Chapter 01
“Aria, my angel.”
The emperor spoke urgently.
“Come and save me.”
Save him, he said.
The so-called son of God was begging a monster for salvation.
It was simply laughable.
Even laughter had long since dried up.
Aria stared motionlessly at the arm reaching toward her through the cage.
“Sing!”
“……”
“Aria! If you don’t sing right now, I’ll make sure you can never walk again.”
The emperor growled like a beast.
He raged, wept, laughed, and after threats and persuasion, even fell to his knees and begged.
He was completely mad.
“Please sing. Lady Siren. Please show us mercy.”
“Please, Lady Siren…”
Even the dancers prostrated themselves before Aria, rubbing their palms together in supplication.
Those were the same people who, only months ago, had mocked her with laughter and coquettish smiles.
Even the musicians who had played to the Siren’s song, the conductors, and the knights who once protected the emperor.
All of them now waited for her lips to open.
“…Cough!”
At that moment, Aria suddenly coughed up blood.
Her coughing would not stop until her dress was soaked red.
She clutched her heart.
Ah.
‘I can finally die.’
Aria smiled in joy.
‘At last.’
She could finally reach eternal rest.
Her tightly closed lips finally parted.
“Come, sweet death.”
Her hoarse voice, worn down by abuse, sliced through the air.
As Aria began to sing like a whisper, the entire space fell silent.
No one could even breathe, unable to take their eyes off her.
“Come and guide me into peace.”
The gently beginning song wrapped around them like warm sunlight.
As if in the embrace of an angel they had longed for, it comforted them sweetly and stroked them gently.
“Oh, Lord…”
Someone smiled peacefully while shedding tears.
The melody, entering through their ears and deep into their bodies, touched even their hearts and whispered within.
“Because I am tired of this world.”
It was a sacred hymn about seeking heaven through death.
A song filled with deep faith.
But through Aria’s thick, viscous voice, it became something entirely different.
It became a seductive whisper summoning demons.
“Come, blessed rest!”
The gentle comfort that had been flowing suddenly tightened around their hearts.
Everyone listening gasped and clutched their chests.
Aria’s song instantly turned into sweet poison, greedily gnawing at their hearts.
“Come!”
Her roughening voice dragged them by the ankles into a swamp.
Into the abyss,
Into the swamp of death,
Into hell.
Following Aria’s ragged breathing, the sound spread violently.
“I await you!”
It was no longer a song—it was a scream.
She pleaded to the god who had abandoned her, cursed him, surrendered, then clung again…
Until finally, letting go of everything collapsing within her:
“Come and close my eyes.”
If there was no god, then even a demon would do—she begged desperately.
“Huk… kuh!”
The emperor collapsed to his knees, gasping.
His heart felt as if it were being crushed.
As if someone were strangling him, veins bulged across his body and heat rushed to his eyes.
“Blessed rest, come!”
At last, the song ended.
The ritual summoning a demon also came to an end.
“Haa… haa…”
The emperor gasped like someone who had been submerged in a swamp and barely resurfaced.
His hands and legs trembled.
Cold sweat drenched his entire body.
‘W-what… what was that…’
Looking around, most people had fainted.
Some knights, with dull, vacant eyes, were even drawing their swords as if to cut themselves.
The emperor felt a chill run down his spine.
If he had still been holding a sword, he would have killed himself just to escape the agony.
“You… you…”
Fear from an overwhelming difference in power.
“That woman…”
As he regained awareness, fear instantly turned into rage.
“How dare you try to kill me!”
There was a limit to how much mercy could be given to the last remaining Siren.
“I spared you from being burned at the stake, and this is how you repay me?”
The emperor muttered darkly.
A Siren was only useful for her song.
“Today, I will break your will for good. I will make you obey me.”
He snatched a knight’s sword and strode forward.
A black shadow loomed.
The bird that had lived its entire life in a cage would only find freedom in death.
Aria slowly closed her eyes.
‘Sweet death, blessed rest.’
And then it happened.
The emperor’s bedroom door slid open without any resistance.
“How pitifully you call.”
Aria slowly raised her head.
Her gaze met ash-gray eyes.
Eyes that were hollow, empty.
‘Grand Duke Valentine…’
The man said to have sold his soul to a demon.
A man who should not be here was walking inside.
Bringing death.
With each step he took, crimson footprints stained the white marble.
‘He really came.’
Aria couldn’t believe it.
The duke casually shook off his blood-soaked sword.
With a flick, the blood on the blade danced and drew a semicircle on the floor.
“If you are now asking for the demon’s salvation…”
Beyond the wide-open door, the blood-soaked palace was as silent as a grave.
As if it had always been so.
“I suppose I should grant it.”
The emperor was killed by a demon.
“Blessed rest has arrived.”
He spoke indifferently.
Then he took the key from the emperor’s body and walked toward Aria.
He inserted it into the tightly locked cage.
Click—
The cage slowly opened.
Standing against the chandelier, the demon shimmered with countless colors.
As the light poured over his face, eyes that had looked like burnt ash now glowed like moonlight.
‘A light that guides even in darkness.’
For the first time, Aria realized that a human’s eyes could be this beautiful.
“The cage is open. Go wherever you wish.”
It was a memory of salvation she would never forget even in death.
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Aria stared blankly at her freed ankles.
Then she lifted her head.
‘Grand Duke Valentine…’
The regicide who killed the emperor.
But also her savior.
The cage-shaped prison was wide open.
If she had wings, she would have flown away as he said.
But—
“I can’t go anywhere.”
Aria smiled bitterly and cried.
She would die soon anyway.
‘Just kill me.’
When she opened her mouth to speak her final words, it happened.
A pain as if her vocal cords were being sliced apart struck her.
Her vision went white, as if her blood were surging upward.
“So your wings were already broken.”
The duke’s languid gaze briefly dropped to her deformed leg before moving away.
“I heard that hearing your song drives people mad.”
Aria’s body slowly collapsed.
Her consciousness dimmed, and her trembling body stiffened little by little.
The duke lifted her dying form into his arms.
“Then I don’t mind. I was already mad to begin with.”
“……”
“If there is a limit to madness, then show it to me.”
If you have something to say, whisper it in my ear.
The demon smirked and walked away.
Aria closed her eyes in his arms.
Song reference: Johann Sebastian Bach, “Komm, süßer Tod” (Come, Sweet Death), BWV 478.
