Prologue

“No… please hold on. Please.”

Diena extended her ability with trembling fingertips. A gentle light wrapped around Barkhan’s wounds, but there was no response.

Her purification ability could only erase darkness—it had no power to hold onto a life that was fading away. She knew that, yet she could not bring herself to stop.

“Stop it… Diena.”

Barkhan’s voice was faint, but firm.

“Don’t be stupid. At least you have to survive.”

“You should have just left me behind! Why… why…?”

A faint smile appeared on Barkhan’s face.

“How could I leave you behind? You’re my little sister.”

But Diena was not even his real sister.

Worse, she belonged to House Rothwell—the very ducal family that had ruined the Kardian family.

“Why don’t you resent me? If it weren’t for me, you could have lived proudly as the strongest.”

It was a question she had wanted to ask for years. She had never found the courage to say it, swallowing the words over and over again.

Yet in the end, she blurted them out at the most cowardly moment possible.

At Diena’s anguished cry, Barkhan slowly shook his head.

“Not once have I ever hated you.”

“But…”

With trembling hands, Diena gently caressed his face.

“You have to live. At least you… be happy…”

Barkhan slowly closed his eyes.

And in that instant, the world fell silent.

Diena buried her face against the back of his hand and wept. She, too, had already reached her limit.

The price of forcing herself to use her ability beyond its limits was that her own life was fading away.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I won’t… let them get away with this.”

If she were ever given another chance, she would never forgive those who had killed her family.

No matter what it took, she would take revenge on the people who had reduced Barkhan to this state.

Inside the cave, where the blizzard had finally ceased, the warmth of their bodies slowly faded away.