Her mouth pulled into a dry curve.
Lucas’s expression tightened. The words did not slide past him; Ritsuka could see them hit and stick in the faint pinch at the bridge of his nose.
He dragged a hand over his face, fingers pressing briefly against his eyes. When he dropped it, his gaze was clearer but more tired, blue irises dulled around the edges.
“I thought,” he said quietly, “that you wanted this. Or at least that you had accepted it as a way to keep our people fed and our borders safe.”
He glanced toward the desk looking at what was stack of letters from what Ritsuka could make out.
“You wrote,” he went on, “that as long as Savora stood firm, you did not mind the match. I took you at your word, Julia.”
"Because she never had the strength to do so," Ritsuka thought. “She barely had the strength to breathe.”
“I did not have much energy for anything before,” Ritsuka explained. Her voice came out even, but she could feel the drag of old exhaustion in the back of her chest.
Lucas flinched, a quick tightening around his eyes.
“I cannot speak for the girl I once was,” Ritsuka added.
Her fingers curled against the edge of the pendant on her chest. Warmth pulsed there, slow and steady, like something patiently burning through the last scraps of whatever had been rotting this body.
“I can only speak for the woman sitting here now,” she said. “So again, I ask: can I decline his offer?”
The question hung between them with more weight than anything they had said downstairs. The air around the low table felt thicker, like the whole room was waiting for his answer.
Lucas exhaled slowly, shoulders dropping a fraction.
“I am not selling you, Julia,” he said. “If it is coming off that way, then I am sorry. I am just…”
His hand opened and closed once over his knee, leather creaking under his glove.
“Curious. And concerned,” he finished. “This is a sudden change.”
He straightened in his chair, spine lengthening, the posture of lord and older brother settling over him like a coat he knew well.
From the way his shoulders set and his gaze slid once toward the map table, Ritsuka could tell her answer came with consequences he did not want to name yet.
“If you say no, then we say no,” Lucas told her. “I will deal with the fallout. I would rather face the anger of a prince than bury another member of this family.”
Her grip on the cushion loosened a little. Some tightness eased behind her ribs.
“I am surprised, though,” Lucas went on, fingers drumming once against his knee before he stilled them. “Isolde spoke very highly of him to you. She said you seemed… interested. You only ever had his portrait, but I thought you found him appealing.”
Ritsuka blinked.
“I do not remember the portrait,” she said carefully. “Or the man in it.”
Lucas frowned, lines forming between his brows, then turned his head toward the door.
“That fits with what you said about the pendant,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “If your memories blur there… still. It is not fair to ask you to accept or refuse a stranger you cannot even picture.”
He drew in a breath and lifted his voice.
“Isolde,” he called. “Would you come in, please?”
“Yes, my lord,” came faintly from the other side.
The latch clicked. The door opened and Isolde slipped into the study, skirts whispering against the stone, apron lying neat and flat over her dress.
“My lord?” Isolde asked.
“Do you remember the prince’s portrait?” Lucas asked. “The one delivered with the envoy’s first letter.”
Isolde’s gaze flicked from Lucas to Ritsuka and back, quick and assessing.
“Yes, my lord,” Isolde said. “It is in the side cabinet. Wrapped.”
“Bring it here,” he said. “My sister should see the man she once agreed to marry.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Isolde crossed to a tall cabinet by the wall, keys chiming softly against her belt as she moved. She opened the narrow doors and drew out a flat, cloth-wrapped board. Ritsuka watched the way Isolde handled it careful, both hands under the weight, elbows tucked close to keep it steady.
Isolde carried the bundle to the low table and set it gently down between the bowls, fingers lingering a heartbeat on the edge before she stepped back.
“Thank you,” Lucas said. “You may stay. If my sister needs help, I would rather you be here already.”
“…Yes, my lord,” Isolde said softly, moving to stand just behind Ritsuka’s shoulder, close enough to reach her, far enough not to crowd.
Ritsuka’s fingers dug into the cushion as Lucas loosened the ties and folded the cloth back.
Painted eyes looked up at her from the board beneath.
Dark hair pulled neatly back. High-collared coat. An embroidered sigil she did not recognize. The clothes were different, the setting unfamiliar, but the angle of the mouth, the way the smile hovered just short of reaching the eyes
The same.
Exactly the same.
"Tatsuya"
The name slammed through her skull like a dropped pot.
The study tilted. The smell of stew warped into red wine and expensive cologne. Candlelight.
Her stomach lurched.
“Trashcan,” Ritsuka croaked. “Something…”
Isolde moved before the last word fully left her mouth a basin slid under Ritsuka’s hands, cool and solid against her fingers, and then there was no room left for speech at all.
Her body folded over and emptied itself. Stew, acid, the last thin strips of composure everything came up in harsh, tearing heaves.
Her throat burned raw. Her eyes blurred with involuntary tears. Isolde’s fingers gathered her hair away from her face, careful and steady at the nape of her neck.
Lucas half-rose from his chair, armor shifting with the motion.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
His voice sounded strained but steady with worry. He hovered a step away, as if ready to catch her if she tipped.
“Breathe when you can.”
She tried, dragging air in between spasms, spitting out what her body wanted gone.
Isolde pressed a cool, damp cloth briefly against Ritsuka’s temple, then folded it into her hand. Ritsuka wiped her mouth, the sour taste clinging stubbornly to the back of her tongue and the roof of her mouth.
The pendant at her throat flared.
Heat shot out from the metal, sharp and bright, like someone had thrown open a furnace door in her chest. The air in the study tightened around her. Gooseflesh ran along her forearms; the hairs under her sleeves stood on end. Under her gown, the ink lines of her tattoos prickled, then glowed faintly along their curves, casting the thinnest suggestion of light against the inside of the fabric.
Isolde sucked in a breath right behind her. Lucas’s hand closed more firmly on Ritsuka’s shoulder through the fabric of her dress.
“What was that?” Lucas murmured, voice low near her ear now.
A voice slid through Ritsuka’s skull, clear as if someone had leaned in beside her.
“Stay away.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
It was not her own voice. Older, softer, with the weight of waves under every word the same presence she had felt in the dark before she woke in this world.
“Stay away from Amos.”
The pendant burned hot once, then cooled, leaving an echo of warmth against her skin. The twisting in her gut eased, as if something had grabbed hold of the sickness and pushed it out. The faint glow along her tattoos slowly dimmed, the light sinking back beneath her skin until she could only feel the tingling memory of it.
“Amos.”
The name tasted wrong in her thoughts. Heavy. Oily. She swallowed against it, tongue still sour.
“I… I am all right,” Ritsuka managed, lifting her head.
Her vision came back in layers: the basin under her hands, Isolde’s pale face drawn tight with concern, Lucas now kneeling beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder, the other hovering near her back as if ready to steady her.
“I will get fresh water,” Isolde said quickly.
She picked up the basin with both hands and crossed to the corner pitcher. The handle rattled faintly against the ceramic as she lifted it; her hands were not as steady as usual.
“Do you need a healer?” Lucas asked. “The pendant…”
“Healer?” Ritsuka echoed before she could stop herself. Her voice rasped, but the word came out clear. “You mean… a doctor?”
Lucas blinked once, then shook his head, the movement small but definite.
“A healer from the temple,” he said. “Doctrine-trained. Someone who can channel Leah’s grace and read mana. No normal doctor can touch that. A healer works where magic power is involved. You know this, Julia. Are you truly all right?”
His mouth tightened as he spoke, the worry pulling at the scar near his eye.
“We only have one healer on the island,” Lucas added. “She has been occupied with the sick since the harvest failed and fever started in the lower city. If that relic necklace is the cause of your illness, or if it is reacting badly to something, I would rather have her look than guess.”
Ritsuka’s mind flicked back to blue writing in the air only she could see. The way the stew had pushed the tired back out of Lucas’s bones. The warmth that rolled out of the pendant whenever she pushed this body too hard. The tattoos lighting like ink catching sunlight.
"So magic is real here" she thought.
“No healer,” Ritsuka said quickly. “Please.”
Lucas’s brows pulled together, eyes searching her face.
“You are pale,” he said. “Paler than usual. Your markings which is already rare since you didn’t have them before just lit up. If the relic necklace is”
“I said I’m all right,” Ritsuka cut in, softer but firm. She drew a careful breath, testing the steadiness of her lungs. “The sickness is already easing. Whatever this is, it helped more than it hurt.”
She lifted one hand and pressed her fingers flat over the pendant through her shirt, as if pinning it in place and reminding it to behave.
“It reacted,” Ritsuka said. “That is all. If the healer is already drowning in patients, do not drag her away because I cannot keep my stew down in front of an ugly painting.”
The corner of Lucas’s mouth twitched despite everything, a reluctant flicker of humor.
“Ugly painting?” he said. “Isolde said you thought he was handsome.”
“Then Isolde’s memory is sharper than mine,” Ritsuka said. “All I know is, looking at him now makes my stomach turn. I am not going to marry a man I cannot look at without needing a basin.”
“And the pendant?” Lucas asked. His fingers eased their grip on her shoulder but stayed there. “You think it reacted due to you getting sick?”
The whisper brushed the back of her mind again, like a wave receding.
“Stay away from Amos”
She dragged her eyes away and focused on Lucas’s face instead the worry, the stiffness at the edges of his control.
“I know it reacted,” she said. “That is as far as I can say.”
Isolde returned with a clean basin and fresh water, set the used one aside with a soft clink, and stepped back to the edge of the room. Her eyes flicked once toward the portrait, then away, jaw tightening.
Ritsuka dabbed the cloth at the corner of her mouth, then at her neck, where the last of the heat from the pendant still lingered, like the warmth from a banked oven.
“I do not want this marriage,” she said quietly. “For reasons that are mine. I am grateful you have kept this place from falling apart. I want to help you do that. But not like this. Not chained to fake love.”
Her gaze slid to the board on the table. Lucas’s hand moved; he reached out, took the portrait by the edges, and turned it face-down. The cloth slipped partly back over it, hiding most of the frame. The sound of wood against wood was soft, but final.
“I wonder why Leah doesn’t want me near him, she thought, fingers pressing again over the pendant.” Ritsuka Thought
Lucas’s gaze dropped to her hand and to the faint line of ink visible at the edge of her collar.
“You have mana now which you never had before,” he said under his breath, more to himself than to her. “Strong enough for me to recognize it, at least”
He shook his head once, as if physically setting that concern aside for later.
“Whatever I thought before,” Lucas said, straightening to his full height again, “whatever you wrote while you were too weak, as you put it… I am taking your answer now as the one that matters.”
He rose fully to his feet, cloak shifting over his shoulders.
“We still have to deal with the envoy,” he said. His voice firmed, taking on the weight she had heard when he spoke to Bram and the staff. “They are days away at most. I will not have them arrive to rumors and silence.”
He turned toward the door.
“Isolde,” Lucas called.
The door opened a crack almost immediately; Isolde leaned in, breath a touch faster than usual from moving back and forth.
“My lord?” she asked.
“Send for Captain Harun,” Lucas said. “From the west barracks. Tell him I require a messenger party and a scribe from the household staff.”
“Yes, my lord,” Isolde said. She dipped a quick curtsey and slipped out again, footsteps fading down the corridor.
Lucas looked back to Ritsuka, his expression softer when his eyes met hers.
“I will draft a letter to the prince,” Lucas said. “The official reason will be your health. That is not a lie. You are newly recovered, your condition unstable, your relic… unsettled. I will inform him the duchess is unable to proceed with the marriage contract at this time.”
“At this time,” Ritsuka repeated, watching the small tightening at the edge of his mouth.
“If I tell him you simply changed your mind, he may take it as insult and use it as excuse,” Lucas said. “If I say your health will not bear the strain, it gives him fewer clean reasons to claim offense. He can back away without losing face. Whether he chooses to is his problem.”
“Do it,” Ritsuka said after giving a slow pause. “If he wants a sickly bride so badly, he can find another one closer to home.”
A knock sounded at the door, three firm raps.
“Enter,” Lucas said.
The door opened to admit a man in worn but well-kept leathers, helmet tucked under one arm. His dark hair was bound back at the nape of his neck; a short sword hung at his hip, grip polished from use. He moved with the solid weight of someone used to armor and decks that swayed.
“Captain Harun reporting, my lord,” the man said. His gaze flicked briefly to Ritsuka, taking her in with one practiced sweep before he lowered his eyes in respect.
A faint blue outline blinked at the edge of her vision.
[Harun – Guard Captain of the Royal City of Savora]
[Disposition: Wary (0)]
The text slid neatly to the side when she blinked, leaving Harun very real and very present in front of her.
“There goes that system again… so I take it his not trusting of Julia” Ritsuka thought scanning the blue text above the man.
“Good,” Lucas said. “I need a letter taken to the Drakovar envoy as soon as possible. You will have to prepare our only ship and get to the nearest port town, Estree, and deliver it to the baron there. He can see it handed off to the envoy before they sail.”
Harun’s facial expression tightened just enough for her to notice.
“Calling it off, my lord?” he asked. His tone stayed respectful, but the question sat heavy under the words.
“The duchess’s health has changed the situation,” Lucas said. “I will dictate the contents to a scribe. You will have my seal and full authority.”
Harun dipped his head, but his eyes flicked to Ritsuka again, measuring.
“Understood, my lord,” he said.
“And after I have given the scribe my instructions,” Lucas added, glancing toward the open doorway, “I want one of your men to escort the duchess back to her chambers. She has been unwell.”
Ritsuka almost opened her mouth to protest. As she shifted her weight to test her legs, a tremor ran through her thighs; the basin still sat close at her knees, a quiet reminder.
“Normally I’d argue being told what to do” she thought. “But today, going back and reevaluating this situation I’m in and how I can survive it is ideal I highly doubt that prince is gonna accept decline well”
“That is fine,” Ritsuka said. “Brother, I want to remind you that I may be the duchess by law, but I do not plan to take over. I hope you can continue your duties.”
She met his eyes, letting him see that she meant it.
“As I will support you,” she added.
Lucas froze for a second, surprised flickering across his face, then gave her a small, honest smile and a nod of recognition. Some part of him loosened, shoulders dropping a hair.
“I will come by later,” Lucas said. “After the letter is sealed and the orders are sent. We can speak again then about the healer, about the pendant, about what you want to do next.”
“Later,” Ritsuka agreed, the word settling in her mouth like a marker on a calendar.
Lucas moved toward the desk, already reaching for ink and paper, lips pressing together as he shifted into work.
Harun stepped aside as another guard appeared in the doorway at Isolde’s quiet gesture: a younger man in simpler leathers, sword belted at his waist, posture straight but not stiff.
A faint blue window blinked into view again.
[Ser Daen – House Guard]
[Disposition: Neutral (20)]
The text hovered near the man’s shoulder, then faded to the edge of her vision when she blinked.
“Ser Daen and myself will escort you, my lady,” Isolde said, reappearing at Ritsuka’s side. “If you are ready.”
Ritsuka rose slowly, letting go of the basin. Her legs wobbled but did not give out. Ser Daen shifted his weight forward, ready to catch her if she stumbled; his hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, not in threat, but by habit.
The pendant rested warm and steady against her chest now, no longer blazing, just present.
“Thank you,” Ritsuka said.
She gave the turned-down portrait a wide berth as she left the study, following Ser Daen and Isolde into the corridor. Behind her, Lucas’s voice dropped as he began speaking to Harun; the words blurred into the general murmur of the house once the door closed.
The cool stone of the hallway walls pressed close on either side. Lantern-light threw soft pools along the floor. Somewhere deeper in the estate, someone called orders to kitchen staff; the faint clatter of pots answered. Beneath it all, the distant, steady rush of the sea threaded through the silence.
“I need to lie down and rest this body is weaker than I'm used to” Ritsuka thought. “Then I can start untangling what you are, and why your goddess doesn’t want me near that man… or those earrings.”
For now, she let Ser Daen and Isolde set the pace, her hand brushing the wall once for balance as they guided her back toward her rooms.
END OF CHAPTER 8
Broken Equinox
Graphic Violence
In the village of Priscilla, a child is born beneath green-lit boughs—marked by a dragon’s eye that never closes. Faith rots softly. Saints avert their gaze. And curses grow like roots, patient and deep.
As old myths stir and kingdoms decay, the broken are forced to choose: be devoured by the dark, or learn how to tend it.
- dark fantasy ? psychological ? slow-burn
- curse-driven narrative ? moral decay
- character-first ? no harem
- 4 chapters weekly (≥2000 words)
“In the quietest forests, the oldest eyes remain open.”
When the equinox nears, the forest listens. Curses awaken. Faith splinters. And the dragon’s eye remembers what humanity forgot.