Patricia had been lying on the bed like a rigid statue for two days. Harchen, sitting at her bedside, was equally motionless.

As a temporary measure, a physician from within Parna Castle treated the shoulder pierced by the arrow and prescribed medicine to control the fever, but knowing nothing about the poison, there was nothing more he could do. Patricia occasionally breathed out as if exhaling stagnant breaths.

Harchen lifted her up in his arms at regular intervals. He moistened her dry lips with water held in his mouth.

He recalled when he first met her on the terrace of Tane Academy.

He hoped that when she regained consciousness, she would pounce on his lips first, glaring at him. He wished she would coldly spit out “scoundrel” and slap his cheek.

Patricia, slap my cheek, open your eyes.

He desperately pulled at her lips with force. As he transferred water into her mouth, it leaked out through Harchen’s green eyes.

After the butler and Calip discussed in a solemn atmosphere, they sent messengers to Luken and the capital, and called for Hun clan maids to inquire about Hun clan hunters.

They heard reports from soldiers searching Lake Pana and received communications from the capital and Luken.

Calip entered the dim bedroom without knocking.

“Your Majesty, an eagle has arrived from Lord Philip in the capital. Yesterday at dawn, Claudine from the imperial palace and an old Hun woman departed.”

“……”

“A messenger from Luken also arrived first, saying that His Highness the Crown Prince’s party is on their way as well.”

“……”

“Your Majesty, the Hun maid knew about the poison arrows. Generally, Hun arrows are used for hunting animals and not for killing people.”

At Calip’s words, a light briefly flashed in the deep green eyes.

“Bring the Hun maid.”

Harchen instructed Annie, the young maid with blood scabs on her bitten nails, to watch over Patricia and went out to the reception room.

The Hun maids, pale with guilt for being Hun, knelt and prostrated themselves on the floor. Harchen showed the Hun maids an arrow with white feathers. The arrowhead was stained purple.

“Yes, it’s a white bird arrow, from Hun hunters.”

“Datura purple. It’s a deadly poison, but used for hunting.”

“Devil’s trumpet, Amir knows the antidote herb.”

“Amir’s wisdom……”

To the maids’ confused explanations, the emperor with a gloomy expression pressed his temples and ordered:

“Tell me everything you know about the white bird arrows, step by step.”

White bird arrows.

They were arrows used by Hun hunters, nomads who observed wind directions to move.

Hun hunters were very few in number. Though a group gathered below them due to their strong presence, there were actually only about a dozen Hun hunters.

Among Hun girls, a virgin with God’s claw mark on the back of her neck was chosen as Amir, the successor to the priestess who interpreted and conveyed divine prophecies.

Amir took vows of chastity and celibacy.

Occasionally, there were disgraceful cases of childbirth. If Amir gave birth to a girl, she worked as a maid to the priestess in the temple, while a boy was thrown deep into the mountains.

The child would become food for wild beasts or die of hypothermia. Most starved to death.

Rarely, a wolf would take and raise them, or a white eagle would feed them. Those children grew up to become Hun hunters.

Hun hunters handled poison arrows. They never missed their targeted prey.

With a low, short whistle, the white birds that had been perched on the hunter’s shoulders and head would all take flight at once. Simultaneously, they would shoot their poison arrows.

Hunters wore bull horns around their necks. They made lids from leather, and inside the horns, they carried poison made from datura purple.

Datura purple, called the devil’s trumpet, was a black-purple double flower with long stems spread out like a lady’s skirt hem at the end.

Hun hunters moved through hills and mountainous areas, scattering datura purple seeds. At night, the thick scent from the flowers induced hallucinations, and purple sap, a deadly poison, flowed when the flowers, stems, or leaves were cut.

When hunting wild boars, deer, roe deer, and foxes, they dipped arrowheads into the bull horn to coat them with poison. When the hunter shot an arrow, white birds flew towards the target.

Beasts hit by the white bird arrows coated in deadly poison couldn’t walk ten steps before stiffening. Since the prey was food for the Hun, the poison in the horn would congeal the beast’s blood, but the toxicity would disappear over time.

The poison arrows were not harmful to humans, who had a lower temperature than beast blood. If the poison flowed into the body, it caused high fever.

As time passed, the toxicity disappeared and the fever subsided. Occasionally, muscle and nerve atrophy caused unstable breathing. More rarely, breathing, stopped.

*

The butler, Calip, and Lean entered the reception room sunk in darkness.

The emperor sat on a single sofa like a black statue.

“Calip, what about Grace?”

“She’s dead.”

“I thought it only caused paralysis. How?”

“There were no external injuries besides the arrowhead wound. No signs of vomiting blood either. It seems likely that neurological paralysis led to respiratory distress and cardiac arrest.”

“Butler, take care of the aftermath well.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Lean, speak.”

“I caught the hunter who fled in the 3 o’clock direction. As I struck down his right arm with my sword, the hunter simultaneously burst and swallowed poison hidden under his tongue, dying instantly.”

Hun hunters carried poison granules wrapped in hardened resin in their mouths. In dire moments, they would bite the hardened resin and swallow the deadly poison.

“Bern, who chased after the hunter in the 7 o’clock direction, hasn’t returned yet. Knights are searching the Lake Pana area.”

“Was it only one person Bern chased?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Lean, go and search too.”

Lean and the butler left. The emperor sat on the sofa, and Calip stood beside him.

“……Calip.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“When Calip was five years old, I was born, and you’ve been watching over me for twenty-seven years since then, right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“In my life, have I done anything wrong, committed any sins without knowing?”

“…… Not for a single moment, Your Majesty.”

“But Calip, right before my eyes, Patricia……”

The emperor stopped speaking and gazed at the sky through the window from the dark corner of the reception room. It was dark here, but bright outside. The sky was the same deep blue as Patricia’s eyes.

“Her Majesty the Empress will certainly recover.”

“……”

*

“…… Patricia.”

Harchen’s eyes flew open. He had been sitting in a single chair pulled up close to the head of the bed, gazing at her face, when he briefly closed his eyes while leaning on the armrest.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the bed, and looked at her face. Her cheeks were tinged pink, and she breathed evenly with slightly parted lips.

She looked so peacefully asleep that it seemed she would wake if gently shaken. He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

When he closed his eyes, that moment unfolded before him. It was raw and vivid.

When Patricia, running ahead in the red forest, turned back to call him, he should have looked around.

When he reached out to grab her, intending to kiss her, a white bird, and between them a poison arrow, flew towards her.

His thoughts stopped, and time stood still.

It rose like a dream, like an illusion, then sank into darkness.

Patricia, open your eyes now.

Knock knock knock.

At the sound of knocking, Calip entered.

“Your Majesty, please drink some tea.”

Calip brought tea said to remove toxins from the body three times a day.

“It’s fine now.”

“Please drink it at least until Claudine arrives.”

Harchen drank the tea, disliking Calip’s nagging.

“Shall I bring lunch to the reception room?”

“I don’t feel like it. What about Bern?”

“His fever has gone down a lot, and his pulse and respiratory rate are at normal levels.”

Bern was found by the knighthood yesterday dawn at the entrance of the Tamille Valley on Mount Victoire. He was unconscious, with a white bird arrow lying nearby.

Near his ankle, his calf had turned purple as the poison spread, and it seemed he had tried to remove the poison himself as the arrow had been pulled out and there were dark purple spots spread on his lips and inside his mouth.

“And Patrick?”

“His Highness the Crown Prince of Tane is in the library with Lord Eden.”

Patrick’s party arrived from the border city of Luken yesterday afternoon. The court physician who accompanied Patrick immediately checked Patricia and Bern’s temperature, pulse, mouth, and pupil focus upon arrival, and re-treated the external wounds where the arrows had struck.

The poison had spread more in Bern’s body. His leg was paralyzed and there were places where blood vessels had burst, but he had regained consciousness and could speak well. Compared to Bern, Patricia had fewer external injuries, yet she hadn’t regained consciousness.

Patrick lay prone on the bed, fiddling with Patricia’s hand, while Eden stood upright beside Patrick, glaring at the emperor with cold eyes. Kin stood silently like a black wall.

Harchen, disliking Patrick touching his wife’s hand despite being a patient, as well as Eden and the man like a black wall, ordered them all to leave. He also issued a ban on visits until Patricia regained consciousness.

The emperor entered the bedroom. A lukewarm breeze came through the open window.

“How is she?”

The maid Annie bowed her head.

“The fever, her body is hot.”

Tears fell heavily onto the maid’s red fingertips as she clasped her hands.

The emperor went to the bed and placed his hand on Patricia’s cheek. It was as hot as iron heated in the summer sun.

“You may go.”

“Your Majesty, your face is pale. I think you should rest.”

The emperor, without answering, stared intently at Patricia’s face as he unbuttoned his shirt. Only then did Annie, realizing the emperor’s intention, hurriedly leave the bedroom.

Harchen took off his shirt and removed her nightgown. He lay down beside her and held her tightly in his cool embrace.

Harchen….. Come quickly. If you catch me…… I’ll give you a kiss.

He removed all his clothes and went into the bathroom, turning on the cold water and soaking himself from head to toe. Without drying his wet body, he climbed onto the bed.

He embraced her burning body with his cold, damp body. She squirmed at the cold touch.

Yes Patricia, feel it. The cold. Don’t be stiff. When Patricia’s heat transferred to his body, making it lukewarm, he would go back to the bathroom, douse himself with cold water, and climb back into bed.

He repeated this three times, five times, and by the time dawn light seeped through the window, the heat had subsided from her body. He called a maid and instructed her to change the wet sheets.

“Your Majesty. The fever has almost gone down.”

“You can go rest now too.”

He washed away the heat from his own body as well, put on a white robe, and lay down next to Patricia. He lifted her head onto his arm. Her cheeks were tinged with a pale pink.

Harchen lowered his curved upper body even more, bringing his face right in front of hers.

Open your eyes, Patricia. We’re on our honeymoon, our honeymoon.

He pressed his lips to hers.