Editor: Yeri (나래가 예슬이의 새라면 나도 당신의 새입니다 히히)
Note: The fully italicised dialogue in the second half is meant to represent Yeseul speaking Korean.
"Who are you?"
Willow held a dagger to the boy's back, her gaze as sharp as the blade, the weapon bathed in the moon's glow casted a gleam in her eyes that screamed of imminent danger. Caelus bared his back to her, open, exposed yet unflinching even as Willow shifted and pressed the cold blade to his throat.
His snow-white hair fluttered, carried by the night breeze, the same hair she watched grow in length and cut over time, the hair of the boy she has been serving since she herself was a girl.
She can still see it when she closes her eyes.
The manor was an imposing castle situated to overlook the capital even from afar; its alabaster façade glowing faintly beneath the sky the colour of tarnished silver, it had the quiet majesty of some forsaken palace, each window gazing out like a mournful eye upon the vast expanse of the forest that stretched endlessly across the tundra, like green velvet thrown over a slumbering beast.
Willow will never forget the day the Duchess brought her into the Dukedom to repay a decade-long debt nor the sight of Caelus' scrawny, delicate frame. He was a child. An unwanted monster of a son that crawled his way out of the poverty-stricken Asphodel into Achelous, bringing with him a plague that brought the Dukedom into contempt and notoriety, their once sterling reputation steeped with ridicule. All due to the actions of one boy, and one boy alone.
The duke, a terrible, terrible fool whose actions has brought his own men into shame and the Emperor to look down upon him in disappointment, and Caelus, the poor sinner whose only sin was living.
She will never understand why the Duke chose him as his heir, why he chose to humiliate the bloodline even further by placing his bastard child into the limelight. A bastard that couldn't even function without alcohol. The Illenia Empire may be one of the two sovereign states that allows divorce and illegitimate children to inherit, but that is not to say that their court and citizens accept what is written in the law; why should they, when the object of their fervent zeal opposes what the law stands for?
"Aren't you going to answer me?" Willow cocked her head to the side, her neatly tied brown hair tousled by the speed she drew her dagger. She watched his reflection in the blade, shadows flickered across his face, revealing a mix of surprise and something else—fear, perhaps, or the flicker of a smile barely suppressed—but his gaze remained by the apple tree.
"I'm not sure what you mean." Caelus - not Caelus - replied, an airy lilt to his voice that made him sound faint. "Threatening a member of the duke's family - the heir at that. I must give it to you, Willow."
"You are not Caelus." She spat out, gritting her teeth.
"Oh? What makes you say that?" He laughed, a mocking thing that made the ends of his small smile curl in mirth. Like Willow wasn't holding a dagger to his neck and already drawing blood.
Willow pressed harder, earning her a choke. "Why do you continue to wear that mask, impostor?" Her voice was low, laced with a tremor of anger. "Who are you really?"
Caelus let out a shaky breath, a delicate flicker of fear darting through his eyes. "Willow, put down the dagger. You're misunderstanding—" his tone was soft, despite the gravity of the situation holding him captive.
"Misunderstanding?" she interrupted, her eyes narrowed like a hawk's, fixed on him with a relentless intensity. "Do not presume to patronise me, I have been by the young master's side for longer than the blood moon has risen, you are not the boy you pretend to be."
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The Price of Flesh
Romance[ON-HOLD] ❝ I will be your executioner. ❞ When Im Yeseul opened his eyes, he was in another world. He fell asleep while beta testing for the sequel of his favorite game and suddenly found himself in the body of Caelus Eliades. Caelus Eliades was a...
