I'm not a good man.
I have never hesitated to cut down those who dared to bar my path, nor have I shown mercy to the enemies who fell beneath my blade.
Yet…
There was a time when I was powerless, nothing more than a trembling wretched begging for crusts of bread. In those bleak, forsaken outskirts, I lived among rats and the discarded remnants of society.
"Was I truly any different from them?" I often wondered. By what right do I pass judgment, when I myself was scarcely more capable than the lame and the broken? I possessed arms and legs, yet achieved nothing of worth.
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The cruelty of our parents shattered the bond between us, leaving it as fractued and insignificant as a pawn abandoned on a blood-stained chessboard. In public, we played our roles dutifully;behind closed doors, she despised me.
As to her, and to Victor, I was a traitor.
I obeyed our parents. I bent to their commands. I pursued every discipline my father thrust upon me.
Our family is unlike the common households of Asterra. We descend from a prestigious lineage—one whose bloodline traces directly to the Gods who first set foot upon this land. As their heirs, we are bound by sacred laws and ancient expectations.
Every bearer of the
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In 3003, my parents fled to a small village in Duvemont after our former city fell during the conflict between Dauphin and Victoria City. The mansion we settled in stood alone atop a mountain ridge, an isolated estate my father inherited from my grandfather. To my sister and me, it felt like the beginning of an adventure. I was twelve then, and Raily was ten; barely two years separated us, though my mother always spoke as if the gap was huge.
My mother, Cathrine, was a cruel woman. Among our relatives—and even within our clan—she was whispered about as a witch. She had no patience for the elderly, no tenderness for the young. When Raily was born, it was my grandmother and I who took turns caring for her. To my mother, a girl born into our clan meant Malediction—Tribulation. She despised Raily from the moment she was born, and her hatred twisted our household into a place of favoritism and war.
My father, Benedict, by contrast, was neutral. Gender meant nothing to him; he looked beyond tradition and the rigid values imposed on us. In his eyes, Raily had the same right as I did to face the wicked ritual that awaited us both.
When Raily turned six, he often took her along his work journeys, leaving me behind with my mother and the suffocating expectations mother imposed.
Even though my parents invested more resources and trust in me—as their son, as the presumed future head our family—I never dared to disobey them or give them reason to doubt my potential.
Yet despite my mother's attempts to separate us, I never distance myself from Raily. As children, we were close. We played together in the village park, and it was Raily who introduced me to Victor. The three of us became inseparable.
Until my world began to widen.
As I grew older, my ambitions grew with me. I wanted more—more knowledge, more strength, more purpose.
It was at school that I met Nana, who taught me skills I still rely on today. But my mother soon intervened, driving her away and severing that connection before it could deepen.
When I turned fifteen, my parents sent me to the Academia. I was accepted without difficulty into the
So at the end, I chose to walk away from them.
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The
To be a good son, as my mother defined it, meant surpassing every relative, instilling fear in commoners, and preparing for the ritual that awaited me at sixteen—a dual to the death between my sister and me.
The ritual would not end until one of us lay dead. And the survivor, the one who dared to slaughter their own blood, would inherit our clan's Inori treasure—the forsaken, legendary Card.
My parents sent me to the
But I never intended to return. No. My goal from the beginning was to escape this hell—to vanish. To refuse the ritual entirely. I would not kill Raily. She was precious, she was dearer to me than anyone in this world.
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Two years passed since.
It was an ordinary night of training, nothing unusual, nothing foreboding. I had no warning. No omen.
One moment I was seated in the dormitory hall; the next, a force tore me from my chair and hurled me through space.
I landed in our courtyard. At my sister's feet.
Her heel crushed my fingers before I could breathe properly. She stood above me, mother looming behind her.
Without a word, Raily seized me by the hair and yanked me uppright. My back slammed against the stone fountain.
Everything blurred.
When I open my eyes, a woman I had never seen before sat at the fountain's edge. Her fingers, long, pale, elegant, traced the line of my jaw, forcing my gaze to meeet hers. She whispered words I did not understand, her breath cold against my skin.
Then she smiled.
A wicked, predatory smile that I remember to this day.
She moved fast for my eyes to follow, slipping past Raily like a phantom. Her hands plunged into my mother's chest.
A wet, sickening sound tore open.
She ripped my mother's heart out while it was still beating.
I could only watch as Raily held me down.
The woman raised the heart to her lips.
They laughed, my sister and that creature laughed as my mother collapsed lifeless at their feet.
I could not scream, I could not move. I remained frozen as the woman devoured my mother.
I'm still haunted by this night.
No matter how far I run, no matter how much I flee from Raily and my past. I cannot escape this awful memory. Each time I'm near Raily, memories of this night begin to circle, tightening and dragging me back into that courtyard, and I witness the death of my mother over and over on repeat until my body goes numb and I collapse.
I thought that by now I'll be fine. That my body is stronger, my mental health is stable. But this feverish nightmare is carved too deep in my mind, haunting me, refusing to fade away.
When will I be free of this agony that I did not chose?