You, My Devil - Chapter 8

That night, Heina couldn’t sleep a wink. Her thoughts chased one another in an endless loop.

He called him Lord Arzen. I didn’t mishear it.

Sitting upright on her bed, Heina stared fixedly into the empty space before her, her olive-green eyes narrowing and her brow furrowing in concentration.

Her fiancé, Arzen, had been brutally murdered by Yuri during a mock peace tournament held in his homeland. She had watched helplessly as Yuri stabbed Arzen’s heart, then, as if that weren’t enough, decapitated him—helmet and all.

And yet… Arzen is alive?

Until three days ago, Arzen’s death had been an incontrovertible fact to her. But now, a faint glimmer of hope—a fragile thread suggesting that he might somehow still be alive—had begun to spark within her.

With clouded eyes, Heina bit her nails, her thoughts spiraling deeper and deeper.

Lord Arzen. He said Lord Arzen.

Heina’s mind raced. There’s no way a mere Nikean would call Arzen by that name. He must be one of Constance’s own. There’s no other explanation.

The palace in the heart of Granada, the capital of Nike, was off-limits to anyone from Constance, save for slaves. If that soldier truly was one of her people, it meant that Constance’s men had infiltrated this palace, concealing their identities. Hiding among their captors. Bright hair, typical of Constance’s people, could easily be dyed darker to blend in.

She covered her mouth with a trembling hand and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat, and a rush of heat coursed through her body.

Arzen… Could he truly be alive? Is he coming to rescue me? Is that what this means?

His radiant smile flashed in her memory. The pain of longing for him was like a raw ache deep within her chest.

“That’s why I’m always the seeker, Princess. No matter where you hide, I’ll always find you.”

Heina wiped away her tears with delicate fingers, steeling herself as her lips quivered. Then, with quiet determination, she pressed them firmly together.

Fine, Arzen. I’ll survive. I’ll endure, no matter what. And when I do… I’ll avenge you. So please… let me hold onto the faintest hope that you might still be alive.

“You’ll make yourself ill if you keep skipping meals like this,” came the concerned voice of a maid who had approached unnoticed, holding a tray of food.

Heina slowly raised her pallid face, her three days of fasting leaving her visibly weakened. The thought crossed her mind: did this maid know what awaited her when she’d offered false hope about reuniting with her parents? Did she understand Heina’s inevitable fate as a sacrificial offering?

It didn’t matter. No one in this palace could be trusted.

Wordlessly, Heina accepted the tray. She forced herself to eat, ignoring the way her trembling hands made the spoon shake or how her stomach churned with nausea. She couldn’t stop. Survival was the only thing that mattered now.

Her will to live burned brighter than ever, filling her frail body with determination.

* * *

“Are you commanding me to leave Granada right now?”

At the same time, in Emperor Nike’s chamber, Yuri, who was in a private audience with him, asked back as if doubting his own ears. Nike, reclining deeply into his chair, answered while gazing at Yuri with an emotionless look.
“That is correct.”

A heavy silence filled the room. The sound of rain battering against the windows, pouring over the desert, only grew louder. Yuri maintained his silence before finally managing to force out words through reluctant lips.
“What is the reason? Was it wrong to make it rain? Or was the act of humiliating Brother Pesis in front of the people such a grave sin that it warrants banishing me from this nation?”

“I will not waste many words, my son.”
“Nike.”
“I do not wish to have the blood of my child on my own hands.”

Yuri bit his lip and clenched his fists tightly. The Emperor was not one to mince words, and there was not an ounce of falsehood on Nike’s face at this moment.

He was effectively saying that if Yuri did not obey the command to go to Constance and observe the situation there, he would kill him. Sending him to a colony where the war was long over was no different from stripping him of his power in Nike.

Yuri’s entire body trembled with fury, his face turning pale.
“…How long will this last?”

Yuri barely managed to voice the question, swallowing his anger through gritted teeth.
“I will summon you when the time comes. In the meantime, it would be wise for you to learn the advanced technology of Constance. It will serve the prosperity of our Nikeans.”

“…I will take my leave.”

The Emperor stroked his beard. Overwhelmed with anger, Yuri’s face had gone completely white as he exited the chamber. Nike watched his fourth son, who had forgotten to observe formalities as he left, and murmured in a low voice.
“This country still has too many enemies for you, Yuri. Perhaps I am one of them… Grow strong, prince of Nike. So strong that no one dares to lay a hand on you.”

* * *

The news that Yuri had been dispatched to Constance on an indefinite mission spread quickly throughout the imperial palace. Crown Prince Nadine, as if he had been waiting for this moment, even invited Pesis to host a banquet in Yuri’s honor. The relief Pesis felt was no less than Nadine’s, as though a long-standing toothache had finally been cured. Typically, the three princes rarely shared meals together, let alone gathered in the same room.

“It would’ve been an even better occasion if Camille could have joined us,” Nadine remarked, feigning goodwill.

Pesis chimed in with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“The boy is busy serving the divine. He avoids meat and alcohol, so it’s only natural for him to miss such gatherings.”

Nadine, who hadn’t even sent Camille an invitation, nodded in agreement. Pesis, maintaining his cold smile, continued.
“I must say, I am deeply impressed by Nike’s foresight. Sending Yuri to learn how to dig canals in Constance—what a wise decision, wouldn’t you agree?”

“If you’re so fond of the idea, dear brother Pesis, why don’t you go yourself?”

Yuri, tearing into a lamb rib with his hands, scoffed with a smirk.

“Had my health allowed it, my beloved brother, I would have gone long ago,” Pesis replied, his face betraying no effort to hide his satisfaction. His expression reminded Yuri of the gleeful look Pesis wore every time Yuri went to war, as if he prayed for his death. Nadine, smiling, pretended to mediate between the two.

“Come now, Yuri. You’re leaving tomorrow, yes? I’ll pour you a full glass—drink to your heart’s content tonight.”

“I’ll drink if Brother Pesis drinks first. I wouldn’t want to risk someone tampering with the wine,” Yuri quipped.

Nadine laughed heartily, clearly unfazed by Yuri’s open disdain. He casually downed his own glass and passed it to Yuri.
“Fair enough, Yuri. Here, drink from my cup then.”

“No need,” Yuri replied curtly, rejecting the offer. Instead, he grabbed the bottle and drank directly from it, the pale column of his throat moving as he swallowed. Some wine escaped his lips, tracing the line of his elegant jaw before dripping down. Truthfully, Yuri doubted even drinking every drop in the room would be enough to make him drunk tonight.

“It seems Yuri is in high spirits,” Pesis remarked with a mocking smile. “You’re quite the drinker already, but you seem even more capable tonight.”

Yuri met Pesis’s sneer head-on. He was no stranger to facing death, having followed Emperor Nike into battle from a young age. While Nadine and Pesis had spent their time hunting beasts on horseback, Yuri had been cutting down men.

And now they were casting him out? For Yuri, who had been born and raised in the desert, Granada was like a mother to him. Grinding his teeth, he suppressed his rising anger.

“So, what about that slave of yours, Yuri?” Nadine asked, casually refilling his glass and casting Yuri a sly smile.

“What slave are you referring to?” Yuri asked, his tone wary.

“The former princess of the Constance imperial family. Was there a particular reason you spared her during the coming-of-age ceremony?”

Yuri raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t help but suspect Nadine’s sudden interest in the matter, but he kept his tone indifferent.

“The first sacrifice was offered, and the gods responded with rain. There was no need to sully Nike’s divinity with the filthy blood of Constance.”

“Ah, I see. That explains it. I was almost worried you had… developed feelings for the girl. There have been strange rumors circulating in the palace, you know.”

“What utter nonsense, Brother Nadine,” Yuri growled, tossing the lamb bone onto the table with a loud clatter, his irritation plain on his face.

Pesis’s dark eyes gleamed with interest as he silently observed the exchange. While Yuri was as brash as ever, Nadine was the type to conceal his true intentions. All the princes of Nike knew that the seemingly idle and carefree Nadine was, in reality, dangerously cunning.

“What are you getting at, Nadine?” Yuri demanded. “Stop circling around and speak plainly.”

“Haha, I heard something about a slave fleeing naked from the bathhouse after a tryst,” Nadine said, his tone light and teasing. “I wondered if you refused Father’s order to kill her because you’d fallen for her.”

“Must I report to you about every person I bed?” Yuri retorted with a bitter laugh. “I know you have peculiar tastes, Brother, but do you intend to ask how many times a day I do it next?”

“My, my. I seem to have forgotten that you’ve become an adult, Yuri,” Nadine said, bursting into a hearty laugh as he downed another glass of wine.

Before Yuri could even begin to decipher what scheme lay behind Nadine’s frivolous words, his older brother spoke again.
“In that case… would it be all right if I claimed that slave of yours, whether she’s your bedmate or not?”

Pesis raised a curious eyebrow, while Yuri’s expression turned cold and unyielding in an instant.

“So now you covet even your younger brother’s spoils of war?”

“You’ve been coveting what belongs to me and Pesis all your life. Compared to that, isn’t this a small matter?” Nadine retorted, locking eyes with Yuri. A flicker of amusement passed over Pesis’s face as he suppressed a smile.

“Things are starting to get interesting,” Pesis thought, observing the tension thickening between the three of them. An unspoken hostility crackled in the air.

Yuri remained silent, gripping the bottle in his hand tighter. Lifting it to his lips, he downed the rest of the wine in a single gulp. The empty bottle landed on the floor with a sharp crash, shattering into pieces.

“Yuri, what do you think you’re doing?” Pesis asked in a frigid tone, but Yuri ignored him entirely. Rising abruptly from his seat, Yuri fixed Nadine with a piercing glare, his voice sharp and biting.

“Do as you please. She was already as good as dead. Perhaps gaining your favor and becoming yet another forgotten concubine wouldn’t be such a bad fate for her after all.”