"They forsook their thrones and fled the firmament, yet named me heir to the ruin. Mine is not a voice of divinity, but the echo of what divinity could not hold."
Long before empires rose, the Speakers held the balance between gods and mortals-until...
CHAPTER 04 | THE BALDASASSARE "Learn from your enemies, and watch your friends."
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𝑴𝑰𝑵 𝒀𝑶𝑶𝑵𝑮𝑰
After sharing fragments of my past with Y/N, I retreated to the solitude of my garden. The weight of exposing such vulnerable pieces of myself pressed down on me, leaving me both nauseous and unexpectedly relieved. It was an unfamiliar sensation, as if a part of the heavy burden of guilt I'd carried for so long had been released—or at least, lightened. Still, I knew this wouldn't change anything. Tomorrow would come like every other day, dragging with it the reminder of the shadow that loomed over me.
Wandering through the rose garden, I let my fingers graze the soft petals of each bloom, the silence around me only amplifying the torrent of thoughts in my mind. Her face, her voice, her every movement—they consumed me, haunted me. Every detail of her beauty lingered like an echo I couldn't escape. My mind screamed for vengeance, for justice, but my heart? It was tethered to her memory, unwilling to let go, unwilling to forget.
Since that moment, I had been bound in chains of sorrow, shackled by grief that seemed to seep into every fiber of my being. It paralyzed me, making it impossible to move forward, to find freedom from the suffocating weight of my own pain. Every step I took felt heavy, each breath a struggle.
I was trapped in this endless melancholy, and it frustrated me beyond measure. I was no longer the person I once was, but the man I had become was nothing but a prisoner to the past.
I pricked my finger on a rose thorn, feeling a slight hiss as my blood dripped to the ground, sizzling like acid upon contact. As I watched the wound slowly close, a strange satisfaction crept through me, watching my own flesh stitch itself back together. It was unsettling, almost primal, this visceral reaction to seeing a wound heal so effortlessly. But there was something deeply gratifying about it, like witnessing the body's natural defiance against harm. Maybe that's just my own peculiar way of seeing things.
I carefully plucked the rose from the bush, the delicate petals soft beneath my fingers. Twisting it between my hands, I avoided the thorns that had pricked me earlier. It was beautiful, but dangerous—like her. There was a perilous edge to this flower, much like the way she made me feel.
Every time my eyes met Y/N's, an unsettling aura clung to her. It wasn't the kind of calm presence I could normally read; it was... intense, layered with something I couldn't quite place. Despite her obvious gentleness, a part of me remained on guard. Something about her was different, something I wasn't used to, and I hated it.
I shook my head, trying to push the thoughts away, but I was pulled back to the present when Jimin's voice broke through my thoughts. I hadn't realized I'd drifted so far into my own mind until I met his concerned gaze.
