episode 3

"Ill call for you once everything is

taken care of. Trust me and wait,

Pei," Swan had told him.

So, he had trusted her.

But not so long after, the news of the

queen's imminent execution reached

even Peijak, who was hiding in a

small town in the fallen Rhine

Kingdom. He had faithfully followed

her for his entire life, and he could

not even imagine losing her. As soon

as he heard the news, Peijak took his

surviving troops and knights and

rode to the palace of Rarke.

Ten days later, the stone wall

surrounding Muiyadro greeted him

glumly under the gray, drizzly sky.

Peijak stared at the severed headhung under the wolf banner on the

wall.

Her red hair, as beautiful as twilight,

was shorn at the neck and matted

with rotting blood.

"A lie..." Peijak murmured.

Her murky blue eyes stared into the

southern sky as if to mourn the

unfinished deed. The bodies around

her reeked of hearts rotten from

betrayal. Swarms of maggots and

bugs crawled in the pools of blood

and rain.

Peijak cut off the rope and held the

rotting head of the queen with his

shaking hands. He slowly caressed

her rotten cheek.

"A lie.." he said through clenched

teeth. She dedicated her life to this

country. She was a good queen who

didn't hesitate to risk her life to give

her people rich land to farm. She was

a great queen, the first in the history

of Rarke to achieve such magnificent

accomplishments of expanding the

country's territory and rebranding it

as a country with an indestructible

army instead of a weak one. Without

even thinking twice about it, they

betrayed that invaluable leader, who

will be incomparable to all those who

follow her...

"A lie. This is a lie."

Peijak raised his head. His view was

blurred by the rain and his angry

tears, but he could still see the whitewolf banner on the wall as clear as

ever.

"B...Brionake!"

His furious cry spread across the

rainy field like thunder.

"Sir Dollehan, the enemies are

coming," one of his men told him.

Peijak pierced the ground with his

terrifying pitch-black spear. It was a

precious gift, with so great a meaning

she had not been able to give it a

name, so Peijak volunteered to

become an actualization of its

meaning himself.

He pierced the queen's head on his

long spear. Then he turned her head

away from the south.

Her blank eyes stared at the palace of

Rarke.

"You ungrateful fools of Rarke!"

Peijak fixed his eyes on the Brionake

banner following the soldiers

running toward him to arrest him

and his troops. It was Belbarote

Paseid Brionake, the new king of

Rarke, and the man who was once the

queen's.

"I detest you! Usurper Brionake! I

detest Rarke!" Peijak cried out as he

glared at Brionake, who was now at

the front.

Peijak turned away from the

betrayers and spurred his horse. The

knights of Rarke who had once

worshipped the queen chased afterhim. Those who followed Peijak until

the end rode south without stopping

to get away from their pursuers.

Then Peijak and hundreds of knights

loyal to him kneeled in front of Fort

Olzore, the fort that had defeated the

queen after years of war.

"1, the sixth son of the former King

Dolomete the third of Rarke, brother

of Queen Swan Selkalrid of Rarkalia,

request refuge at Morgana."

Creaaaak. the front's Door opened

Peijak wept at the grand sight of

Olzore opening its door after so

many days. As he took each step

across the border his respected and

beloved sister could never cross,

Peijak let the rage build inside him.

Morgana was entranced by all the

information the man who once

fought in the fields with the queen of

Rarke had to offer. Pleased with

Peijak's loathing for Rarke, the king

of Morgana granted him a title and

land.

As proof of his loyalty to Morgana,

Peijak presented all the original

copies of the letters the queen had

supposedly written herself and

founded a new house. It was the

beginning of a new force of power in

Morgana, named Mariposa.

Thirty-two years later, as he met an

end to his life stained with hatred

and madness, Peijak Dollehan

Mariposa prophesied, "Tell Rarke.

The queen you betrayed will return

with me."

And two hundred years passed.

chapter one

There was a small town in Galabua of

Rarke, near the forests at the

southeastern border. Though it was

small in size, it was a busy town, full

of life, with travelers coming and

going. With rundown houses built at

an arm's length of each other and the

fields spotted with ripening crops,

the place looked almost like an

undeveloped vacation site.

Its people were peaceful. They didn't

even feel that threatened by being

not too far from the Gerad border,

where there was a war going on.

Rather than showing hostility, they

mingled like family with the

merchants and travelers who came

with news from the outside.

It was a serene land where there was

no man too rich and no man too

poor. Life was easy there.

But there's no place without

exceptions. Even in this ordinary

town, there was a celebrity whom all

the residents found odd. She was the

second daughter of the horse dealer,

who had recently gotten a very

handsome deal with the royal family

of Rarke. The girl was a head smallerthan a grown man and had dark-red

hair that shined even redder under

the sun. Her eyes were of the same

shade. She was an unusually pretty

girl for a small country town.

But the reason for her fame was not

her outstanding beauty or virtue. The

men in the town were all country

bumpkins who did not have eyes for

distinguished beauty to begin with,

and they had all watched her grow

up. There was nothing to marvel at

about her appearance.

And her character? The girl, who'd

just stepped into her twenties a few

years ago, was as fierce as the old

man who sold beans, whom all the

townspeople agreed was the fiercest

of all.

Her reason for fame could be

summed up in one word.

Reuyen, the daughter of the only

horse dealer, Jess Detua, was a

genius.

Though a couple young men had

recently gone to war by choice or by

force-for even a peaceful town like

this could not escape the impact of

war--leaving the town quieter than

before, Reuyen was at the center of

all kinds of trouble. She was both

idolized and envied by the local men

until fairly recently.

Everyone knew that she was the

daughter of a man who raised and

sold horses, so her remarkable

equitation made sense. What didn't make sense was her swordsmanship

and archery, even taking down birds

flying in the sky, which no one had

taught her.

Young, competitive countrymen

challenged her for no apparent

reason and tried with all their might,

but like the headstrong girl she was,

Reuyen beat their pride to the

ground without hesitating. Her

mother baking bread as an apology to

the crying, broken men became an

everyday sight in the town.

If that had been all, they would have

just thought she was gifted. But it

wasn't.

The only place with books in the

town was a tiny old bookstore. This

meant that the only way to gatherany kind of knowledge and

information in specific areas was

through learning from the town's

visitors. Yet Reuyen was erudite

enough to teach the outsiders

instead.

When it came to the ancient history

of Rarke, even the eighty-year-old

hunchbacked teacher stopped his

lectures when Reuyen was around,

for he could not follow her. Though

some argued that her words were

made up, most of them were true,

and there was no way of verifying the

rest.

When someone asked, "Where did

you learn all that?" she replied, "I

don't know," made a sulky face, and

changed the subject.

One day, bursting with curiosity, the

adults of the town all went up to her

father, Jess, and questioned him. The

funny thing was, not even the father

knew how or why his daughter knew

the things she did. What was even

funnier was that the so-called genius

girl never admitted to being a genius

herself. Today, her reaction was the

same.

"I understand that I seem smart,"

Reuyen said to the crowd that had

gathered, "but it's not right to say

that I'm a genius. So, stop asking."

"Then what are you, I say?" an old

man asked.

"I don't know. But you all should be

aware, the east wind has turned theother way, so it's going to rain a lot

once the sun sets. Why don't you go

and bring your laundry inside or

something?"

"What? Really?" The old man looked

up to the sky, which held not the

slightest hint of a cloud, with a

curious frown.

"You can doubt me all you want, but

do warn Lea. It looked like she was

putting out her vegetables to dry."

It would rain if the swallows flew low

and the cumulus was high. Her

predictions were not one of those

hit-or-miss sayings. Just how did she

know them, specifically? She was

right most of the time, but there was

something about her.

Everyone thought she must have been hiding

something.

"How long are you going to stay

huddled there, gentlemen?" she

asked.

There wasn't even an inkling of

respect in the question she spat out

as she held up a bundle of wood. The

adults soon started eyeing each other

and then they all dispersed. A

stranger might have laughed at them

for scattering away for shelter from

the rain when the sun was still

shining strong, but they knew that

Reuyen was right seven or eight

times out of ten, so they had nothing

to lose in believing her this time.

"Thank you, Reuyen! Time to bet if

you're right again!"

Reuyen swallowed a sigh as she

watched the adults running like

children.

She put the bundle of wood down at

the doorstep of the smaller room in

her father's house. Her little brother,

who was resting his head on a hard,

wooden pillow and picking at his

teeth, looked up with a blank

expression on his face.

"What are you up to, sis?"

"Sidan, stop just lying around and

help me move the wood. Is that all

that's over there?"

"Why are you bringing it inside?"

"We didn't fix the shed leak."

"Rain?"

"Yup."

Sidan tilted his head and looked at

the clear sky through the old window.

Clear as clear could be. After sulking

for a bit, he dropped his toothpick

question. The Detuas had learned

through experience that every one of

Reuyen's words and actions had

meaning.

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To Be Continued

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