Tears flew as she ran.
She had quickly thrown her three hoops necklace over her head, immediately jumping out of the window.
She had broken one of her legs, but she didn't care. She kept running to the Temple. It hurt even now as the Vitality of the Heart tried to heal it.
It couldn't be true.
He— he couldn't— be—
She couldn't believe it.
She wouldn't believe it.
It wasn't possible.
Because if it was, then it was another person who left her.
And somehow, it was her fault.
It always ended up being her fault.
She refused to believe it.
She refused to believe there was another person who left because of her.
He was not dead. He would be alive and well when she opened the door to his room.
The Knights let her in almost immediately. She ignored the pitiful look Sir Isac gave her as she walked in, ignoring the pain in her leg.
She coughed once, blood coming onto her hand. She wiped her face and hand on her sleeve, wiping her tears from her face.
He wasn't dead.
There was no reason to cry.
She was about to run over to his room when she saw Bede. He caught sight of her immediately. He looked older, with lines of sorrow on his face. As if it stabbed her through the heart, she knew it wasn't a misunderstanding.
Priest Charlie was dead.
Her dad was dead.
The one who cared for when her own blood ignored her.
The one who showed her that blood relations weren't everything.
He was dead.
And she hadn't been there.
She cursed herself out until the Heavens. Cursing herself out for not going to see him when she had the chance. What did it matter if the members of that damned Organisation would have been watching her while she visited him? If she had gone, she might've been able to see him in his last moments. To say goodbye.
Why had she not gone?
She should have gone.
She would never be able to sit with him in the garden.
Bede had come closer. He knew how much Priest Charlie meant to her. He tried raising a hand to put on her shoulder, but she flinched away. Taking a step back. He stared at her with his hand still in the air. "Adara—."
"When did he die?"
She wasn't looking at him. She wasn't facing him. He couldn't even see her face clearly because of her messy hair.
He let his hand drop.
"About an hour ago," he responded honestly. "The doctor recommended he take a walk, so I opened the door to take him around the garden. He had been meaning to take a walk around for a while. He was dead when I came in."
The medicine must have failed, Adara thought. He was too late in his illness. "I want to see him."
Bede opened his mouth to protest, but Adara looked up at him. He saw how angry streaks of tears crossed down her face, her eyes red, and her hair untamed.
He nodded, quietly leading her to his room. He knew she knew where it was, but he escorted her anyway. He would try to be with her while all of this was still happening.
Inside the room, it was cold. The windows were open to air out the room. Everything was normal. The nightstand. The closet. The bed—.
There were no white sheets on the bed. But there was a body on it. The body was covered in a white blanket. She walked to the body. She only hesitated a moment before she pulled down the blanket.
She did not truly see her dad, Priest Charlie, in the body on the bed.
The corpse looked waxy and pale, with a stiffness to the face. His features were sunken and hollow, making him look even more sick than he had been. He had a frozen grimace lingering on his lips, his face frozen as if a picture had been taken.
This was not her dad.
It was a corpse.
"When will the funeral be?"
Bede looked at her. He had been avoiding looking at the body of his mentor, but Adara couldn't look away. "I'm not sure. They haven't planned it yet."
Adara frowned. "And when do they plan to put their priest duties aside to arrange a funeral?"
Bede flinched at her tone of voice. He knew Adara dealt with getting hurt by lashing out. So, he tried to talk as soothingly as he could. "They are probably planning it right now."
"Probably doesn't cut it."
Bede held in a sigh as he nodded. "I will go check on them to make sure the planning is going smoothly." She might just need some time alone, he thought.
But as he closed the door behind him, Adara fell onto the chair, crying.
She didn't want to be alone right now. In a room with a corpse who was not her dad any longer.
Why had she been mean to Bede?
Now, he was gone.
And it was all her fault.
The following morning, when the sun was above the horizon and Cale was awake, she stayed in bed. She was awake; sometimes, others, she slept. She was floating between consciousnesses, dreaming but then not.
She had countless nightmares, each one worse than the last. She thought of the vague images from the nightmare she just woke up from.
A burning garden.
A charred corpse.
White sheets.
She wasn't sure where the white sheets kept coming from. They were hanging in the oddest places, never getting burned.
She groaned at the memories, burying herself in more blankets.
She lay there, covered in as much of the blanket as possible. Thinking.
Why had she avoided the Capital like a plague for so long?
Why did she not get over her anger and childish pettiness and go to the Temple?
Why did she not even send one letter?
Why did she hate the God of Death so much that she could not even think of his disciples?
If she had done any of those, if she had been there, would he have even gotten ill?
Would she have realised he was ill and called for a doctor?
Would he still be dead now?
She hated him.
She hated Priest Charlie— her dad for leaving her.
She hated that garden.
She hated those flowers.
Most of all, she hated the colour white.
The colour of Death.
It was afternoon. She was still hiding under her blanket, dying of heat, but not moving.
There was a knock at the door. She hadn't even heard the footsteps walking.
Cale opened the door. He wasn't sure what to do. Adara hadn't answered any of his questions since she came back earlier that morning. And she didn't even register his questions when he asked them now.
So he remained silent, hoping he could comfort her. The least he could do was open the door to give her space from other people.
When he opened the door, Hans was in the doorway. He was already pushing past him as he spoke. "Ah, Young Master, I've brought clothes for you and the Young Mistress for the Ceremony tomorrow."
Cale was about to protest, but Hans had already turned to Adara as he set the clothes on a nearby chair.
Cale saw that Adara was now sitting on the edge of their bed, her hair covering her face.
Hans took a step closer to her, joyous as usual. "Ah! Young Mistress! I'm glad you've been sleeping later; your habit of waking up too early is not healthy. Do you want me to bring some lemon tea? I know it's your favouri—."
"Not the time, Hans."
Adara might have snapped at him another time, but she was not in the mood to. It was not the time to. She was too tired to hear any voices— to see any faces except for Cale's. It felt like she hadn't rested all night.
Hans blinked at the soulless tone of her voice. Her hair was still a bit in the way, and he could not exactly see her face, but her shoulders were slumped at her side. Completely unlike her.
He frowned, taking a step closer to her. He could see her face now, the dark circles under her eyes. He saw how depleted she looked. "Young Mistress? Have you had breakfast yet?"
She didn't respond to him, staring at a point on the floor.
"Young Mistress?" Hans frowned even further, taking a step even closer to her. He stretched out his hand to try and—
Cale grabbed him by the shoulders. "She hasn't had breakfast yet," he said. "And I haven't had lunch, either. So if you could bring lunch, it would be greatly appreciated."
Cale started to move to the door, making Hans even more confused. It seemed like Cale was shoving him out of the room.
"But— what's wrong with the Young Mistress? Is she okay? Do I need to call a—?"
Cale, now with Hans in the doorway, stopped to look at Adara. She was still staring at a point on the floor. "I—," Cale tried to say. "Adara would prefer others didn't know. But if you want to help, then please go get lunch."
Hans nodded, now determined. He wasn't sure what was wrong, but if he could somehow help the Young Mistress he'd gotten attached to, then he would arrange a feast.
There seemed to be a lot more food on the table than usual. But Adara wasn't in the mood to eat any of it.
She was playing a bit with her food, rearranging it on her plate and moving the small cherry tomatoes, but never eating.
He can't be dead, she thought for the umpteenth time today. Not when I've been trying to get better.
But her mind twisted.
Fucking idiot, she cursed herself out, her fork stabbing a tomato.
It was childish to think he wasn't dead.
It was childish to think she would ever get better. To think she could ever fall asleep without the fear of nightmares.
It was childish to think she would ever be able to break that curse.
She would forever be cursed to silently observe as others were happy, never to interact. She would always be on the sidelines. Silent. Just watching. Never able to have that happiness for herself.
Everything that was ever worth having would be taken from her the moment she was close to getting it. As if even the Heavens were against her.
She looked up at Cale, who was eating the lavish food set out before them.
Cale was worth it. Cale had been worth it. And he was gone. Kim Rok Soo was in his place—.
She stopped her line of thought.
It wasn't nice.
Cale had nothing to do with this; it wasn't fair to snap at him, even in her thoughts. Next thing she knows, he might be the one to leave her alone, thinking it's what's best for her.
She would hate him if he ever did that to her.
A letter arrived. And a package.
She was staring at her book. On the same page. She hasn't been reading the words, starting over and over at the beginning of the page.
She opened the letter first, not paying attention to its contents until she saw who it was from.
It was from Bede.
It was about the Funeral.
They were going to hold it a week from today.
Adara, forgetting about the package, almost mechanically got a pen and paper starting to write a letter to Amiru, excusing herself—
She stopped writing. She looked up at Cale.
She hesitated, but she asked anyway. "The funeral will be held in a week."
Cale looked up from his book. Funeral? Who died? But he somewhat understood her line of questioning. They would not be able to travel with Amiru if the funeral would be in a week. "I'll stay with you until you're ready to leave." He hadn't been looking forward to travelling with Amiru anyway.
Adara nodded distantly, continuing to write her letter.
She sent the letter that day and got the answer almost immediately.
She skimmed over the content of the letter she received before she held the paper over the open flame of the candle. Burning the letter.
It's night. Near midnight. It's been a day.
She was in the Palace's Arena. It was empty save for the lone wooden dummy in the middle of the training field. Adara had a sword in her hands, not her own, but she can't remember where she got it from.
She was violently slashing the wooden dummy, a flurry of wooden bits surrounding her.
Cale was silent, sitting not too far away from her.
He doesn't think Adara should be alone right now, but he doesn't know what to do.
So he just sat there, hoping he was some sort of silent comfort to her.
She was hitting the dummy over and over again, no pause in her attacks.
Her hair was sticking to her forehead, her shirt to her torso. Her arm hurt with every movement and she felt like the sword was getting heavier and heavier, but she still raised the sword and brought it down on the wooden training dummy.
She couldn't sleep.
All she could think about was Priest Charlie. She could not think of anything else. And she got tried of beating herself up for everything she didn't do.
She wants to be tired.
She wants to pass out.
She won't dream if she passes out.
Hopefully.
She attacked the dummy a few more times, until she suddenly stopped, her arms feeling like lead as she dropped the sword.
Footsteps were coming towards her. The sound familiar, but she couldn't tell.
But just as the door opened, she started blinking heavily, and she felt the ground disappear from beneath her.
Crown Prince Alberu's eyes widened as he saw her fall, and he ran a bit too fast as he tried to catch her. He couldn't catch her, but he managed to prevent her head from falling to the floor.
He looked at her for a moment. Her head was in his lap. Her hair was dishevelled and sticking to her, and her skin shone with sweat.
He looked at Cale, his eyes still wide. "What happened?!"
It has been a week. A week that passed in a blur.
If you were to ask her what she did in the last week, she stayed in the Capital, she would not know what to tell you.
If you were to ask her what happened that made her stay an extra week in the Capital, she would ignore you.
The Ceremony passed.
And she stayed.
She attended the memorial as well, though the Crown Prince had told her she didn't need to. She now knew what the weight of a death meant.
Before, it was her or them.
All of their deaths didn't matter to her.
But Priest Charlie mattered to her.
And so she attended the memorial, though nobody died at the Plaza of Glory. During the Plaza Terror Incident. She had made sure of that. But at what cost?
The memorial was more a sign of what might have happened if Cale and she had not been there. A possibility of multiple deaths. But none of that meant anything to her.
In her mind, it was Priest Charlie's memorial. Not yet his Funeral.
She and Cale were allowed to go back to the Henituse Residence after the Ceremony, but she can't remember the reason.
She's walking to the Temple of Death now in her pale disguise. The Funeral would be held when the sun was at its highest because the Temple sleeps during the day.
She was in a full-length black dress, a black necklace around her neck. Rory's mother, the Matriarch of the Quillen Family, had sent her a package. A black necklace. Perfect for a Funeral.
The Funeral itself passed just as blankly as the Ceremony did.
Lina was there, Bede's younger sister.
She didn't know what was going on. She had never known Priest Charlie.
Adara barely looked at her.
Adara barely looked at anyone.
The Funeral was filled with needless talk from the Priest. She didn't know his name.
His words flowed through one of her ears, and they flowed out of the other.
They had an open coffin. Her eyes were on the corpse that was not her dad.
When the talking ended, she did not realise.
As she got up, wanting to leave this area of the Temple of Death as fast as possible, a familiar figure approached her.
It was the doctor who was taking care of her dad. Doctor Emery, that was his name.
He let him die, she thought, venom in her thoughts. But she let none of it show on her face nor in her words.
"Please accept my condolences," he said to her, dressed in all black like she was. A Night Poppy in his chest pocket. She ignored the dreadful flower.
She nodded at him. "Likewise. Losing a patient must be hard."
It might've been a spiteful comment, but she said it with none. After a week of being angry at the world and at the god who was patting her head now, she felt too tired to be angry any longer. She was just hollow.
His face fell. "Not as hard as losing a father."
He wasn't my Father, she thought. He was my dad. And that corpse is not him.
She changed the subject.
"How was his condition before he died?"
Doctor Emery looked down, sadness on his face. "He was getting better when I checked on him a day before he died. I even recommended that he start to take long walks to regain strength in his legs. He was very excited at the thought of taking a walk around the garden, I still remember how happy he was mentioning it."
Because of his words, Adara thought of the repetitive nightmares she had been having.
A burning garden.
A charred corpse.
More white sheets.
She wasn't really listening to Doctor Emery.
But he didn't know it, continuing on with his words. "I was about to send you the report when I heard the news."
Adara nodded blankly. "Excuse me, I need to go."
Doctor Emery nodded, watching her leave. Oh, poor girl, he thought. And she is so young as well.
Adara felt suffocated by the number of people in the room, and the black of her dress attracted heat. She walked out of the room, instead going deeper into the Temple, to Priest Charlie's room.
On another day, if it was another death, she might have planted a Night Poppy. But she planted Night Poppies with her dad. And she was scared the garden would burn.
She would be leaving tomorrow. She couldn't bear to stay one day longer. She had come here to prevent a terrorist attack. And to make some good memories. The day she arrived in the Capital seemed so far away, thinking back on those big walls with their sculptures.
She would be leaving tomorrow.
Off to a distant corner of the Kingdom, away from the place where she had spent so long with her dad.
She would be leaving tomorrow.
She didn't know how she would be able to smile at Amiru. So sweetly.
She would be leaving tomorrow.
And she never wants to return.
Priest Charlie's room was the same as the week before. The nightstand with the cup on it, the wide closet— only now, there was no corpse on the bed. The chair next to the bed was gone. And there was a thin layer of dust on all the objects in the room except near the closet.
It looked so bleak.
Like a dead man's room.
She walked to the bed. Stared at the bed. For a second, it seemed like there was still a body on the bed, a presence in the room. But she knew she was the only living being in the room.
She felt tears come to her face, her breathing becoming heavy, her hand clenching in fists.
Somewhere in her memories, she remembered Cale asking her not to hurt herself. She didn't know when he asked, it seemed so far away. She bet it was in the past week.
But she wanted to punch something. Badly.
Tears streaked her face as she pulled the two necklaces around her neck off, throwing them into the wall opposite the bed.
She crumpled into herself, sitting with her back to the bed. Crying silently into her arms.
She didn't hate Priest Charlie.
She could never.
Like how she could never see him again.
She would never be able to see him again, hug him again, or speak to him. She would never be able to get the three words out of her lips she had struggled so long to say.
I love you.
She loved Priest Charlie how a daughter should love a father. Blood-related or not.
She never said it back. She only hoped he knew it before he died.
She wiped her tears away, putting her head to the side. The sunlight streamed across her face. But she knew better than to look at the sun. To her side was his nightstand, where a lone teacup sat.
She continued staring at the teacup, thinking it looked odd in the room. It wasn't like the teacups that were usually used in the Temple of Death. Maybe they got another design.
This teacup had a simple gold design, the design of a—.
Her eyes widened.
A fish.
A golden fish design.
A simple golden fish design.
She wiped her tears away even more fervently, not sure if she was looking at it right. She didn't dare touch the empty teacup sitting there so insolently. As if it was begging for attention.
She could see it clearly now. It looked exactly like the teacup that was in Cale's room.
When he got poisoned.
What did Doctor Emery say again? she thought, struggling to remember. He was in good health before he died.
She felt her face twitch, her mind churning with a raging storm.
It wasn't an accident, she thought. How dare they? How fucking dare they take him from me?! He was healing. He was going to be fine. I would've been able to take a walk around the garden with him. How dare they rob me of the one person who cared, the one who showed me love when everyone else left?
Her fists clenched, nails piercing through her palms. She cursed the Secret Organisation, cursed their twisted ideals that thought it acceptable to kill innocents for their own gain.
Priest Charlie wasn't just an innocent. He was my dad, she thought, blood streaming from her palms. And they took him from me.
She felt the fury that burned hotter than the sun threaten to swallow her whole. Amidst the flames of her rage, she had a cold realisation.
Priest Charlie hadn't left her.
But it was her fault.
The Organisation wanted her on a leash.
She had been petty and rubbed it in their face.
So they went after another.
And that ended up in her dad's death.
It's all my fault, she thought, more tears streaming across her face. They wanted a leash on me. I should have never come to the Capital.
She hated this feeling of inadequacy. The weight of the guilt that she had caused this all. Her hands made their way to her hair, closing her fist into her hair so tightly she was afraid she would pull it all off.
I hate them.
I hate the Secret Organisation.
I hate Darius.
I hate their leader.
I fucking hate Sam.
They killed Priest Charlie. Because of her. It was all her fault. But they were the ones to pour the drops.
She was going to kill every last one of them.
She needed to punch something. She needed to throw something.
Her gaze fell on the teacup with that godsforsaken design.
In an angry motion, she grabbed the teacup and threw it into the wall in front of her. The teacup breaking into too many pieces.
But her anger washed away into something cold and numb when she heard a whimper— a whimper so soft she wouldn't have been able to hear it unless she was a Dark Elf.
It came from the closet.
There was someone in here with her.
And they were hiding.
She stood up quietly after a moment. She walked over to where her two necklaces lay discarded amidst the shards of the teacup.
She picked up the two necklaces, planning on putting the necklaces on, but something stopped her.
Something was wrong about all of this.
Who would be hiding in a closet?
Who would they be hiding from?
She had a hunch, a small suspicion. It was not rooted in speculation or evidence that it was even a possibility.
She slipped her necklaces into the small purse she carried, picking up a shard from the ground.
She focused her Dead Mana into the shard, changing her appearance.
She changed herself to look like Sam. It was not exact; she had his rusty brown hair and his blue eyes, but if you were to look closely, her nose and her lips would be quite different. She made her shoulders wider and her jawline sharper. She almost forgot to get rid of her chest.
She was wearing a black outfit, which was close enough to the Secret Organisation's outfit if you didn't look close enough.
She opened the door to the closet. Inside, as she thought, was a member of the Secret Organisation.
The member looked up at her, but he scrambled to try and get away from her, deeper into the closet. He looked skinny and malnourished. He was too pale and sallow, and his cheeks looked hollow.
He started muttering incoherently when he saw her. She could identify his words as pleas, but she couldn't make out the words.
She crouched in front of him. "What went wrong?" she asked in a deep voice, one that was not similar to Sam's in the slightest.
In an odd sense of clarity and numbness, she knew something must've gone wrong. If they were planning on doing the same thing they did to Cale, then they needed him alive. So why had he died? What went wrong?
The member started shaking his head, trying to crawl into the corner of the closet while mumbling some more.
She sighed. "I'm not mad," she said in her odd voice. "You won't be punished if you tell me what went wrong."
He stopped shaking, looking at her with wide, sunken eyes. "Wha— what?" His voice was small when he spoke, but at least she could make it out.
Finally, she thought. "If you tell me what you did and did wrong, then I'll let you go free without any punishments."
He started babbling again. "I— they told me he was sick, so I— they, wait— I lowered the dose of the... poison. They, no— you told me not to— y'know— kill him," he whispered the last two words, hiding himself even more.
"What went wrong?" she repeated.
"The... the poison— I forgot about the... about the medicine," he mumbled. "It reacted... it reacted badly."
"Did he die peacefully?"
He looked up at her, surprised. "Wha... what? Peacefully?"
"Did he suffer?" she asked again.
He blinked at her, her words processing. "Suffer? Yes— yes, he suffered. He was in... in a lot of pain. He did— didn't scream. I... I couldn't do anything. I was— I was too scared to do every... anything. I was afrai— scared of... you. If they found out... if they found out I failed... I— I couldn't bear it. I had to hide, you— you need to understand."
Adara nodded, her cold eyes watching him. "Oh, I understand."
He looked hopeful. "But... but you said they wouldn't kill— punish me. I can go fre—."
She interrupted him by wrapping her hand around his neck.
He choked, spluttering begs, and she thought he might be praying at one point. But he died with her hand around his neck. His body fell limp as soon as she let him go.
She stood up, shutting the door to the closet behind her. She took the shard out of her hand, the edges that had been digging into her hand dipped into blood. She slipped it into her pocket, her appearance going back to her original dark skin and pointed ears.
She put her three hoops necklace on, becoming pale. She walked out of the room.
On the way back to the Palace, she chose every secluded street and every detour possible.
Eventually, after walking for half an hour, a noise-cancelling spell was put around her. And she felt her rage come back like a crashing wave.
They had done this because of her.
They wanted to put a leash on her.
It was all her fault Preist Charlie was dead.
It was all her fault.
She would be damned before she joined the Organisation. It was her dad's sacrifice and she would honour it. Even if everyone around her was dead because of her.
She turned around, her fists already clenched.
Sam was there, waving his hands, a pathetic, apologetic smile on his lips. "Ah, I'm truly sorry, Adara. We really didn't mean to kill him. When we find—."
Sam was knocked to the ground by her. He hit the ground with a groan. Barely managing to open his eyes before he saw Adara on top of him with her arm drawn back.
The next thing he felt was a sharp pain to his face.
Blow came to him after blow, each one landing with a sickening thud and some with a gruesome crack. Her rage coursed through her veins, giving her the strength to raise her fist once more time after time.
His feeble attempts to defend himself were useless against her relentless onslaught. With each strike, her rage consumed her, letting her unleash all her fury upon his pretty face.
When she came back, able to think clearly, Sam lay motionless, held up only by her other hand.
Blood flowed across his face like a river, from his broken nose and his busted lip. His skin was swollen and discoloured, bruises covering every inch that was not covered in the bright red of blood. Tears streaked his cheeks, his lifeless eyes disappearing into his skull.
She stood up. Blood dripping from her knuckles.
She feels the most calm she's felt since she heard the news.