The festival was grander and more extravagant than ever. It lasted a week, during the days of the twin moons.
People flocked in from neighboring countries, from different status or origin, everyone joined in the jubilant celebration. Not only a national tradition upheld for centuries, this national holiday was also a calculated spectacle meant to flaunt the Empire’s power to the world.
Which is why, during this time, everything was excessive. Food was spilled and piled high, the lights were almost blinding, and the voices chattering from the crowd were far too loudly.
“Oh my, is this…”
Only now did it strike me—how modest all that excess once stood before the Imperial Palace. The two massive pillars looming before the Great Palace was a reminder for me.
“Isn’t this… a little too much?”
We were out sightseeing near the palace about an hour before the banquet. Our feet froze to the floor when we passed by the Great Palace, where the Emperor and Empress resided. The sight before us was unlike anything we had ever seen.
Such enormous pillars.
It was a construction unseen in any archive or book. Its overwhelming scale made bystanders lost in admiration, yet stirred an uncanny, strange fear.
“Well… it’s reasonable why this place is lavish.” Sylvia answered casually, her voice lowered as she scanned the line of guards stationed around them. “The last emperor must have wanted to restore his son’s dignity a little, after people secretly called him a damaged emperor. Perhaps, he felt bad for seeing his own son get cursed and unable to produce an heir with his lover.”
The stronger the light, the darker the shadow it casts. Everyone in the Empire knew what wretched shadow loomed behind those flawless, gleaming pillars.
“Your son shall only bear an heir through a witch–the curse I shall place upon the Radom Empire.”
That was the Great Witch’s final declaration decades ago, during the era of mass slaughter. Spoken like a curse, it was directed to Khainon, son of the emperor at the time, instead of the mastermind of the massacre, Emperor Rudd.
“But the Great Witch is already dead…”
“…So what now? The witches are all dead, too…”
It was already late, as the curse was laid, every last witch had already been wiped out.
“They were exterminated. Not one was left alive.”
In the end, at the face of the curse that couldn’t be undone, Emperor Rudd was powerless. With his own hands he had ruined his bloodline.
“The son’s suffering for the crimes of the father. Emperor Khainon is so pitiful.”
After Emperor Rudd’s death, Khainon took the throne. Truth to the curse foretold, he remained childless.
Years passed, and eventually, the Empire elected four noble-born kin from four great houses as adopted princes. Centuries of bloodline of the founding imperial family, now faced a true and imminent end.
Whispers throughout the Empire claimed the day to choose a crown prince was drawing near.
I stood still, eyes locked on the twin moons above the two towering pillars. Symbols of the Emperor and Empress, the absolute sovereigns of this land.
So breathtaking they left you breathless.
So reverent they felt almost sacred.
Despite all that splendor, they looked… achingly lonely.
From a distance, the bell signaling the start of the banquet rang faintly through the night.
The higher the twin moons, the more the banquet came alive.
From the teacups to the walnuts tucked in the pies, every detail was curated with only the Empire’s finest. Everything about it felt seamless.
The aristocrats wore fixed smiles under their donned masks, chatting politely without loud voices. They clapped generously for the acrobat performing death-defying tricks with a blade nearly as long as his torso.
While they enjoyed the entertainment, I tightened my loose sash around my waist.
The court musicians had, until now, played only soft, slow notes like the carpets beneath our feet. But now their tone dropped, note by note, into something deeper. It was the signal for our performance.
Young dancers with fans bounded onto the stage like innocent deer. Their movements sometimes mirrored patterns and other times scattered into beautifully unrestrained movements.
As the melodies leapt in dissonant, soaring intervals and the dancers moved with fierce spontaneity, the boundaries of the stage seemed to melt away.
Then, the lights dimmed as the young dancers vanished into darkness.
And in their place, with poise, appeared grown dancers covered in veils.
As the music shaped the dance and the dance pulled the melody along, the once disparate movements wove into a single, fluid choreography.
The moment Sylvia and I crossed paths onstage, our eyes met. In that instant, we were no longer separate individuals, but a single body, an organism moving with shared movement and purpose.
The music had reached its climax. It was time for my solo.
I stepped into the spotlight. Alone beneath the pouring moonlight. My skin bare to the gaze of hundreds. I was keenly aware of every glance, every prickle of unease crawling across my arms, every nerve electrified.
And danced I did.
With dangerously precise movements, never faltering, not in fingertip nor toe.
With each ascending note, I leaped higher. Careful, but fearless. Until at last, I reached the climax.
As the final note faded into moonlight, I fell to one knee, drew the flower from my chest, and extended it forward.
A roar of applause erupted.
“To His Majesty, the moon that lights the darkness of Radom.”
This flower—I truly wished to give it to him. Even if I couldn’t lift the curse placed by the Great Witch, if my small blessing could reach the tips of his feet, that alone would be enough.
He’d shown grace to children who grew up without mothers. He gave them a reason to endure.
I couldn’t say all that, of course. But from the moment we dancers were invited to the palace, I had longed to repay him—however modestly.
This flower might be insignificant to someone who lacks for nothing. But I had poured into it all the sincerity I had. So I was not ashamed.
And so I smiled, waiting for the tug from my hands.
Until the applause gradually faded.
Until the ballroom suffocated in silence.
Yet, the Emperor did not move. Even slightly.
Something was wrong.
The air, which had flowed in a festive mood until now, had grown thick, weighing on my shoulders. I couldn’t see his expression, not with my head still bowed. The uncertainty and uneasiness ate at me. My arms, stiff with tension, no longer felt like they belonged to me.
“…Perial, isn’t it?”
A voice so low, almost like a growl, penetrated the silence. He spoke the flower’s name with a tone so dark and cracked, it could shake you from the roots.
My pulse thudded loudly in my ears.
“Said to bring dreams true when offered with a blessing, such a lovely and…”
The stem trembled gently in my hand, as he was caressing its petal. And then, in one swift move, he gripped my wrist, twisted it violently.
“…Filthy as a dog flower.”
My breath hitched.
My eyes were swallowed by the pitch-black of his eyes, void of any light, coiled with murderous intent. Its sharpness was enough to draw blood on mere contact. It was the rage of the cursed emperor. Thick. Dark. And poisonous.
A fury no one dared meet with their eyes.
Long ago, in the Radom Empire, there lived two races.
The ordinary—who made up 99% of the population.
And the ‘witches’—who made up the remaining 1%, capable of wielding magic.
This ability manifested only in women. So only daughters carried the family name, and inheritance passed through the maternal line.
Persecution and oppression of witches had a long and bloody history, but there had also been eras where they lived in peace and harmony. During truce time, the Empire coexisted with the witches. They helped others with magic, people admired and befriended them. Some even married and built families together.
But all of that shattered the moment Emperor Rudd ascended the throne.
He feared that one day, the witches would use their powers to overthrow the Empire. So he was determined to destroy the threat before it could bloom.
“Kill them all. Leave not a single infant alive.”
Thus began another of Radom’s infamous Witch Purges, history repeating itself under the name of “strengthening the imperial power.”
Magic was labeled blasphemy, a threat to the crown, and those who practiced it were deemed traitors to be cleansed.
None who bore the witches’ bloodline were spared.
Their husbands and sons were sold as slaves to enemy lands.
Even the most gifted among them, the Great Witch, could not escape the emperor’s blade.
“For leading and misleading the people, for disrupting the order of the Empire, for plotting to usurp sacred sovereign rule—Burn her at the stake.”
On the day of her execution, the bodies of the Great Witch’s closest sisters-in-magic lay strewn at her feet.
Children.
Their mothers.
Their sisters.
Their grandmothers.
Stabbed. Beaten. Drowned. Strangled to death.
None would be returned to home. Their ashes would be gathered and burned again, a long tradition of killing the witches they claimed. The remnants were fed to dogs, then they were killed, torn apart, and thrown into the “Forest of No Return” to rot, becoming wild animal food.
A death meant as low as a dog’s death.
Bound at the stake, the Great Witch shifted her gaze to the distant Emperor Rudd.
“I see. The Empress carries a son.”
No one should know about the baby, moreover the baby’s gender. The Empress’ pregnancy had been kept confidential until the massacre was over.
A frigid tension gripped the execution grounds.
“Carry out the sentence,” Emperor Rudd gave the order, unaffected, like he was squashing an insect. Him alone who noticed the slight tremor at the end of his own voice.
“You must’ve wanted to give your son a better world.”
A world, an empire that was built atop the corpses of witches.
“But your son… shall only bear an heir through a witch. That is the curse I place upon the Radom Empire.”
Right after her last words, the pyre was lit.
The Great Witch screamed—one long, shattering cry.
As her body burned down into ashes, the moon aligned into one, emanating bright red light.
But everyone knew.
This curse would live on.
And it would rot the Empire from within.
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