Vyce narrowed his eyes and let out a small breath.
“The First Witch...”
The story he told—as the one who was sure to care more about the witches more than anyone else right now—was one that could never inspire anything resembling a sweet dream.
It was a terribly warped, horrifying love story.
It all started during the ninth king’s rule.
A second child was born to the king. Around the prince’s fifth birthday, the kingdom’s first princess was born. She was named Sarnette.
Considered a child of heresy, Sarnette grew up locked away in the deep recesses of the palace. But try as they might to keep her secret, there was no stopping the rumors that emerged.
The people all feared the princess as “the cursed child,” spreading rumors about how the queen had been unfaithful. In the end, the queen fell ill.
“It was because the princess’s hair and eyes were black, right?” Lunetta asked.
Vyce lifted his face from the book and nodded.
“And her magical energy was powerful,” Lunetta continued.
“That’s right,” Vyce said, returning his gaze to the book.
Sarnette grew into a beautiful young woman. And yet, her beautiful face only served as a devilish charm to accentuate her black hair and black eyes. Sarnette was able to sing as she easily crafted spells that even several of the castle’s magicians couldn’t hope to attain even working together. She was feared by all—and avoided.
Each and every time they heard a song echo from her room, the people would cast stones at her. They were terrified beyond belief, alarmed by the gravity of it all. She was a demon—the cursed child.
Sarnette lived a life of quiet solitude, neither laughing nor crying. That same Sarnette fell into the habit of venturing out into the forest every day. They would go days on end without hearing her singing from her room. They thought it was unsettling—that she had to be plotting something. One day, in an attempt to quell their fear, the first prince followed after her.
There in the forest, the prince found Sarnette—smiling affectionately at something that wasn’t human.
“Something that wasn’t human?” Livio asked, as Sophie’s chest suddenly grew warm.
As she unconsciously clutched her chest and closed her eyes, a white light emerged from Sophie, only for a plushie-sized white bear to hop to the ground.
“I have finally made my way out...” Azuello said.
The white bear wiped its forehead with its short paws. Wait, does that mean he sweats?
“Azuello,” Sophie muttered.
“That is why it hath been so hard for me to move since entering this land,” Azuello said. “There are fragments of a different god in this land’s air.”
“What?” Vyce asked.
Azuello lifted his small, furry head up to look at him. “I am a god, after all.”
“That’s right,” Vyce said, turning the page.
There, joining hands with Sarnette, was a beautiful god. Sarnette’s cheeks were flushed with bashful color as she smiled. Seeing the man draped in an air of divinity look lovingly upon Sarnette, the prince realized that Sarnette had fallen in love with a god.
The prince reported this to the king right away, claiming that Sarnette sought to deceive the god and curse the kingdom.
“What a load of horse dung!” Livio said in a deep voice as he sent the king at his feet flying with a kick. “And just what was he getting at? There’s only so far you can let your imagination leap! Just what on earth was he thinking?!”
The king who’d written the memoirs had drawn up two hypotheses...
The first was that the prince was scared of Sarnette obtaining such power—especially because she already possessed a tremendous power unmatched by the magicians of the castle. If she were bolstered with the strength of a god, then no one would have so much as a prayer of stopping her. The king proposed that the prince had wanted to prevent such a calamity.
The other hypothesis was that the prince loved Sarnette himself.
“Excuse me?” Sophie found herself speaking up before she even realized the words had left her mouth. Love? After treating her so terribly? It was disgusting. Sophie had no bashful reservations about furrowing her brow in disgust. Vyce gave a small laugh.
Just like the others around him, the prince had shunned Sarnette, believing her to be an unsettling, cursed witch.
And yet at the same time, the one making frequent visits to Sarnette’s room and delivering her meals was the prince himself. The prince voiced his complaints about how repulsive she was or how loud she was, but even then, he went to Sarnette’s side without ever missing a day. Not a soul knew the meaning of this, however.
Seeking to tear Sarnette away from the god, the prince warned the king with a terribly fierce expression: Sarnette was going to curse the kingdom.
“No, but seriously, I don’t have the slightest idea what he was thinking,” Livio said, making no attempts to conceal his discomfort.
“The prince probably wanted to keep Sarnette within his reach,” Vyce said, shrugging his shoulders.
Letting Sarnette out of the castle was the last thing he wanted, nor did he want to allow the god to get near the castle. He wanted a compelling reason that would justify that.
Regardless of the truth, Sarnette was cast into a magically sealed room, just as the prince had plotted. It was a powerful seal created by the castle magicians. Unable to take even a single step from the room, the sound of her sobs echoed through the castle day and night.
Just as he’d done before, the prince went to Sarnette. Sarnette cried that she ached for her love, that she longed to see him, only for the prince to order her to stop her plotting and never cross him again. “I’m watching you!” he said. Apparently, he told her that every day.
But not everything went as the prince had hoped.
“The god couldn’t just forsake her,” Azuello said with a huff. “No god would ever simply submit to a mere human’s base wishes. If he loved the girl, then the point standeth twofold. Gods are deeply loving beings.”
“What a fool,” Azuello laughed. It was precisely as he’d said.
Seeking Sarnette, the god continued to call her name. Whether good fortune or foul, he couldn’t find Sarnette through the barrier the magicians had erected. An unsettling voice calling out for Sarnette was heard throughout the land as rain fell endlessly. Knowing nothing of the god’s existence, the people grew fearful, thinking that it was Sarnette preparing to strike.
And yet, the king did not relinquish Sarnette to the god.
The prince convinced the king that when Sarnette gained power, the first to be beheaded would not be the nation but rather the royal family.
Was that truly what she had sought to accomplish?
No one knew what lay in the prince’s heart. All that remained was the fact that the king, gripped with fear, took Sarnette’s life before the god could find her.
They say that the prince was more shaken by this than anyone—almost as if he hadn’t wanted to lose Sarnette.
“And the rain continued to fall for a whole year after that, right? Does that mean the god was sending down the rain...?” Sophie asked.
“Probably,” Vyce answered, turning the page.
The rain didn’t stop as the magicians spent their days dealing with sickness, disasters, and famine. Whether the god had given up or the magic had finally yielded results, by the time it had all settled down, the king had grown emaciated, leaving the prince to ascend the throne. The people all rejoiced as the curtain opened on a new age. As the nation erupted in joy, the new king took a wife.
The beautiful queen, with her golden hair and golden eyes, conceived right away, and a princess was born to her the following year...with black hair and black eyes.
The king immediately gave his daughter a room covered with a magical barrier.
“I won’t let anyone have you this time.” Those were unmistakably the words the king had spoken. Had his words trembled with fear... Had the one who’d heard them been the prime minister...or the magician called the king’s right hand... Things might have ended differently...
...had the one who heard the king’s whispers been anyone other than the queen.
Whenever he had a free moment, the king would go to the princess’s room. And each and every time, he would make the princess sing. Each time the queen heard her daughter singing, the queen would scream maddeningly about how horrifying it was.