"Speak. Do you deny your guilt?" came a voice so deep it felt like it echoed inside her bones. Husky, regal, and unyielding—like the kind of voice that could flatten a nation or end a life with a word.
Saoirse blinked, she didn't quite yet process her situation. She wandered her eyes in the room she was in. In front of her sit the man, in her left and right side was a line of strangers wearing luxurious embroidered clothes.
And then—
The interface blinked to life in her vision, obnoxiously cheerful.
[Congratulations, Tester! You've successfully arrived at the Mission Ground!]
Seriously?
Her gaze flew at the chains that shackled her wrists and ankles, the heavy iron bit into her skin cold. Her white tunic were torn and dirt-smeared, no one could even recognize the color if not for the white patches that the dirt failed to reach. She was kneeling—on actual cold marble floors—in front of a throne.
And not just any throne.
The man seated upon it had dark auburn hair tied back with military precision. His posture was straight-backed, like he was carved from ancient marble, his golden eyes lit from within, as if haunted by a fire that never went out. He wore a sword at his hip and silence like a second cloak. Even in a hall filled with nobles draped in gold and silk, he was the one thing you couldn't look away from.
The perfect description of someone both hauntingly beautiful and dangerous. He was like a blade forged from light. Not a hint of affection in his stares that bore within her soul.
"What guilt?" Saoirse asked, voice dry. Not of curiosity but because she literally had no idea what was happening.
Usually, when she was dropped into one of these goddamn missions, she'd have a set personality whose character she can embody and it would normally come with backstory but somehow the interface was being unnervingly quiet. They just launched her mid-trial—mid-persecution—chained and accused of a crime she didn't even know she'd committed. Worst, she had no idea if she's actually guilty or not. Whose great idea was it?
'Hey!' Saoirse called at the cheeky God of Fertility who was silent at the time he was needed the most.
[God of Fertility is resting. He left a message that says 'It's an SSS+ difficulty, whatever position you're in has nothing to do with me']
Saoirse felt a burning anger surge within her. That cheeky God was really testing her patience. First, a mission she didn't approve of and now he would just abandon her?
She tilted her head up toward the throne, her snow-white hair brushing against the weight of the chains. She'll deal with him later but right now she had more pressing matters to think of.
"Do you truly not know your crime?" Emperor Thorne's voice cut through the air again. His eyes didn't just glare—they searched. Like he was trying to strip the truth from her skin. Truth she unfortunately didn't have.
Saoirse opened her mouth to respond, but a hard object slammed into the back of her head. A wooden baton, probably. She winced, her vision blurring for a second.
"Is this how you persecute crimes? I'm yet to be found guilty and was already enduring such abuse and humiliation?" she retaliated. She's pissed enough as she is. Hitting her was so uncalled for. She was once an Emperor in her earlier missions too, the treatment was unfair no matter how she look at it.
She wiped the blood in her forehead with the back of her hand. Fine, she have nothing to lose at this point. Might as well lay it all bare.
"If the crime is finding you very attractive," she muttered, "then I am absolutely guilty.Your Majesty." then came a smirk.
Gasps echoed around the court.
Saoirse blinked slowly, feeling the dull throb in her skull. Screw it. She didn't sign up for this mission anyway, and frankly, if this was how it ended? Not the worst death she could imagine. Dying in the presence of that kind of face? If she got executed, she had no complaints.
"Are you mocking the court?!" barked a noble draped in pristine robes, his silver beard trembling with fury. He was the kind of old man whose very fabric said I buy peasants and burn down forests for sport.
"What? Wouldn't you all agree?" She shrugged as best she could with her arms bound. "That man up there doesn't even belong in this room. He's like… a blooming rose among withered weeds. Y'all pale in comparison."
Saoirse wasn't lying. If not for the piercing glare he was throwing at her. She would've looked a little longer. If she died and her soul perish in that moment for failing the mission. At least she died honest.
Hey, that's a silver lining.
Silence was instant—and then came the sound of horrified whispers and offended gasps sweeping through the gathered nobles like wildfire. Murmurs, outrage, disbelief. But beneath it all, a sharp stillness coiled in the Emperor's posture.
"How dare you speak nonsense in front of the Emperor!" the knight shouted in anger, locking her with spear on each of her shoulder and forcing her to her knees.
Saoirse exhaled slowly, locking eyes with the man. "Did I say something wrong? And besides if I die here, do you think someone would be brave enough to say those words in front of him?" She tilted her chin, eyes narrowing with clarity.
"Don't y'all wanted an heir out of him? Besides me…Can anyone survive loving him?"
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
The court was again enveloped with deafening murmurs of the nobles and official alike. Saoirse was speaking in all honesty because she remembered it clearly.
One of her target. The Curse Emperor, Thorne Ravencourt.
"SILENCE."
The room trembled in his voice and the room completely went silent. The very pillars shooked. Even the chains around her wrists rattled with the weight of that one word.
The Emperor stood and for the first time, she felt her stomach turned into a knot.
Saoirse swallowed.
Every step he took echoed like a countdown. Thorne descended the dais without breaking his gaze from her. The weight of his presence pressed down like the sky itself leaning too close. His golden eyes—molten and terrifying—locked with hers.
When he stopped in front of her, he didn't speak.
Instead,he unsheathed his sword.
The silver blade hummed, the kind of hum that tasted like blood in the back of her throat.
Saoirse forced herself to keep her chin raised. If she was going to die, she wouldn't do it bowing. Her smirk flickered to life, even as the tip of the blade rose to her throat, cool metal brushing her skin.
Then with the tip of his sword he lifted her chin, the sword digging deep into her skin creating a trace of blood flowing to her throat. He just stared, studying her face.
"Throw her in prison."
He turned and walked away, robes trailing behind him like shadows stitched from silence.
The knights surged forward and dragged her up by the arms. Her feet scraped marble, her wrists raw against the shackles.
She blinked, confused.
Wait. That's it?
She was sure the things she said could warrant an execution.
Her gaze followed him as she was dragged away. His back was straight, unmoving. Broad and impossibly heavy, like it carried more than the weight of a kingdom.
"Bring in the next criminal," Thorne commanded.
And before the knights could even reach the chamber doors, they burst open with a gust of cold wind.
A figure stepped inside—and the room stilled. Saoirse swallowed her breath.
Tall, otherworldly. Raven-black hair flowed behind him like a silken veil. His violet eyes glowed faintly, like twin amethysts drenched in moonlight. A beauty so mesmerizing, the kind that would bring countries to war.
Saoirse's heart stuttered.
'Would his crime be insighting war with his beauty?'
His hair flowing slowly as he walked past her.
The man didn't look at anyone else as he passed—except her.
Their eyes met for one heartbeat. It sent a strange hot sensation in her stomach.
She didn't even know that kind beauty was possible?
The door closed behind him with a dull thud. She groaned in disappointment–she would've liked to look a little longer. 'Wait? What in hell is she talking about?!'
Saoirse exhaled sharply, trying not to show how shaken she was. She wanted to balance herself on her feet but the knights fingers where digging deeply in her arm.
"Let me go!" she snapped. "I can walk, damn it!"
But her complaints fell in deep ears, they didn't release her until she was thrown into the prison cell with a loud clang of iron. Dust rose in the stale air, and she collapsed onto the cold floor with a hiss. She sat with her back resting in the dusty concrete. Closing her eyes trying to process everything that happened. Everything was a mess in her head.
And she just met two gods-damned beautiful men in a day, Oh, things were about to get infinitely worse.
Or better.
Depending on how things played it.