Previously
Irenia reflects on her forced marriage to the rumored 'Monster Prince' Caesar, a union orchestrated by her stepmother Celestina to sacrifice an illegitimate daughter to a cursed fate. After a cold wedding ceremony conducted by a proxy, Irenia is locked in the bridal chamber alone.
Caesar’s lips parted slightly.
“Ah… Ugh…”
A pained groan slipped from between his lips, and I recoiled without thinking. My steps were heavy and awkward, far slower than usual.
Gradually, his groans grew rougher, until it became hard to tell whether the sound belonged to a man or a beast.
It sounded like wind whistling from the depths of a dark cave.
An ominous sensation crept over me, a feeling warning that something terrible was about to occur. A chill ran down my spine.
I had to hide. But where?
I glanced around. In this vast room, where could my small body conceal itself?
Driven by survival instinct, I forced myself to move despite the heavy drag of my feet.
At last, I found myself inside the wardrobe. I slipped inside swiftly and pulled the doors shut behind me.
I felt the cold fabric of garments brushing against my face, and the scent of insect-repelling herbs drifted into my nose.
I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed both hands over my mouth, desperate to stifle my ragged breath. My heart hammered wildly, as if it might burst from my chest at any moment.
Through the narrow slats of the wardrobe doors, I watched Caesar begin to stir.
He had been lying flat on the floor only moments ago; had he gotten up while I was hiding?
Now he stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard with a hunched back.
A violent crash rang out, quickly followed by the racket of things being torn apart. I gritted my teeth and held my breath.
Debris scattered everywhere as furniture was reduced to broken rubbish. I could not fathom what had enraged him, but he roared like a wild animal, smashing everything within his reach.
“Ah… Ugh…”
As if suffering from a throbbing headache, he pressed a hand to his forehead, scowling deeply, before irritably knocking a candelabrum to the floor.
The silver candelabrum struck the stones with a thunderous clatter, extinguishing the flame and plunging the chamber into deeper shadow.
Molten wax trickled across the floor until the snuffed candle rolled against his foot. He bent down, bringing his nose close to sniff it, then turned his head away in indifference.
All at once, flashes of silver lightning tore across the darkness beyond the window, followed by a terrifying peel of thunder.
“Ah, ugh…”
Caesar fell to the floor, clapping both hands over his ears. Thunder reverberated again, rattling the walls and shaking the windowpanes.
“Aaargh!”
Collapsing onto his stomach, he did more than cover his ears; he clawed at the carpet with his arms and legs like someone thrashing in the throes of death.
The thunder passed, and a deadly hush reclaimed the room. Nothing could be heard save for the relentless drumming of rain outside.
Caesar crawled toward the window. His movements were sickeningly unnatural, far closer to a beast crawling on all fours than a man. A violent shudder gripped my body.
The window glass suddenly shattered, followed by the sound of tearing drapery.
Terror overwhelmed me. I clamped my hands firmly over my mouth to keep from crying out. Wind and rain swept into the chamber, extinguishing every remaining lamp.
With the last trace of light gone, pitch-black darkness enveloped everything.
In that stifling stillness, the sound of the rain sounded louder than ever.
I did everything I could to suppress my trembling breaths.
Just then, I felt something cold resting between my thighs.
‘A thing like you isn’t worth more than a single bite.’
It was the dagger my half-sister, Giovinetta, had bestowed upon me as a wedding gift.
‘If I were in your place, I’d choose to kill myself with this before being offered up to a monster like him.’
Encrusted with colorful jewels, it appeared at first glance like a mere ornament, yet beneath lay a razor-sharp blade.
I had managed to carry it into the royal bedchamber only because no one cared what I had brought with me.
‘She’ll die anyway…’
‘She’s an illegitimate daughter, an outcast of the Flores family…’
‘She’s going to be his fifth bride, isn’t she?’
The whispers of the wedding guests behind their fans had not escaped my ears.
I was painfully aware of every word.
Giovinetta had given me a choice: die by my own hand, or be torn apart by his. Only the method differed.
Trembling, I reached down to feel for the dagger until my fingertips brushed the hilt. That icy metal felt like my only lifeline.
My heart flopped about like a fish tossed onto dry land, threatening to tear right out of my chest.
This confinement, this suffocating silence, and my hot, shallow breaths…
All of a sudden, Caesar vanished from the wardrobe slats.
My heart dropped to my stomach.
Where had he gone?
A loud splintering of wood resounded, and my field of vision tore wide open.
“Wh-what?”
What had just happened?
The wardrobe, my only sanctuary, had been ripped apart in an instant.
Its solid wood? Tore through it just like that?
Could a human being really do such a thing?
I tried to scramble back, only to realize how foolish I had been.
You fool, Irenia, a wardrobe? What were you thinking?
You locked yourself inside a cage with nowhere to run!
No matter how hard I tried to pull back, my back only struck against the remaining wood of the wardrobe.
There was no escape left. A strange coldness seeped into my heart.
I froze like a deer trapped before a predator.
The words of my mother, Anariza, echoed in my mind.
‘You must live. The one who survives is the strongest.’
I had lived by those words all my life, clinging stubbornly to survival.
Even now…
So I would not turn this dagger against myself, as Giovinetta had hoped.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, I held my arms straight out and cried out in a shaking voice,
“St-stay back!”
My hands trembled so violently that I feared the blade would slip right from my grasp.
How pathetic I must look, hiding behind a broken plank of wood, brandishing a dagger no larger than my palm.
I wanted to scream. Perhaps I actually did.
Yet Caesar did nothing but stare at me. I could not make out his features clearly, but a red gleam flared in his eyes through the dark.
“St-stay back?”
His voice was utterly calm, in complete contrast to my hysteria.
He blinked slowly, those crimson eyes remaining fixed on me. He blinked once… then twice.
My breath caught. Something was wrong.
“If you come any closer…”
I no longer knew what to say.
“Closer?”
“Yes, if you come near…”
I’ll stab you!
Yet the words lodged in my throat, refusing to come out.
And Caesar did not seem to understand my threat in the least.
Instead, he stepped forward, slowly pressing his body toward my hands.
Then, gently, he brought his nose to the dagger.
He began sniffing it, moving his nose along the blade like an inquisitive beast.
A tickling shiver traveled straight into my fingertips.
I nearly lost all feeling in them.
I averted my gaze downward, doing everything not to meet his eyes.
I recalled a forester once telling me: never look a wild beast in the eyes, or it will attack.
I did just as I had been taught. I cast my eyes down.
Right then, lightning flared once more, cutting through the shadows of the room.
“Ah… Ugh…”
His face contorted, and he shut his eyes tightly.
He clamped his hands over his ears once again…
A deafening roar split the horizon, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the ground and rattled the core of my very soul.
“Aaargh!”
He shrieked at the top of his lungs, then curled inward, shuddering in terror. Several more flashes of lightning and rolling peels of thunder followed in quick succession.
His chest heaved violently, and every time the sky shook with another rumble, his body jolted as if struck by lightning itself.
Without anyone needing to explain, I knew he was afraid… terrified to his core. Seeing him scramble clumsily beneath the bed, shivering like a frightened hound with its tail tucked between its legs, stirred a sudden pity in me.
Feeling pity for someone called a monster… what a strange irony.
Even so, all I saw before me was a wretched soul trembling at the crack of thunder. Fear could no longer find room in my heart, leaving only… pity.
The moment I realized this, the terror inside me melted away like snow under the sun.
Gathering my courage, I unfolded my curled legs and took a single step… then another, softly approaching him.
Caesar was still curled up in the corner, letting out faint whines.
Mustering my strength, I called out to him with a wavering voice.
“Y-you…”
“Ahhh…”
The moment he heard my voice, he shrank back even further, as if the sound itself frightened him. Was he painfully sensitive to noise?
I froze in my tracks, careful not to advance any closer.
A heavy silence fell. Flustered, I broke it with my voice:
“A-are you afraid of the thunder?”
I could not fathom what had prompted me to ask such a thing. It was a question meant for a five-year-old child, not a groom on his wedding night.
Even so, I cleared my throat and went on with firmer resolve:
“It’s all right… Everything will be fine.”
He did not answer. He remained completely silent.
I repeated the words softly, again and again. “It’s all right… It’s all right…”
Perhaps I was speaking those words more to reassure myself than him.
FADE OUT