In the royal palace.
Walter, the butler, after briefing Matilda about the prince's wish, was waiting in the hallway while appreciating his past with the prince.
Though 'appreciating' seemed like a strong word for their past, which was still a mystery to him, something he is still scared of.
He reminisced about the first time he met the young prince. He was the new butler in the palace around that time.
Though he was new to this palace, he was in no way new to facing young masters. His age is a testimony to this fact; despite all of this, the new prince was something he never ever imagined in his wildest dreams.
He was ready for an arrogant, idiotic, or even cruel one, but this one was different from all of them. Prince was something more, something he couldn't understand with his puny brain.
The intensity in the prince's red eyes had the power to send chills down the spine of even an old man like Walter.
Though young in his age, the prince displayed a level of intelligence that surpassed most of the people in the courtroom. His exceptional ability to identify even the smallest mistakes kept people always on edge in his presence.
His gaze was the most terrifying thing anyone would have ever come across. Only a few royal family members in the entire kingdom had the courage to look straight into his eyes. The intensity in his bright red eyes and the darkness within them sent Shivers down the spines of anyone who dared to meet his gaze.
Initially, Walter tried his best to find an opening or weakness in the prince's ever-present stoic expression. However, to his horror, he soon found out the reason behind it.
The crown prince, Zephyr, lacked emotion. He's devoid of the major aspects that allow conscious beings like us to ascend to the human level.
The revelation was clear for Walter: working for the future king, who was detached from the very essence of human existence, would be like walking on a thin, broken bridge that might give away anytime, causing a catastrophe to descend on this kingdom.
Coming back to the present, Walter's hand instinctively reached to his face, wiping away the sweat as horrifying memories began resurfacing in his mind. This sticky feeling was so strong that it threatened to consume his entire being.
Among those haunted memories was one particularly disturbing, a time when he witnessed the prince's true nature.
The prince was standing near the mother-daughter pair, who were both kneeling on the ground near his feet. Their bodies were trembling from the fear of what was about to happen.
The daughter was showing lifelessness in her eyes, which was in stark contrast to the mother, whose gaze was filled with fury, betraying the fear she was feeling. the young prince observing both with his stoic face, void of any emotion. His eyes were trying to search for something in both of them, which Walter isn't able to understand to this day.
Soon the room was echoed by the mother's plea, her hands trembling: "Please spare us, young master Zephyr; she...she isn't a demon; she didn't kill them." Her words hung low in the air surrounding them, as if the prince didn't even hear her desperate plea.
With a straight, monotone face, he moved toward the little girl with a sharp knife in his left hand. The mother struggled harshly against her bondages, desperately trying to cover her daughter with her bare hands, but her efforts were in vain.
Crouching down to the girl's level and meeting her terrified gaze with a swift slash, the prince cruelly separated a finger from the daughter's hands, awakening another round of heart-wrenching cries and pleas from the agonized mother-daughter pair.
The prince observed the mother's eyes, filled with pain, grief, anger, and another emotion he was unable to pinpoint.
The prince's expression changed strongly, somehow becoming even more monotone. His already frail body this time looked even more frail, as if he would collapse anytime now.
The room held its breath when Walter noticed his eyes were now even more blank, completely devoid of light. With another swift slash, he ended the daughter's life, causing the mother to freeze in horror.
His gaze shifted toward the mother, his eyes never blinking as he stared at her expression. Fear, anger, shock, and pain. Ah! There it is—that strange emotion, weakest and strongest among all of them at the same time.
The prince suddenly stood straight; his frail body, which looked like a dead branch before, was again tall and proud, as a prince should be. His damned eyes are again glowing with that maddening intensity.
Walter was unable to remember anything about this matter after that point, as if they were shrouded by the darkness emanating from hell itself. There was something more to this madness, something much more profound, that Walter was unable to pinpoint to this day.
As Walter was busy thinking about the past, in one of the corridors of the royal palace, Matilda walked in a hurry. Her footsteps echoed throughout the corridors, drawing the attention of servants, who turned their heads towards the old woman, who was now gasping for air as she hurried along.
The urgency in her steps hinted at something unpleasant, and servants couldn't help but exchange curious glances.
Soon, Matilda reached the room where Walter was standing. Reaching the gate, her panicked voice reached Walter's ears, shaking him awake from his line of thought.
"Elestria is missing," her voice echoed in the room.
Matilda raised her hand and kept it on her chest, clutching onto the dress fabric. She spoke while a lone tear slipped from her eyes, sliding down her wrinkled cheek.
"Someone... someone kidnapped her." A series of sobs escaped through her trembling lips.
The word hung heavy in the air. Walter was stunned after hearing what Matilda said; a chill ran down his spine. His eyes were wide with the realization of what he had just heard. His expression changed from shock to fear. He felt something crawling in his stomach.
Without uttering anything else, he started walking towards the crown prince's room. The corridor was dark, the light flickering as it struggled to pierce the shroud of darkness.
The past memories, or the past life, as he likes to name it, came flashing in front of his eyes all at once. At the pinnacle of them, sitting on a pile of corpses, was "the demon, the anti-creation," Zephyr Blackwell.