For a moment, Victoria and her companions studied King Knorr's granddaughter in silence. At last, they understood why, unlike the other members of the principal branch of House Selifehian, the young princess had been adorned with precious gems and rare metals.
"You mean this child is..." Godric said, his eyes widening.
"Yes," Knorr replied softly. "She is the symbol of our House's hope. Proof that escaping the curse is no longer a mere dream, but a possibility. Naturally, this secret must remain between us. Should word of it reach the Magic Council, our fate would be sealed."
"You have my word," Godric said. "We shall not divulge your secret."
At those words, Knorr and the gathered Selifehians lowered their heads in gratitude.
"But how did she escape the curse?" Aiden asked. "Did the late princess possess some special magic that she passed on to her daughter?"
"Not to my knowledge," the king answered without hesitation. "No Selifehian has ever possessed such an ability. We are seers, nothing more, and my late daughter was no exception."
His gaze drifted toward Coco.
"After examining the matter with a clear mind, however, I arrived at what seemed the most obvious conclusion."
"Which is?" Victoria asked, fixing him with an unwavering stare.
"Only the descendants of the principal branch can break free from the curse," Knorr replied. "The secondary branch failed where my late daughter succeeded. If the daughters of the royal line bore children with travellers, they could give birth to a new generation of Selifehians—one free of the curse and blessed with flawless foresight."
"Did you even ask your daughters for their consent?" Victoria asked.
"Must I?" Knorr answered gravely. "They could have been born elsewhere, or not at all. Instead, the heavens decreed that they be born as Selifehian royalty. Such a name is not merely a privilege. It carries obligations."
His expression hardened.
"It is their duty."
Victoria's brow furrowed slightly, unable to hide her disapproval.
Beside her, Aiden clicked his tongue.
"What a bastard," he muttered.
"Judging by the look of things, are you saying that, in the end, you are sacrificing the secondary branch for the sake of the principal one?" Godric asked, his gaze narrowing.
"Precisely," Knorr answered without the slightest hesitation.
A heavy silence followed.
"As you can see for yourselves, the secondary branch is slowly starving to death," the king continued. "But that is their sacrifice to bear. Since our banishment, we have suffered a constant shortage of food. The nearest hunting and fishing grounds—the Whaling Sea and the Night Leaf Forest—fall under the protection of the Magic Council. Their wildlife is preserved by law, and harming any creature within those ecosystems is considered a crime. The Council claims such measures are necessary to prevent extinction."
Bitterness crept into his voice.
"As a result, our hunters are forced to travel beyond these lands and return before sundown with whatever little prey they can secure. Under such circumstances, the principal branch must be fed and protected above all others. If the future of our House rests upon their shoulders, then they must be preserved, even at the expense of the secondary branch."
"And I mean, none of them rebelled?" Aiden asked.
A faint smile crossed Knorr's face. "On the contrary. Most of them did."
His gaze shifted briefly toward Myorr.
"But my son ensured that such selfishness was punished."
"Selfishness?" Aiden repeated, baffled.
"I acknowledge that life is harsh for the secondary branch," Knorr said. "Yet the truth remains unchanged. No matter what course we take, none of us will escape the curse. Every Selifehian born before Princess Coco's generation is destined to die within this forsaken valley. Noble and commoner alike, we are all drowning in the same sea."
His expression remained stern.
"The only difference is that some of us must drown so that those who come after us may reach the shore."
Victoria's eyes drifted toward the two Selifehian princesses.
Though neither spoke, and tried their best to conceal it, their silence betrayed them. They endured the burden their father had placed on them, not out of desire, but out of obedience.
"Your son," Victoria said, pointing toward Myorr. "Why does he not share the duty imposed on your daughters? He is healthy, good-looking, and possesses considerable power. Unlike them, he could father numerous children if he took multiple foreign wives."
"I considered that possibility," Knorr admitted. "But several obstacles made it impractical."
He folded his hands together.
"A foreign woman, like most mothers, naturally grows attached to her children. Convincing her to leave them here would be difficult. Yet allowing those children to be raised beyond the valley would be even more dangerous. The traits of a Selifehian are not easily concealed, and if word reached the Magic Council that one of our kind walked freely beneath the sun, our House would be finished."
The king paused before continuing.
"And even if such women agreed to remain silent, the risk would still be too great. Love loosens the tongue as easily as it clouds reason. Men, however, are easier to separate from the consequences of their actions. It is far simpler to lure travellers into the arms of my daughters and send them away unaware of what they leave behind."
His eyes hardened.
"Of course, I choose only those who possess remarkable magical talent. If our descendants are to inherit freedom from the curse, then they must also inherit the strength that our bloodline has lacked for generations."
Victoria stared at him for a long moment.
"Does it not affect you?" she asked quietly. "Watching your daughters lie with men they do not know nor love?"
For the first time, Knorr's resolve seemed to waver.
He closed his eyes and released a long, weary breath.
"My children are the greatest blessing the heavens have ever granted me," he said softly.
When he opened his eyes again, the parent was gone, and only the ruler remained.
"But before I am a father, I am a king. And kings must make sacrifices."
Victoria offered no further comment.
Though she understood the burden of a crown—having watched her own father, King Victor, first of his name, govern the kingdom of Auronis—she felt nothing but disgust toward Knorr. In her eyes, he had chosen the easiest path, placing unbearable burdens upon others so that he would not have to bear them himself.
While Aiden attempted to charm the Selifehian princesses with shameless winks, Godric had withdrawn into his thoughts.
The mage replayed the king's story repeatedly in his mind, examining each detail with the same scrutiny he reserved for ancient texts and magical theories. Something was wrong.
A piece was missing.
The tale Knorr had told fit together well enough, yet the more Godric reflected upon it, the more he sensed an absence at its centre—a gap large enough to distort the entire picture.
Several minutes passed before his eyes suddenly widened.
"I have a question," he said.
The cavern's attention shifted toward him.
"What happened to your wife? You never mentioned her."
Knorr stiffened.
It was subtle, little more than a twitch, yet it was enough.
Victoria noticed it immediately, and so did the others.
"She passed away from a rare illness," the king replied hastily. Placing a hand over his chest, he lowered his head. "May her soul forever rest in our hearts."
The gathered Selifehians echoed their king's words and mirrored his gesture, paying homage to their late queen.
"My condolences," Godric said politely.
Then his expression hardened.
"But tell me this. Earlier, you claimed to have met the Goddess herself. Do you still stand by that statement?"
"Y-yes," Knorr answered.
The hesitation was brief—far too brief, yet still present.
Godric rose to his feet. "Victoria."
Without another word, he extended his wand toward her.
Though she had no idea what he intended to do, curiosity outweighed her questions. She silently infused the wand with her mana.
Across the cavern, Aiden merely smiled. He knew Godric well enough to recognize that expression. Something was about to happen.
Wand in hand, Godric walked toward the king and stopped before him.
The Selifehians exchanged confused glances while Knorr's unease visibly deepened.
"What are you doing?" the king asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"What is the meaning of this?" Myorr demanded. "My father answered your questions. You gave him your word."
Godric's gaze never left the king.
"Then let us determine whether he truly answered all of them."
Before anyone could react, he gently pressed the tip of his wand against Knorr's forehead, channelling Victoria's mana directly into his mind.
The king's eyes rolled back.
For an instant, his body swayed as though caught between waking and dreaming.
"Father!"
Myorr lurched forward, alarmed. His sisters echoed his concern, and a wave of confusion rippled through the gathered Selifehians.
The commotion lasted only a moment.
A faint, shapeless mass of mana began to emerge from Knorr's forehead, hovering before him like a fragment of thought given form.
One by one, the voices fell silent.
The entire cavern watched in uneasy anticipation.
"What is he doing?" Victoria asked.
"He's exposing his memories," Aiden replied. "Though from the look of it, he's searching for a specific one—something connected to the Goddess, I suppose. That's why he borrowed a trace of your mana. As you already know, you are one with her. It makes finding memories tied to Eros much easier."
A grin spread across his face.
"Godric is the most curious person you'll ever meet. Once he starts searching for an answer, he won't stop until he finds it."
"Emior."
The moment the chant left Godric's lips, the spell took effect.
The shapeless mass of mana suspended before Knorr expanded throughout the cavern like a veil of mist. Within its depths, images began to form, revealing fragments of a long-buried memory.
The memory carried everyone back to Knorr's first encounter with Eros.
Unlike the form she had taken within the Tower of Affliction, the Goddess appeared differently here. Radiant wings of light stretched behind her, and her beauty possessed celestial purity. She resembled one of the angels spoken of in ancient scripture.
The sight alone surprised Victoria.
The memory unfolded further.
Knorr stood within a paradisiacal garden overflowing with flowers unknown to mortal lands. Beside the Goddess stood another important figure whose presence commanded equal reverence.
After offering the proper courtesies and bowing before her divinity, the young king respectfully took Eros' hand and pressed his lips against it.
That single gesture changed everything.
The instant contact was made, a vision surged through him.
It lasted less than a heartbeat.
Yet within that fleeting moment, Knorr witnessed horrors that would shape the rest of his life.
He saw the coming invasion of Utopia by the Triad of Chaos.
He saw kingdoms burn.
He saw noble bloodlines erased.
And above all else, he saw the fall of the Goddess herself.
The vision ended.
Knorr staggered, but he kept it to himself.
The memory shifted.
Back within Elpisnir, the royal seat of House Selifehian, Knorr revealed the prophecy only to his wife, Queen Arisnir.
Unlike him, she needed no time to decide.
She immediately urged him to warn the Goddess and the noble houses of the catastrophe that awaited Utopia.
Knorr refused.
He feared the prophecy far more than the disaster itself.
To him, such knowledge was dangerous.
People welcomed favourable prophecies with gratitude, but when fate delivered suffering instead of hope, they searched for someone to blame.
And blame often fell on the messenger. So, Knorr chose silence.
Days became weeks. Weeks became months.
The burden of the secret slowly poisoned his marriage.
Arisnir could not forgive his decision, and Knorr would not abandon it.
The distance between them widened until even ordinary conversation ceased. She refused to share his table, his chambers, or their matrimonial bed.
Even so, her silence did not last forever. Unable to bear the weight of what she knew, the queen resolved to reveal the prophecy herself.
Before acting, she confronted her husband one final time, and what followed was no mere argument, but a violent quarrel born of fear, guilt, and desperation that ultimately ended in murder.
The memory showed Knorr cradling Arisnir's lifeless body in his arms as he wept bitterly, his hands trembling and his face contorted in horror at what he had done—yet even then, fear outweighed remorse.
If the truth emerged now, House Selifehian would be condemned not only for concealing the prophecy but for delaying its submission to the authorities.
He could not allow that.
Ten days later, he announced the queen's death.
With the aid of several Selifehian physicians, he fabricated a tale of a rare illness and presented it as truth.
The people believed him.
Rumours of the queen's prolonged absence had already spread throughout the kingdom. Whispers of sickness had circulated for weeks.
Her sudden death merely appeared to confirm what many already suspected.
But lies have a way of breeding new fears. Terrified that the truth might one day surface, Knorr silenced the last witnesses to his crime.
One by one, the physicians who knew of Arisnir's true fate were assassinated.
The memory ended here.
Throughout the cavern, the veil of mana slowly withdrew into itself.
The images faded and the light dimmed, until at last the final traces of the spell dissolved into nothingness, leaving only silence in its wake.
Knorr regained consciousness.
Though his mind had drifted beyond reality moments earlier, the aftermath of what had been revealed still lingered within him. He could feel it—every gaze, every silence, every judgment pressing down upon his existence.
The cavern had fallen utterly still, like a graveyard robbed even of wind. So deep was the silence that even Knorr's faint, uneven breath echoed through the stone.
Slowly, he turned.
What he saw made his breath catch.
A collective wave of hostility met him. Not from one, but from all.
The Selifehians— the prince and princesses included—glared at him with faces twisted by disbelief and suffocating rage.
Instinctively, the king stepped back.
He retreated toward the edge of the chamber, breathing unevenly, as though distance alone might shield him from their judgment.
"I knew it," Godric said with a weary sigh. "The Magic Council may be wolves in sheep's clothing, but even they have their reasons. In their place, I might have done the same and banished you."
His gaze sharpened.
"It is unthinkable that an entire house of seers failed to foresee such a catastrophe."
He paused briefly.
"That is why I wanted to hear your account of events—to determine whether you were truly guilty or merely condemned by circumstance. Yet after hearing you speak, it feels… one-sided. You place the blame solely upon the Council, as if you stand apart from it all."
His expression darkened slightly.
"But in this world, nothing is purely black or white. Everything exists in shades of grey."
Knorr's jaw tightened.
A tremor ran through his body—frustration, fear, and rage colliding all at once—before it broke.
A thunderous roar erupted from him.
"Do you even understand what it means to be king!?" he shouted. "I raised this House from nothing! I brought it to heights no noble family could ever hope to reach! Not you—never you—you who speak so easily from the mud I pulled you out of!"
His voice cracked, yet he continued.
"You were nothing before I gave this House form. And now you stand here judging me?"
He took a ragged breath.
"What would you have done if you wore this crown? Tell me!"
His eyes burned with desperation.
"Prophecies are called prophecies for a reason! Once seen, they cannot be undone. They will come to pass regardless of what we do. To oppose them is to defy fate itself—and the cost of that defiance is always greater than the prophecy itself!"
His voice rose again, trembling with conviction.
"People are cruel. People are ungrateful. What do you think would have happened if I had revealed a prophecy of ruin—of the goddess's fall, of the world's suffering? They would have torn me apart! My House would have been cursed alongside me!"
A bitter laugh escaped him.
"Because people do not want truth. They only want comfort. They only accept prophecies when they speak of hope—and when they do not, they destroy the one who delivers them!"
After Knorr's outburst, a member of the secondary branch slowly rose to his feet.
His name was Manur.
Once, he had been a baker—known for his energy, his laughter, and the warmth he brought to others. That life, however, belonged to another era, before the fall of House Selifehian. Now, starvation had carved him down to little more than bone and skin. His frame trembled beneath its own weight, and a wooden staff was the only thing that kept him upright.
"What is the point of baking bread," he said quietly, "if it is only meant to be discarded the moment it leaves the oven?"
He let out a weary breath.
"Look around you. We accepted misery and the deaths of our brothers because we believed in you. We even surrendered our sanity, living like beasts in the dark."
His gaze hardened.
"Long before you were born—before any of us here were born—our ancestors treated prophecy with reverence, not fear. They believed ill omens were not punishments, but guidance. A gift granted to us so we might change fate for the betterment of the world."
He shook his head faintly.
"If not, then why would the gods give us such sight at all?"
His voice sharpened.
"What is the point of having a mouth if you refuse to speak? Perhaps you should have cut out your tongue long ago."
A bitter silence followed.
"I no longer acknowledge you as my king, Knorr." He spat onto the stone floor.
Knorr's eyes widened in fury.
"How dare you lecture me on the will of our ancestors!" he roared. "I was already a man sustaining this House when you were not even born. I will have your head for this treason!"
He turned sharply.
"Myorr! Bring me his head!"
Victoria's hand tightened around the hilt of her sword, but Aiden quietly restrained her wrist, signalling restraint. Godric, meanwhile, remained still, observing in silence.
Myorr rose.
So did his sisters, Irshr and Kursh.
"Father," Myorr said, his voice controlled but heavy, "you killed Mother—the only one who ever tried to save both our House and this world. All because you feared what you did not understand. And by your command, I have already shed the blood of countless Selifehians you deemed 'rebellious.'"
Knorr's expression faltered.
"Myorr… you are my son," he said urgently. "One day, when I am gone, you will be king. Only then will you understand the sacrifices I have made!"
"One day?" Myorr repeated, gazing coldly. "Why not today?"
A killing intent filled the cavern.
Knorr reacted instantly, turning toward the darkness outside the cavern in a desperate attempt to flee.But it was already too late.
Faster than the normal eye could follow, Myorr closed the distance and drove his arm through his father's chest.
Knorr froze in disbelief.
"Myorr…" he gasped, blood spilling from his lips. "What… have you done?"
"You were indeed the one who pulled us out of the mud," Myorr whispered near his father's ear. "But in the end… you proved to be a terrible ruler."
Slowly, he withdrew his arm from Knorr's chest and lowered his father to the ground with careful hands.
"Farewell, Father," he said, his voice breaking as tears began to fall. "You have done enough."
Knorr's consciousness faded in uneven waves.
His hand twitched weakly, reaching out—toward his daughters, toward something, anything that might anchor him to the world he was leaving behind.
But the distance was too great.
Irshr and Kursh stood nearby, their eyes filled with sorrow. Tears ran silently down their cheeks, yet neither of them moved to stop what had already been decided. After a long moment, both turned their faces away.
"Ah…" A faint breath escaped Knorr's lips.
His eyes slowly closed.
And the king of House Selifehian fell into silence.
***
In a land too devastated to be recognized, a cataclysmic war raged across the horizon. Amid the ruins, a man lay unconscious against a broken stone, his body ravaged from head to toe.
It was Knorr, twenty years in the past.
When he finally opened his eyes, confusion overtook him.
"What is this…?" he whispered, suspended between disbelief and shock.
"The Selifehian version of hell," a feminine voice answered softly.
His gaze trembled as it searched the desolate landscape for the source of the voice.
Then he saw her.
Tears immediately welled in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.
A woman of radiant beauty appeared before him, dressed in white and gently suspended above the shattered ground.
"Arisnir…" he choked out. "Forgive me…"
"Do not waste your tears on me, Knorr," the late queen replied calmly, her gaze fixed on the burning skies. "Our story ended long ago, the moment you chose what you believed to be right. Now you will face the consequences of that choice."
"I don't understand," he said weakly, looking around in confusion.
"You do not need to," Arisnir answered.
Her voice carried no anger—only distance.
"It is known among our people that the closest kin to a Selifehian is the one chosen by the gods to guide them into the afterlife."
She spread her arms slightly, as though embracing the burning world.
"From this moment onward, this will be your eternity."
Her voice continued, steady and unyielding.
"Selifehians are blessed with visions of the future so that we may shape fate itself. Every prophecy, regardless of scale, is a sacred responsibility. Those of ill omen are the most important of all."
"Failing to reveal them is not ignorance," she said. "It is a conscious choice to allow catastrophe for selfish gain. And for such a sin, the punishment is absolute."
"The one who withholds prophecy is condemned to live every future they refused to prevent… endlessly, in an eternal cycle."
Knorr's face twisted in horror.
"How can I undo this?" he cried. "My love, please—help me! I do not deserve this!"
"My love?" Arisnir repeated softly, a faint sadness in her eyes. "There is no love here. Not anymore."
She turned her face toward the collapsing sky.
"And only death seals a prophecy."
Her form began to dissolve into drifting fragments of light.
"Where are you going?" Knorr panicked. "Do not leave me here alone! Arisnir!"
"My time here is over," she said gently. "I must return to my eternity."
A pause lingered between them. Then, almost like a whisper carried by the wind—
"Even now… after everything you have done… there is one truth that remains untouched; you were the only man I truly loved."
And with that, she vanished completely.
Knorr fell to his knees as the world above shattered.
A rain of colossal, burning comets descended upon the land, erasing everything in fire and ruin—including himself.
Yet he did not die.
In this realm, death did not exist—only repetition and suffering, an eternal cycle bound to the prophecies he had once chosen to bury.