The elves secretly vanished from the encampment without a trace.
Landevale slipped out of Man's tent after swearing she wouldn’t say anything about today, while Yvain took off for dinner. And there they were, Burn and Man, buried in silence, out-sileng even the crickets outside.
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Maioned, her eyes barely visible in the shadows as she bowed her head slightly. At first sight, she seemed as emotionless as a brick wall, but Burn saw what was hiddeh.
"It wasn’t important. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you," Burn dragged his voice, aiming for a tone of false sweeto avoid the heart of the matter.
"Oh, so it was a non-issue until I stumbled upon it? How ve for you," Man shot back, her eyes fshing with a blend of anger arayal.
"I didn’t know that it’s important at all until now," Bured, attempting to hide the tinge of fear creeping in, like a first-time bungee jumper pting the plunge—no this was worse.
Man's face twisted with hurt as she turned away, her movement slow enough for Burn to almost taste the static electricity crag in the air.
She subtly sighed, slowly standing to her feet. She coldly said, “It’s dinner.”
Somehow, the encampment plunged into a bone-chilling -100 degrees today. Normally, such Arctiditions were a trademark of Burn's icy displeasure, but this time, it was the dy of the house.
Absolutely no one khe reason, except Burn.
Standing not far from the fire was Burn, his baan. In front of him was Gahad, handing the emperor his dinner along with Man's.
The pressure ocalyptic. Dread spread in the area; even the moon hid behind the clouds.
How could it not? The dy was usually humming and smiling around, but today, it felt like the vacuum of sileer a fsh of lightning, waiting for the sharp thundercp to shatter the silence.
The eggshells the walked on were so thin, they might as well have been thihan if it was Burn's anger—
"She's shooting daggers at me, isn't she? Does she still look like she's ready to unleash the fury of a thousand suns?" Burn inquired, turning to Gahad, who had the sudden urge to pull a Houdini and vanish into thin air.
Gahad pted a quick escape, but Burn's bloodshot gaze pinned him down like a bug under a magnifying gss, leaving him no choice but to face the music. Peeking timidly over Burn's shoulder, a cold sweat broke out on Gahad's brow as he beheld the sight that awaited him.
With the grace of an impending storm cloud, Burn slowly turned around, and in that moment, both men locked eyes with a silent fury so potent, it could have reheir knees jelly, bug in perfect syny.
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, what have you dohis time?" Gahad asked.
"I ed to mention something I was unaware was important," Burn answered.
"And what exactly did you fail to disclose?" Gahad's image started to blur as his body shook violently in fear.
"I didn't tell her that I killed and ate the meat of a tury-old uni and... the king of the Merfolk," Burn fessed.
"You killed and ate—I'm sorry?" Gahad thought he had misheard.
For a solid five seds, Gahad froze, his fak before aionless smile crept across his features. "Your Majesty, dive my suddeure. It seems I have an abundance of work awaiting me."
He gave up.
Burn sucked on his cheeks, his jaw sid he looked more menag than usual. But Gahad still left. He didn’t want to die.
With that, Burn grasped the ey of his willpower, his sturdy legs turning valiantly toward danger. From afar, the sight of Gahad and Burn turning in opposite dires looked so ematic, like something out of a movie—one deg to face danger, and orusting it to him.
‘You do it, Your Majesty,’ Gahad cheered dramatically in his heart, his face filled with trust.
After a few steps away, the aide decided to gnce back, and the sight made him want to kneel i. Because Burn was on bended knee in front of Man, handing her her dinner, sayily, “Eat dinner, Darling.”
‘He buckleeeeeeeeeed—!’ Gahad, and the rest of the people witnessing it, screamed internally.
***
Man Le Fay was a legendary being.
Humans didn’t know much about her, but they knew enough. All her aplishments were ced in both glory—and bloodbath.
Infich, a being that was able to eternally fight you. She knew e, no faltering steps, no vulnerabilities. She stood akin to a cataclysm, uable and unyielding, her as a stern decree with nard for distin.
She would only stop when all her foes died.
A chilling thought, wasn't it? A ceaseless waltz of flict that only found closure iimate silence of her enemies. Aence painted in shade of plete and absolute annihition.
When it could be talked over, she would talk. But when her foes refused to talk, she would spare no mercy. She stopped past wars with her punishments—storm after storm of destructive spells over the unyielding corrupts.
She was half the reason humans and non-human mythical creatures no led war between each other.
There. That was the main part.
Man often bridged the discourse between mythical beings and humans. And it was clear that Man favored the mythical beings over humans.
It was just humans’ perspective to accuse her of such favor. She was actually a very just person. But records of the past did say that she often sided with the immortals and the mythicals. Of course, it was because humans were usually on the wrong side.
Seeing how the elves called her "Her Holiness" and spoke to her with utmost respect today too made Burn uand how an was with the mythical unities.
Her standing, her status in the eyes of the mythical beings, was the equivalent of the holy Apostle to humans. Or at least, a Saint.
Burn uood why she was angry that he didn’t tell her about him eating uni and merfolk meat.
Sitting in front of the campfire, she held her food in her p, resembling the stoic person that Yvain once described. Rarely showing any smiles hs.
Burn sat beside her, notig she hadn't touched the food he brought, her eyes bnk as she gazed at the fire.
The elves mentiohat they didn’t initially mind Burn’s decration of war. If he didn’t harm Yvain, they wouldn’t have thought much of it. However, the issue arose as Burn had a history with mythical creatures.
This revetion came from the sed princess, who shared information she heard at the academy. It stated that the tyrant Burn, who had retly waged war, had killed a uni and the Merfolk’s King, and ate their flesh.
"I didn’t know that this was the reason the elves despised me in the previous loops. Now you had to hear it from them,” Burn said, pletely aowledging that he was sorry only because Man found out, not because he did kill awo mythical creatures.
“You found out something so disgusting,” Burly put away her food and sat closer to her. “Sorry for making you lose appetite.”
His words were iionally gentle, yet there were no attempts at hiding the sinister underlying meanings behind it all. It was almost psychopathic. Almost demonic.
He didn’t care.
He didn’t care that any sane person would think of him as a cold-blooded evil who ate se creatures—who could speak and think like humans, just for his personal be.
He didn't care that he was, ihe exact thing they thought of him.
Staying away from the elephant in the room, he addressed the things he set about—that Man had to find out. Now that she set and that he had e to this, he started to pte wiping out those nosy pointy ears and call it a day.
And the moment he saw Man silently cry, all his gentle facade broke.
His face darkened.
“Caliburn… do you even know what you’ve done?” Man whispered, her defense crumbled to pieces.
As the demon and the angel fell in love with each other, they could only hurt each other.
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