Chapter 1. The Second Suicide (2/7)

When Diana Brien turned twenty, the army of the Lodbrok Kingdom invaded her homeland, Farnborough. At its vanguard rode the newly crowned king—the hero-king who had slain the Poison Dragon Fafnir.

A tension had settled over the mansion, taut as thin ice about to crack. That not a single ball had been held despite the height of the social season said everything about how grave matters had become in the capital.

Soon after, Count Calkos, who had held the border, surrendered. The knights who resisted rather than follow his example were all slain or taken prisoner. Word arrived that the Lodbrok army would soon march on Tallinn, capital of Farnborough.

Diana shook where she stood. She was afraid to die. And yet she did not choose to flee. She was the daughter of a duke, and a noble must hold on to her dignity—that was how she had been raised. But her father took her elder brother and withdrew to the family estates.

It was, in truth, a flight. Diana tried hard not to think of it as one. If the lord and heir who must carry the family preserved their lives to protect it, that was only as it should be.

That left only her younger sister, Alexa, and herself. With perfect composure, Diana gave the servants their severance and sent them on their way, resolving to meet the end with only those loyal few who chose to remain.

The day the capital burned arrived. The rapacious army of Lodbrok trampled Tallinn underfoot. Diana sat in a chair, waiting for the enemy to come.

Now she was going to die. She lifted her head and closed her eyes.

"Giscard."

If she had one last wish, it was simply to see that boy again. On the day Diana turned sixteen, she had found the seal that unlocked his restraint collar in her father's chamber. While Giscard slept, she had slipped it off him, careful and quiet.

Something wholly mine, something I can protect. My life. My refuge. She whispered it through her tears, over and over, for a long while.

She had not wanted to let him go. In those four years, from twelve to sixteen, Diana had gathered so many precious memories.

But she had to let him go. She understood all too well that those same four years had been nothing but humiliation and suffering for him. Diana laid a soft kiss on Giscard's sleeping brow.

God above, send Your golden dragon to keep Giscard safe.

Mother, please protect Giscard. Giscard is precious to me.

Giscard left the Brien town mansion before dawn that very day. Her father gave chase, but by good fortune, he escaped cleanly. He had never been kind—but so long as he was there, she could bear the loneliness of her life.

She had hoped he might send word that he was alive and well, but she knew better than to expect it. Every last soul in this house had abused him—how could he possibly reach out to her? If only she could see him alive once before she died, she thought she could ask for nothing more.

He mustn't be caught up in this war— she had scarcely finished the thought when the door burst open.

A man strode toward her. Lifting her chin with all the dignity she could muster, she opened her mouth to speak—then shut it again.

Blood dripped from the man's body as if he had walked straight through a fountain of it. Drip. Drip. It stained the carpet—her favorite pattern—crimson as he came on, step by unhurried step. Beneath the blood that drenched him, his violet eyes shone with terrible clarity.

Diana knew those eyes well. Could God have granted my wish after all?

"Giscard?"

She brightened, forgetting the situation entirely. He and she had grown up together. He was the slave—the only person she had ever been able to smile at without a trace of reserve.

To think we would meet again like this!

"You remember me, My Lady?"

Diana nodded, her smile radiant. In those violet eyes, like a flash of lightning, a flicker of rapture surfaced—then vanished.

"What are you even doing here...? What could have happened to you—"

"..."

"Don't tell me... you've come to save me?"

It was a question so naive it bordered on the contemptible. But Diana had not asked it in ignorance. The situation was too grotesque to parse, and so she had cast the words out carrying her last hope—praying she was wrong. However much her noble pride might protest, a blood-drenched man standing in her invaded home was someone she ought, rightly, to fear.

But this man must have taken her for truly simple, for a look of disgust crossed his face. He strode closer.

The reek of blood hit her full in the face.

"My Lady, run!"

The shout came from behind her a moment later—one of the house's loyal knights. Sword raised, he charged Giscard. Just as Diana parted her lips, Giscard's blade sank into the knight's belly. He retched, and blood came pouring out.

For Diana, who had known only what was pretty and lovely, it was all far too cruel.

Smiling cruelly at the sight of her frozen in panic, Giscard cut the throat of the knight who was still drawing breath—as if he wanted to be sure she saw.

"Aaagh!"

Blood sprayed in every direction. Diana stumbled backward, eyes huge. Sword in hand, Giscard came for her, slowly.

The moment her retreating back met the wall, he smiled—softly, almost kindly.

"Oh, surely not."

"..."

"I've come to drag you down into hell."

And so the world of that naive noble girl shattered, cruel and complete.

Diana's hell had begun.

Diana's face had gone blank. Where Giscard's hand dragged her was the blood-soaked royal palace of Farnborough. She still could not accept any of it as real.

What she could accept even less was this—

"Your Majesty. We have taken the entire Farnborough royal family into custody."

That everyone was addressing Giscard as "Your Majesty." However paralyzed her reason had become, even she could grasp what that meant.

The hidden prince who had slain the Poison Dragon—the hero-king of Lodbrok who had returned with his sword and claimed the throne—was this man.

Even then, Diana had still harbored a hollow hope. That the Giscard she knew might show her some tenderness. That he might, at the very least, pity her.

She had been thinking such sickening things.

"Is this one your fiancé?"

"A-ah, spare me!"

Before Diana could get a single word out, something seemed to flash at Giscard's hip.

Shunk!

Giscard's sword drove straight through the chest of Ferdinand, who knelt where he had been placed. A thin scream escaped Diana; her lips went on trembling. Ferdinand had never been a fiancé she felt any bond with—if anything, she had disliked him. Even so—could anyone stay whole in the mind after watching a man murder their "fiancé" before their very eyes?

"Guh—khh—aah, aaaagh!"

With that grotesque screaming, a fountain of blood erupted. It was the death of a man who had once shared tea with her in this very palace. Drops of blood spread wide across the cold white marble. Why was she still watching this? She stared up at Giscard, dazed. The corner of his mouth curled upward.

"Why? Are you sad?"

"..."

"Look, My Lady. It's the prince you were so very fond of."

As though laughing at the shy child she had once been, he burst out laughing. The bound king roared something back. Giscard only laughed, cold.

"O King—does it gall you, your kingdom trampled underfoot by your sister's son?"

"..."

"Not for a single hour have I forgotten how you crushed me."

"..."

"So now, just as you crushed me, I will crush you—thoroughly, to the last."

Giscard drove his boot into the king's stomach. The king clenched his jaw and folded in half like a shrimp. Still, his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. So this was the end.

Diana witnessed the fall of her kingdom with her own eyes. The end of a kingdom was emptier, shabbier, than she had ever imagined.

Looking at Ferdinand's lifeless body, she closed her eyes. Tears slid down, one after another.

"Your Majesty. We've brought them."

Screams rang out from beyond the audience chamber. Diana lifted her head toward the entrance—and heard shouting.

"P-please, spare me!"

"Y-you there, unhand me!"

The voices were familiar. Giscard let out a low chuckle. Diana raised her head and looked.

"Father! Brother!"

In that moment, Diana understood why she, of all people, had been brought here. It was so Giscard could show her—

how far you had fallen. Your ruin.

He had truly opened the gates of hell for her.

"Please spare them."

"..."

"Please spare them."

Strangely, Diana was never taken to a dungeon. From a guest chamber in the royal palace, under watch of unbearable strictness, she was made to count the days until her father's and brother's execution.

She wanted them to live. They had to live. When Giscard came to her, Diana knelt before him without a moment's hesitation.

That he had been the despised slave of the household, someone beneath her—none of it mattered. They were her family.

"Please spare them, Your Majesty."

Diana lifted her head. Silvery-grey eyes spilled tears in slow trails. Any shallow pride in standing above a boy who had once been a slave—she had discarded that long before now.

"The men of your house tried to flee overseas, abandoning you. They left you behind to be this place's shield."

Diana flinched.

"And still you would beg me to spare men like that?"

"...Yes."

If that was what protecting one's house meant, Diana could accept it. If they survived—if they lived—there would be a future to scheme for. And she had little Alexa, her youngest sister, to look after.

A deflated laugh escaped Giscard. This man, who had never once laughed freely, smiled quite often now.

"How very amusing. The lady herself, kneeling before one who was once a lowly slave."

Giscard reached out and tipped her chin up, and her tear-streaked face rose toward his. Time had deepened the lines of his face, but his eyes were as beautiful as they had ever been. The eyes Diana had once loved so dearly.

"If I spare them, what will you do for me?"

"..."

"What could you possibly offer, daughter of a house already destroyed?"

Diana bit her lip. A resolute will kindled in her eyes. What had happened in the audience chamber had taught her already that Giscard would grant her no tenderness. She had also understood why he had kept her alive: to wipe clean, in vengeance, the humiliations he had suffered as a slave.

Then the only question left was what to give this man.

Diana rose to her feet. She let the shawl draped over her shoulders slip to the floor. What she wore beneath was no more than a whisper-thin chemise.

Moonlight found her, laying bare the softness of her skin. Though she was clothed, every line of her body showed as plainly as if she were bare—the collarbone emerging from the plunging neckline, the twin curves of her breasts, the trim waist, down to her long, slender legs. Giscard looked at her, face gone rigid. For a heartbeat, something kindled in his eyes—then died.

"I offer myself."

"..."

"Spare them. Please, spare them."

Humiliation was written across Diana's face. Her innocence—tonight she would lay herself at this man's feet. Was that not precisely what a noble ought to do?

For the sake of her house, a body was a small thing to give. All the more so for her father's and brother's sake. She knew how absurd this plea was. Asking him to spare a family that must seem to him like enemies would demand a price to match.

So she would sell her pride.

"No different from any common whore."

"..."

"And your fee is your family's lives?"

Giscard regarded Diana with undisguised contempt.

"Ah, that's right. You're their family too, aren't you."

"..."

Her body shook with the contempt and shame of it. The briny taste of blood spread across her lips. Tear-streaked, she looked up at Giscard.

"My Lady, I believe you are laboring under a misunderstanding."

"..."

"A body like yours was made to be trampled into the earth, over and over. It's worth nothing at all."

"..."

Diana's face drained white. Giscard Lodbrok knew exactly how to grind her into the dirt. He did not accept the bargain. He did nothing but watch her fall.

The next day.

Her brother and her father were executed. Days upon days of torture had left their bodies without a single unmarked patch.

They had been family. There had been times when they smiled at one another. They had taken meals together. To others they may have been devils; to her, they had been angels. At times they had made her weep with sorrow, but they were the ones who stroked her hair, the ones who wished for her happiness more than anyone in the world.

And now they were gone from the world.

Who was she to blame? She banked that rage, buried it. Naive as she was to the ways of the world, even she knew well enough that she had no right to blame Giscard either.

Knowing this, she simply pressed her grief down and waited for her own death. But Giscard had no intention of allowing it.

Diana's face was blank. She wore a gown of unblemished white. She pulled herself together, fixed her features into something venomous, and stomped the proffered bouquet into the floor.

Marriage?

Marriage?

Crazy bastard.

Crazy bastard!

Giscard did not grant her so much as an easy death. On the road to Lodbrok, Diana had learned she was to marry him—and run. She had failed. All it earned was the guard knight's throat, slit—and for her, treatment crueler still.

From the moment she arrived she had thrashed and fought, but none of her struggles availed her. On the wedding day she had been forced into the bridal gown, adorned even as she was bound.

"Get out! I said get out!"

The words tore out of her like a scream. Of course she had always known that for her family's sake she could never marry a man of her own choosing. But she had never imagined it would take a form this cruel. She had nothing left to guard—nothing but her pride, trampled flat and toyed with.

The maids all grimaced and glanced at one another.

The door slammed open.

"Grace and dignity—not a trace of either, even with both eyes open."

"..."

"Out. All of you."

At the man's voice, the maids filed from the room. Diana stayed standing where she was, watching the man who had entered. It was Giscard.

Giscard regarded her brimming eyes without a flicker of feeling.

"W-why are you doing this!"

"..."

"You should have made me a slave instead!"

"..."

"Crazy bastard, crazy bastard, crazy bastard!"

Diana screamed it through gritted teeth. His face did not so much as shift at her venom-laced words. He simply watched her face as though cataloguing it, and said:

"Must you be so difficult today?"

"Would you behave?! After this—how—how could I—!"

To marry the man who had slaughtered her family—dying should have been the way to settle that debt, not spending a lifetime at his side. This was a curse, hideous beyond describing.

"A king's wedding would have the Pontiff in attendance, wouldn't it?"

"..."

"I will tell the Pontiff exactly what it is you're doing!"

Bathed in sunlight, adorned for the ceremony, Diana was a bride of heartbreaking beauty. But those silvery-grey eyes, like stars, glistened with loathing—loathing for the man who was to become her husband. The violet eyes observed it all, unmoved—then a hand rose and clamped over her mouth.

Her jaw ached as if it would shatter. Looking into Diana's eyes, Giscard whispered:

"Go ahead. Scream all you like."

"..."

"You'll be marrying the slave bastard you so despise, after all."

With that, he drew something from inside his coat. The moment Diana realized what it was, she shook her head, frantic.

"What's this? Didn't you say you'd rather be made a slave? Wasn't that your wish, My Lady?"

Giscard said it with a snickering lilt. As the thing closed around her neck, the strength went out of her body.

Diana stared up at him, eyes drowning in tears.

Ah. His revenge has not even begun.

So that's what this is.

I am the object of his revenge.

I'm to bear the very same humiliation he bore. As she always had, Diana did not refuse Giscard his vengeance. She simply accepted whatever he wanted of her, shivering from head to toe.

And so the wedding began.

A beautiful ceremony, white blossoms drifting on the air.

Nobles and everyone besides came flocking to the hero-king's wedding. The guests gathered in the open ceremony hall gazed upon the lovely bride and the striking king.

And then, at the sight of the bride, they burst into scornful laughter. For fastened around her throat was a slave's restraint collar.

This cunning king had turned even his own wedding into a monument to his triumph. With the spoils of Farnborough laid bare for all the world to see, the assembled guests began to sneer down at the bride and the utter degradation written across her face.