The sun that afternoon shone with an unusual cruelty. Its light was no longer warm and golden, but a blinding, piercing white, like millions of fine needles ready to puncture the skin. It was as if the sun itself raged at being defied by the presence of a child beneath its blaze.
Little Azariah collapsed to the ground. All the strength drained from his legs, swallowed by a sudden and horrific pain that crawled across every inch of his skin. His head spun, the world tilting wildly. But that was nothing compared to what was happening to his body.
The sensation was like… like boiling oil being poured evenly over him. A searing, cutting heat that pierced straight into his flesh. His once pale, smooth skin flushed red in an instant, then deepened into an agonizing crimson.
It stung, it throbbed, it burned beyond endurance. In several places—especially on his bare arms and cheeks—his skin seemed to boil, blistering and swelling with fluid before rapidly peeling away, exposing raw pink tissue beneath. A strange smell, like scorched meat, filled his own nose.
And his eyes… oh, his eyes. The light was too bright, too cruel. He tried to squeeze them shut, but the piercing pain remained, forcing tears to stream down, soaking his burned cheeks and worsening the agony.
His vision blurred into white and orange haze, broken only by black silhouettes moving around him. He could not see clearly, but he could hear. And those voices burned deeper than the sunlight ever could.
"Look! That… that's Lord Theron's child, isn't it?"
"By the Goddess… what's happening to him?"
"Just a moment ago… he looked so… beautiful. Like a porcelain doll. Now… his skin—"
"He's burning! He's burning just from the sunlight!"
"That's not human. It can't be. What human's skin blisters just from the Goddess's light?"
"A demon… it must be a demon hiding among us! The holy light of the Sun is punishing it!"
"Protect us, oh Sun Goddess! Drive away this unclean spirit!"
"He carries a curse! Don't go near him!"
"Hurry, call a healer! But… should we even help him? If this is the Goddess's judgment—"
"Look at his eyes! They're watering, but still white like blind snow. Disgusting…"
Those words pierced him, alternating with the physical pain, each carving a different kind of wound.
Fear, revulsion, and judgment wrapped in shouts and whispers. They formed an invisible cage around him, far more painful than the sun's rays.
.
.
Azariah jolted awake, gasping in short, ragged breaths. His back was drenched in cold sweat, his sleeping tunic clinging to his skin. His heart pounded violently, slamming against his ribs as if trying to escape.
For a few moments, he was disoriented.
The familiar darkness of his room felt foreign, as though shadows from the dream still danced in its corners. Then awareness returned. The tower. His room. The books. The solitude.
"Damn it," he muttered softly, his voice hoarse and heavy. His trembling hand traced his face, feeling smooth, cool skin—no burns, no blisters. Yet the pain lingered in his nerves, a ghost of sensations that had once been real.
He drew a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. His white-silver eyes stared up into the darkness of the ceiling.
That afternoon. That day. The day when the sunlight burned not only his skin, but also what remained of his childhood, the future he might have had, and his place in the world, or at least, within his own family. It was the day that changed everything, that carved his fate into this tower.
And amid it all, there was one regret—the deepest, the stupidest—that continued to haunt him.
He regretted it.
He regretted being kind that day.
.
.
A day later, there was another knock at the door. This time, only one servant appeared—the same kind of pretty, expressionless woman as before. In her hands, alongside the food tray, was a metal object catching the lamplight: a simple iron pair of scissors, its handle made of dark wood.
Azariah accepted it. The cold weight of the metal felt unfamiliar in his hand, yet it gave him a strange sense of control. He stood in the doorway, watching the servant turn to leave. Then something inside him—something buried and festering for nine long years—suddenly cracked.
"Wait."
The servant stopped and half-turned, one eyebrow lifting in cool inquiry.
Azariah drew a deep breath, but it felt like inhaling shards of glass.
"Please… please tell my parents. Tell Lord Theron and Lady Calista… to visit me. It has been… nine years."
He inhaled again, but it only made his voice tremble more, grow rougher. Tears he hadn't realized had gathered in the corners of his white-silver eyes began to fall, sliding down his pale cheeks.
"I… I miss them so much. Please, tell them I miss them. Visit me. I feel like… I'm almost losing my mind in here. I can't endure this anymore." His voice shrank, small and lost, like a child.
"Please ask them… why? Why have they never come, not even once? Have they abandoned me? Is it true? Tell them to come. Anyone is fine. Father, Mother… or Helena, Julian… I just want to know… if they still care. Or…"
His voice broke. Pain and fear buried for years burst forth uncontrollably. "Or are they truly going to keep me locked here forever? Or… or do they intend to get rid of me? Kill me?"
He looked at the servant woman, his wet eyes shining with raw desperation. "I will wait. One week. If in one week they don't come… if no one comes… then I will die. They won't need to dirty their own hands. Because I… I will kill myself."
The final words slipped out like a hiss, both a threat and a pitiful last plea. It was the release of emotions bottled up for nearly a decade. His sobs broke free, his shoulders shaking, his thin body looking even more fragile beneath the loose white tunic.
He bowed his head, crying, drowning in his own pain. And when he finally looked up, seeking a trace of compassion or at least neutrality on the servant's face, what he saw made his blood freeze.
The servant was smiling.
Not a sympathetic smile. Not an awkward one. It was thin, cold, and filled with… amusement. An expression that said, Look how pathetic and broken you are. Her once-flat eyes now sparkled with cruel delight, savoring every detail of the discarded prince's collapse.
Something inside Azariah snapped.
Shame, despair, and profound betrayal exploded into blinding crimson rage. Rage at his parents who had abandoned him, at a world that rejected him, at these sneering servants who trampled the last scraps of his dignity, and at his own cruel fate.
His hand, still gripping the iron scissors, rose.
STAB.
A dull sound rang out as the sharp tip pierced through the black uniform and sank into the flesh of the servant's chest. The satisfaction on her pretty face froze into shock, then twisted into unimaginable pain and terror.
"A—Aaaahgk—!" A short, hoarse scream tore from her throat before choking off.
Azariah did not stop. He no longer saw a human being. He saw every sneer, every insult, every mocking smile he had ever heard or imagined. He saw his parents' neglect. He saw his own broken, desperate self.
STAB. STAB. STAB.
Again, and again, and again. His movements were wild and unrestrained, like someone possessed. Every thrust was a scream of unspoken rage, every plunge an outpouring of agony long suppressed.
Blood sprayed onto his white tunic, onto his hands gripping the wooden handle, onto the dusty stone floor before the door.
The servant fell backward, her body convulsing once before going still. The smile was long gone, replaced by a mouth frozen wide in her final expression of horror. The oil lamp she carried fell and went out, plunging the corridor outside into deeper darkness.
Azariah stood there, panting over the corpse, the blood-soaked iron scissors still clenched tightly in his hand. Blood dripped from its tip, striking the floor with sharp, echoing sounds loud in the sudden silence that returned.