The sky above Liveria does not just darken; it rots.
Hundred of crows blanket the heavens, their wings a suffocating, churning ocean of black feathers. Their cries are not mere caws; they are a collective, deafening screech that tears through the silence of the kingdom. Below them, the citizens of Liveria stand frozen in the streets, necks craned upward, faces pale with the terrifying certainty that something catastrophic is about to happen.
Luan steps out of the house into the oppressive air, the bells on his motley ringing with a fragile, mocking cheer. Elsbeth walks close beside him, her hand brushing against his, her fingers trembling.
Anything outside the palace walls are usually forgotten by the crown, but today, they are overrun. Holy Knights of the Church rushing here and there on the streets Their silver armor gleams under the bruised sky, their hands resting heavily on the hilts of their longswords.
It is a sight so unnatural that it curdles the blood.
Sir Rowan steps forward, his weathered face hard as stone as he watches the knights.
"Holy Knights here..." Rowan's voice is a low, dangerous rumble. "Something is terribly wrong."
Behind them, Leonard stumbles out of the doorway, rubbing his eyes and scowling at the heavens. "What is with the damn crows?" he snarls, his voice laced with exhaustion. "God forbid a man have a single moment of peace in this wretched kingdom!"
Inside, Erwin and Layla remain asleep, their soft, synchronized breathing the only normal thing left in the world.
Rowan looks back at the door, then turns to Leonard, Luan, and Elsbeth.
"Let's head to the palace," Rowan commands softly, his eyes scanning the armed men lining the streets. "Erwin and Layla will be safe inside. We need to find out what the Church is doing here."
They move as a pack, walking down the muddy, narrow streets. But the air feels thick, almost impossible to breathe, as if the very atmosphere is warning them to turn back.
Out of an alley, a man stumbles into the open.
His clothes are nothing but shredded, filth-encrusted rags. His skin is stretched so tightly over his ribs that the bones threaten to tear through. He steps directly into their path, his hollow, bloodshot eyes locking onto Luan. With a wet gasp, he trips over his own feet, crashing hard into Luan's chest before collapsing into the mud.
"Are you alright...?" Luan gasps.
Luan's instincts are entirely gentle. Despite the makeup on his face the painted smile and the tragic eyes of a jester—his heart is pure.
He drops to his knees in the filth, reaching out to help the fallen man.
The man's claw-like hand snaps upward, grasping Luan's motley with terrifying strength. His bells chime violently.
"Guards! Anyone!" the man screams, his voice a jagged, agonizing screech. "Save me from this cursed creature! He's killing me! He's killing me!"
"What? No, I'm trying to help you!" Luan's voice cracks, his eyes wide with panic as he tries to pull away.
Elsbeth lunges forward, grabbing Luan by the shoulders and wrenching him backward.
Leonard steps between them, shoving the screaming man away.
"What the hell is wrong with you, old man?" Leonard yells, reaching down to grab him by the collar. "Calm the damn down!"
But the words die in Leonard's throat.
The man begins to convulse violently in the mud. A thick, dark crimson geyser of blood erupts from his mouth, spraying across Leonard's boots and the ground. Then comes the horror.
Blood begins to seep—then pour—from the man's nose, his ears, and the corners of his eyes. His skin splits open in tiny, weeping lesions.
With his dying breath, the man lifts a trembling, gore-soaked finger, pointing it directly at Luan's pale, painted face.
"Cursed creature..." the man wheezes, the blood bubbling in his throat. "He will... kill... all of us..."
His hand drops. His eyes roll back into his head, glassy and fixed on the gray clouds above. He is dead.
Silence falls over the street, heavy and suffocating.
Then come the whispers. Luan looks up from the corpse, his breathing shallow and fast. Dozens of townsfolk have stopped. They are staring at him. Their eyes are wide with a primal, visceral hatred. It is a look Luan has spent his entire life running from—the look that brands him a monster.
"He killed him," someone whispers.
"The jester did it. He's cursed."
"Get away from him!"
"No," Luan whimpers, shaking his head. He clutches his face, his fingers smearing the white and red paint on his cheeks. "No, I didn't... I didn't do anything to him!"
The pressure is too much. The hatred in their eyes snaps something inside of him. Luan screams—a raw, animalistic sound and bolts down the street.
"Luan! Wait!" Elsbeth cries out, her voice breaking as she runs after him, her boots splashing through the mud.
"Luan, stop!" Leonard shouts, throwing himself into a sprint beside her.
Behind them, Sir Rowan kneels by the dead man, pressing two fingers to the blood-soaked neck. There is no pulse. Only cold, terrifying stillness.
Ahead, Luan is blind with panic. His vision is a blur of gray skies and black feathers. He trips over a protruding stone, crashing heavily to the ground. His bells chime in a chaotic, terrified rhythm.
A nearby townsman, "Are you alright, lad?" he asks, reaching down to grab Luan's arm to pull him to his feet.
The moment their skin touches, Luan scrambles backward in the dirt, his heart hammering against his ribs.
But as the man stands straight, his face suddenly contorts in unimaginable agony. He clutches his stomach, dropping to his knees.
"I was... just helping you..." the man gasps, his voice bubbling with fluid. "Is this... the price... of helping you?"
Before Luan's horrified eyes, the man's skin erupts. Blood bursts from his eyes, dripping down his cheeks like macabre tears. He vomits a torrent of dark blood onto the street, collapsing face-first into the dirt, lifeless.
"No, no, no!" Luan screams, backing away on his hands and knees, his breath hitching "I didn't do this! I didn't do it! Please, I didn't do this!"
The street explodes into absolute chaos.
"Help! Holy Knights! The Jester is killing people!"
The screams of the crowd mingle with the screeching of the crows. Luan pulls his knees to his chest, shaking violently. His bells ring softly, a pathetic sound against the backdrop of terror.
Leonard and Elsbeth finally catch up to him, their faces pale with shock.
"Luan!" Elsbeth cries, reaching out for him.
"Stay away from me!" Luan shrieks, pressing himself against the cold stone wall of a building. He looks at his own hands as if they are dripping with venom. "Please! Stay away from me! I'll hurt you! I'll kill you!"
"It's alright, man you can't hurt anyone we know that," Leonard says, his voice uncharacteristically soft, taking a slow, cautious step forward. "You didn't do this. We know you didn't do this."
"No! I don't want to hurt you! Stay away!"
Elsbeth drops to her knees just a few feet away from him. Tears stream down her face, washing away the dirt on her cheeks. "Take my hand, Luan," she pleads, her voice cracking with desperate love. "Everything is going to be fine. Just hold my hand. Please."
Luan shakes his head violently with a crooked, hysterical smile. He looks entirely unhinged, his painted face distorted by pure terror.
He doesn't want them to die. He loves them too much.
The heavy, rhythmic clanking of steel armor shatters the moment.
A squad of Holy Knights emerges from the crowd, their swords drawn, their eyes cold and devoid of any human mercy.
"There he is!" the lead knight bellows. "The cursed bastard!"
Before Elsbeth can scream, before Leonard can draw his weapon, a knight lunges forward. He thrusts a heavy steel spear straight into Luan's chest.
The wet, sickening sound of the iron tearing through Luan's flesh echoes down the street.
Luan's eyes widen. A soft, breathless gasp escapes his lips as the spear embeds itself deep in his ribs. He looks down at the weapon protruding from his chest, his painted smile still frozen on his face.
Before he can even fall, another knight steps forward with a massive, two-handed greatsword. With a single, clean, merciless swing, the blade cuts through the air.
*Thwack.*
Luan's head is severed from his shoulders.
"Noooooooo!" Elsbeth's scream is a jagged, raw sound that strips the skin from her throat.
Luan's body collapses into the mud like a puppet with its strings cut. His severed head rolls across the cobblestones, leaving a sickening trail of red, coming to a stop directly in front of Elsbeth's knees.
She stares down at him. The bells on his discarded hood are finally silent.
But as Elsbeth's tears rain down upon his pale, blood-spattered face, Luan's eyes slowly flutter. His lips move. Against all laws of nature, a broken whisper escapes his lips.
"It's... alright..." he gasps, his voice a fading breath. "Don't... cry..."
"YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!"
Leonard's roar shakes the very street. His eyes are bloodshot, his face twisted in a mask of pure, murderous rage.
He draws his sword with a metallic screech and throws himself at the knight who swung the greatsword.
The knight brings his blade up, easily blocking Leonard's frantic, desperate overhead strike. The clash of steel sparks.
"Filthy peasant," the knight sneers.
But Leonard is beyond reason. He ignores the defense, dropping low to drive his boot directly into the knight's knee. The joint snaps with a loud *crack*, and the knight stumbles with a groan of pain. Seizing the opening, Leonard drives his sword upward, burying the blade deep into the knight's unprotected neck.
Blood gushes over Leonard's hands as the knight collapses, gurgling in his own gore.
"Stop it! Please, stop it!" Elsbeth screams hysterically, her hands cradling Luan's severed head against her chest, her dress soaking in his blood. "Just stop it!"
The dying knight, using the last ounce of his strength, draws a short sword from his belt and drives it directly into Leonard's side.
"You're coming... with me... Asshole..." the knight wheezes, before going limp.
Leonard gasps, stumbling backward as blood wells from the wound in his abdomen. Before he can recover, two more Holy Knights rush him. They tackle him to the ground, pinning his face into the mud.
"Get off me! I'll kill you all! I'll tear you apart!" Leonard thrashes, but his strength is fading fast.
The other knights step over the carnage, dragging heavy iron shackles. They wrap them around the wrists of Luan's headless, bleeding corpse.
"If you want to live," one of the knights spits at the horrified crowd, "you better not touch this cursed jester. The Church claims his remains."
The lead knight turns his gaze to Elsbeth. He walks over to her, his heavy boots splattering mud onto her face.
"Drop the jester's head, girl," he demands coldly.
"No!" Elsbeth shrieks, clutching Luan's head tighter against her heart. She begins to kick at the knight's iron greaves, hitting his armor with her bare fists until her knuckles bleed. "Why are you doing this??!!! He did nothing wrong! He is innocent! He is innocent!"
"He is a plague," the knight responds.
With a brutal backhand, the knight strikes Elsbeth across the face. The force of the blow sends her sprawling into the dirt.
Luan's head slips from her grasp, rolling to the knight's feet.
The knight lifts his longsword and drives the tip directly through Luan's cheek, skewering the severed head. He lifts the sword up, hoisting Luan's head high into the air like a grotesque trophy. The blood drips down the blade, raining onto the mud below.
"Let's move," the knight orders.
The other two knights begin to drag Luan's headless body through the streets by the chains of the shackles, the heavy irons scraping agonizingly against the stones.
Leonard lies a few feet away, his screams fading into soft, wet moans as he slips into unconsciousness from the blood loss.
Elsbeth pushes herself up from the ground. Her vision is blurry, her face bruised and bleeding. She looks at Leonard bleeding out on the ground, and then she looks down the street, where the knights are marching away, carrying Luan's head high above the crowd.
"Help me..."
she whispers, her voice cracked and small. "Help us, please..."
With trembling hands, she tears a long strip of cloth from the hem of her skirt. She crawls over to Leonard's body, weeping hysterically as she wraps the fabric tightly around the deep stab wound in his side.
"Don't die, Leonard. Please don't leave me too," she sobs, pulling the knot tight with all the strength she has left.
But her eyes are still locked on the retreating figures of the knights. They are getting farther away.
Desperate, she hooks her arms under Leonard's shoulders. She tries to lift him, her small frame straining under the weight of the young warrior. She takes one agonizing step forward, dragging him toward the knights.
"Luan..." she whimpers.
But she is too weak. Leonard is too heavy. Her knees buckle, and she collapses back into the blood-soaked mud, her cheek resting against the cold ground.
The knights are out of sight now. Luan is gone.
"Help us!" Elsbeth screams at the top of her lungs, turning her tear-stained, blood-smeared face toward the townsfolk who are watching from the shadows. "Please! He's dying! Just help me carry him!"
She crawls toward a group of men standing on the sidewalk, reaching out to grasp a man's pants.
The man kicks her hand away with a sneer.
"Don't touch us, you cursed bitch!" he yells. "Get away from us! You're infected with his rot!"
"Stay away!" another woman screams, throwing a heavy stone at Elsbeth. The rock strikes her shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through her body.
"Cursed whore! The cursed creature's master!"
More stones fly. They strike her back, her arms, and her face. She falls to the ground, curling her body over Leonard's unconscious form to protect him from the pelting rocks. She begs, she pleads, her voice turning into a ragged, pathetic sob as the people of the kingdom hit her, spit on her, and curse her name.
"Stop!" a voice roars.
The crowd freezes.
Through the chaos, Sir Rowan comes rushing forward, his sword drawn, his eyes wide with a horror that no father should ever have to experience. He looks at the stones on the ground, the angry crowd, and finally, his eyes drop to Leonard, lying motionless in a pool of his own blood.
"Leonard!" Rowan cries, falling to his knees beside his son.
Elsbeth looks up through her swollen eyes. Her dress is ruined, her hands are covered in Luan's blood, and her spirit is entirely shattered.
She has nothing left to give and the sky is black with crows.
To be continued...