Olga rembered that mont far too clearly, how the tenth prince, Muzio, had extended his hand toward her as they were preparing that afternoon. The mory still irritated her, she could almost feel the stiffness in her shoulders and the grit in her teeth.
She had frowned, her eyes narrowing suspiciously at the pale, slender bandaged hand held out in front of her.
"What do you want?" she had grumbled, her tone low and rough as she adjusted the cloak draped over her shoulders. The fabric was far too white for her taste, an absurd color for soone used to shadows and mud, to being unseen and unheard. White was for saints, nobles, and fools who never had to stalk prey through a forest or drag corpses from the snow just to burn them together in a clump for heat.
But Muzio, standing before her, looked as if he’d been carved straight from marble, expression still, tone unreadable, and eyes that regarded her with that sa infuriating calm that reminded her of soone else. Soone she hated dealing with.
If she just imagined his black hair turned almost silver white and his red eyes into gold, she could almost see him, that sa condescending air, that sa unshakable composure that made her want to punch through it.
"Your bow and arrows," the boy had said, his voice steady but firm. "They won’t let you bring them into the hall. Give them to , and I’ll tell you where to find them after."
Olga blinked at him. Then she scowled.
"Why in the hell would I trust you with that?" she snapped.
Her hand instinctively went to her weapon, a bow forged from the core of a sacred beast, a ’Vesper’, a creature of the night that hunted by sound and breath alone. Blind but perfect in precision, the Vesper had been a predator feared by many beast, and its core now thrumd quietly within her bow. It wasn’t just a weapon, it was part of her. The bond between archer and sacred beast was sacred, nearly familial. To let soone else even touch it was an insult.
Muzio, however, only rolled his eyes in a way that was so sharp and casual that she nearly bristled on the spot.
"Don’t roll your eyes at , boy," she hissed, glaring daggers at him.
The audacity, no, the nerve, of this royal brat. Even if he bore the royal seal, even if he was the tenth prince of Aurex, and even if he was Althea’s younger half-brother, Olga had no reason to bow her head. She had served in the field when this boy was still hiding behind tutors and silk curtains. She’d killed beasts larger than carriages while he was learning how to hold a teacup.
She rembered him as he had been years ago, timid, quiet, always trailing after others, too soft to say no and too frail to keep up. Lenko had always taken the bla for his absences, covering for his lack of discipline during training, taking punishnt after punishnt with a smile.
Lenko.
The thought of her younger brother always softened sothing in her chest, just slightly.
But then, rembering the prince again, her blood boiled.
Now the sa boy, who had vanished from the palace for years without a word, dragging her brother along with him, had the gall to stand before her and give her orders as though he still had a right to.
Olga’s jaw tightened. Her hand lingered on the bowstring, her knuckles whitening as she muttered under her breath, "You’ve got so nerve coming back here and thinking you can just waltz around like nothing happened."
But Muzio didn’t rise to her bait. He didn’t glare, didn’t flinch, didn’t even bother to argue.
He simply looked at her with that sa calm, unreadable expression, as if he already knew she’d give in, as if he’d already calculated how this conversation would end.
And that only infuriated her more.
Because deep down, she hated to admit it, but he was right.
The guards would never let her through the theater hall doors with a weapon slung over her shoulder.
Still, as she glared at him, clutching her bow tighter, one thought burned in her head like a coal refusing to die... ’If he loses this bow, I’ll put an arrow through his royal heart myself.’
"Let him have it, Olga..."
Althea’s voice had floated from behind her, soft but firm, carrying that effortless authority she always had, the kind that made people stop mid-breath.
Olga turned, caught off guard. The princess had just stepped out from her quarters, her presence commanding the room without needing to say another word. Her red gown shimred under the soft glow of the lamps, the silk and velvet catching the light like embers.
It wasn’t her usual color, the sixth princess was known for her white and gold, for her serene poise and saintly composure. But tonight, in that deep crimson, she looked almost regal in a different way, bold, deliberate, and alive.
Olga opened her mouth to protest, to demand why, but the words tangled in her throat when the princess rely smiled, tilting her head slightly as if the matter was already settled.
"Just look up when you need it," Muzio said, his tone casual as though they weren’t speaking about one of the most sacred weapons forged from the core of a divine beast. He held the bow and arrows in one hand, his red eyes glinting faintly beneath his fringe. Unlike Althea’s bright ruby irises, his were darker, muted, like smoldering coals that only caught fire when the light hit just right.
Olga clenched her jaw, glaring at him as he slung the bow behind him with a practiced ease that made her skin crawl. "You better not lose it," she hissed. "You don’t even know how it works, "
He t her glare without flinching. "You’ll feel it," he interrupted, quiet but certain.
The confidence in his tone made sothing twist uncomfortably in her chest.
He did know.
And he wasn’t supposed to know things like that. About her bow. About her.
Even if she’d never told anyone, he knew that the Vesper’s bond, the sacred connection between handler and the core. When she willed it, she would know where the bow, pulled through the mana that existed only between her and the core. The weapon was hers and hers alone, yet the prince spoke as if he understood that bond down to its pulse.
She hated that.
She hated that he was right.
When the explosion happened later, when the floor fractured and crumbled under, Olga had barely registered the panic. Everything blurred into motion. The princess had imdiately gone to stabilize the collapsing structure, hands pressed to the ground as golden runes burst like vines. Lenko was already darting into the fray, his small fra disappearing into the smoke as he went to distract the rcenary wielding the lance.
Olga didn’t even think. She knew where her weapon was.
Her eyes shot upward, to the chandelier.
Of all places, that damned prince had hidden her bow behind the chandelier, suspended in the gilded lattice.
She didn’t hesitate.
Using the scattered furniture as stepping stones, she vaulted up, chairs, tables, even a broken banister, her boots barely making a sound. The mont she leapt, she felt the familiar tingle deep in her chest, the call of the Vesper’s core. Her body grew light, weightless even, her mana responding instinctively.
When she reached a wall, she kicked off it hard enough to make it tremble. The chandelier lood just ahead, and in one smooth motion, she landed atop it. The chain didn’t sway. The glass didn’t even rattle.
That was the nature of the Vesper, the silent predator, the unseen shadow.
Even standing above the chaos, she made no sound. Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing stilled, and her senses dimd until there was only the pulse of mana humming beneath her skin.
As she drew the bow from its hiding place, the world fell into blackness.
The gift and curse of her sacred weapon, when she invoked its power, sight left her. She beca blind to the world’s light, her eyes open but seeing nothing. Yet in that darkness, she could hear everything... the breath of every creature, the snap of every thread of mana, the whisper of every heart beating in range.
It wasn’t the kind of sight people understood. It was sothing deeper.
And though she could no longer see her target, she could feel it.
The vibration of her brother’s voice sowhere below.
The shift in air that told her where the princess had moved.
The thrum of danger bleeding through the mana that thickened the room.
As the chandelier’s crystal pendants glimred faintly behind her, Olga nocked her arrow and exhaled slowly.
If only she had known what to look out for, soone who could cloak themselves within overlapping senses, slipping between sight, sound, and mana like smoke. Soone who used others not just to hide but to mislead every instinct she relied on.
Olga would have done things differently. She would have kept her bow drawn longer, her breathing steady, her hearing sharp. But by the ti she realized, she was already been consud.
The scent of dust, smoke, and burning mana thickened the air. Her pulse hamred in her throat, her boots sliding over the cracked stone as she loosed another arrow toward the smug lancer who had been toying with them. The man was fast, too fast, and his lance carried runes that made him more dangerous than he had any right to be.
But Olga was faster.
She’d watched him, studied the rhythm of his movents, the way his wrist twisted just slightly every ti he prepared a throw, the faint flare of light from his gloves right before his mana surged. That was her cue. Her next arrow cut through, striking not just his chest, but his runed gloves.
Olga groaned under her breath. "Idiot," she muttered, drawing another arrow. She still couldn’t fathom why her highness had trusted the tenth prince, that smug, infuriating boy, to orchestrate this entire mission. Nothing about this plan made sense. Too many risks, too many unknowns, and yet everyone was moving as if they knew their part.
Then she heard it, her na, shouted in alarm.
"Olga!"
The princess’s voice, sharp and filled with warning.
Olga spun toward it instinctively, but at that exact mont, her vision flickered. The world, already dim from her bond with the Vesper, grew blindingly white as Althea’s mana flooded the room. The surge of mana struck her senses. Her hearing warped. The world tilted.
Then, knives.
She barely heard the steel in the air before reacting on instinct. Her hands moved faster than thought, her own daggers flashing out to parry. tal clanged. Sparks burst. She leapt back, the air burning against her skin, but then she froze.
Her body locked up. Her breath hitched. Her bow slipped slightly in her grip.
And the world went silent.
No sound. No pulse. No movent.
Only a voice.
A voice in her head that sounded like the princess, gentle, calm, but with sothing wrong in it. The tone was off. The cadence unfamiliar. Too even. Too cold.
"Olga. Shoot."
Her body obeyed before she could even resist. She could feel her fingers move, drawing the string, the mana gathering at her fingertips.
The air around her flared, her wounds searing with heat as the mana in her body convulsed against the control. The pain was sharp, agonizing, her cuts burned as if filled with molten glass.
The mana crawling through her veins wasn’t pure, it was corrupted, tainted by sothing that didn’t belong.
She wanted to scream, but her lips wouldn’t move.
She wanted to fight it, but her arms were already pulling the bowstring back.
She saw flashes,
Her arrow glowing faintly.
The corrupted mana twisting around it.
Her aim locking onto a figure through the haze.
Then, release.
The arrow cut through the air, guided by instinct that wasn’t hers.
And in that split second of unnatural silence, Olga knew.
She knew where that shot would land.
Right where Althea was standing.
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