In a way, this place used to be my home.
When those words came out of Amir’s mouth, which was always as cold as ice, Histori’s brain literally froze for a full five seconds.
She stared blankly at the cold-blooded killer beside her, wrapped in a black cloak, then turned her head and looked with disbelief at the golden and luxurious marquis manor a few hundred meters away, which was practically like a small castle.
“Th-That… Lady Amir.”
Histori swallowed her saliva and tried to find any trace of a joke on Amir’s icy profile.
“You… you didn’t misread the house number, did you? This is the marquis’s mansion, and before this, I always thought you were an orphan…”
Amir didn’t look back. She simply leaned one hand against the nearby plane tree trunk, her black eyes quietly fixed on the Gothic tower at the highest point of the manor, where a light was still on.
Facing the cold wind, she began to speak calmly.
“Before, whenever I had free time or didn’t know what to do next, I would change into night clothes, and like now, squat on these branches or on any rooftop like a rat, and take a distant look at this mansion.”
“I would look at their neatly trimmed garden, look at the young masters and ladies in long skirts having tea parties on the lawn, and listen to the words they exchanged.”
“Of course, I have no memory at all of what the inside of this house looks like. But there is one memory that I can recall clearly even after more than ten years.”
Amir slowly closed her eyes, then beckoned to Histori.
Histori blinked in confusion and moved closer to Amir.
The next second, Amir tilted her body and gently rested her forehead on Histori’s shoulder.
“…”
“It was a rainy night. A servant soaked to the bone… or someone of some other status. He wrapped me in a piece of luxurious fabric. Maybe afraid I would cry out, he didn’t even leave my mouth and nose exposed, and just slipped out through the side gate of the manor under the cover of night.”
“After that, he ran wildly through the pouring rain for an entire night, all the way to another town, into a dark alley just like the one earlier.”
Amir opened her eyes.
A trace of indifference that sent chills down the spine flickered in her black pupils.
“Finally, he turned around and left, leaving me nothing but that piece of fabric.”
“And that is my last and only memory of this home.”
“…”
Even though it was just a few short sentences, Histori was stunned.
Only the rustling of wind in the leaves remained on the canopy.
The silence was suffocating.
In other words, a child who was only a few years old, unable even to take care of herself, was thrown away like trash by her own family into a dark alley in the slums on a rainy night?
How much malice and how ruthless a heart would it take to do such a thing?
No wonder Amir had become the cold-blooded, withdrawn personality she was now, bristling at the whole world.
“Lady Amir, do you mean that your parents, the so-called Marquis Nai Te Lei, personally ordered you to be thrown away?”
Amir didn’t answer directly.
She turned her head, looked at Histori’s worried face, and slightly curled the corner of her mouth.
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever told you why I became an assassin.”
“Histori, what kind of person do I look like?”
She extended her slender finger and lightly tapped her temple.
“Your appearance? You’re beautiful, delicate—one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen in my life…”
Amir helplessly shrugged her shoulders and asked another question.
“Then what color are my hair and eyes?”
“…Black? Black?”
Histori was stumped by the sudden question.
Even though it was night, under the moonlight, they were so close.
How could she not see Amir’s appearance clearly?
“Uh, wait. Although it’s black, in the sunlight it might have a little bit of brown? And under the moonlight it starts to take on a silver sheen…”
Histori seriously studied Amir’s face for a moment, then sincerely praised her.
“Lady Amir, I truly think you’re incredibly beautiful. Your long hair is both black and smooth, your eyes are deep and bright. Even looking at the whole world, you…”
“…Is that so.”
Amir nodded ambiguously, directly cutting off Histori’s following flattery.
She turned her gaze back to the brightly lit manor in the distance, and said with dark eyes.
“In the world you’ve always longed to return to, are there people like me?”
“Of course there are! In fact, they’re everywhere!”
Histori didn’t think twice and nodded to Amir.
“In my country, almost everyone has your hair color and eye color. It’s not rare at all. Ah, that doesn’t mean you look ordinary. I mean—”
After quietly listening to Histori’s inexplicable description, Amir showed no sign of being comforted. Instead, she smiled and shook her head at Histori.
“It seems your world is a very tolerant and good place.”
She turned around, leaned her back against the rough tree trunk, and looked up at the waning moon mostly covered by clouds.
“But in the Sacred Unified Kingdom, it’s different.”
“Here, this is a country blessed by the God of Light. Unlike the Dwarves’ God of Thunder and Forging, and unlike the silent sacred tree worshiped by the Elf Tribe, the God of Light truly exists. His power, His will, genuinely govern the fate of every person in this country.”
Amir pointed a finger at the towering Papal Temple in the distance.
“In the Unified Kingdom, every newborn is taken to the local Papal Temple to receive a baptism from the priests. The God of Light bestows what is called ‘Divine Blessing’ on each of them.”
“Those who receive high-level blessings emit a dazzling light from their whole body when using their power. From childhood they are treated as geniuses, recruited by the Church and various powers, becoming lofty knights or archbishops, enjoying a lifetime of endless wealth and honor.”
“Those who receive low-level blessings only enjoy the most basic benefits, start their lives and work based on the talent granted by the God of Light, and live a mediocre life.”
Amir lowered her hand, her fingertips lightly pinching a strand of black hair by her ear.
“And I am not among any of them.”
“No matter how many hymns the priests recite for me, no matter how long I soak in holy water, my soul is like a bottomless black hole, rejecting all light, just like the color of my hair and eyes.”
Looking at Histori’s increasingly wide eyes, Amir spoke slowly.
“So, from that day on, they began to call me ‘Amir of No Light,’ ‘the one not gazed upon by the divine,’ but later, more simply—”
“‘The God-forsaken One.'”
Histori sharply inhaled a breath of cold air.
Only at this moment did she finally understand why, all along the way with Amir, she had tried every way to conceal her hair color.
And she also understood why, in the tavern that morning, those drunkards called Amir “the godforsaken bastard,” “the despicable assassin,” and the so-called “God-forsaken One.”
In this country blessed by the God of Light, black hair and black eyes were not ordinary colors at all.
They were a brand directly scorched onto the face, a mark symbolizing sin and misfortune.