The stench of blood hit her nose first.

  Elysia wrinkled her nose slightly. It was a familiar scent—too familiar.

  “Imperial Magician, Elysia Artrier!”

  Her name echoed through the chamber.

  The carpet—dark crimson, like dried blood.The walls shimmered with a golden gleam.Outside, the sky was a clear, indifferent blue.

  Someone might have called that day fair.Elysia despised such sentences.

  Most nobles had already taken their seats.Nominally, they were the Emperor’s advisors.In truth, they were hunters watching one another for weakness, waiting to pounce on the next carcass.

  And in the middle of them all—He stood.

  Kael Velogarde.Experiment Zero.No longer a Grand Duke—now merely the Empire’s hound.

  His entire body was soaked in blood.Magical restraints bound his wrists and ankles.One knee was stiff, trembling, unable to straighten.

  What covered him could barely be called clothing—torn, filthy rags whose original color had long been forgotten.His skin bore overpping marks of torture and magical backsh.

  Seated beside the Emperor, Elysia gnced at him.Her silver hair, tied with precision, shimmered like frost under the light.Over her pristine white ceremonial robe, embroidered in gold thread, a bck imperial cloak draped like shadow.Her emerald eyes betrayed nothing.

  She was light.He was shadow.

  Even as they shared the same space, they neither illuminated nor swallowed one another—Two orbits, forever misaligned.

  “The agenda for today,” the Emperor said softly, “is the elimination of rebel forces and the control of the specimen.”

  His voice was smooth, almost tender.But it held no warmth.It slithered across the skin like cold poison.

  “The northern provinces… seem restless as of te.”

  And so the meeting began—long and meaningless.

  One noble recited rebel movements.Another offered statistical efficiency reports on the experiment.

  Elysia, unmoved, nodded and idly spun a pen over a bnk sheet of paper.

  Then, from the center of the noble row, a voice rose:

  “…As for management of the experiment, I believe it would be more stable under direct imperial control.”

  Count Robeldeus. Loyalist. He cimed to speak for the Empire, but he was little more than the Emperor’s puppet.

  “Specimen Zero is the Empire’s greatest weapon. Relying on the discretion of a single individual sets a dangerous precedent.”

  “A single individual?”A young baron from Elysia’s faction countered.His tone was polite, but his gaze cut like steel.

  “Lady Elysia is both of royal blood and an officially appointed member of this council.”

  “And yet,” the Count retorted, “can we be certain her emotions are irrelevant to her judgment?”

  The air turned heavy.

  The Emperor slowly turned his head, eyes gleaming with amusement.

  “Then let’s see.”

  “If control is so absolute—why not prove it here and now?”

  Elysia said nothing.She kept her eyes on the paper, spinning her pen.

  And then, at the center of the room, he trembled.

  Kael.

  Breathing was… difficult.He couldn’t tell if his throat was closing or his lungs had gone cold.

  His mouth was filled with the taste of iron.His tongue, cracked.The voices around him blurred, interrupted, rejoined again.

  In front of him, a back.Straight. Unmoving. Inhuman in its symmetry.

  Silver hair, cold and immacute, fell neatly.A scarlet robe trailed down that back.

  Elysia.

  She hadn’t looked at him once.

  But even in his decaying senses, he knew her.

  She was like the Madonna gazing down from the cathedral ceiling in his memory—Untouchable.Cold.Beautiful.

  And then, she spoke.

  “Rise, Kael.”

  No magic. No threat.Just one sentence.But to him, it was the command of the world itself.

  His heart was already a beat too te.His awareness gged behind.But his body responded first.

  His palm groped for the floor.Blood slicked the stone. Skin tore.He reached without a sound.

  Tried to lift his knee. Failed.The cuffs dragged him down, crushed bone.His shoulder refused to rise.

  He propped himself with his elbow.Ribs cracked, one by one.

  Once. Twice.He tried to stand.

  Breath caught in his throat.Nausea surged.But he did not vomit. He saved his strength.

  Knees buckled. Bance slipped.He forced himself upright—not to stand,but to appear as if he had obeyed.

  To hold onto the illusion—that he had responded to her command.

  But in the end, his legs gave out.He colpsed.

  His face met the bloodstained floor.

  “Tch. So noisy,” the Emperor muttered.“That mutt again.”

  His tone was soft. All the more humiliating.

  “Just make him kneel, Elysia.”

  She raised her head.And for the first time, looked at Kael.

  No emotion.But even that gnce—was enough.

  Through blurred vision, he saw only her eyes.Not like he remembered.Colder. Distant. Unreachable.

  And yet, he knelt.

  He folded both legs beneath him,lowered his forehead to the floor.

  Like a beast subdued at its master’s feet.

  He prostrated himself.

  Whether it was a command, instinct, or survival—

  Kael knelt before her.Before the Emperor.Before the world.

  Elysia looked back at her paper.

  It was still bnk.

  That day left no official record.

  Only this:

  A dog that could not barkhad bowed under its own weight.

  And the meeting continued.