Dread rose first, a cold tide in my chest, before my eyes opened to a blade of slanting light knifing in from the window—dust drifting like tiny stars—telling me not much time had slipped from faint to waking.
The room looked plain as a monk’s cell, the cheap breath of an inn hanging like stale tea steam.
Unease prickled like nettles; why was I here?
Memory rose like silt stirred in river water: I’d been ambushed and knocked out.
I tried to move. Ropes bit like cold vines. I was trussed to a chair, body bent into a wrong shape.
“What do you want? Who are you?”
Brows knotted, Cerqin lifted her gaze to the girl seated not far away, the server from before at her side, two guards looming in the doorway like bars of shadow.
That girl was clearly the “master” the server had named—young, beauty cut sharp like jade under spring sun.
Yet her aura grated like sand in the teeth; not Cerqin’s kind of wind.
She wore a birthright of hauteur like a crown. Her gaze pinned Cerqin, deep down showing that chill—eyes that weighed a thing, not a person, like scales in a cold market.
The feeling churned her stomach like soured milk.
The girl flicked her golden hair, sunlight on straw, ignored my words, and called to the server behind her.
Understanding, the server tapped a ring; a black leather trunk blinked into his hands like a shadow taking shape.
The golden-haired girl rose, excitement flaring like a spark, a smile bright as a knife.
“This kind of thing’s best done while you’re awake~”
She took the whip the server offered, fingers curling around it like petals closing at dusk.
“Two choices. Be my servant, or my pet. Pick~”
“...”
Instinct coiled like a snake: whichever I chose, the end smelled the same.
My storage bracelet and my charm were gone, wrists bare like winter branches. This was a full-blown crisis.
“Looks like you’re choosing pet.”
“Wait—”
Cerqin’s mind struck flint. They didn’t know who she was; they’d seized her in plain sight, no veil of secrecy like fog.
That meant there was a chance!
Heart rattling like a drum, she watched the instruments laid out, sweat beading like dew along her brow.
“Relax. This room’s warded against sound; you can scream to your heart’s content~”
“Wa—wait. I’m a Nun of the Radiant Sanctuary, the Holy Maiden’s personal attendant. Let me go, or the Holy Maiden won’t spare you...”
The golden-haired girl, whip in one hand and rod in the other, went still; the fire in her eyes cooled like doused embers.
At once the maid beside her collapsed like wet paper, stammering as if words stuck like thorns.
“She’s alone at that inn. I asked the proprietor. She came from another city—she can’t be a Nun of the Radiant Sanctuary...”
“I did hear today—the Eastern Holy Maiden has arrived in Eastwind City.”
A figure ghosted in at the girl’s other side, face veiled, aura heavy as a storm front rolling over fields.
The server trembled harder, then prostrated, like grass flattened by a sudden wind.
The Sanctuary’s name works like iron; anyone sane—even royals—won’t reach for that blade.
Just as Cerqin felt a timid bird of safety flutter inside her ribcage, the golden-haired girl sat back, voice laced with amusement like honey over poison.
“You didn’t think I’d just let you go, did you?”
“Uh...”
Cerqin’s heart shouted like a struck gong—she’s a madwoman.
“Making you vanish before the Sanctuary notices? That’s easy.”
Her tone blew across me like cold cave wind. This was Cerqin’s worst fear—identity as shield turning to trap; meet a lunatic, and they’ll kill the hostage to save face.
Cerqin’s blanching pleased the girl; her threat had been theater, knives made of words that gleam but don’t cut.
As a little princess of the Holy Dragon Empire, she knew the Radiant Sanctuary’s weight; even a regular Nun can’t be detained without cause—let alone after a kidnapping, the law like a wall of granite.
By rights Cerqin was safe now, but the princess wouldn’t let the prey caught in her net wriggle free like a fish returning to river dark.
Her temper had kindled like dry tinder.
At least she’d savor the fear on this pink-haired girl like wine sipped before the feast.
Feeding on Cerqin’s expression, the princess turned her gaze on her maid; the frustration of drawing water with a bamboo basket—empty in the end—needed an outlet like flood seeking a channel.
Before that.
She eyed the rod and the whip. After a breath, she set the whip back in the black trunk, stood again, and stepped past the kneeling maid like empty air.
Cerqin watched the princess draw near, face twisting like a warped mask; she tried to struggle, but ropes held her like iron reeds in frozen marsh.
“How could I let prey I caught fly away?”
Her pretty face contorted, a thread of madness glinting like frost in her eyes; tasting that chill, Cerqin’s fear spiked like a thorn under the nail.
Her golden face hovered an arm’s length away. She tapped the rod into her palm; each sharp smack sounded like the stick itching to bite.
“A Nun of the Sanctuary~ First time trying prey like this. How thrilling~”
Cerqin wanted to cry without tears; throwing her identity had been a rotten move, like playing a bad stone in go. She should’ve endured, waited, tried to regain a messaging charm glinting like a lifeline.
Now it was worse. This lunatic clearly meant to play, then erase both corpse and trail like footprints swept from sand.
In her mind, a flash of green and a blink of snow-white flickered—faces like spring leaf and fresh milk—while crystal pearls slipped from her cheeks, tears falling like beads.
Should’ve stayed quietly at the inn, like a bird in its nest.
In short, regret flooded like a thawing river.
Tomorrow’s meeting with that Littlefolk beauty would go unkept, promise snapping like a thin twig.
I’d wanted to ask about the shop Aileaf went into earlier, curiosity like a cat nosing at a door.
As Cerqin closed her eyes—thinking at least she could rest a breath before dying, a bargain with fate like a coin tossed into night—
—the golden-haired princess halted her staged motions, spun, and kicked the maid still prostrating on the floor; the kick cracked like dry bamboo.
The scare had landed like an arrow; now she needed to burn off the fire and cool the unrest inside, storm seeking lightning’s ground.
The maid crumpled under the kick, too afraid to scream, knowledge of her mistress’s temper etched into her bones like old cuts; the shadow-guard’s arrival meant the pink-haired woman likely spoke truth like a bell note.
She understood she’d be the vent today, the rain gutter for the princess’s storm.
Maybe she’d always known this day would come; once the first fear washed past like a wave, the passably pretty maid began thinking how to keep her wits tethered like a kite string.
The princess bent and set a hand on the maid’s shoulder, voice slow, ice laced with excitement like frost sparkling under sunrise.
“Looks like you’re ready. For the years you’ve served me, keep your mouth silent for one minute and I’ll let this go. How about it?”
“...”
The maid didn’t dare make a sound, even knowing the minute hadn’t started yet; silence held like winter air.
Best choice now was to clench her teeth like a locked gate.
“Then... let’s begin~”
Her hand on the shoulder pulsed with mana; several sigils flared in succession, spells uncoiling like snakes from carved stone.
The maid’s clothes shattered in an instant, dissolving into white smoke that rose like morning mist.
A thin arc of lightning began to dance across her flushed skin, crackles like fireflies gone feral.
In seconds, several conditions took hold; a strangled cry rose with the patter of drops hitting the floor, sound like rain in a dry room.
The princess sighed in mild regret, breath cooling like breeze over ashes.
“Too bad. Forty-nine seconds? By old rules, each of the remaining eleven seconds converts to an hour.”
She straightened, circled to the maid’s other side, and used the rod to plug the source of the drip, motion precise as a cork sealing a bottle.
She pressed until it fit to the limit, leaving not the slightest gap, neat as a craftsman’s joinery.
It all happened within minutes; Cerqin hadn’t recovered from the princess’s earlier fright—she blinked open in confusion, then stared, stunned by the new scene like a deer in lantern light.
