The Tear That Never Dried
A single drop of water fell from the ceiling, hitting the stone floor with a dull, wet thud.
“…I met Mahati-nim during the training tournament. She was twenty-five, and I was twenty-eight.”
Arkin and Nefetia held their breaths, their eyes fixed only on his lips. The priest’s gaze, once dry and burning with fury, slowly softened into something aching.
“Mahati-nim was a very special trainee. At the time, there was an emperor in Kepet, but even then she had already ascended the throne. Because her body was weak and she had missed the previous tournament, she attended late—only to participate in diplomatic exchanges between kingdoms.”
The flickering light in Roman’s eyes seemed to linger on Nefetia, as though gazing at a lost lover’s shadow.
“I was a minor priest then, but my healing ability was far above average, so I was assigned to care for the patients. She was the ruler of Kepet, and her body was frail; I had to watch her every step. The rules strictly forbade contact between men and women during training, but because I was recognized as a priest of great healing talent, caring for her health fell to me. Each morning and evening I would take her pulse, check her condition, and naturally conversation flowed between us.”
Roman fell silent for a moment, rubbing his face with his palm. A heavy sigh, laced with regret, escaped him.
“Despite her weak constitution, Mahati-nim possessed an iron will. Even though the training regimen back then was far harsher than today, she endured every ordeal without a single complaint. Then, one day…”
Roman bit his parched lips hard. After a fragile silence that seemed about to shatter, he spoke again.
“I was about to leave after taking her pulse as usual when Mahati-nim clutched the hem of my robes. She said to me… ‘Nectar,’ or more precisely, ‘Necromansia.’”
…Necromansia.
The air inside the cave instantly froze. Both Arkin and Nefetia swallowed hard. The herb of death, the drug that stole sleep while feeding on the soul…
“I hesitated, and in the end Mahati-nim begged me with tears in her eyes.”
“Just one night… please, help me sleep without a single thought in my head. Please… make me forget this pain…”
“What kind of pain… did my mother beg for?”
Nefetia’s voice trembled as she recalled the bitter, revolting scent that had once clung to her mother’s private chamber. The shock was all the greater because she had never imagined it had lasted this long. Her mother had been trapped in the sleep of death long before she herself was even born.
“She… because her body was so frail.”
Roman could not finish the sentence. The bitter taste he tried to swallow made him turn his gaze toward the tangled darkness behind the vines. Only after a long silence did a cracked voice finally scrape out of him.
“From early on, for the concubines and heirs…”
Ah. Nefetia closed her eyes tightly. Every time she had seen her mother’s concubines, she had felt the same deep revulsion. Now she understood. The act of lying with a man was far more naked and intimate than she had ever imagined. The nights with Arkin had been heavenly, yet her body instinctively knew that a love without love could become the most terrifying kind of violence.
“I could forget for a short time during the tournament, but when we returned, the same cycle would begin again. That was why… Mahati suffered so much she wanted to die.”
Hot tears welled between her tightly shut eyelids. She had suffered and ached, yet what kind of heart had driven her mother to hasten her own union? Was it the crueler because the king, who could not produce an heir, received such bitter glances?
Tears finally spilled over her cheeks and dropped onto the floor with soft splashes. Arkin pulled her into his arms. Roman watched the couple who leaned on each other like lovers, then continued his story.
“I… could not give her the nectar. It was a poison that devoured the soul.”
Roman cleared his throat.
“Instead, I told her to walk in the woods with me. Instead of burning the poisonous herbs, let’s breathe the fresh air together. As a priest, I knew hidden places in the forest, and I could give her my nights as much as she wanted.”
For the first time, a faint smile touched his face—as though reliving the sweetest and most wonderful dream in the world.
“We walked for about an hour along the forest path, whispering to each other the loneliness we could never share with anyone and the secret dreams buried deep in our hearts.”
The priest’s smile, which had briefly looked happy, soon twisted into something sorrowful.
“The nights were short, and the time to part came far too soon. When we returned to the dormitory, we both walked slower than we should have. Seeing her back as she struggled to stop moving… that was when I could no longer hold my tongue.”
Roman gave a tired, helpless laugh. His expression was a messy tangle of every emotion.
“If you can’t sleep again tomorrow… come here. That’s what I said.”
Heavy silence settled over the cave. Roman now turned his gaze to Arkin.
“To this day I still wonder. Was the choice I made that night right? Did I do well by her and by me? I knew that late at night, a young man and woman meeting away from prying eyes could only meet for ‘talking’—and yet I still lured her in. I was the one who began something I could never take responsibility for.”
Dark shadows fell across his calm face as he confessed.
“The desire to see her eyes and feel her breath overpowered my reason. The man who had sworn to love the gods for the rest of his life… I became the pure priest Roman in the eyes of others, yet I created the most secret and greatest sin.”
Arkin’s hand tightened around Nefetia’s shoulder. Roman’s anguish was all too familiar to him. Arkin understood that feeling better than anyone—the desperate thirst he himself swallowed every night while watching Nefetia. It was exactly the same agony.
“…From that moment on, my heart was no longer mine.”
Roman’s eyes grew wet with regret. The quiet cave grew so still that even breathing seemed to stop.
“We indulged each other completely. Even though we knew the end of this love was inevitably farewell, we still met. We knew the bitter despair that lay waiting behind the sweet bliss on our tongues, yet we could not stop. The closer we came to the end, the more we both craved each other madly.”
He touched his wet eyelids and gave a wry smile.
“Around that time, something mysterious happened. Every night we hid in the forest’s shadows, tiny yellow flowers would bloom. They were not something I had planted. Later, whenever we looked into each other’s eyes and kissed, the ground would seem to rejoice and bloom with seedlings.”
His gaze became so solemn that it passed alternately between Nefetia and Arkin.
“As a priest, I had to understand this miracle. I stayed up all night searching through the dusty old library of the temple. I rummaged through dusty shelves until I finally found an ancient book tucked away in a corner. And in it, at last, I found the answer. It was the very legend I had heard once in passing and then forgotten… and now it had become my reality.”
The priest’s eyes, cleared by tears, began to shine. His voice trembled slightly.
“My heart raced the entire time I read the book’s words. Every sign written inside it pointed straight at us. I had no choice but to acknowledge it. Mahati and I… we were the ‘Hetasept.’”
An instant silence swallowed the entire cave.
Nefetia and Arkin stared blankly at his face, robbed of words. The overwhelming feeling of being swept away by an invisible tide crashed over them.
“…My god.”
Arkin’s hand found Nefetia’s and squeezed it tight. His fingers turned white with the force. Only the warmth of their bodies kept them grounded in this dizzying fate.
“But… we had to return to our own hells.”
A sad smile spread across Roman’s lips—a fragile, precarious expression that seemed to patch together a torn heart.
“She was a woman who never harbored private love. She was the great ruler of Kepet, and I was a priest bound to this island for the rest of my life. We could not imagine any future. If I left my priestly robes and followed her, I would have been nothing but the son of a fisherman, a lowly slave who could never even step foot on the palace floor.”
His voice cracked dryly.
“That was the last night we parted. I… gave her the book containing the legend of the Hetasept. It was to ask her to remember the time we had shared….”
Nefetia bit her lip hard. It was the very book she had found long ago in her mother’s private chamber. In the old book that had once told her about the ‘Hetasept,’ the pages had been carefully pressed with yellow flower petals.