Seraphel
What the hell happened in the six days that I had no memory of? This was the question I asked myself over and over again as I soaked in the warm bath prepared by Durin and Rami.
The water was perfectly heated, releasing a thick, calming fragrance of white lotus.
Fresh lotus flowers had been placed inside, floating lazily around me. The steam should have cleared the fog in my head, but it didn’t. All I got was a blank space. I couldn’t remember a single thing.
Why were those six days suddenly missing? What the hell happened?
I groaned and closed my eyes, but the moment the darkness hit, the image of that unknown person appearing in the center of my room filled my mind. Even behind that ornate porcelain mask, I could see the creepy, twisted smile they were giving me.
Who the hell was that? One of the Sins? No way. The author’s original notes had never given any of the Sins a dark, grim-reaper aesthetic. There was no way it was any of them.
Author nude had described them as ethereal. There was nothing ethereal about that creepy mask.
But who could it be?
I sighed, lowering myself deeper into the tub with my eyes shut. I tried to drown out the silence and force the lost memories to surface, but nothing came up.
After a few frustrating seconds, I opened my eyes and sat up, rubbing the wetness from my face.
Then I saw it.
At first, it started slowly, with small bubbles breaking the surface as if the water in the tub was beginning to boil. Then the motion violently accelerated, churning fiercely before the water abruptly turned a deep, visceral red.
My eyes widened in absolute shock. Letting out a deafening scream, I scrambled out of the tub and threw myself over the edge, landing so hard on my legs that I could have sworn I felt a bone crack.
"What the hell?"
The boiling red water started rising, overflowing the edges of the tub and heading straight toward me like a wave of blood.
"No, no, get away!" I screamed desperately, scrambling backward on the floor. I tried to stand, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I forced myself. My legs completely refused to move. "No!"
The bathroom door flew open, and Analisse rushed in alongside Durin and Rami.
"Your Grace, what is happening?!"
I looked toward them, my chest heaving as I pointed a trembling hand toward the tub. "There... look right there..."
I snapped my head back toward the bath, but the words died in my throat. There was nothing there. The water was perfectly clear, completely still, and not a single drop had overflowed.
"I..." I muttered, biting my lower lip until it hurt. "I saw the water turn red. It was boiling..."
"Oh, Your Grace," Analisse said softly, stepping closer. She signaled to Durin and Rami, who immediately moved in to wrap a thick towel around my shivering body. "There is nothing. It must have been just your imagination."
"It is not my imagination!" I countered, clutching the towel tightly around my waist as they helped me up. "I saw it! It was just like the person in my room. The water turned to blood, I saw it! You have to believe me."
Analisse looked at me, then glanced back at the pristine tub. "There is truly nothing here, Your Highness. I believe what you are experiencing is simply due to the wedding jitters. Legends say every bride or groom experiences these intense moments of panic before the ceremony. I think that is what is happening to you."
"I know what I saw!" I yelled, wincing in pain as I leaned heavily on Durin and Rami to stand. "You weren’t in here! I don’t know how to explain it, but I really saw the water boiling and turning red! I saw it."
Analisse’s expression didn’t change at all. She just continued to smile her usual sweet, placid smile, and seeing her look at me like I was crazy irritated me to no end.
I rubbed a palm over my forehead and groaned. "You know what? Fuck this!" I snapped, looking directly at Durin and Rami. "I need to dress up and see the Prince immediately. There is something truly wrong with me. First, I don’t remember six whole days of my life, and now I’m the only one seeing things!"
Analisse shook her head quickly. "It is terrible luck for the bride to see the groom before the ceremony! You will have to wait until the wedding before you can see the Prince."
I groaned, desperately wanting to pull at my wet hair, but I forced my hands down and just clenched my fists angrily by my sides. I just had to get through this preparation so I could meet Azriel. Everything happening to me was completely abnormal, and I would have figured it out by now if the story hadn’t entirely derailed from the original plot, skipping major milestones.
When we returned to the bedchamber, Analisse sat me down in front of the large mirror and ordered Rami to apply a thick ointment to my injured legs. Within a few seconds, the throbbing pain completely vanished.
"Otin," Analisse explained, noticing my surprise. "It is a rare remedy created by high healers. It works just like magic."
I wasn’t even paying attention to her explanation. I just wanted to see Azriel.
The preparation went on for thirty long minutes.
I sat in absolute silence while they glammed me up. My hair was let down, parted slightly at the front, and then elegantly swept back, secured tightly with an ornate golden hairpin. They applied my makeup, making my skin glow with a flawless, ethereal radiance.
Then came the dress. Goodness, it was incredibly heavy, intricately beaded like a traditional royal gown. I was dressed in sweeping crimson robes embroidered with golden lotuses from top to bottom, finished with a delicate red veil to cover my face. Once they were finished, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked beautiful. No—Seraphel’s body looked stunning. Under rare circumstances, I would have paused to praise the sheer beauty in the glass, but right now, all I cared about was getting to Azriel and figuring out what the hell was wrong with my mind.
But as I continued to stare at the glass, a dark crimson writing began to materialize directly on the mirror’s surface. The words were written in a sharp, foreign script I had never seen before, yet somehow, the translation echoed directly in my mind.
Khronos.
The bloody letters lingered on the glass for a brief, heavy moment.
As I leaned closer to inspect them, they dissolved into thin air, leaving the mirror perfectly clean.
"What the hell..." I muttered, blinking rapidly, expecting the letters to reappear. There was nothing.
Analisse leaned closer to the mirror, looking at my expression. "Your Grace? Are you just admiring how beautiful you look? What are you staring at?"
"You didn’t see the writing?"
She shook her head, her brow furrowing. "What writing, Your Highness?"
"There were foreign letters on the glass. Khronos."
A collective gasp broke out through the room. The servants lowered their heads instantly, and Analisse quickly shook her head, her smile vanishing. "Do not say that word again, Your Highness."
"Why? What does it mean?" I demanded, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. The sharp shift in the room’s atmosphere proved that whatever that word meant, it wasn’t good.
"It means bad luck," Analisse whispered. "An omen."
"An omen?" I asked, a chill running down my spine.
Analisse nodded solemnly. "Which is exactly why you shouldn’t speak of such things on your wedding and coronation day."
I said nothing, turning my eyes back to the empty mirror. The word perfectly described exactly what I was experiencing at this very moment.
An omen of bad luck.
Six days completely wiped from my mind, a masked entity stalking my vision, and an hallucination of boiling blood.
If there was any other way to describe an inescapable curse, I certainly hadn’t found it yet.
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