It wasn't until the deep hours of midnight that the most anticipated knock finally came to the chamber door. I hurriedly opened it, moving so quickly that I reached the handle even before Katherine, who had been dutifully seated right next to the door, could even fully rise from her chair.
Sure enough, Arvid stood there in the dimly lit corridor, and right behind him was someone else. Oh, I recognized him immediately. It was Gautham—the striking southerner with golden eyes. The close friend of Rahu, Dulga's youngest son.
"Let's take a walk together," Arvid offered quietly, extending his hand. I took it eagerly, my fingers intertwining with his and clinging to him. Arvid instructed the soldier Gautham to follow us at a respectful distance of exactly ten steps behind. Katherine silently followed suit, maintaining her protective vigil.
We walked in heavy silence for a long minute, our footsteps echoing softly in the empty corridors.
"I know you have so many questions burning inside you," Arvid finally said, breaking the silence. "Ask away freely." He looked at me directly, his eyes meeting mine.
"Why did you order an entire tribe killed?" I let out the question that had been burning insistently in my head for hours, consuming my thoughts.
Arvid let out a long, weary sigh, as if the weight of the story pressed down on his shoulders.
"The Dergu tribe, since ancient times stretching back centuries, have been practicing deeply troublesome customs," he began, his voice heavy. "But they were left alone and undisturbed because they never went after other tribes or communities. They practiced ritualistic cannibalism as part of their religion, performed child sacrifices to their gods, and engaged in child marriages. So they lived isolated in the southeastern plains called Ruk. No outsiders wanted anything to do with them—they were pariahs. That land they occupied was remarkably fertile, blessed with good soil and water. But the Dergu hardly farmed it to its full potential. They were primarily hunters and gatherers. So there were periodic suggestions from advisors to drive them out and claim those valuable lands for proper agriculture. But no emperor really acted on those suggestions. The Dergu were simply left alone, undisturbed in their isolation."
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
"But something changed dramatically a few years ago," he continued. "It was my third year since I became the emperor of Selon—I was still young and learning. The Dergu had suddenly pillaged an entire village without warning or provocation. They killed everyone in that village brutally—men, women, children, elderly. They took the bodies for meat, along with anything of value they could carry—crops, livestock, tools, everything. And then they burned the entire village to the ground, leaving nothing. At first, we were genuinely confused, even hesitant to accuse them. Because they had never behaved this way before in all recorded history. It was completely unlike their established pattern. It wasn't until it happened again at a second village, and a surviving eyewitness explicitly said the Dergu did it under the leadership of a man they called 'Prince Siyam,' that we had proof. The eyewitness testified that they had killed a young child by casually slitting its throat right then and there, and offered the raw meat directly to this so-called prince as tribute. It was absolutely brutal and horrifying. By that time, they had already murdered around two hundred innocent villagers across multiple attacks."
"Now with credible eyewitness testimony, we were forced to drive into action," Arvid said, his jaw clenching. "We mobilized the army. We had to kill most of them in the ensuing battle because they violently resisted arrest and fought back. We did manage to capture the so-called Prince Siyam alive. He was actually a man from Turga, born to a Western sailor and a Turga woman—he was of mixed blood himself, ironically. But he completely disregarded and rejected his father's lineage, preaching obsessively about how consuming pure blood made him pure blood, as if blood could be purified through cannibalism. He had been cast out of his home community because people were disgusted and horrified by what he preached. Then he learned about the Dergu tribe and their existing practices. Since they already performed ritualistic cannibalism as part of their culture, he calculated that they would be receptive to his twisted ideology. Which they were. He managed to befriend and eventually charm the entire tribe through manipulation, making them genuinely believe he was the reincarnated version of their ancient god—Prince Siyam. He weaponized their beliefs. He had the Dergu tribe pillaging innocent villages systematically. And practicing excessive, uncontrolled cannibalism far beyond their traditional rituals, along with mass slaughter for sport. After his trial, we had him publicly executed for his crimes."
Arvid took a deep breath, steadying himself.
"Most of the remaining Dergu fled into hiding after that," he explained. "We did deliberately let go of some young children because they were just innocent children who hadn't participated. The Ruk plains were officially claimed by the empire and converted into productive farms. Now those lands produce enough crops to feed the entire empire for six months annually—they're incredibly valuable. We've been continuously on the hunt to search for Dergu who escaped, so we can rehabilitate them or put them into some sort of supervised establishment rather than killing them. There have been sporadic cases of Dergu harming citizens here and there in revenge attacks. We've caught and tried most of them through the justice system. Then the disturbing reports about desert bandits came to light recently—they were killing merchants traveling in caravans passing through the desert. I personally took care of eliminating most of those bandit groups. But it seems a significant number of Dergu managed to hide right under our noses this entire time, even infiltrating trusted positions."
It was genuinely a lot to process. Well, from Yasmine's limited and biased perspective, Arvid was unquestionably the villain of this story. But they were the villains in everyone else's eyes—murderers who killed innocent people indiscriminately. But I could tell this was an extremely hard, painful topic for Arvid to discuss. The weight of those decisions clearly haunted him.
"You went through so much," I said to him reassuringly, squeezing his hand gently and supportively. "More than anyone should have to bear."
He smiled a sad, melancholy smile, his eyes looking at me directly with vulnerability.
"The year before the Dergu crisis, I had already killed my third and second uncles who had conspired and orchestrated the attack on my mother and father and me years ago when I was a child," he confessed quietly. "I had to kill all of their family members too—wives, cousins, everyone who knew. And I executed other high-ranking officials and ministers who had helped them in their plot. It was incredibly hard to take human life with my own hands the first time. I had sworn solemnly to myself never to take another life again. And then the very next year, this Dergu situation happens and forces my hand. I found my hands constantly stained metaphorically with blood. And I kind of got used to it over time, which terrifies me. I told myself repeatedly that this is just how ruling turns out to be—if I don't kill those who threaten my people, I'll get killed myself or my people will suffer. It's a matter of survival first, then of duty as emperor second."
Arvid never broke eye contact while saying all of that, letting me see into his soul.
"I never wanted to show this side of myself to you," he admitted. "The dark, sinful version of me. A side dripping with the blood of those whose lives I've taken. If you hate me after learning this truth, I would understand completely."
I just stopped walking abruptly at those words. I should have simply trusted him from the beginning, just like Aiona had trusted him instinctively. Instead, I had doubted him and questioned his character. I felt genuinely guilty about that doubt. But I realized there might be times in the future when I doubt him again—I'm only human. But we could always just talk it through openly. So I shouldn't drown in this guilt. As for Arvid's actions, I honestly didn't mind. It wouldn't have been easy for him to take lives. I would have struggled terribly if I had been thrown into his shoes.
"I don't hate you," I told him firmly, looking directly into his eyes. "I could never hate you. This dark side of you is still fundamentally you—I'm going to welcome even that version of you into my arms and heart. Because—*De Yeras Oepe*." I told him in ancient Mithul.
His eyes widened considerably as he absorbed my words. Then a confused, puzzled look washed over his features.
"What does *De Yeras Oepe* mean?" he asked, clearly frustrated. "What language is that even?"
"That's for you to figure out yourself, my dear husband," I said, taking a playful step forward with a teasing smile. "I'll be waiting patiently for you to discover the meaning."
---
Then I was formally introduced to Gautham, who would apparently be serving as my personal guard from this moment forward. The imposing man had sworn his loyalty to me in the traditional southern style—offering me his sword with both hands and kneeling formally in front of me. I accepted his pledge with appropriate gravity.
"He is the best fighter after me," Arvid had said with obvious pride. "I trust him completely."
"Since he's originally from Turga, from the shores of the far south, he isn't judgmental or racist either. And he can speak a remarkable number of languages fluently," Arvid added.
Since the Dergu had openly and explicitly threatened to kidnap me, this enhanced security was the solution Arvid had swiftly come up with. There were many more soldiers assigned to guard me closely at all hours. And all the servants and maids currently working in Gorei castle had begun to be investigated methodically one by one to determine if any of them were secretly affiliated with the Dergu tribe. It created a tense, paranoid atmosphere. Even beyond the castle walls, soldiers went door to door—every single entrance of every Gorei citizen's home was knocked on, and every single family was questioned thoroughly about their backgrounds.
When I told Arvid this response seemed way too excessive and authoritarian, he just looked at me seriously and said it was nowhere near enough in his estimation.
"If I lost you, I genuinely don't know what I would do with myself," he added quietly.
That statement meant he was openly admitting that I had become his greatest weakness—his vulnerability that enemies could exploit.