WRDP 01

 Chapter 1

It was winter, with no sign of thawing on the horizon.

A dark brown carriage crossed the bridge leading to the imperial palace.

Beneath the gently curving arch of the bridge lay an artificial waterway, sending a clear, steady current flowing onward. Since its construction, this artificial channel had acted like a gate, separating the interior of the imperial palace from the outside world. Proof of this was the carriage that rolled vigorously across the smooth bridge and entered the palace grounds without any hindrance.

The carriage continued a little further before gradually slowing down as it reached its destination.

A servant who had come out to meet it hurried over with short, quick steps and opened the door.

A man stepped out.

Unhesitatingly assertive in his presence, he was clad entirely in black from head to toe. His appearance seemed better suited to melting into the night than this bright day. Yet his clearly shining golden eyes somewhat tempered the impression of austerity.

“Where is he?”

“He’s waiting inside.”

After this brief exchange, Valderion stepped into the palace.

Though he did not possess the name reserved solely for the master of this palace, he showed not the slightest hesitation in traversing its glittering halls.

Following close behind the leading servant, Valderion reached a hand out toward his accompanying aide.

“Yes, my lord.”

With practiced motions, the aide handed him a pair of gloves. Valderion put the first one in his mouth while pulling the right-handed glove on first, then slid his left hand into the other.

The aide, Moses, carefully observed his master’s face. The duke had only just arrived, yet could not quite hide his expression of distaste. His lord was not a man given to delicate sensitivities or fastidiousness. This attitude appeared only when visiting the palace of the crown prince, Dailun.

Though it seemed somewhat excessive, Moses could understand it to a degree.

“We have arrived.”

The servant opened the enormous, gold-framed doors.

As the gap slowly widened, an unpleasant smell crept out, tickling the nose.

The moment the doors were open, Valderion stepped inside without hesitation.

The first thing to catch his eye was the bed draped with a thin indoor canopy.

Valderion slowly massaged the back of his neck.

The servant seemed to gauge his inner thoughts from that languid gesture alone and rang a bell placed nearby. Still, there was no response from within the canopy. The servant discreetly brought a sofa and set it down beside Valderion.

But he did not sit.

He had no desire to come into contact with anything in this space, decorated as it was with Dailun’s possessions. His gloves, too, were a precaution—to prevent that unpleasant, almost moldy sensation from touching his fingertips.

“Sorry.”

It was several minutes later that the one they were waiting for finally appeared.

His hair, fine and smooth as spun gold thread, was disheveled. Beneath the palm that swept it back, his face was slack with the languor of a late awakening.

“I didn’t know you had arrived already.”

Assisted by the servant, the crown prince, Dailun, donned a robe and slumped carelessly onto the sofa prepared for guests, pulling out a cigar. Lighting it, he exhaled a puff of smoke and looked up at the figure standing beside him. Then, finding something amusing, he clutched his forehead and let out a chuckle.

*He hasn’t come down from the drugs yet.*

No doubt he had been steeped in debauchery until dawn. Witnessing this outrageous state, Valderion met his gaze with an expressionless face.

“The reason I called you—”

Dailun rose, as if he had business elsewhere. The slight tilt of his head seemed to indicate “follow me,” so Valderion silently moved his feet. Though he had no reason to be jerked around by this pathetic fool’s whims, he complied obediently simply because he wanted to finish his business and leave this place as quickly as possible.

Dailun strode confidently down the palace corridors dressed in a robe practically falling open at the front.

“Ah, yes… I wonder if you remember?” He rolled the cigar between his fingers lazily, speaking around it. “The toy I used to have.”

“…”

“Poor Lirete, I mean.”

Just as he mentioned that name, they finally reached their destination.

The empire’s current season was deep in winter. As a result, the interiors were kept warm for insulation. But the space they now entered was filled with air that felt rather cool. Perhaps that was why Valderion felt a sharp sensation creeping slowly up his spine—something not unreasonable to call anxiety.

“Her fever wouldn’t go down, so I lowered the temperature a little,” Dailun explained quietly. Still holding the cigar between his lips, he shuffled onward toward somewhere. Valderion caught sight of the bed at the far end and stopped short.

“Over here.”

Dailun perched on the edge of the bed and murmured in a thin, drawn-out voice. Valderion stepped forward, trying to discern the sly intentions lurking within this drug addict’s heart.

It was only then, a beat late, that he noticed the woman lying on the bed where Dailun sat.

“This is what I wanted to show you.”

With a mysterious smile, Dailun suddenly pulled down the woman’s clothing. Since she was lying with her back to him, all Valderion could see was her back—so thin it revealed the outline of her bones.

But something else seized his attention.

Beneath the sharp protrusions of her shoulder blades, following the sensuous line of her descending curves, a series of black characters were delicately embroidered into her skin.

The reason the world spun momentarily before his eyes was that the name was far too familiar.

“Take her.”

“…”

“She’s your woman now.”

He could not mistake it.

It was his own name.

“For days she’s been languishing, unable to move, and I wondered why,” Dailun said. “And then your name appeared.”

Throughout the journey here, Valderion had maintained a certain calm, but his eyes twisted at that point. Seeing his face, Dailun laughed, as if this was the reaction he had expected.

“Still, it’s fortunate she was a toy in my hands… Imagine if that name had appeared on some unbound girl roaming freely out there. Wouldn’t that have been troublesome in all sorts of ways?”

As Dailun murmured these acrid words, Valderion’s gaze remained fixed on that emaciated back, unmoving. The woman, whom he had thought asleep, trembled faintly now and then like a patient steeped in illness. Each time, the name embroidered on her skin seemed to pulse with that same tremor.

“For about three days, she had a high fever, and after that, she couldn’t use her arms or legs properly. Probably the symptoms of the Name.”

“…”

“Carry her carefully, or throw her on a freight wagon. Do what you want, just take her away.”

With that, as if his business was concluded, Dailun rose from the bed and left the room without a backward glance.

—

* * *

It was a world where “Names” existed.

Such things were sometimes defined as “fate,” and at other times as “curses.” Some described it as something like a “disease” that struck those unlucky enough to get it.

Your partner’s name is engraved upon your body.

At first hearing, it sounded utterly romantic, incomparably poetic.

But the problem lay in the randomness of its manifestation.

Names appeared without discrimination, possessing a quality akin to a perverse prank by the gods.

That is to say, it did not choose its recipient.

And so, the relationships thus bound were similarly indiscriminate.

It could appear between close friends who knew each other intimately, but it could also become an evil act that shackled two mortal enemies together in the grotesque frame of “fate.”

At least in Valderion’s case, it could be unequivocally said to belong to the latter.

“Did you confirm it yourself, my lord?”

“Yes.”

His aide, who had been flustered by this sudden turn of events, glanced sideways at the duke, who remained calm in contrast to him. Sitting cross-legged in a chair, Valderion looked down at the bed with an expression that said, despite his composed demeanor, things had gone terribly wrong.

At the end of his gaze, beneath gently lowered thick lashes, lay the woman he had secretly brought from the palace, loaded onto a freight wagon. Just as Dailun had said, her fever had not subsided for days, her cheeks flushed red.

Moses, the aide, gazed at her face together with his superior, then asked hesitantly, “Did you hear about her identity as well?”

“Yes.”

“I see…”

The vague answer was thick with distaste for the woman in question.

Valderion affirmed it with silence.

Muttering that such a thing could happen, Moses rubbed his face wearily, then left the bedroom, saying he would investigate everything he could about the Name.

Left alone, Valderion rose from his chair and approached the bed. Even though he sat down slowly, his naturally large frame made the mattress sink deeply. The woman’s hand, resting near the pillow, bobbed up and down from the movement.

“…”

Valderion’s close-knit golden eyes fell upon that hand.

He had lived his whole life complacently, believing that such a thing would never happen to him. Yet he still knew, even if imperfectly, a few of its characteristics.

For example, what happened to a person after the Name manifested.

The reason Names were regarded like diseases was that, upon manifestation, the bearer became mentally and physically bound to that name—or more precisely, to the owner of that name.

Like a plant that needs sunlight and nutrients to survive, the bearer becomes blindly devoted to the name’s owner.

If the bearer does not receive constant attention from the owner of the name, they will gradually sicken like a wilting plant and eventually die. This woman, too, would wither and twist away without his touch from now on.

The proof of that was the way her middle and ring fingers were stuck tightly together as if fused.

*’Did you hear about her identity as well?’*

Moses’ hesitant question lingered in his ears.

Valderion leaned his upper body toward the woman.

Even if she were to be covered by the shadow cast by his solid torso, the woman remained docile.

But Valderion could sense it.

Perhaps when she awoke and learned where she was and what had happened to her, there would be an uproar.

And for good reason, because…

*’Poor Lirete, I mean.’*

Her having become such a pitiful creature was, in part, also his doing.