Back at the palace, chaos prepared to don its crown.
The great bell of the palace summit rang out across the city. Someone had arrived.
Athena was more empress than queen. Under her reign, prosperity had bloomed like spring after endless winter. Life improved with each sunrise, and the people did not merely love her, they revered her as something approaching the divine. She was their symbol of peace, the woman whose wisdom had unified fractured lands. Her word had become the very definition of moral law: what she blessed was good, what she rejected was evil. Such was the depth of their trust, and perhaps she had earned it.
The kingdom stretched vast beyond any single voice's reach, so she had appointed four bishops to help govern the sprawling realm. Each ruled a cardinal direction from the capital's center, and once every three months they would gather to share news, receive guidance, and weave strategy into action. One of these bishops was her husband, Malthane, whom she had loved since before crowns and kingdoms had claimed them. He had been born to common soil but blessed with ambition that could touch the clouds. He never second-guessed, never let opportunity slip through his fingers. It was this certainty that had first captured her heart.
When the bell's voice faded, the palace's great doors swept open to reveal not the dreaded leaders of Utopia, but the four bishops themselves-, arriving with their full retinues on the very day the Tri-Monthly Council was set to convene. Each bishop had brought a modest army, as befitted their station, their banners snapping in the afternoon breeze.
A guard rushed to deliver the news, and beneath Athena's surprise bloomed a flower of relief. Fate had aligned perfectly. Their scheduled arrival meant she wouldn't have to face this alone. She ran through hallways where every head bowed as she passed, voices rising in unified chorus: "Long live the Queen!" The words followed her like a prayer.
She reached the entrance, insisting on welcoming her loyal bishops herself. Their eyes met across the threshold. Hers were bright with hope tainted by despair. But something could still be done.
Their eyes, however, held something else entirely. A flicker, gone before she could name it.
"My Queen," Malthane spoke, his voice carrying its familiar formal cadence. "We are here as ordained. But word travels faster than sound, news met us at the gates. It is a stroke of fortune that the council gathered today of all days."
"Well spoken. The person bearing the original curse is indeed here. But fortune has smiled upon us twice, call it destiny, luck, or divine providence---I have already sent him out."
The mood shifted like a tide pulled by an unseen moon. The four bishops exchanged glances of surprise that seemed neither worried nor comforting. Falric's hand twitched toward his sword hilt before falling away. Severyn wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Let us go inside," Athena said gently. "To the meeting chamber. There is much to discuss."
They walked together through corridors. The bishops studied the familiar halls as if seeing them for the first time.
"I've already begun evacuation procedures," Athena said as they moved through the palace's heart. "A cart departed this morning carrying the original curse bearer east, taking the Old King's Road. The route should take them well clear of any immediate danger."
Malthane's voice cut through the reverent silence with uncharacteristic sharpness: "East you said? How long ago exactly? What escort did you provide?"
"About an hour and a half ago. I have already set additional plans in motion."
"Additional plans?".
They reached the chamber then---a vast circular room crowned by a domed ceiling painted with constellations. The round table at its center was carved from a single massive tree. Here, the most crucial decisions of the realm were made.
As they settled into their seats, she noticed several guards from the bishops' retinues positioning themselves just outside the chamber doors.
They sat in weighted silence, each waiting for another to break it. Finally, Athena spoke: "Malthane, Falric, Darius, Severyn---I need you not to mobilize your armies for direct conflict. We know normal humans and weapons are useless against them. Instead, mobilize your people to find every cursed person they can. We must fight back together, for only the cursed can stand against them. And we must find Kaiser, he hasn't appeared in years, but now we need him most."
Darius rose, his tall frame casting a long shadow, "So we're not surrendering the original curse bearer. Are you prepared to declare war on Utopia? Even with Kaiser's help, even with a hundred cursed soldiers, we don't stand a chance."
Athena's voice sharpened, pitched higher with irritation. "First, there is no conceivable universe in which we surrender the original. This will be the last epoch. Any beast or beast holder who survives will be immortal forever. Second, the Sixth Epoch was not long ago, we still have records proving how powerful cursed humans can become. If I had to wager, they should be the ones who are afraid. That's why they'll start this war."
Darius replied "So what's the endgame? Kill every single beast holder in this epoch? Even if you manage it, that's not a massacre, it's genocide. And that's not counting the losses our kingdom will suffer."
Athena's voice hardened into something that didn't sound like her at all "They either die now, or they live forever. No mortal should possess eternity, it violates the very balance of existence. They would rule the world, subjugate the weak. Too much power in too few hands is the formula for disaster. Why do you think Utopia was created? A vast land where every beast holder gathered, the realm of eternity. What happens when they realize no more epochs will come, no more threats will rise? They won't be human anymore. They will become gods."
The bishops understood, nothing in heaven or hell could convince Queen Athena to surrender. Her morals were carved in stone, immutable as the stars. In another world, perhaps they could have sided with such noble purpose. After all, her words had always defined morality itself.
But in this world, things were different.
The chamber's great doors opened with barely a whisper. One of the guards who had accompanied the bishops stepped inside. He approached Malthane and leaned down, whispering something in his ear.
Malthane's face changed.
"Well," Malthane said. "It seems we have much to discuss after all."
Athena found herself staring at the guard as he withdrew. Something about his eyes struck her as wrong.
They intercepted the cart.
But more troubling was the timing. The cart had departed barely an hour and a half ago, taking the Old King's Road toward the mountain passes. Even at full gallop, it would take a skilled rider at least twenty minutes to reach the first checkpoint where the road curved toward the foothills. Yet this guard had somehow intercepted the cart, inspected its contents, and returned here in what could not have been more than fifteen minutes since I gave them the information.
Unless he moved faster than any horse. Unless he moved faster than any human should be able to move.
It was then, watching her husband's expression shift, seeing the way the other bishops suddenly sat straighter, noticing how the guard's whispered message had changed the entire dynamic of the room, that understanding crashed over Athena.
I hoped I was wrong, but I had to be sure. The empty cart I sent east was a test---if they were truly loyal, they would have no reason to intercept it. But they did. They sent that guard to the Old King's Road, he found the cart empty, and reported back.
They asked about the cart's direction, its timing, its escort---not to help coordinate my plans, but to sabotage them. They're not here to protect the original curse bearer, they're here to capture him.
It took Athena too long to recognize what her wisdom should have seen immediately. Trust and emotion had blinded her to the signs written in her bishops' eyes. Only now did she decode their meaning. She sank into her chair as a million possibilities crashed through her mind.
Now that I think about it, their readiness was remarkably suspicious. They brought armies .They asked too many questions, specific questions about location and timing, as if they were gathering intelligence rather than offering aid. They don't seek to understand the situation; they seek to control it. And their eyes... Malthane's eyes make it feel like they carry a burden unlike any other.
Darius speaks of war as inevitable, of our chances as hopeless---not the words of an ally preparing to fight, but of an enemy calculating victory. They study these halls like strangers mapping foreign territory. They exchange glances like conspirators sharing secrets. And that flicker when I mentioned Kaiser, not hope, but fear. Fear that their plans might be disrupted.
How long have they been planning this? How long have I been blind to the rot in my own council? The monthly meetings, the shared strategies, the trust I placed in their hands---all of it compromised. All of it turned against everything we've built.
"Malthane... Did Utopia offer you beast hearts? Are you now beast holders? Did you betray your kingdom---your queen?"
The heaviest silence of her life settled over the chamber like a burial shroud. In their eyes she saw remorse, tragedy, necessity, but above all, determination. They had traded loyalty for immortality.
Malthane's shoulders sagged as if a great weight had finally been lifted. When he spoke, his voice carried the exhaustion of a man who had been carrying lies too long.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way, Athena. We never wanted to deceive you. But when their emissary came to us six months ago, when they showed us what we could become..." He gestured helplessly. "We're mortal, my love. We age. We die. But they offered us eternal life."
Falric's voice was barely a whisper: "We know what the cursed can do. We've read the histories. In every epoch, normal humans are slaughtered by the thousands. Athena, at least this way, we survive."
"Survive?" Athena's voice cracked like breaking glass. "You call becoming monsters survival?"
"We call it evolution," Darius said, his tall frame straightening with conviction. "The old world is ending whether we help it or not. The choice isn't between good and evil, it's between extinction and adaptation."
Severyn, who had remained silent, finally spoke: "They promised us our territories would be spared. Our people would live under protection rather than die under siege. What would you have us do, Athena? Watch our lands burn for the sake of principles that won't matter when we're all dead?"
"You can join us," Malthane said. "There is only one step between your mortal life and an eternal one. They will grant you the one of the most prestigious beast heart they have. All you must do is surrender the original curse and tell us where he really is. No blood need be spilled, no lives taken. No more curses, forever. Only an eternal realm among the lands of mortals, where we will live as the honored ones. We won't even need to interfere with the outside world. All it takes is one decision from you."
He leaned forward, desperate now. "Think, my love. What are we fighting for? A person we've known for mere hours? The abstract principle that some should die so others may live mortal lives? We could rule together, forever. We could see our great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren. We could watch the world grow beyond anything we've imagined."
Rivers of tears flooded Athena's cheeks. She looked so innocent, so desperate, so utterly betrayed. Words fled her. Thoughts abandoned her. Her soul felt as if it had already departed her body. For the first time, the queen who had known only love and sympathy felt hatred, deep hatred that ran through every bone and reached her pure soul, tainting it forever.
The chamber fell into profound silence. Each bishop watched her with different emotions playing across their faces---Malthane with desperate hope, Darius with resigned certainty, Falric with shame, Severyn with something that might have been pity.
She gathered herself slowly, as if each movement cost her years of life. When she stood, her hands were firm and her eyes wet, but her voice carried the steadiness of absolute conviction: "Then let it be war."
Words no one would ever have expected from the Empress of the Sapphire Castle, the Queen of Peace, the Symbol of Hope, the Angel of Light.
Malthane's face crumpled. What was I thinking? Of course I couldn't convince her. The only convincing I did was convincing myself that I could. I was delusional. This was inevitable. I thought I was ready for this. Maybe I'm not. Maybe none of us are ready to watch the woman we've served for decades choose death over eternity. Choose principle over the people she loves.
The silence stretched like a held breath. No one moved. No one spoke. The weight of irrevocable choice pressed down on them all.
Finally, Athena walked slowly to the balcony, her steps measured as a funeral procession. They watched in silence, perhaps witnessing an angel finally losing her wings. She spoke with a voice tender yet tinged with the scent of blood: "The sky is clearer than it has ever been. Maybe I should have enjoyed it more. Maybe I should have spent more time with you, Evelyn. I did my best. I lived for my people, and I will die for them---for their children. Malthane, I don't regret anything in my life. Make sure you don't regret yours."
The words fell like a benediction and a curse combined.
"Long live the Queen."
The chamber's great doors opened slowly, as if moved by invisible hands. A silhouette that had been approaching moments before now stood frozen in the threshold, as if witnessing the end of the world itself.
Before Evelyn lay her mother's body, soul departed, four blades piercing her like a grotesque sculpture. The symbol of peace, the lantern of hope, had gone dark forever.
And with this sight burned into her eyes, Evelyn---who felt as if she were watching a nightmare unfold---blackened with the worst emotion of them all. At that moment, a curse was born within the walls of the Sapphire Castle.