Chapter 1: A Lovely Kingdom
The Kingdom of Peace was famous for two things: its tranquility and the annual ceremony of bleeding the Devil.
The tranquility part, Justinian thought, was highly debatable—especially while running for his life from thirty furious citizens.
Stones whistled past his head. One clipped his ear. Another smashed against a wall beside him, showering him with dust.
He ignored the astonished bystanders watching the bizarre spectacle and the laughing children pointing at his attackers.
Soon, he burst onto a wide, neglected street. Without wasting a second, he dashed toward the closed door of one of the grimy buildings there. It was the most obscure house in the entire area, with a leaking wooden roof, barely intact windows, and old, ugly paint peeling from its walls.
Beside the entrance hung a rusted plaque that read: Kingdom-funded Orphanage.
After a long moment, the door opened, and he stumbled inside.
Sister Teresa, standing in the hall, sighed, already dreading to ask what it was this time.
The answer came anyway, in the form of fists hammering against the entrance.
“OPEN UP!”
“WHERE IS THAT WALKING DISASTER?!”
“ENOUGH OF HIS PLAGUES!”
The mob was already roaring before Teresa even opened the door. As she stepped outside to face them, she froze at the preposterous sight before her.
Nearly all of them were plastered from head to toe in putrescent bird droppings.
'Have they been rained on by a flock of demons?'
Her wide-eyed stare was interrupted when the bald High Priest shoved his way to the front.
“Teresa, we’re looking for that damned thing you’re raising!”
“I haven’t seen him since morning.”
Her straight-faced lie drove them to the boiling point. The priest reddened so violently that several parishioners had to steady him.
“We saw him run this way!”
“You can’t protect him forever!”
Used to this kind of scene, she stood her ground as the voices rose in pitch.
“The orphanage belongs to the Eternally Beautiful Queen. If you insist on entering, ask her permission. I’m sure she’ll gladly hear your complaint.”
That answer brought grimaces to the crowd’s faces. Today was the day of the bleeding ritual. Who would dare disturb the Queen at such a time?
As the mob hesitated, the priest forced himself back under control.
“Sister, we only want a long-overdue justice. That damned brat causes disasters with his mere presence, and we all suffe—”
“I have said everything there is to say on this matter,” Teresa interrupted.
The priest clenched his jaw and looked from her to the rotting wood of the orphanage door. Then he sighed.
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“Fine. Keep the cursed kid for a few more hours.”
Teresa’s eyes widened slightly.
“What, you thought this would go on forever?” he sneered. “The Bishop is willing to speak to the Queen just after the ceremony. When that clock strikes midnight, Sister, do not stand between him and us.”
The crowd brightened noticeably. They could wait a few more hours for revenge. And if Justinian fled the city by then, so much the better for everyone.
After casting a few more hateful looks at the barely standing building, they finally left.
Watching them go, Teresa felt a bad premonition stir in her chest before she turned and went back inside. There, the culprit behind the entire mess was already waiting for her.
“How did you even do it this time?”
The eighteen-year-old met her gaze, indignation written plainly across his face.
“I was just trying to help.”
He told her how he had found a leftover sack of grain near the cathedral. It had clearly been abandoned, and it would soon rot if left there, so why should it go to waste?
Guided by the teachings of the Church of Justice, he had simply given it to some scrawny birds. Then a procession arrived before the evening ceremony. The birds took to the air, and what followed was a greenish-brown deluge that bombarded the crowd—priest foremost.
The sister stared at him as if he were some kind of demon.
“A sack of grain? You caused all this with ordinary grain?”
“I mean... yes? It seemed a bit reddish, but otherwise it looked completely normal. How was I supposed to predict that?”
She shook her head, trying to soothe the ache building behind her eyes. This was absurd even by Justinian’s standards—and she was dealing with someone who had once flooded half a district while trying to “help a poor duck.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t anything else?”
“What else could it be? It smelled fine, and it even had three faded circles on it, some merchant’s sigil, obviously. I assumed it was goo—”
The distant chime of a bell cut him off.
Before the Queen bled the Devil, there still had to be a church ceremony.
Teresa, as one of the officials, was required to attend. She sighed and decided to postpone the conversation until after the rite—assuming she still had the strength to continue it by then.
“I’ll try to resolve that disaster somehow. Just try not to make an even bigger mess in the meantime.”
As she began preparing to leave, Justinian could only shake his head at how unfairly ridiculous the entire situation was.
From the orphanage, the young man watched the city transform for the annual ritual.
The streets filled with decorations. People scrubbed their houses clean. Long processions passed below, carrying large portraits of the Eternally Beautiful Queen.
As Justinian looked upon her peerless beauty, his gaze drifted to the marble castle rising above the city of dirty wood—the place from which Queen Diana Le Ecarlate VII ruled.
'She supposedly had no powers when, twenty years ago, she captured the terrible Devil...'
Justinian was not sure whether that was truth or legend. What was certain, however, was that few people in the city dared to discuss the matter, even in private. Ever since the Devil had been captured, the Queen descended into the dungeon once a year and bled him so that he would not regain his strength.
Yet for some reason, the ceremony was being held much earlier this year.
Whispers in the streets claimed that she was slowly losing control over the creature. If that proved true, the fate of the kingdom would become unthinkable.
Zonik, the orphanage’s only other resident, pulled him from his thoughts.
“Can you stop staring out there?” he said seriously. “With how cursed you are, the window will break soon enough.”
Justinian snorted and turned away from the glass.
“If I could collapse things just by looking at them, you’d already be under the rubble.”
The bedridden boy laughed aloud.
Outside, the long processions bearing portraits of the kingdom’s beautiful savior sang quiet hymns. Eventually, the silence in the room was broken again by Zonik.
“Do you also feel that today’s atmosphere is different than usual?”
Justinian shook his head. He recognized the fear in his little brother’s voice.
“It’s alright.” He forced a smile and ruffled his hair. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
The boy smiled back, and Justinian turned to prepare supper.
He was already halfway to the stairs when the room suddenly felt... different.
'Hmm?'
Before he could understand what was wrong, the window shuddered, nearly bursting from its frame. Then came the sound—a tearing roar that shook the entire world.
Barely keeping his footing, Justinian looked outside.
The cathedral was burning.
It rose in a violent, raging tower of flame.
'Did something happen during the ceremony?!'
People were fleeing in panic, shouting over one another. His hands trembled. Their words dissolved into noise as an awful realization struck him.
'The Sister. She’s at the cathedral!'
Just as the thought hit him, the smoke above the inferno shifted.
It did not disperse. It coalesced, twisting into a shape that felt horribly familiar. Three circles formed within it, but now they made a much grimmer image: lidless eyes pierced by rusted nails.
It took him only a moment to understand what it reminded him of.
'This... the faded sigil from the grain sack!'
Without another thought, he rushed out toward the cathedral.
