The Vermilia family's castle looked like something out of a fairy tale, with star-shaped walls stretching on five sides. Above the walls and inside the castle, smaller towers rose above the four large main towers.

Apart from the ramparts, the towers and the walls of the castle were also painted blue and in places white. Each of the windows of the main building was colored like a mosaic, reminiscent of the windows of a church.

The throne room was in a single large building in the center of the towers. The door of the room led directly to the exit of the castle. When Cornelia arrived in front of this room, she stopped her komodor and climbed down from the beast.

His brother Cecilus had done the same, but there was a visible rivalry between the two. Cecilus wanted to be the first to enter the throne room as his father's heir.

But Cornelia also had her eyes on her father's position, so her guards intervened to make sure their lady took the lead.

By the time Yu dismounted his own horse and led Yurine down, Cornelia was already inside the castle.

“What does this mean?” Cecilus dropped all protocol and ran after his sister. “I own this castle!”

“Here we go,” Yu thought.

As he went inside, he looked around. Most of the army, especially those who had supported Cecilus, had been left outside. There were only the roarons, Cornelia's guards - who he thought could outmaneuver all the other men inside - and a hundred or so Salamon soldiers.

He looked at Mark von Salamon at the head of his troops. Last time he had agreed to kill Cecilus to make Cornelia a duchess. He was sure he would be loyal to Cornelia again.

Next to Mark von Salamon was his nephew Jaime von Salamon. He was a boy with purple hair and blue eyes like his uncle. Yu had a slight sympathy for him because he had been Yu's squire last time.

“Your Highness, I don't want to go through the procedures-”

“I didn't give you permission to speak.”

Cornelia spoke in a tone Yu had never heard before. Last time he had witnessed her when she was angry, but now Cornelia was different, her voice was thick and harsh, controlling.

“So that's how she talked before me.”

Yu didn't like it; Cornelia in love was much sweeter. Sir Devan von Bishory must have thought the same thing, for his face showed both surprise and anger.

“Where are the prisoners held in this castle?” Yu asked, walking side by side with Yurine. “Nobles are supposed to be held captive here.”

Cornelia looked around for an answer. At that moment, one of the knights who had entered the castle before them knelt down in front of Cornelia.

“Your Highness, the castle is completely empty.”

Yu thought he understood. They were all royal supporters without exception and they had all left the castle before they arrived.

“Cornelia said there were secret royal-controlled passages under the castle, which must be where they came out.”

Cornelia clenched her fists as she sat in her father's office. “Those traitors!”

“You're sitting in my seat!”

Cecilus, seemingly unaware of the situation, shouted at his sister with stupid courage and swung his arm in the air as if to slap her.

“My father gave it to me! Shimey! Where are you?”

“I'm here, my duke.”

Shimey von Bishory had just entered the throne room when Cecilus shouted. He had only been allowed into the castle with a few guards from among his men.

With him came Ily von Marton, Keer von Milem, Toe von Lenal, Marcus von Marcusie to celebrate the success of their ruler. All but Marcusie and Salamon were supporters of Cecilus.

“Cornelia, I don't see the need to drag this out.” Yu looked at the roarons out of the corner of his eye and nodded. “Get him.”

As Yu started to walk towards Cornelia, who was sitting on the throne at the far end of the room, she nodded in agreement.

“I give orders on her behalf, she turns against her own brother on my word, even though she doesn't know him... This time she is really madly in love.”

Yu decided not to underestimate Cornelia's feelings and the power of the Blessings he carried.

“What does this mean!” Shimey von Bishory shouted.

“Hands off, you dogs!” Also Cecilus shouted like his supporter.

Ily, Keer and Toe were among those captured. Meanwhile, every one of the guards who tried to protect their master was slaughtered by the roarons. Cornelia or Salamon's soldiers did not even need to draw their swords.

***

Cornelia crossed her long legs, twirling a feather quill in her hand as she stared into Yu's eyes.

He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or frightened by these looks, because he was sure that if they were alone in this room, Cornelia would have gone much further than Sivina had gone in the bathroom.

Yu's inner man desired her. After all, Cornelia was an attractive woman, but Yu was unwilling to let this primal desire turn into love.

"I am an asshole. I am an asshole."

Looking at Cornelia, he thought of Uhrimi taking care of h,ö in the bathroom. He had enjoyed it then and wanted to do it again, but now, when he cleared his mind of his sexual desires and thought about it, he still regretted what he had done.

There was a knock on the door of their room and a soldier's voice. “Your Highness.”

“Come in,” Cornelia said.

The soldier opened the door, he was one of the knights guarding Cornelia. He was dressed in gray plate armor and a long sword hung from his waist. As soon as he entered, the soldier saluted and spoke.

“We found the body of General Azil Zao Long, he committed suicide by slitting his wrists,” he said and held out a piece of paper. “The note he left behind.”

Since Yu was between the soldier and Cornelia, he took the note and handed it to Cornelia.

“Wait,” Cornelia said before she started reading the letter.

“I can neither sacrifice the people to the flames nor face my king as a defeated commander. Therefore I end my life.”

The note Azil Zao left behind was a simple two-sentence text, but even though it seemed simple, Yu could more or less understand the state of mind he was in when he wrote it.

He had thought about what he was going to write many times, and he could not manage to put the long sentences that came to his mind on paper, and finally he could write two sentences that seemed simple but contained a great pain.

Yu understood, Yu knew. After all, he had written these notes many times after the loss of his sisters.

“Burn his body. Send his ashes to his family.”

“Yes!”

At Cornelia's command, the soldier turned on his heel and walked out.

Cornelia took a deep breath and looked at Yu again. Link, Sivina, Ana, Kigaro and Yurine were here, but Cornelia didn't care about them as she devoured Yu with lustful eyes.

“They're crazy... Those two are crazy. Both Cornelia and Sivina are crazy. It's not normal, not normal at all. How can I accept these feelings? It's not their choice, it's only because of the abnormality of the Blessings.”

Yu bowed his head. He didn't know what to do with those two.

“I shouldn't think about these things. Whatever they feel, I won't have the Blessings when I rewind time, so I can't carry their feelings. Even if I ignore them and hurt them, they will never know it happened.”

He did not want to take his Blessings from Rie and condemn her to risk of death again. So, if possible, he would follow Yurine's plan in Rolderhelm and rewind the time to before he met Rie.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Why is everyone here abnormal?”

Yu felt the weight of the Blessings in his chest increasing. His soul was again caught in the gravitational pull of that star. It was as if he was collapsing in on himself. Why did he call it a star? Perhaps the black hole had come to life again in a different form.

“Why don't they see? Why don't Sivina and Cornelia realize they're going crazy?”

He looked at Cornelia again and saw that her situation was much worse than Sivina's.

“How can Link smile? Why is Ana withdrawn?”

He wondered how much Ana had been in the foreground during this whole journey. Was he even friends with her?

“Why doesn't anyone notice Yurine? She is... She is broken... Like when she lost her mother. Why can't I make her laugh?”

A sharp pain appeared in his forehead. It spread from his forehead to the back of his head and then to the back of his neck and his head began to throb.

“Why are your lips purple?” Cornelia asked. She had turned toward him as she sat down, and smiled when her foot hit his knee.

“Purple?”

He was going to put his fingers to his lips, but Yurine, sitting to his right, did it. She brought her little fingers to Yu's lips.

“What's going on?”

Yu stood up. His head was spinning, the whole world was spinning. He felt he was about to burn again.

Everyone was looking at him and smiling. Even Yurine had a big, terrible smile on her face. It was the first time he had ever seen such a smile on his daughter's face.

“How purple? Why are you all weird?”

His lips had turned purple last time because of the medicine he had taken for seizures, but this color appeared about two weeks from now. Now what had triggered this color?

But that was nothing compared to the second problem. The second problem was much scarier, everyone looked different than they were.

“Why are we wearing armor? Armor- What?” When the whole world started spinning, he lost his balance and fell on his hip. “What?”

His hands were shaking, he could feel the poison burning in his left arm. He felt a wetness on his lips, then it spread to his chin and began to trickle down from there.

“Why isn't anyone doing anything?” He was surprised that he could speak because he shouldn't have been able to speak with his jaw clenched. “Her is das?”

***

She still had tons of work to do, but the sun had set and Cornelia was tired. So she took off her formal clothes and put on a one-piece black dress that covered her from shoulders to knees.

Although Cornelia's guards were still around, Link had told the roarons to stick around Cornelia. This made Cornelia feel overwhelmed wherever she went, but she always respected the security measures, so she kept quiet.

Why was she letting the roarons protect him, though? That was the question in her mind, but then she remembered the answer; Yu trusted them, so they were trustworthy creatures.

A smile appeared on her face when she thought of Yu. Thinking about him made Cornelia forget who she was, she became someone she had never been before.

The more she thought about Yu, the more the world seemed to be all about him, and she found it hard to care about anything else. She had no idea how this abnormal feeling had suddenly appeared inside her, it had taken over her in such a way that she felt as if it had been with her forever.

Now she was on his way to Yu. She entered the corridor where she was and found herself walking through more roaros.

Yu had everyone in a panic as he fainted as soon as the meeting started. Yurine started the healing spell in a panic, Sivina cried with worry. Cornelia cried too, of course. She didn't know what he was like yet, but she knew he was the love of her life and she was afraid of losing him as soon as she found him.

“Her is das...” He thought of Yu's last words, mumbled before he fainted. “It means 'where is she' in Aramish.”

'Das' was the female version of the pronoun ‘it’. So Yu inevitably spoke in Aramish and asked where a woman was.

“Why would he say such a thing?” Yu became more mysterious and Cornelia was excited by the mystery. “But he knows Aramish, he's great.”

Her exaggerated focus on Yu's beauty prevented her from thinking he was sick. Cornelia did not realize this.

“Duchess?” called one of the roaron guards who recognized Cornelia. He was waiting at Yu's door.

“I'm here to see Yu,” Cornelia said and walked straight in without knocking.

She couldn't lie, she was thinking 'maybe Yu is awake and I'll see him changing.'

But when she opened the door and walked in, she was disappointed. In the room, large and lavishly designed for the use of noble guests, Yu was lying on a large, pillow-filled bed.

Yurine lay down next to him and put her arm over his stomach.

“Your Highness, good evening.” Luna, sitting in the chair next to Yu's bed, greeted Cornelia with a fake smile.

She and Luna were old friends. Although she was not noble, Cornelia had given her the honor of being her maid of honor, and she had been Cornelia's maid of honor since she was a child.

“Good evening, Luna.” Cornelia had hoped to be alone with Yu. That's why she frowned. “Did you come to check on Yu?”

“Y-Yeah...” Luna answered timidly.

She was looking at Yu with tenderness. Cornelia thought that since Yurine was asleep, Luna was almost alone with Yu. This made her jealous.

“Then you can go out, you don't have to tire yourself,” Cornelia said.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Luna got up from her chair and left the room, walking past Cornelia without saying anything.

Now that she was gone, Cornelia could watch Yu in peace. She sat down in the chair Luna had gotten up from, it was still warm.

“It's wonderful to look at him up close.”

Cornelia felt joy, excitement, love and passion dancing inside her chest. Yu's face was restless, but the emotions she felt prevented her from realizing it.

He was wearing nothing but a blanket and a simple outfit. When Cornelia sat down in the chair, Yurine turned around and tucked her arms under the pillow.

Cornelia put her hand on Yu's cheek. “It's warm.”

Yu's cheek was burning. It was so hot that his face was completely flushed. Cornelia exhaled a hot breath, her heart pounding.

“He burns like me, love burns him too...”

A mischievous smile settled on her lips, she got up from the chair and lay down next to Yu.

***

After taking the last sip from his glass, he lowered it and locked eyes with Sivina.

“So the dragon is gone,” he said, looking out the window of the tower they were in, looking out over the Jade Lake. “How did Yu convince him?”

Sivina, unlike Link, did not drink. “We went out to the island and waited, and after a while the Jade Dragon came. He spoke to Yu telepathically, so I don't know what he told him, but as Yu said, in five years he will find his heart and give it to him.”

Yu was beautiful but weak, annoying but fascinating. For every good trait he had, he had a bad trait as well as a good one. Yet Link loved Yu and considered him a friend.

“Cornelia declared herself Duchess of Vermia today...”

“I know, I was there.”

“I know you were there... I was just talking to myself.”

Cornelia wanted to execute Shimey von Bishory and Devan von Bishory. Link was barely able to convince her, saying that she should keep them as leverage against the fleeing Bishorys.

But Cecilus dri Vermilia's death could not be prevented. His death was not even made public, his body was thrown into the Lake of Jade and all mention of him was forbidden.

“Things don't seem to be going well... Even if people love Cornelia more, Cecilus's sudden disappearance is going to cause problems. And we can't hide his execution forever.”

Once Cornelia was a woman that people loved. Now, she had lost her mind under Yu's influence and Link didn't know what to do with such a person. And while he thought she was still loved, today he was even more confused when he saw how people treated her.

“I thought that with this momentum, we would get rid of Zodyanism and Yu Zao.”

“What is your purpose?” Sivina asked. At first she had put on a cardigan because the night was cool, but now she was taking it off because it was hot.

“There's no difference between me telling you and me telling Yu.”

Sivina laughed. “No, there is not.”

He couldn't understand how Yu could make these two fall in love with him. He had a beautiful face, he was charismatic and intelligent, but was that enough to make someone fall in love with him?

"Well, why don't you want to tell Yu?” Sivina asked seriously.

“I want to tell him,” Link replied. “But he's not ready.”

He expected Yu to become wise, virtuous, strong. He was hopeful because when he looked at Yu today, he could see that this change was going to happen.

“What will make him ready?”

“I'm not going to say that either,” Link said.

As soon as he said this, he heard a knock on his door. Actually, it wasn't a knock, someone had fell on the door. As Link stood up and started to walk towards the door, he opened and Yu, who was staggering, rushed in.

“Yu!”

Sivina immediately stood up and ran towards Yu, but Yu had already fallen into Link's arms. Link grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him stand.

“What's going on?” Yu asked.

“I'm the one who should be asking, why aren't you in bed?”

Yu didn't answer and Sivina came and took Yu's arm. Yu moaned as she carried him to her chair. “Everyone is so strange, no one is normal.”

Link could have returned those words to Yu, but this was not the time. After Sivina had seated Yu, she knelt down and took his hand while Link stood opposite him. She was still standing.

“What happened?” Sivina asked. “What's wrong?”

“I don't feel well,” Yu replied. He was flushed with fever.

“Let's get you back to bed,” Link said.

“No.” Yu reached for the open window to catch his breath. “Cornelia is lying there.”

He hadn't foreseen this. Anyone could see that Cornelia's feelings were exaggerated, but it made no sense to lie next to a man she had only met today.

“But he left Yurine there?”

This was also unexpected. The Yu he knew would carry Yurine around on his back but would not let her sleep next to anyone else.

“You need rest,” Link said.

“No, we can't stop.” Yu was opening his collar with his hand, inhaling the air from the window. “The enemy is coming for us, Keichi is unpredictable, we must prepare.”

“We still have time.” Sivina stroked Yu's black hand. Link wasn't sure if Yu felt the caress. “Rest your head for a bit and leave the rest to the others.”

“There are no others.”

"Yu! You've been running around since I've known you, you need a vacation."

“Vacation?” Yu's eyes were as red as his face, the word made him angry. “We're going to die, what vacation? I'm saying everyone is weird! You're weird, Cornelia is crazy! Yurine doesn't smile anymore! I- can't- stand it!”

Suddenly he tried to get up from the table but his knees shook and he fell on his chair. The chair shook, but Sivina prevented it from falling to the floor.

“Sivina is right, Yu.” Link spoke. “Everyone gets sick once in a while, especially when things pile up and you feel sick. It's normal.”

“I'm fine,” Yu said.

Link laughed bitterly. “Just rest for tomorrow. One day is nothing.”

“We all died in one day but...” Yu's lips trembled. “Something's wrong...”

“Yu.”

Sivina stood up and put Yu's head between her breasts. Seeing this sight, Link realized that he missed his fiancée whom he had left in Virgo. He always missed her, but now he wished he could be with her and rest his head on her chest like Yu had done.

“Look, let's breathe for tomorrow, just for one day, okay?” Yu tried to speak but Sivina wouldn't let him. “Let's just have a normal day. Get your head together. While this is happening, everyone prepare what you have to say and the next morning we'll put everything on the table.”

Yu's eyes twitched. His violet eyes were looking at Link as if he was looking for someone familiar. He was asking him for help.

But Link was Sivina's supporter. Yu needed to rest for a while. So he nodded his head.

“Yes, tomorrow is your day off.”

In a way Yu was his boss, so it was presumptuous of him to say that, but since he was saying it as a friend, he was okay with it.

“I'll take care of the city and the army.”

Yu closed his eyes as if he had lost a battle.