’s black hair covered part of that solemn face. Through the blur of salted tears dwelling down those hollow cheeks, she looked up at Johnathan with red-rimmed eyes. Her beauty highlighted his hideous appearance, her sorrow highlighted his immorality, and for the first time, she thought of him as an enemy.

  “C..close your eyes...” He stuttered frighteningly as her grasp upheld his control over the heftiness of the sword. Even when Johnathan pressed harder and deeper down into her bone, Alice was unwilling to let go.

  “Augustas will never forgive you;” Alice said in a crisp voice, reminding him of the existence of her able lord husband on his way back home from Bennyport, traveling on a merchant ship for the past months. “Aren’t you afraid if this gets to the King’s court eyes and ears?”

  But her threat came to no avail when his action remained the same. With a smile spreading across that arrogant face, he said with mockery, “Let’s do your father one last favor together and burn this place down unburied and forgotten once a new nation reborn Alice, if anything, blame the great emperor who has failed us all.”

  Only when those words escaped his mouth did Alice’s reasoning turn into more curiosity. She quickly pieces everything together but somehow a bit too shaken to find out the truth. “Someone else is behind this, tell me, what is it you're afraid of John? Tell me!” She begs, eyes sparked up, and voice becoming raspy, hoping for anything as hand still gripping tightly onto the blade that’s slowly slicing itself through her fingers.

  Johnathan ignored her questioning; he signed and rolled his eyes. “Let go, Alice.” The man coldly said, trying to pull away the bloody weapon, almost shaking from fear.

  Alice swallowed the metallic taste of blood down in lump and spoke again patiently, “Johnathan.” Her gaze was frank, sensible. “Don’t do this, please.” She begged through gritted teeth; Almost inhumanly bending the hard iron within her palm.

  Shaken by those words, he forcefully took a step back as if Johnathan has heard her plead and came to his senses. Only to pull the blade sharpness away so quickly that it cuts off part of Alice's melted fingers then he wield it up again within both hands and at once coldly impale her throat; slicing it off without a thought. When the red string of faith has split between them; every traced of hope has been silenced and the final thrash was bethrow upon her loose neck.