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Darkness so pure not a single ray of light could find its way to him. He was enamored by cruel, black despair.

Worry not, my sun. All will fall back into place. Everything… will be fine.

Every nerve drove a searing stake through his mind. Each vein split in lightning.

Promise me one thing, Kaniel. You shall never, never lose your heart and be led astray.

Tears melded with blood and seeped onto the cold basement floor. The boy lay splayed across it. He barely raised his head… and took one final look at his…

“...Leina—”

Kaniel woke to angelic choirs and caught sight of a devil incarnate in the form of a young lady sitting opposite him, playing a melody on her flute, eyes closed, dismissive of his glare, the trickles of glassy tears letting down. Sways of her lustrous blonde hair against the light tumbles of the carriage layered on her frail shoulders, streaming down her white, priestly robe onto her lap.

“~Bored was the shepherd boy watching the skies. Believed the people in his lies once or twice. Bereft of the trust brought forth his demise—”

“Would you still your foul mouth, Ehrina?” he implored, running a hand through his messy, raven-black hair to clear away the memories and the headache that came hand in hand. He then clasped his chest to calm his ailing heart.

“Go fuck yourself,” said the delicate lady to the noble, and just when she was about to return to her musings, frowned. “Was it a nightmare again? You poor lamb…”

Kaniel shut his mouth before he could ignite yet another petty feud. He tilted his head to his side, resting his chin on his palm, watching through the open carriage window, his murky eyes of the darkest dark scrutinizing the forest.

“Who broke our Kani’s heart? Who would do such stupidity?”

The trees held to haggard slopes, drowning the fields in pine needles that lay atop a carpet of leaves. Shards of milky stone flowered around the roots wounded by time itself. Buzzing insects, tiny and huge, cute or deadly and mayhaps both, wound through the herbs of every shade.

“Ignoring me?! Haha! I see! Are you feeling better? Cool and mysterious.”

He glanced forward at the brightest clearing beyond the front wooden carriages and mules and saw a bright garden where flat roses, high and low, almost frighteningly alive on bright crimson stems, lay, in hundreds. The green bushes beside bowed at their beauty. Amidst the shrubs stood a gargantuan evergreen, proud and solitary, lifting the fruits and upending the leaves in simple, silent splendor.

And there, he saw the first piles of snow during what was considered the warmest time of the year back in the capital, at the end of July.

“We’re close,” he said, “perhaps around this time—”

“We’ll arrive at the northern borders,” she finished for him. “I only have a few hours to live, so to speak,” Ehrina added as a brittle laugh broke from her lips. “Hah… What then? Eternal darkness? Hell? Hell, maybe there is such a thing as the reincarnation pagans speak of. Ha, Kani, which one do you think it is?”

Kaniel breathed deeply. In. Out. The air was fresh. The weather was ideal. “Beats me,” he replied, leaning back as his seat screeched.

“You know,” he said, crossing his arms and tapping his left fingers against his sleeve, “you never struck me as a faithful one, Miss Saintess. I’ve heard that the training is harsh and rigorous. Why even bother?”

“Hmph! Masterful at switching topics, I see,” she tsked, sniffling. “Typical of a noble, human garbage.”

“So?” he pressed.

“Guess,” she snapped back.

Silence permeated the passenger compartment until the transport clattered over a loose stone.

Losing her patience, Ehrina gave in. She shot her eyes open and pointed to them with her thin fingers. “Wanna heal these, is all.” She gazed at Kaniel with those cloudy pools, the blues barely perceptible.

“Cure blindness, huh,” he huffed. “What grand goals.”

“Why, it would’ve been possible if I’d become one of the saintesses and sought help from the pope. Fuck, with enough attainment in divinity, I could’ve done it myself,” she said, wiping away her tears with the hem of her threadbare robe. “Besides, you shouldn’t be the one to talk, oh lustful demon,” she teased with a wry smirk. “Still, unfair, don't you think? I strangle some lesser noble and get sentenced to death. You, on the other hand, lay your hands on the princess herself, and barely get demoted to a wasteland. Perhaps my greatest sin was being born a commoner…”

Kaniel didn't refute her. Blankly, he just stared at her, expressionless.

“Kidding, kidding,” she said, waving her hands. “Rumors may be deceptive, eh? A dense person such as yourself would never. What a joke, a sham, a farce. Framed, were you not?”

“As deceptive as beauty,” he remarked.

“What do you mean?”

Kaniel locked eyes with hers. “You think our little adventure is a coincidence?”

This time, Ehrina adhered to silence.

Kaniel resumed, leaning further back, eyes piercing beyond the roof headliner to too high above. “Rescuing you would mend a perfect excuse for my brother to send me to the gallows or, worse, the wasteland beyond the border where monsters thrive, and completely dispose of me.”

Ehrina hunched forward. “I see,” she spoke shakily, playing with her ridiculously lengthy hair strands. “You nobles are excessively vile, plotting to purge your own blood, even.”

“Oh, it’s way worse,” he said with a shrug, only halfway realizing she couldn’t see him. “Never mind that. The least I can do is warn you.”

He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “For the first time in your life, you’re about to glimpse the bottomless pit of malice within the human heart.”

Ehrina tilted her head. “Eh? What kind of nonsense…? Creepy.”

Kaniel reclined. “You’ve become useless to my brother for I’m not saving you. The band of knights will abduct you in a nearby area devoid of monsters.”

“...Abduct?”

“Yeah. You’re weirdly perceptive for a blind person, so you should’ve noticed the commander’s gaze plastered on you these past two weeks.” He donned his thick coat trimmed with golden linings, rummaged in one of its deep pockets, and pulled out a handkerchief with an awkward, childish stitching of a dove, extending it to her.

The carriage began to slow its pace, the clopping of the mules' hooves more distinct, the wheels grinding against the gravel of the snowy path. The journey’s end felt within the cabin. Shadows drew out as the compartment rolled forward.

Adjusting to the change in momentum, Kaniel held onto the handrail. Ehrina, though, fell to her knees, too frozen to process his words. She proceeded to snatch the handkerchief and blew her nose on it nonetheless. Kaniel simply watched, unperturbed.

“Ehrina, even if we cannot choose the terms on which we are born, or whether to be born at all, we can still seek our own end,” he stated matter-of-factly.

All the movements came to a complete and sudden halt. The nobleman shifted his gaze toward the door on his left in anticipation of the footsteps that soon followed.

“So, being devoured by monsters, insatiable human greed, or you yourself? Having lived a life dictated by fate or mischief?” He handed her a narrow-bladed dagger. “Whichever it is, don’t look back crying. Don’t waste it on regret.”

Ehrina flung out her hands and took the thin dagger, then froze, gasping, pale, perplexed. “You mean…” Her eyes welled with tears as she stared at his boots.

Kaniel sat silently, waiting for the doors. And when they opened, he stood.

The cold summer breeze infringed upon the cabin. Beyond the guardian knights and the crowds of starving populace awaiting the rise of a new tyrant, further along the muddy paths and stunted shrubs among rocky outcroppings, lay a settlement, a fortified village of sorts, centered around a ramshackle castle meant to serve as the baronial seat.

“Your estate awaits, Sir Nashdome,” said the commander knight, a slight tone of ridicule slipping into his otherwise professional call. The gray-bearded veteran looked past Kaniel’s shoulder at the frail woman slumped on the floor. He licked his lips, savoring the sight of her exposed neck, relishing her hopelessness.

“Farewell, Rina,” Kaniel said as he walked away.

“You are not…” Ehrina raised her voice. “You are not a bad person, Kani.”

You are not a bad child, my son.

Where had that come from? He paused midway down the staircase, one hand resting on the brass rail, and glanced back.

“Not a good one either, you bastard,” she muttered.

Kaniel turned his head forward and gazed at the commoners from on high. The nasty looks they threw back could drown one.

He continued descending, his steps creaking the wood beneath him, on the verge of cracking, breaking, falling apart, crumbling. Down.

Target identified… Initializing integration to Earth…

Registering user#0003…

Tumbling down.