He was walking barefoot amidst the corpses. Some were still twitching, some had their eyes open, some closed.
Everything felt like a nightmare.
Except he was the monster in it.
The castle walls rose high before him. As he craned his neck to look up, he noticed the archers running around, not to prepare an attack, but to escape.
He didn't blame them. After he had cut down the fiftieth horseman with a single strike, the entire enemy army had given up on any attempt to stop him. Every man out there was now on his own.
Still, he raised his blade.
"People of Benevia!"
His voice sounded different, as if it wasn't his own. The people running up and down the walls like frantic ants froze for a second. Even hundreds of yards away, they were still afraid of him.
"Give me back the Saintess and your lives will be spared!"
Did you hear that?...
Is the Saintess really worth keeping if we die because of her?...
There it was. The thing about humans that he hated so much: the fickle-mindedness. The little selfish hearts that wouldn't mind bleeding out others if that's what they needed to sustain themselves.
He stabbed his sword into the blood-soaked soil. It didn't stand straight. It tilted slightly to one side, just like his sanity, which kept tilting little by little with every passing moment.
"I am not known to be a patient man!" he said, hands cupped around his mouth. "I will take the Saintess today, with or without Benevia surviving the day!"
"Rudra?"
There she was.
She was looking at him from the top of the wall, her braids undone, her clothes askew. She was panting, her forehead and neck gleaming with sweat.
She looked scared.
And he had never been so sure that he wanted her by his side.
"Saintess of Benevia!" Rudra called her, not by her name, but by the status she now held. "Marry me and I'll stop the war! Refuse, and I'll make sure to wipe your entire nation from the face of the earth!"
The Saintess paled. "Rudra...," her voice shook, "what have you become?"
The words stung Rudra worse than he could have predicted, but his face remained stoic, expressionless.
"Do you or do you not accept my offer?"
He stood his ground, on his promise of violence and destruction, of amity and mercy.
Even from afar, Rudra could see her shaking, her fingers curling upon the crumbling wall, her eyes bright with horror and rage.
"Choose me!"
Rudra took another step. She flinched. He froze.
Tish...
He prayed silently in his mind, desperate, not to any God or Devil, but to the woman cowering about a hundred yards away from him.
Tish, for once, choose me...
"I...," Tish swallowed, wincing as if she had a thorn stuck in her throat. "I... ch-choose..."
Suddenly an arrow flew out of nowhere, cutting through the wind, shrieking like a hunting bird. Rudra's body moved before he could realise what was happening.
But of course, he wasn't that fast.
Rudra liked to tell himself that he was exhausted, that taking down wave after wave of the Benevian army had finally tired his muscles. But deep in his heart, he knew it wasn't true.
Deep in his heart, he knew it was because of the Saintess. Tish.
Because he had been so focused on the woman before him, he had made an amateur mistake, a deadly one at that. But it didn't surprise Rudra. He had always known that, one way or another, Tish would be the death of him.
With a sick, wet sound, the arrow embedded itself in the soft muscle between Rudra's neck and shoulder. The impact made him stagger back a few steps. His vision went blurry.
"YOU MMMONSSTERRRR!"
Rudra shook his head, gasping with pain as he tried to understand which brave, stupid, stupid soul had dared to shoot an arrow at the Prince of Partha.
"YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING—"
Rudra touched the shaft of the arrow. A groan rose from the back of his throat, one he couldn't hold back. He could feel the arrow in his flesh, a foreign object lodged near his heart. But it wasn't fatal. Not now, at least.
Yet he didn't dare pull out the arrow, partly because he dreaded bleeding out there when the Saintess was so close, and partly because he just couldn't. The pain was too much.
The crowd atop the wall stirred nervously. They didn't look relieved now that Rudra had been wounded. It only made them shiver more.
Rudra squinted, glaring against the sun to spot the shooter. It was a man. Black-haired. Golden earring. Eyes large as a deer's. He stood behind Tish, looking like her rightful protector.
Rudra scoffed.
He picked up his sword with his good hand. He held it by the hilt as if it were a javelin, feet planted apart, his eyes fixed upon the man's head...
"No!"
It was Tish. It had always been her to stand in his path.
"You cannot kill him!"
And Rudra knew with utmost certainty that she would indeed be the death of him.
"For I chose him!"
Rudra's hand shook. His vision blurred. From exhaustion? From the arrow, which might have been poisoned? He didn't care.
He kept staring at the Saintess, even when his knees went weak and he fell to the ground unceremoniously. Even when he heard the cheers of the Benevian soldiers, glad that the hero had finally taken down the villain.
He kept staring at Tish.
Even when the world went pitch black.