Then, one day, a rift suddenly tore open in the frozen barrier that had trapped them.
From it, a single man stepped through.
The moment he entered, the portal closed behind him.
He walked through the bloodstained corridors, his eyes sweeping over the corpses littering the floor, the women who looked at him with desperate, shining eyes.
They saw hope.
They ran to him. But he passed them all without a second glance, continuing forward until he reached the door that housed the beast.
Without hesitation, he pushed it open.
Baylor Moonlight entered his brother’s study.
He found the place utterly destroyed.
Drogo sat in the corner, his body trembling, his sobs filling the air.
Tears had long dried, replaced by streaks of blood running down his face.
He had clawed at himself so relentlessly that his features were now grotesquely disfigured.
This… was the state of the once-mighty Lord of House Moonlight.
“You look well, brother.”
Drogo lifted his bloodstained eyes to meet his brother’s gaze.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
“I know, Drogo. I know.”
Baylor stepped further into the ruined room, reaching into the bag he carried.
“Kill me… Please, kill me.”
The bloody tears intensified as Drogo pleaded for death.
“I can’t do that… Not yet.”
Baylor pulled out several black flowers, placing them in different corners of the room, a strange smile curving his lips.
“Look… I brought you a gift.”
For some reason, the moment Drogo laid eyes on those flowers, his face twisted in agony.
Ada’s expression darkened as she recognized them.
“What are those?” she asked instinctively.
Rem answered, “Those flowers… They don’t grow on this planet.”
The moment they were placed, they released an almost invisible dust into the air—dust that Drogo unknowingly inhaled.
“I didn’t understand their nature at first… But those flowers are like a powerful intoxicant, capable of twisting the mind—if certain conditions are met.”
Conditions that Drogo had already fulfilled.
The pieces finally started falling into place for Ada.
“Then… everything that happened until now?”
Rem nodded.
“It was because of him.”
Baylor Moonlight—the current Lord of House Moonlight.
Baylor left the study, leaving Drogo behind.
On his way out, he encountered Rose Moonlight and several other women.
“Please! Help us!”
“The Lord has lost his mind—he slaughtered everyone!”
“Please!”
With a sympathetic expression, Baylor reassured them,
“I know. I’ll do everything I can to help. Unfortunately, I can’t defeat my brother… but I’ll return with reinforcements, I promise.”
Empty words. False promises.
Then, he left. As if he had never been there to begin with.
Help never came.
And the girls were left alone once again.
Rose continued to hide Seris away in their room. Seris didn’t know what was happening beyond those walls.
She was obedient—if her sister told her to stay put forever, she would.
And so, she had no choice but to trust Rose.
Until, one day… that door opened again.
Drogo stepped out, and this time… he said nothing. Not a single word, not even a whisper.
No one knew what kind of twisted thoughts lurked inside his mind.
The moment he emerged, he seized one of the older girls and dragged her into his study.
Her resistance was futile.
All anyone could do was watch from afar.
The moment he shut the door behind him, only one thing could be heard—screams.
For an entire hour… that was all that echoed through the halls.
Then, the door would open, and a girl—utterly broken—would stumble out.
She wouldn’t say a word.
She wouldn’t cry.
She wouldn’t scream.
But it wasn’t difficult to guess what had happened to her inside that room.
First, he violated the women who were his wives. Then, the older girls—his daughters.
Now, he no longer cared.
There was no distinction anymore.
After it happened again and again, everyone knew what Drogo was doing behind those doors.
Ada and Rem, in particular, knew.
Because they saw everything.
He raped them. He tortured them. In the most brutal, humiliating ways imaginable.
They became nothing more than broken dolls.
Many couldn’t endure it.
And who could? Who could live with such unbearable humiliation?
The sight of young girls hanging from the branches of trees had become disturbingly familiar.
One after another, many of them took their own lives, unable to endure it any longer.
Especially his daughters.
For them, it was hell itself.
And within that hell, Rose remained hidden with Seris.
She no longer dared to leave their room.
How could she, with what was happening outside?
The only thing she could do was hide the younger children—those the same age as her sister, or even younger.
They should never have to witness such horrors.
She would check on them from time to time… then return to Seris.
Meanwhile, Drogo indulged in his depravity daily.
Until, one day… he found no suitable victim.
Too many bodies now hung from the trees.
But he knew…
More were still in hiding.
—
“That’s enough. I don’t want to see any more.”
Ada had reached her limit.
Her mind was on the brink.
So what about those who had suffered it firsthand?
But Rem only shook her head.
“Unfortunately… we have to see this through.”
—
Drogo stepped out of his room.
One step after another…
Countless dark threads wrapped around him, guiding him toward a certain place.
His footsteps were slow.
But for those still alive, they were a nightmare.
And his target… became clear.
Rose, who had been holding her sister close, felt it.
She felt him coming.
Her body trembled, but she forced herself to move—rushing to tuck Seris into the wardrobe.
“Sister… you’re shaking…”
Rose knew what awaited her.
But she swallowed the emotions threatening to spill over, forcing a smile for her sister.
“Seris… No matter what happens, no matter what you hear… don’t come out. Okay?”
“Sister…”
The footsteps were growing louder.
Tears began to fall despite herself.
“Hide well. Close your eyes. Don’t come out until I return, alright?”
Her voice trembled.
Her body trembled.
She was barely holding it together.
Seris could feel it.
“I love you… More than anything in this world.”
Rose shut the wardrobe.
And the door creaked open.
Drogo stepped inside.
Through the narrow gaps in the wardrobe, Seris saw everything.
She saw how Rose fought.
She saw how that monster pinned her down and ravaged her, her screams filling the room.
And then, she saw how he dragged her outside…
To continue his torment elsewhere.
—
A child’s mind wasn’t meant to comprehend such horrors.
At first, Seris couldn’t grasp what she had seen.
Her father.
Her sister.
Her sister being hurt by her father.
The ‘bad people’ Rose had warned her about…
Had been him all along.
He had done something strange to her.
Something Seris didn’t understand.
But she knew… she knew her sister had suffered.
She curled up inside the wardrobe, trembling.
She waited.
And waited.
But Rose never came back.
In the end…
Seris found the courage to break her sister’s command.
She pushed the wardrobe open and stepped out.
She walked through a field of corpses, searching.
“Sister?”
Her small voice barely carried through the night.
She entered a certain garden.
A garden where women hung from the trees.
She walked between them, clutching her thin dress.
“Sister?”
One by one, she passed them.
The faces of those she had seen every day.
People she had known.
People who had once smiled, laughed, and spoken to her.
People she had believed would always be there.
She recognized them all.
And because of that—
Her tears refused to stop.
In the end, Seris reached a tree.
Larger than the others.
And on one of its highest branches…
Hung a single body.
Just one.
Yet that single body—
Was the one that shattered her the most.
She couldn’t even reach it.
The rope was tied too high.
But she didn’t need to.
She already knew.
Her sister had once told her—
“I love you more than anything in this world.”
“I’ll come back to you.”
But now—
Seris collapsed.
There, beneath that cursed tree, she wept harder than ever before.
The girl hanging from that tree was the one Seris cherished most in this world.
She was Rose.
That night … Something inside Seris shattered beyond repair.
