Crash.
The sound split the corridor like a thunderclap striking stone.
"Your Majesty…"
"Hush."
The command fell low and sharp, leaving no space for argument.
The servants froze where they stood, breaths caught halfway between fear and duty. Butler Xiwen lifted a hand without looking back, signaling silence, though his own heart thudded painfully against his ribs. The door to the Emperor's chamber stood wide open, its hinges crooked, the wood scarred as if something heavy had struck it again and again.
From the threshold, the ruin within revealed itself.
Shattered porcelain lay strewn across the floor like pale bones. Once-pristine vases lay in fragments, their painted patterns reduced to meaningless shards. Curtains that had once framed the tall windows in ceremonial dignity now hung in ragged strips, torn as though clawed apart by a beast. Furniture had been overturned, splintered, dragged.
Nothing remained untouched. The room looked less like a bedchamber and more like a place ransacked in war.
A single figure sat amid the wreckage.
Guren, Emperor of Adiand, rested on the edge of his bed with his shoulders slumped forward, spine bowed beneath an invisible weight.
His chest rose and fell in heavy, uneven breaths, each one drawn as though it scraped his lungs raw. His head hung low, shadows obscuring his face, and his body swayed faintly, as if even remaining upright demanded effort.
Blood marked his presence. Thin rivulets ran from the soles of his feet, pooling darkly where he had stepped upon the fragments of a shattered mirror.
Glass glimmered across the floor, catching the dim light and throwing it back in cold flashes. Some pieces still bore traces of reflection, warped and broken.
Guren lowered a trembling hand and closed his fingers around one of the shards. It bit into his skin, drawing another bead of red, but he did not seem to notice. He lifted it slowly, staring into the jagged surface.
The face reflected there was wrong.
His viridian eyes, once distant and unreadable, now gleamed with something stripped of restraint.
There was no warmth in them, no humanity, only a cold, devouring light that seemed to swallow what little illumination the room held. The glass fractured his features into pieces, but even broken, the depravity was unmistakable.
"It just will not stop," Guren muttered, his voice hoarse, scraped thin by strain.
Butler Xiwen stepped forward despite the instinct screaming at him to retreat.
His palms were slick with sweat, but he forced his voice to remain steady. "Your Majesty, I beseech you. Please, restrain yourself. You will wound yourself further."
This was not the Emperor he had served since boyhood.
Only hours earlier, Guren had concluded the court's matters with his usual cold efficiency. He had retired without complaint, without visible unrest.
There were nights when the Emperor slept peacefully, and nights when rest seemed to exhaust him more than wakefulness ever could. Xiwen had learned to recognize both.
But now, as the young Emperor sat among shattered glass and blood, something else coiled beneath his skin.
His eyes lifted, unfocused yet sharp, as though seeing something none of them could. His brows were drawn tight, his jaw clenched so hard that the muscles quivered beneath pale skin.
Rage and frustration pressed against each other within him, bound together by exhaustion.
The maids lined the corridor behind Xiwen, hands clasped, faces drained of color. Some stared at the blood on the floor, others fixed their gaze upon the wall, as though refusing to see might keep death at bay.
Xiwen saw Guren's fingers tighten around the shard, saw the tremor in his hands deepen.
"Leave," he shouted suddenly, turning on the servants. "All of you. Leave us at once."
They did not hesitate. Silk and soft shoes retreated in a rush, fear lending speed to obedience. The corridor emptied, leaving only the butler and the Emperor facing one another across the ruined room.
Xiwen's unease deepened into dread.
"Gah!" Guren's voice tore from his throat, raw and unrestrained. "Just stop it already!"
The cry echoed against the walls, wild and uncontained, as though dragged from somewhere deep and buried. In the next instant, his hand released the shard and reached instead for the sword resting upon the nightstand.
Steel rasped faintly as he drew it free.
His grip was fierce, knuckles blanched white, veins standing stark against his skin. His eyes darted across the chamber, no longer seeing torn curtains or broken furniture, but something else entirely.
Again.
The dreams had returned.
They no longer felt like dreams at all. They were too vivid, too complete. He could feel the wind tearing past him, thick with the smell of iron. He could hear the screams, the clash of blades against shields, the sickening sound of steel biting into flesh.
Blood soaked everything.
The chamber dissolved around him, replaced by a river of red beneath a leaden sky.
"Ah…"
Why was he here again?
Had he not already ended it? Had he not cut them all down? He had been in his palace. He had been safe. Yet here he stood, boots sinking into mud darkened by blood, enemy soldiers still crawling, still breathing.
Pest.
Then he would erase them once more.
The sword sang through the air.
"Ha ack! Mercy, please!"
Again and again he struck. He would not stop until they were gone from his sight, until not one remained to rise and trouble his reign.
"No! I do not wish to die!"
They fled. No. He would not allow it.
"Ahh!"
"Heuk!"
"Stop!"
Their pleas grated against his ears, each one an irritation, a reminder that they yet lived. Why would they not simply perish? These loathsome creatures.
Blood splashed across his face, warm and sticky. He did not wipe it away. He swung and swung, the battlefield vanishing beneath heaps of bodies. The stench rose thick and suffocating, blooming heavy in the air like rot beneath a dying tree.
"Enough!"
"No."
It would never be enough. Not while one still stood.
"Trizar," Guren snarled. "You will fall by my hand."
He lunged, blade aimed true, striking for the vital point with practiced precision. Trizar evaded him, steel ringing as blows were deflected, the man moving with infuriating skill as he shielded those behind him.
"Such futility."
Hatred burned bright.
All he needed was Trizar's death. Then this gnawing unrest would fade. This war, dragged across three long years, would finally end. Too many of Adiand's soldiers had fallen. They were outmatched, yet driven forward all the same.
There was only one path left.
Bam.
The ground slammed into him.
"Tsk."
He hated this.
This body. This cursed youth. His size, his reach, his strength, all working against him. He forced himself up, teeth clenched, lungs burning. Speed would suffice where strength failed.
One strike. Everything poured into a single blow.
"Your Majesty, please, return to yourself!"
The voice pierced through the vision.
Splurt.
A wet, tearing sound.
"Gahgh!"
He coughed, breath ripped from his lungs.
The battlefield faded.
When Guren blinked, the face before him was not Trizar's. Butler Xiwen stood there, his expression twisted in pain and horror, a blade buried through his shoulder. Blood soaked his garments, torn and ragged.
The mountains of corpses were gone. The screams vanished into silence.
The palace returned.
Blood smeared the walls.
The rug lay drenched and ruined. Bodies lay scattered, limbs bent at unnatural angles. Maids who had served him faithfully stared sightlessly at the ceiling, their lives ended by his hand. Heads lay separated from bodies. Stomachs torn open. Eyes empty.
Guren stared at the sword in his grasp. It was warm.
Slick.
A familiar cold settled into his chest, deep and unmoving.
"Haha."
"Your Majesty…" Xiwen whispered, gripping a lamp stand as a shield.
Guren regarded him without expression. "Butler. You survived."
The words were flat, empty.
Xiwen smiled faintly. "Indeed."
He had lived, though he should not have.
"See to your wounds."
He turned to the lone surviving maid. "You. Take him. Have him treated."
"Yes," she stammered. "Yes, Your Majesty."
"Go," Guren said. "If you value your life."
They fled.
He did not look back at the dead.
"Take me to the prisoners."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the knights replied.
The cell doors opened to reveal bound spies, faces twisted with defiance.
"The child emperor comes at last."
"Tyrant."
"Monster."
Guren waited until their voices fell silent beneath his gaze.
"Impertinent fools."
His sword flashed.
The first man fell open, blood spilling.
"Whose command?"
Silence.
Steel descended again.
Screams filled the chamber. One by one they fell, loyalty buying them only agony.
At last, one remained.
Guren regarded him. "Tell me. Is there life worth dying for?"
Hope flickered in the man's eyes.
"I will speak," he said. "Let me live."
Guren studied him. "Do you know why you were last?"
The man bowed. "I beg you."
"You cherish your life."
The blade fell before the man could look up.
Thud.
"You are not alone," Guren murmured.
Not enough.
His head still throbbed, though the ache dulled.
He yawned.
As he departed, a guard bowed.
Shuukk.
Another body fell.
"Tiresome."
He dragged his sword behind him, steel scraping stone, the sound echoing through halls soaked in blood.
"Ah."
The pounding eased.
At last.
There's this odd quietness of strange whispers he is used to.
Yes, this is…quiet enough.