The first one to speak was Arun, who stood up and grabbed the maid's shoulders.
He started shaking her as his lips kept trembling.
"It's a joke, right? Or you said someone else's name accidentally, right?! RIGHT?!"
"N- No, your Majesty! Princess Valindra had been talking to princess Soliana, and then I heard princess Soliana scream that she would kill someone, so I looked at the balcony only to see princess Valindra being pushed off."
"…But that doesn't mean she is dead…"
Folwin, who was the fastest to think logically, quickly looked at the maid as a small hope filled his eyes.
"I am sorry… Before coming here, I asked the palace's doctors, and they all said that after falling down, she had experienced some sort of shock, and she… died."
The maid placed her hand on her mouth and began sobbing while Folwin's eyes had a tiny little hope, which was quickly extinguished.
All of the princes then frowned and clenched their teeth in anger.
"So it was that bitch, Soliana! She was the one who killed her!"
Jassin shouted at the maid, and he received a nod from her.
All of the factions were always careful not to anger each other because they didn't want a war to begin, but now chaos was about to take over the palace.
The princes all loved Valindra, and they didn't know that she dated all three of them, so they ran out of the room to find Soliana.
On the way there, though, they all went to check on Valindra's body, and after finding out her heart wasn't beating, her chest wasn't moving, and her skin was cold, they all became even more enraged at Soliana.
---
Meanwhile, Soliana, who had calmed down a little, had completely forgotten the faction meeting and was on her way to the dining hall.
After vomiting everything out, she was starting to feel hungry, so she went there to have an early dinner.
There were four tables in the dining hall, and that was because all of the factions had one table.
Each faction had around 60 members, but the dining hall wasn't filled to the brim at this time of day, and all the tables had only around thirty elves chatting while eating a snack or an early dinner.
When Soliana sat down at her table, the elves in her faction quickly noticed her ghastly expression, so they asked her what was wrong, but she just told them that she was feeling unwell.
They didn't want to pry into her problems, so they talked about something else, and Soliana, who was slowly starting to forget about what had happened to Valindra, was feeling better and better.
The doors to the dining hall were opened while she was still munching on her delicious slice of cake, but she ignored them, thinking that it was another one of her siblings going to eat a snack.
"SOLIANA!"
Suddenly, a loud shout echoed throughout the hall as her fork froze in midair, and she looked at the door.
There she saw her three brothers, who looked extremely enraged.
She thought that they were angry because she didn't go to the faction meeting, so she stood up and walked over to them with a confident smile.
"I am sorry, my dear brothers, I forgot about the meetin-"
BANG
Before she could even blink, her brother Arun stomped his right foot, propelling himself forward, and grabbing her head, slamming it into the ground.
"W-"
SWISH SPLURT
Not even giving her a chance to beg for mercy, Arun pulled out his sword and cut her head off.
His brothers, who also wanted to get revenge for Valindra, and the other siblings, who were just peacefully eating, were all shocked to see Arun just murder Soliana in cold blood.
"This is what you get for killing my Val."
He spat on her body and tried walking away, but he was stopped by his two brothers.
"What the fuck do you mean yours?! Valindra was mine!"
Folwin, who was normally the smartest, was blinded by love and didn't realize that this was Valindra's plan all along.
"What are you saying?! Valindra is my goddess, and we love each other!"
Next to him, Jassin also started proclaiming that the one Valindra loved was him.
"Huh?! Are you all delusional?! Val is my girlfriend, you fucking bastards!"
They started pushing and yelling at each other, which made their other siblings completely confused.
Suddenly, a maid entered the dining room.
It was the maid that had previously told the princes of Valindra's death, and now she was walking up to them again.
There was one final order she had received from Valindra, and it was to bring them three envelopes she had left on her nightstand after they would kill Soliana.
Valindra had already predicted that they would get into an argument after Soliana's death, but she needed them to hate each other so much that they would want to kill each other.
And for that, she had written each of them a letter.
"I found this in the princess Valindra's room only minutes ago, and I believe that you should see this!"
The maid interrupted the princes' argument, and they all turned to look at her.
Three white envelopes decorated with blue flowers that each had the name of one of the princes were in the maid's hand, and she was bowing while handing them the letters.
The maid left the dining hall after they took it because Valindra had warned her not to stay there.
Opening their envelopes, they noticed that there was a piece of paper with beautiful writing on it.
So they all took their letters and started reading them.
Arun's letter was special in the fact that it had small, cute drawings of him swinging a sword around, and next to these pictures were small hearts.
"Dear brother Arun,
I decided to tell you that I love you through this letter. I plan to give this letter to you when we meet again, so I am probably standing in front of you while blushing right now.
Anyway, I was too embarrassed to say it out loud, so forgive me for making you read this, but I also wanted to tell you something.
This is hard for me to write, but Jassin and Folwin are trying to convince me to be with them. I rejected them multiple times, but yesterday they still pushed me down and forced themselves on me, tearing my clothes apart and...
But I am here with you right now! Not them, but you! So, I want you to kiss me and tell me that you love me. If you love me, that is… Please love me, or I will cry! Anyway! Give me a kiss!
Your Val."
Arun kept reading the letter, as his grip was getting stronger and stronger, which made the letter get ripped apart.
Meanwhile, his brothers received much shorter letters.
"Dear brother Folwin,
I can't be yours because my body already belongs to Arun and Jassin. I sent this letter to you to tell you that I can't meet with you ever again. Please forget about me.
Valindra."
This letter may have sounded like a rejection letter, and others would cry because of it, but not Folwin.
He believed that Valindra was his property, and while waiting for her, he was starting to lose his mind.
And now that she was telling him that her body was someone else's, which meant that she had already made love to someone other than him before she died, made him lose his shit.
"Kukuku..."
Blinded by his love and greed for her, he didn't see that he was being manipulated and kept chuckling to himself like a madman.
As Folwin kept laughing to himself, Jassin also read his letter.
His letter had a sweet smell, and that was because Valindra sprayed a perfume on it, which was also the same perfume she used when she met up with him.
This way, the letter would make him think of her, and the words on the paper would seem like her bewitching words to him.
"Dear brother Jassin,
If you want to be useful, then kill as many of your siblings as you can before dying. Your life is already mine, and your actions are dictated by me, so do as you are ordered.
Once you are done, let's meet each other in the afterlife, and I will let you experience ecstasy beyond your wildest dreams.
Your goddess, Valindra."
Jassin just smiled in joy when he read his letter, and after tearing it apart, he started hungrily looking around the dining hall.
At that point, a lot of their siblings walked inside the dining hall because they had heard about the commotion that was happening inside.
Valindra knew what to write to use her brothers as much as possible.
Arun was told that his pure love was tainted by his brothers and that his sister was killed before she managed to tell him that she loved him. This enraged him, and he was starting to see red.
She also knew that Folwin was crazy because she had spent a month with him, so she told him that she wasn't his and that her body had already been used by someone else before him. This made him snap, and that was exactly what Valindra wanted to happen.
As for Jassin, he had already become her slave. She trained him to be her dog and taught him to follow her every order without a question, so she gave him his final order. Kill and die.
When the other siblings looked at the three boys reading the letters, they felt the temperature of the room turn chilly, and thick bloodlust started floating in the air.
Jassin was the first to act.
He didn't try fighting Arun or Folwin and instead rushed to a table with food.
The reason he moved so fast was because he had practiced dancing so much that his body was like that of a gymnast.
On the table was a roasted piece of meat that had a large knife sticking out of it, so he grabbed it, and while his siblings were still stunned by the events that had happened, he stabbed the knife inside the throat of an elf next to him.
Blood sprayed on him like a fountain, and the other elves around him were too shocked to move.
They saw how their kind and charismatic brother Jassin was smiling while holding a knife, covered in blood.
Before they could move, though, he had already jumped on another elf and quickly disposed of him by slashing his neck.
"AAAAAAHHHH!!! HELP! GUARDS!"
At that point, the other elves started screaming and running around like headless chickens.
"HAHAHAHA! MINE! mine... kral ku lah... lah..."
Folwin, who was still laughing like a maniac, pulled his sleeves up and started mumbling something. He was actually a magician, but he had never shown his magic in front of others before.
When he finished chanting, green tattoos appeared on his body, and vines sprouted from the floor, blocking all exits.
He quickly aimed the vines at Jassin, but because he kept jumping around while killing people, Folwin missed a lot.
The vines that missed usually took the life of another silver-haired elf, and the dining hall turned into a massacre.
Arun was trying to kill Folwin because he wished to avenge his Val, who had been tainted by his brothers, but his attacks kept getting blocked by the vines.
And as the three brothers battled each other, their siblings kept dying left and right.
---
After some time, Jassin finally saw that only his two brothers remained.
He tried to attack them, but Arun's sword strike instantly killed him, and so he died, completing Valindra's order. But he died with a smile on his face because he was thrilled to go meet her in the afterlife.
Folwin did his best defending, but he still lost in the end to Arun, and the sword pierced his heart, making all the vines wither away and disappear.
Near the end of the fight, Folwin gained a moment's clarity where he thought about what was happening around him, and soon he found that he had been manipulated, but it was too late to stop it, so he had done his best to defend himself, but he had died in the end anyway.
Meanwhile, Arun was heavily breathing while supporting himself with his sword after he had finally won the fight.
He had bloody wounds all over his body, but he was happy that he had avenged Valindra.
There were dead bodies all around him, and the entire dining hall was painted with blood.
On that day, almost all of the princes and princesses died, and only a few who were uninterested in the commotion managed to survive.
As Arun kept propping himself up with his sword, which was now shaking because his body was tired from all the fighting, the door to the dining hall suddenly opened.
Entering the hall, the emperor Morrsath looked at the massacre and how his children had been slaughtered, with a frown.
Morrsath and the guards were trying to get in earlier, but the vines were blocking the door, so he couldn't get inside.
If Valindra were awake, she would be happy to see this scene because she wanted it to happen. To see her siblings, who carried the filthy blood of Morrsath, all die while killing each other.
Morrsath never really cared about his children, but seeing almost all of them lying dead everywhere inside the dining hall made his body tremble.
The guards around him were also looking at Arun in fear, thinking that he was the one who killed everyone.
Before the emperor could ask Arun what was going on, Arun stood up straight and raised his sword with both of his hands.
His body, which was purely running on adrenaline at that point, enabled him to raise his sword one last time.
'Living in this world without her is not worth it, so let me go meet you in the afterlife, Val.'
STAB SPLURT
Stabbing his sword into his heart, he dropped to his knees as a pool of blood started accumulating under him.
In his last moments, he thought of the first and last girl that he had truly loved with a smile.
And Arun died without knowing that the love Valindra gave him... was a lie all along.