15. The Master of Curses
In the annex of the ducal estate, there were prisons prepared for emergencies. Reyna was locked in one of them. Damon intended to extract a confession from her himself. Anything related to Elise, he wanted to handle personally and without exception. And he had no intention of letting Reyna, who had secretly fed Elise a curse as lethal as death and yet calmly pretended to be her friend, go unpunished.
As if sensing his thoughts, Michael said he wanted to accompany him. Damon agreed.
Creeeak.
The old iron door opened, and Damon stepped inside the prison. Reyna’s limbs were bound with shackles fixed to the prison walls, restraining her like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. With her head lowered and silent, Damon approached her.
“Tell me what the price of the curse is.”
From the imperial palace onward, Damon had suspected that Reyna might be a spy. The one who could embed a curse into food and feed it to Elise without raising suspicion. The one who had always been near Elise whenever the curse activated, day or night. And the one who had prepared a dish laced with a large amount of sleeping potion for Elise, who had just recovered that very day—all of that pointed to Reyna.
A message sent by Rowan had also arrived two days earlier: that Reyna, Elise’s maid, was a spy and should be arrested immediately. Damon had waited for solid evidence. Everyone around Reyna had been keeping watch over her. And finally, she had been caught.
Above all else, what was urgently needed now was to uncover the key to fully breaking Elise’s curse—the price of the curse.
“If you want to keep your life, you’d better tell me the price of the curse.”
He had been prepared to extract it by torture if necessary. That was precisely why Reyna had been imprisoned in a facility where torture was possible. But the answer that followed astonished Damon, Michael, and everyone in the prison.
“One death and one soul.”
“So easily… she’s revealing the price?”
Damon’s red eyes narrowed, glowing even deeper, while Michael’s eyes widened in shock. Both men thought the same thing.
“She’s certain the curse can’t be broken.”
Even when they first identified the nature of the curse, they had known it was created using death. It was not a simple curse but one that also required black magic, clearly demanding a soul as part of its price. Someone had died to initiate the curse, and another soul had been consumed to complete it. Therefore, to undo it, one person would have to die again, and another soul would have to be consumed by the curse.
In other words, two people had to be sacrificed to create it, and two more would be sacrificed to break it.
“Who ordered you?”
“You will never be able to break the curse, nor find that person.”
An expected answer. It was practically a confession. Now it was time to force her to reveal the mastermind. But before that, there was one thing Damon needed to confirm while Reyna’s mind was still intact.
“Why did you put drugs in Elise’s food? What were you planning to do by putting her to sleep?”
If his assumption was correct, they had intended to smuggle her body out. That would mean the black magician who created the curse had suffered severe internal injuries from Damon’s attack. Unable to use the curse’s power, they may have tried to incapacitate Elise to kidnap her.
At that moment, Reyna let out a quiet laugh and raised her head. Her eyes and face were filled with madness born of inferiority.
“Damn it!”
“Stop!”
Damon shouted and grabbed Reyna’s face upon seeing her expression. He recognized that look well. It was the gaze of someone who had poured everything into a goal, only to reach a point where they could no longer continue—and chose to destroy themselves to escape the despair.
Reyna was attempting suicide.
“…Too late.”
Reyna smiled as she spoke. Foam formed at her mouth.
“Elise… will… definitely die…”
With her eyes wide open, her body went limp beneath the chains. Her mouth still seemed to be smiling.
Mikael, the priest, looked at Reyna’s dilated pupils. He raised his hand, made the sign of the cross over his chest, and prayed.
“Her soul is beyond salvation.”
Hearing that, Damon’s eyes grew even redder as he looked at Reyna’s lifeless body. It seemed that her soul had been destroyed immediately as the price for dabbling in black magic. Black smoke rose from her body. This was the end of someone who had been crushed by her own inferiority and driven herself over the edge into death.
“Surprisingly… Reyna’s body has been chosen by the curse.”
To hide the identity of the black magician who was the master of the curse, Reyna had chosen a way to silence herself forever. Ironically, however, her death became part of the price needed to break Elise’s curse.
The requirement was one death and one soul. Here, the “one death” had been fulfilled. It was the will of the curse. Now, the remaining condition—another “one soul”—was needed to fully break Elise’s curse.
“Whose soul will the curse demand?”
No one could know whose soul would satisfy the curse’s conditions.
My body felt unbelievably light.
“…Ah… did I really die this time?”
I was too afraid to open my eyes and look ahead. A sense of freedom filled me, as if the shell that had been constricting my entire body had been shed. I was afraid to open my eyes because I thought I might truly be dead this time. Afraid that I might never see Damon again.
But suddenly, the opposite feeling hit me—nausea. Even though my body felt so light, something inside my stomach began rising rapidly, as if it were the only foreign thing left within me. My upper body suddenly lifted, and something spilled out onto the floor through my mouth.
“Guh—!”
“W-What?! Lady Elise!”
A deep red liquid splattered onto the floor. It was what I had just vomited.
“Haa… ah…”
“Are you alright?”
Jeremy and Haim seemed startled as I suddenly woke up vomiting. Seeing their faces, I felt genuine relief. I was still alive.
“Oh, I’m fine. I just felt nauseous all of a sudden. I’m sorry for making a mess…”
Jeremy handed me a handkerchief, telling me not to worry. Haim instructed a servant to clean up the floor.
At that moment, the door opened, and Damon and Michael entered. My eyes grew moist. The Damon I had missed so much was approaching me. Even though we hadn’t been far apart, it felt like it had been ages. Just seeing him again filled me with overwhelming emotion.
“You’re awake? Why didn’t you sleep longer?”
“I just woke up.”
I blushed without realizing it as Damon checked my condition. I couldn’t help but feel happy receiving his concern and attention.
“Lady Elise just woke up after vomiting, as she seemed to have an upset stomach,” Jeremy explained, handing me warm water.
“What?”
Damon looked surprised and placed his hand on my forehead.
“Ah!”
I nearly made a sound. Even something as simple as his hand on my forehead felt warm and overwhelming.
“There’s no fever…”
“Perhaps she has indigestion. She did expel quite a bit of red liquid,” Jeremy added.
“Red liquid?”
“Yes, it was the color of wine.”
Damon narrowed his eyes.
“Why is that?”
Haim responded, explaining that Elise hadn’t consumed anything red since arriving at the ducal estate—especially not wine.
“…I haven’t had wine in the imperial palace either. At least not that I remember… unless it was before I lost my memory.”
At that time, that would have been before my possession of this body.
“Are you experiencing any other discomfort?”
“No, my body actually feels very light. I feel strangely good.”
At that, Michael smiled gently.
“That’s a good sign. It seems Lady Elise has a strong compatibility with divine power. Her recovery is very fast.”
Ah… so this light feeling might be due to divine power?
Then Damon looked at me with a determined expression. I felt a sudden tension—but it wasn’t tension. It was excitement.
“Lady Elise.”
“Yes?”
“There is something I must tell you. There is a reason you need to know now.”
W-What is it? I felt a hint of fear.
“We have captured the spy who placed the curse on you.”
“Really?”
Though unexpected, it was welcome news. I clasped my hands together.
“Then… can I now be freed from the curse?”
The thought of escaping that dreadful pain made my heart race with joy. But—
“Unfortunately, we have only fulfilled one of the conditions required to break the curse.”
“What do you mean? Please explain in detail.”
If the curse was broken, I would be separated from Damon. If it remained, I would continue suffering. This was a serious matter for me.
“Reyna was the spy.”
After hearing the full story, I was forced to face a harsh reality.
Why… Reyna…?
I had trusted and relied on her.
“So at present, there is no way to locate the master of the curse.”
So I couldn’t be freed after all?
Since Reyna had chosen death instead of revealing the truth, no one knew the identity of the mastermind. The unknown black magician would continue to control me.
“This was it… this was Reyna’s goal!”
And likely also the goal of the curse’s master—to ensure I could never escape them.
Suddenly overwhelmed by shock, my head began to ache and my stomach churned again.
“Sorry, I need to sit down for a moment… I feel unwell…”
Dizziness overtook me. Damon supported me as I stood.
“Ugh!”
I suddenly vomited again while staggering. Damon and Michael quickly held me on both sides. Red liquid spilled onto the floor, and black smoke rose from it.
“What… what is this?”
At that moment, my body felt even lighter than before. It felt as if I might float away. Light began emanating from my body.
“What… what is happening…?”
Suddenly, light radiated from my hands and arms. Everyone in the room stared at me.
“Could it be…?”
Michael murmured. Damon looked at me with an unreadable gaze and said,
“The curse… has been broken.”
“…What?”
Broken? What did that mean? Hadn’t one soul—the final requirement—yet to be fulfilled?
Wait.
In an instant, my entire body turned cold. The light fading from my body began to diminish.
The price of the curse: one death and one soul.
One death was Reyna.
Then… whose soul was the remaining price?
“Oh my god!”
A scream escaped my lips. Goosebumps covered my entire body. A tingling sensation spread from head to toe.
At that moment, I alone understood exactly what the remaining price of the curse was.
The “missing soul” I knew of.
Yes.
The soul used as the price to break the curse was the soul of the supporting character ‘Elise’ from the novel Empress Psyche.
