From early morning, the entire castle had been thrown into disarray by the sudden commotion. Quilly had whispered to the physician who had just finished treating his master, suggesting that his lord’s body and mind both seemed unwell. Servants, unsettled by the unexpected disturbance, lingered nearby and gossiped in hushed voices.
“They say the Lord’s gone mad. Possessed by a demon, apparently.”
“Wasn’t he always like a demon anyway? It’s just punishment. The souls of the dead must’ve cursed him.”
“What if he ends up killing us too?”
Seiyad sat perched on the edge of the bed, letting the whispers filtering in from beyond the hallway drift past his ears. Among all Tither, Seiyad was known for his exceptionally sharp senses; to him, the murmurs outside the corridor were no different from someone speaking right beside him.
Yet the venom in their words did not wound him. He had grown numb from hearing curses thrown at him for as long as he could remember. Even the last words he’d heard before his death had been dripping with hatred.
“There will never be another monster like you in this world.”
Suddenly, a pair of icy violet eyes flashed through his mind. A young man who had always appeared warm and kind to everyone else had only ever been cold to Seiyad. That gentle prince—famous for not harboring hatred toward anyone—had been so repulsed by Seiyad that he trembled in rage. Everyone despised Seiyad.
How had it come to this?
The Brosius family, guardians of the northern land of Axid where winter arrived before all else, were renowned for protecting the entire North and harboring the most powerful Tither. Once held in reverence by the whole kingdom of Solias, the family’s name had turned infamous in the year Seiyad came of age.
His mother, Serena—the head of House Brosius—had gone berserk and taken innocent lives.
Every time a Tither used their power, it shook the resonance within them—their source of strength. If they continued using their abilities without the aid of a guide to steady that power, their sense of self would erode, and they would eventually become violent. This was known as “rampage.” It was the one thing all Tither feared and regarded as a grievous sin.
Seiyad’s mother had participated in the annual Spring Gratitude Festival held by the Queen of Solias. There, she had suddenly gone berserk and slaughtered those around her. Twenty knights of the Shildras family—the dominant southern house and second only to the North in producing powerful Tither—were killed. Even the Queen herself had narrowly escaped with her life. Serena’s attack on the Queen was deemed an assassination attempt and a rebellion. With the Queen having even the faintest trace of Shildras blood, the entire Shildras family retaliated and nearly overthrew the North.
From then on, House Brosius was branded as traitors. The family teetered on the brink of annihilation but somehow survived. They couldn’t simply execute the Tither who protected the North, and more importantly, it was thanks to the pleading of the Crown Prince, the Queen’s stepson.
After that incident, Seiyad lived solely to restore his family’s honor. He obeyed the Crown Prince’s commands—the man who had saved his family—and did whatever was asked of him. He engaged in countless covert operations to ensure the Queen’s sons never gained power, and he showed no hesitation when it came to eradicating the monstrous Nir’a, humanity’s sworn enemy. It didn’t matter who had to be sacrificed in the process. He believed that if he became the one who slayed the most Nir’a and earned the highest merit, his family would be restored to honor.
But Seiyad’s ruthlessness in battle had been so brutal that even his own vassals feared him.
And yet, for Seiyad, there had always been a reason—an imperative. The ghost of his mother, who had pleaded through blood before her execution, was always whispering at his side.
“I never tried to harm Her Highness, Eid. I never lost control. I saw it with my own eyes. Even though the sun was high in the sky, a massive Nir’a descended upon us…”
The only people who could corroborate her account were the Shildras family members and the Queen who had been present at the time. But they all insisted in unison that she had simply gone berserk and hallucinated. And why wouldn’t they? Nir’a only appeared during winter nights.
No matter how much Seiyad searched, there was no way to prove his mother’s innocence.
That’s why he followed the Crown Prince—the one who promised to undo everything once he became king. He was the only one who vowed to investigate the truth behind the incident, the only one who said that the woman everyone called a traitor had in fact been a remarkable Tither.
Even members of her own house had turned their backs on her. Yet the Crown Prince, with no blood ties to them, stood firmly by their side. It had only been natural for Seiyad to pledge his loyalty to him.
But in the end, the Crown Prince—whom Seiyad had served with unwavering loyalty his entire life—had not been with him at his death.
His mother’s stigma was never cleared, and Seiyad himself perished after going mad in a rampant state, committing an unspeakable massacre.
The searing regret that consumed him in his final moments now shook him to his core. His heart, once cold and unfeeling, cracked. Everything he had believed in his whole life had been uprooted.
“Are you feeling well, Your Grace?”
The voice came as he sat in silence, hollowed out as if something had scooped out his soul. When he turned his head, there stood the chief steward, Kellaran, offering a polite greeting. Quilly’s father and a loyal retainer of many years, Kellaran had changed after his son’s death. Though still outwardly respectful, he had begun avoiding Seiyad’s presence, and just before Seiyad’s death, he had expressed a desire to leave the estate.
“The herald arrived first. Word is that His Highness’s procession has just passed Axid Lake. Judging by their location, they should arrive around noon. The banquet will be ready in time, and preparations for the celebration have also been completed. All that remains is your final confirmation of the guest accommodations.”
Kellaran continued his report as if the earlier chaos had never happened. It mirrored how things had always been in Seiyad’s memory. Fixing his gaze on the steward, Seiyad took the document handed to him and asked,
“Tell me—what year is it?”
“It is the year 357 of the Founding. Today also marks the start of your fifth Ritual of Invocation, my lord.”
Whether he’d been warned or not, Kellaran responded calmly. And then, as if it were nothing, added one more line to the brooding Seiyad.
“It seems you’ve had a dreadful nightmare. You’ve been working nonstop for months—it’s no wonder.”
A nightmare.
But the events he remembered had been far too vivid, too long, too harrowing to pass off as just a dream. And yet, there was no other explanation. Everyone he met was repeating the same lines.
There was no way to immediately understand why this had happened, so the best course of action was to deal with what was right in front of him.
If this was a dream, he would eventually wake from it. But if, by some chance, he had truly traveled back through time… then he…
Seiyad lowered his gaze to the documents. It was a list of distinguished guests who would be staying in the main and secondary wings of the castle, organized by their placement. Many of the names were familiar. Only royalty and Tither from other noble houses could stay in the main wing, while all other nobles were housed in the annex. In the first place, only nobles related to the primary branches of Tither families were eligible to participate in the Ritual of Invocation, so the number of participants was limited.
His golden eyes halted at the very bottom of the list of those staying in the annex. Among them was the Queen’s eldest child and second prince—Prince Ressas Raman Solias. As Seiyad mulled over why Ressas was even here, he soon remembered—it had been his own decision.
‘Royalty who are not Guides are no different from nobility. Treat him accordingly.’
Crown Prince Aster had issued that directive in a letter. Despite the fact that it was a breach of protocol and tradition, Seiyad had obeyed. Not only because of the Crown Prince’s unshakable authority, but also due to Prince Ressas’s pitiful standing.
From the moment Tither first came into being, Guides had also existed. Enormous power always brought cracks to the mind, and only Guides had the ability to soothe those fractures. The royal family of Solias had, for generations, uniquely possessed the powers of a Guide to aid the Tither.
The most powerful ruler in history, Raman I, was said to have purified the resonance of many Tither regardless of compatibility. Typically, however, a single royal could only manage to guide one or two Tither. While the current royal family couldn’t purify indiscriminately like their ancestor, the number of existing Tither remained fairly constant. Thus, merely having the ability to purify even a few was enough to prove one’s worth as royalty.
But Prince Ressas lacked any sign of royal legitimacy. Unlike the traditional blond hair and blue eyes of Solias royalty, he had been born with black hair. There was no translucent sigil on his back—the mark that signified a Guide. Nor did he possess the self-healing ability that normally appeared around the time a child began learning to read. It was a foregone conclusion: he had no power.
‘But after this Ritual of Invocation, everything will change.’
If the future Seiyad had experienced remained intact, then Prince Ressas would soon awaken his powers during this Ritual.
Much to the dismay of those who had ignored and mocked him, Ressas’s power would mirror that of Raman I from the legends—a Guide with absolute compatibility with all Tither. His purification ability was so potent that even the lightest touch could stabilize a Tither. It was no surprise that he would instantly become a prime candidate for the throne.
In his past life, Seiyad had clashed with him countless times. It had been at the Crown Prince’s behest, yes—but also because Seiyad personally despised him. He loathed the blood of the current Queen that ran through Ressas’s veins, and he detested those around him just as much.
His thoughts tangled. His grip tightened around the papers until they crumpled. Until now, he had always obeyed the Crown Prince’s orders without question.
But…
Something told him that if he walked the same path again, it would only lead to the same death. The Crown Prince had saved him—but in the end, he had abandoned him. Everything he had done in the name of restoring his family’s honor had instead earned him the title “the Devil of Solias.”
It was a truth he didn’t want to admit, but Seiyad’s path had been wrong. If he made the same choices again, the future he’d face was obvious—standing by the Crown Prince, repeating the same deeds, and eventually succumbing to rampancy.
He didn’t know the exact cause of his rampancy, but if he repeated the past, the result would be the same.
There was only one way to avoid it and change the future: rebuild the relationship with Prince Ressas—the very man he had once made into an enemy.
