BPOTWC Chapter 1

The floor of the execution ground was cold.

Clarisse sat with her eyes shut tight, listening to the sound that came, little by little, closer.

Thunk!

A great sword cut through a person, and after it came the sound of a pained breath being swallowed.

Clarisse didn't know whether this last breath belonged to her father, or to the queen waiting her turn beside him.

But one thing was certain.

She would never know the answer to that. Because her own turn would come soon.

Even if she hadn't been given proper treatment in the palace, she was, without question, a princess of this land.

Since the kingdom had lost the war, it was only natural that the royal family of the defeated country would lose their lives.

Thunk.

Again the sound of a sword swinging, and again someone lost their life. And then the quiet footsteps drew one step closer to the girl.

Clarisse realized her own body was trembling badly enough to hurt.

'……I'm scared.'

If asked whether she had any attachment left to the life she'd lived so far, honestly, not particularly.

A powerless nine-year-old girl with no mother, no maternal family to speak of, had spent her whole life pierced by adults' malice, covered head to toe in wounds.

'Even so.'

Clarisse feared dying. And she loved living—plainly, simply, that was all.

She loved the moment when, on cold winter days, she'd wiggle her chilled feet before tucking them, quick, into a worn but thick blanket.

She loved the one book she'd read so many times it had come apart at the spine, and the round, roundish pebbles she'd gathered one by one in the garden—her friends.

The girl bowed her head deeply, wrapping both arms tightly around her own small body.

"To live…… I want to."

Murmuring this so quietly, a thought rose in her: perhaps she should beg the enemy knight, or the king, for her life.

That would surely be better than dying here, doing nothing at all.

Clarisse lifted her head, just slightly.

But this lasted only a moment—someone seized the back of her neck and forced her head back down.

"……Ugh!"

"Want to live?" Know your shame.

It was her brother.

Even in a moment like this, his tone dripped with plain contempt toward Clarisse.

He never once loosened the hand pressing her to the floor. As if he would never, under any circumstance, permit something as shameful as begging for her life.

Just then, the legs of the knight holding the sword stopped directly before her eyes.

Clarisse knew instinctively that her turn—hers and her brother's—had come.

The girl's frail shoulders began to visibly shake. And just as the pounding of her own heart filled her ears entirely—

Her brother's voice rang out, proud and unyielding.

"This one goes first."

Only then did he release the grip that had been binding Clarisse. She lifted her head just enough to peek up at her brother.

"The last survivor of the Grezekaia royal house cannot be this bastard. Not even for a few seconds."

He stood with his chin held high, staring down the knight who had the sword-tip pressed toward him.

He seemed nothing at all like a prince of a fallen kingdom facing death—proud and imposing to an unreasonable degree.

"The only one fit to be the last royal blood of this kingdom is an heir of pure lineage."

And then he turned a cold glare on Clarisse.

Startled, the girl flinched and quickly turned her face away, only to meet the eyes of the sword-bearing knight looking down at her.

He was an adult man who felt impossibly, dizzyingly large.

Without meaning to, Clarisse thought, looking at him: 'He's a man made of black.'

Probably because his long hair and his eyes were both a deep, unbroken black. A darkness so complete that even the bright red blood smeared across his cheek seemed to blur into it……

Clarisse thought, instinctively, that he could not be an ordinary knight.

Click.

He soon adjusted his grip on the sword.

Clarisse jumped, startled, and pulled herself up from the awkward half-collapsed position she'd fallen into on the floor.

Did he really intend to kill her first?

"Go on ahead, filthy-blooded thing."

Then, from behind her, her brother's voice came, low and laughing.

'No, I……'

Want to live.

Clarisse thought of a wish that could never come true.

Her father, who had once boasted power beyond all limit, was dead. The queen, who had always glared at Clarisse with sharp eyes, lay fallen beside him. The bodies of the kingdom's strongest knights, who had tried to protect them to the very last, lay scattered throughout this vast hall.

Even such great people had not escaped this death. So there was no way that small, powerless, skill-less Clarisse could escape it either.

'Then…… at least, let it not hurt.'

And if there was a world beyond death, please, let it be better than this one……

She thought this as she straightened her back.

And then, nearby, she felt a thin breath of wind.

It seemed to be the sound of the sword the man had seen a moment ago, swinging through the air.

She gripped the worn hem of her clothes with frozen fingertips.

Schlick!

A sound of flesh cut deep. Something hot splashed across her face.

'Am I……… dead?'

The thought crossed her mind for a moment. But nowhere hurt, so it didn't feel real.

"I thought that was a proposal worth accepting."

Just then, from a short distance away, a man's voice reached her.

"Isn't that so? Even a single second of a bastard becoming the last of the royal line would be a disgrace worse than death."

Just then, she felt her brother's body, right beside her, collapse to the floor.

The pitch-black man had not accepted her brother's request.

"Well, my brother's always had a soft spot for mongrels like me."

The stranger's voice came to a stop directly in front of Clarisse.

She looked up at him through faintly opened eyes.

The man who had approached with such a mocking tone was strikingly beautiful.

Beautiful enough that, even in a situation like this, Clarisse found herself losing herself in the sight of him.

Come to think of it, she had heard that the King of Sapheris, who had invaded them, was a man born with extraordinary looks. That anyone who saw him in person couldn't help but fall in love with him.

The king's jewel-like eyes turned toward Clarisse for a moment.

"Process it quick, and let's head back."

At the boredom in his voice, she quickly lowered her head. The word "finish" surely meant her own death.

'Now, really……'

The fear of death, which had briefly loosened its grip, returned once more. That red blade that had cut down her brother would soon pass through her own body.

"……."

Clarisse barely managed to keep her crumbling body upright, sitting straight and still.

If it had to happen, she at least wanted to meet the end as a princess ought to.

The presence of the pitch-black man drew right up before her. At the metallic sound of the blade shifting, she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

"The princess is a child, Your Majesty."

But what reached her ears was not the cruel sound of a body being cut.

Nor, for that matter, was it a voice full of pity, or one hesitant to kill.

"Those under the age of eighteen are not to be put to death."

The black-haired man was reciting the law of Sapheris in a calm, even voice.

"No king in our history has ever broken this law."

"That thing is a prisoner of war."

Then, from a few steps away, the King of Sapheris answered, his voice tinged with displeasure.

"Yes. But the execution of a child is unlawful."

There was a strange stubbornness threaded through his blunt reply. The king, who had turned away, came back around to stand before Clarisse once more.

"So—you intend to let the remnant of this war live?"

"The law—"

The pitch-black man sheathed his sword and bowed his head before the beautiful king.

"—requires it."

"……."

As Clarisse watched this exchange unfold, hope began to bloom in her heart.

Perhaps—perhaps she wouldn't die here, right now, after all……

"I never thought I'd end up having such a pointless argument with my own brother. This is the king's own blood, after all. Though it seems a bit of low blood's mixed in there too."

The King of Sapheris tapped Clarisse's pink hair with the flat of his palm.

"It would be troublesome if she later went around claiming legitimacy and demanding revenge."

"R—revenge, I—I won't!"

Clarisse quickly cut into their conversation.

She was afraid that if she didn't do at least this much, the pitch-black man might change his mind and decide to kill her after all.

Both men's gazes turned toward her at once. They seemed somewhat surprised by the girl's sudden outburst, but Clarisse didn't notice.

"T—true. It's true……"

The king smiled crookedly.

"Then will the princess hold a grudge instead? Cursing me for the rest of her life? Or perhaps she'll dream of rebuilding her kingdom."

Clarisse shook her head frantically. She meant it with all her heart. Why would she hold any grudge over the collapse of a royal house that had only ever caused her pain?

"I won't! I, I……."

Though her eyes were still full of fear, Clarisse looked straight at both men.

"……I just want to live!"

To seek the warmth of a blanket in the cold season, to stroke the one book she had, to treasure the pebbles she'd carefully gathered as friends.

It might look like a lowly life to those of noble birth, but it was the only one she had.

"I'll live as quietly as if I were already dead. A few years, even—no. Even just a while. Just a little longer…… please, just let me live."

She spoke again, with desperate sincerity.

The king, who had been watching her silently, glanced back and forth between Clarisse and the pitch-black man, then let out a short, amused laugh.

"……Honestly. The strangest things always seem to tangle themselves around my brother."

"……."

"Do as you like."

As the king stepped back and spoke, the pitch-black man extended his hand to Clarisse. It was a hand smeared thick with blood, but to her, it was the only rope thrown down from heaven.

She quickly grasped his hand. As she was pulled up to her feet by the guidance of that large hand—

A few steps away, the king turned back around, as though something had just occurred to him.

"Don't forget, brother."

The king wore a brilliant white smile as he said it.

"The day that girl turns eighteen—you will, without fail, bring me her head."