Chapter2

At the crack of dawn, the heavy wooden door exploded into a shower of splinters with a deafening crash.

A squad of fully armored dark magic knights surged in, their heavy combat boots pounding the floorboards as they surrounded me completely.

Standing dead center among them was the most exalted man in the entire empire.

Kael.

His face bore not a single burn scar. The basin of acid that could melt bone and corrode flesh from last night hadn't even left a red mark on his skin. I stared at his face, and a sudden realization hit me: the "dying knight brother" skin from last night wasn't flesh and blood at all. It was a synthetic shell forged from abyssal materials. I had destroyed that layer of skin, but I couldn't destroy the true body hidden underneath.

Clad in a pitch-black military dress uniform, he stood at the exact intersection of morning light and shadow, not a single strand of his hair out of place.

"Aria."

His voice was frigid and commanding, laced with a flawlessly measured note of heartbreak. "You are suspected of murdering my twin brother through exceptionally cruel means. In the name of the Imperial Grand Duke, I formally place you under arrest."

The moment the words left his mouth, he raised his black-leather-gloved right hand. The floorboards ruptured. Several pitch-black vines burst from the earth—their surfaces covered in dense barbs that ripped right through my nightgown and bit into my flesh as they slithered up my calves. When they violently locked around my wrists, the barbs dug deep into the gaps of my wrist bones, brutally hoisting me mid-air.

All the knights in the cabin drew their swords. In their eyes, any commoner brazen enough to murder the Duke’s brother was destined to become nothing more than a dried corpse hanging from the city walls in the next second.

But I knew perfectly well that, according to the Imperial Lordship Laws, Kael possessed absolute judicial authority over commoners within his territory. As long as I hadn't been transferred to the Imperial Capital's tribunal, no one would ever question where or how he locked me up.

This system was called the "Lord's Right of Silence." And right now, it was actively taking effect on me.

Fighting through the excruciating pain in my wrists, I tilted my chin up, staring dead into Kael's mock-sorrowful eyes.

"Murder?" I let out a cold scoff. "Your Grace, when you personally butchered your brother inch by inch and fed him to the demonic beasts, didn't you ever think to keep a bone as a souvenir?"

Sharp gasps erupted from all around. A few knights couldn't even maintain a firm grip on their swords.

The expression on Kael's face froze for a split second. The next moment, he locked his burning gaze on me, his eyes seething with something that had completely burned through his sanity.

"Get out."

He kept his gaze on me, his thin lips parting slightly.

The knight commander hesitated. "Your Grace, this woman—"

"I said, get out."

In less than ten seconds, the knights had completely cleared out.

Kael walked toward me, step by deliberate step. His combat boots crushed the splintered floorboards. Thud. Thud.

Stopping right in front of me, he seized my jaw in a crushing grip, violently forcing my face up to meet his.

"Those words last night... you weren't just guessing." His thumb pressed against my pulse, applying just enough pressure to make the vein bulge beneath my skin. "You knew exactly what my brother said when I pushed him into the abyss. So you aren't dreaming. This isn't a coincidence. Something happened to you."

His thumb slid agonizingly slowly down my jawline until it stopped hovering right above my collarbone.

"An enemy who knows my secrets is dangerous. But a lapdog who knows my secrets, locked right at my feet—" He smiled, his thin lips leaning close to the shell of my ear, "—is perfect."

A blinding vortex of dark magic mist instantly swallowed us whole.

When I crashed to the ground again, my spine violently slammed against cold stone. This was the deepest private dungeon beneath the ducal estate—the iron chains, the torture racks, the dried blood crusting the walls, it was the exact same scene from my past life.

Before I could scramble up, chains shot out from all directions. With a rapid succession of metallic clanks, my wrists and ankles were ruthlessly shackled to a cross-shaped black iron rack, leaving my body suspended in mid-air.

Kael stripped off his black leather gloves and casually tossed them aside. He stepped closer, tracing his long, elegant fingers agonizingly slowly down the side of my neck.

I jerked my head away, evading his touch.

This motion did not anger him; instead, it elicited a low, dark chuckle from his throat. He stared intently at the raw wound below my collarbone where the vine's barbs had scratched me, and his Adam's apple bobbed heavily.

"I was too stupid in our past life," he murmured, his voice dropping terrifyingly low. "To think I only focused on drawing your blood. Once you were drained dry, you ceased to exist—so what use was that blood to me?"

He opened his hand, and pitch-black runic lines surfaced on his palm.

The activation array of the Dark Blood Pact.

"In this life. I'll carve you alive."

His palm slammed flat against the center of my chest.

Agony shredded my nerve endings without a shred of warning—it felt as though red-hot needles were simultaneously piercing every vein, converging toward my heart along with my blood flow. Black threads slithered up my neck and collarbone at a terrifying, visible speed. My vision began to blur. My consciousness felt like something was gripping its edges and forcefully dragging it out. I opened my mouth, but only breathless rasps escaped my throat.

A sudden, bone-piercing chill radiated from the torn wound on my collarbone—the black threads of the Blood Pact were drilling straight into the gash, taking root deep into the crevices of my bones like living roots.

He was going to completely replace my blood. Pump his own marks into me. Turn me into nothing more than a breathing vessel.

"Since you saw right through me—" he whispered in my ear, his tone saturated with a near-reverent madness, "then you can follow me down into the abyss. In this life, and the next... your soul will only ever bear my name."

The edges of my vision were actively fading to black.

I turned my head, dodging his encroaching breath. Staring at my own blurry reflection on the stone wall, I soundlessly curled the corner of my lips into a smirk.

Hell, was it?

I had already clawed my way back from there once.