Chapter 7: Light and Sin

“Philosophy… classical arrangements…”

A slender finger trailed across rows of leather-bound books.

Her toes lifted slightly as she tiptoed in a small flicker of excitement. 

Her white lace dress brushed softly against her legs, its shadow dancing over the wooden floor in muted gray.

His books are definitely.. boring, as expected.

“And…”

Her finger paused over a book slightly thicker than the rest, wrapped in dark leather. Gold letters glimmered faintly on its spine, catching her eye. A book about the place she should have called home, a place she could feel in her bones, yet could not remember.

Celeste gently slid the book free, curiosity stirring warm in her chest. Cradling it close, she crossed the room and settled onto the long sofa.

It wasn’t the history of her homeland that she sought, but rather, to know what an enemy nation would say about the place she came from, about her origin.

Splashes of that evening blurred into her mind: doubt, frustration, and that tinge of warmth tangled together. She lowered her gaze and ran her fingers slowly over the golden letters gleaming on her lap, a foreign name plastered on the cover. 

She moved her eyes towards the window, a clear beautiful spring sky painted in soft gold. Her mind wandered, imagining the taste of the fresh breeze. But all she tasted was the damp air of the drawing room, the old leather and a hint of musk. Suddenly, a mild anger and envy rose in her. 

I wonder what is the smell of the air outside, would you be able to tell me, Johannes?

Before her gaze traveled far, she let out a short exhale. A sad smile tugged on her lips. 

For hours, the drawing room filled with nothing but the hush of turning pages, paper folding, revealing, page after page, a life from an unknown eyes. 

She traveled back to places she should have known.
But this time, she walked them through eyes that were not her own, eyes of an enemy. 

Maybe it was the coldness of the room, but the memoirs of the words gave her shivers, longing and confusion. She found dissonances in the words she read to the feeling she possessed. 

Questions rose and crashed like waves, yet through it all, new feelings were born, painted like a soft blue of the sky.

Feelings that felt like.. understanding, and maybe a slight pity.

*****

What is a sin?

It is an act done knowing that something is forbidden and ridiculed, an act that deserves punishment from God.

So tell me, what are my sins?

The air smelled like rot and mud, mixed with tobacco and.. a hint of a flower. The flower that only blooms at the darkest night, the flower of death, concealing stenches of depravity. 

That was how Johannes perceived the room where he stood, the moment and the people, including himself.

The wooden ceiling loomed above him, tall and grandiose with a golden carving of an animal, a wild tiger, overseeing him and the men in uniforms. Behind the tigers stretched a seas of blossoms, the king of all blooms, the peony painted in soft pink. Golden sunlight filtered through the windows, catching the gilded carving. In that moment, the tiger was alive, fur golden, eyes staring fiercely, like a judge. 

He lifted his head and stared into the eyes of the tiger.  

Are you my judge today? or am I your witness?

At the center stood an empty wooden chair of matching elegance, hollow above the pedestal. Below it. two distinctive groups faced one another, one that he identified as his own people and the others, the Seiryans, or to be exact, the betrayers of the monarch, people like him and his father.  

“We have waited for your arrival, Major.” a deep voice of a man pierced the silent hall with full authority. The man who carried the same ocean-colored eyes as his. 

Johannes offered a short salute to his father, then stepped forward with his subordinate. His boots struck the wooden hall, carrying him towards the place he belonged, the side he had born to stand with.

All eyes fell on the shining ornaments arranged on a marble table: a jade thumb ring with inscriptions, a sword, and his golden blooming peony on a jade hairpin. The shadow of the sun loomed over the gleaming objects.

Yet everyone knew it was more fitting to name them death offerings.

“I hereby confirm these items are real and owned by the royal family.”

The low voice of an older man dissolved the tension in the room, but only briefly. He wore a long robe, a relic of the past. His steps were frail yet dignified, and his eyes held strength and wisdom built through the years. When he stepped back, the hall seemed to exhale, only to tighten again.

Johannes stood still, hands behind his back, watching the man retreat. Watching the last remnant of the old Seirya walk away.

He felt his father’s gaze even before Albrecht spoke.

“Then we have fulfilled the other end of the deal.”

Albrecht stood before the marble table, his shadow swallowing the ornaments whole.

“It is your turn to fulfill your end of the deal.”

A deliberate pause that acted like a warning.

Johannes didn’t look at him, but he felt the weight of his father’s stillness, the way the man never needed to raise his voice to dominate a room.

Albrecht stared at the Seiryans before him. All were clothed in Seiryan military uniforms, yet none of them wore the crescent of the monarchs. They were men like him, men who had brought down the sun.

The revolutionaries, those who would bring a new era for Albrecht in a country that had long been hidden in secrecy.

He pulled a smile on his lips, his eyes never faltered away from his opponent. 

“Reopen the path to the Kazen River.” Albrecht’s voice cut like steel. His military pendants glowed under the sun, as though answering a call.

Johannes studied him quietly.

This man who did not have the word stop in his dictionary.

His role model and nightmare. 

“The access shall be opened the moment we finish transferring the ownership of the crowns to ours,” the middle-aged man who stood at the front of the Seiryan group finally spoke. His dark hair was tied into a high bun, the gesture precise, disciplined.

“And how long does that take?”

“A bit while.”

A scoff sliced the air like a stream of cold water.

Johannes didn’t need to look to know it came from Albrecht. His father had no patience for hesitation. Especially not when victory sat within reach.

“Then there is no deal between us, Chancellor.”

The air around them thickens, suffocating. The sun shone on the golden tiger, its eyes felt like a sting against Johannes skin. He instinctively moved his hand around the cold metal on his side pocket, the chill steadying him as the pressure in the hall closed in. 

*****

The night chimed in as the sky turned a deeper shade of blue. 

The moon loomed low, yet the birds continued to sing their melody, a sign that spring was truly here.

Celeste took her steps toward the dining room that sat precisely beside the drawing room where she had spent most of her hours that afternoon.

The dining room was simple, with white wooden cabinets and a ceiling lamp of golden brass that shone with a warm glow. On the wooden table painted in soft green, a single dining plate was placed near one of the chairs. As she crossed the threshold, she realized how large the room felt.

Celeste pulled the chair and sat on the cushion. 

“Are you ready for dinner, Lady Celeste?”

Mary appeared from the kitchen carrying a bowl of warm soup. She wore a knitted shawl around her neck to guard against the lingering cold.

“I apologize for being late…” a pause, “Mary…”

“Don’t you apologize, my lady,” a smile tugged at her gentle face, wrinkles deepening around her eyes.

“And please be comfortable calling me Mary,” she continued.

Mary lowered the bowl onto the plate.
The mist rising from the soup called to the forgotten hunger inside Celeste.

Though she had lived in this villa for almost a month, most of her conversations with the household had been inept and shallow, perhaps with the exception of the infuriating man who summoned her from time to time.

She knew she had been living inside a cage of her own making.
She had rejected the world she now lived in. But now…

“Thank you, Mary, for the soup.”
“Would you be kind enough to sit and share dinner with me?”

Her tone was gentle, her heart reaching out to another soul. The gesture brought a flicker of surprise to the old maid’s eyes.

Mary had watched over the young lady since her arrival.

The first time Celeste opened her eyes had been a chaotic moment for everyone, yet what Mary saw in her was nothing but emptiness and frustration, a beautiful mannequin that had lost her memory.

But that young lady had slowly begun to bloom into a beautiful flower, as if she sensed that spring had finally arrived.

“I am not sure you would find any enjoyment dining with an old lady like me.”
A careful refusal, delivered with gentle humility. Yet Celeste did not back down.

“That is not true, Mary.” 

She paused before delivering her next words. 

“It’s just… the room feels a little bit… too empty.” 

She found herself murmuring the final word, feeling as though she had bared her soul for anyone to prey upon.

A pang of pity stirred inside Mary’s chest.

She had forgotten that a blooming flower still needed a warm breeze and water to grow.
She could not survive alone.

A sense of guilt settled upon her.

Mary had never questioned her duty. She had lived her entire life serving the Eisenwald family through their fame and their ruin. Even when the family was ridiculed by the nobility for betraying their own kin, she had chosen to stay.

To her, Celeste had simply been another responsibility to tend to, a young lady she must care for until fate decided otherwise. Yet…

She walked slowly to the other side of the table.

“If you can find solace in this old woman, then I shall share what I have with you, Lady Celeste.”

In that moment, the smile on Mary’s gentle face stirred something ancient inside Celeste,
a memory of a woman she once knew. 

Sorrow and warmth filled her chest, for she somehow understood that she no longer breathed in the same universe.

Her heart both wrenched and softened as she waited for Mary’s return.

Moments later, the old woman came back carrying another bowl of warm soup. 

She settled into the chair beside her, and together they dined beneath the gentle glow of the brass lamp. The quiet steady clinking of silver spoons became their shared rhythm.

“Mary,” Celeste murmured at last, “would you mind telling me… how long have you worked for Johannes?”

Mary’s spoon halted.

Her gray eyes lowered to the soup, the steam rising like the ghosts of years she alone remembered. Her gaze drifted deep crossing the realm of time. 

“Long enough, Lady Celeste.”
A faint smile unfurled on her lips, touched by old storms, old joys.

In that moment, inside her eyes, she saw a gentle woman softening beneath evening light, her gray eyes illuminated by kindness and quiet pride. Nothing in her bore the hardness of an enemy.
An irony that carved a sad smile on Celeste’s lips.

No, her memories had not returned.
But now she understood a little better who she might have been in the eyes of the people of Falkenreich.

A backward society, hidden in seclusion.
Stubborn, yet afraid of change, afraid of anything different than them..

And ironically, she could neither embrace nor deny the full truth.
For she, too, was afraid..
afraid of change, afraid of being the foreign piece in a world larger, louder, brighter than her own.

But..

“Mary…” She turned slightly, seeking the woman’s steady presence.

“Would you tell me your favorite story of Johannes?”
“I might… need it. Something to use against him when he returns.”

Her tone held playfulness, yet beneath it lingered another desire,
to prove to herself she was not merely a remnant of memories reflected through someone else’s eyes. 

Here, in this quiet villa at the edge of spring, she wished to learn, to breathe, to grow
outside the cage she had built around her fear.

The white canvas of her heart was slowly filling with new shades, the soft blue sky, a color that sometimes reminded her of his eyes.

Mary let out a soft, warm laugh.
“I do not know whether the young master would be delighted or disturbed, my lady.”
“Perhaps both. And perhaps that would be good for him to have a small joy in his lonely life.”

*****

The car drifted along the muddy road that cut through a vast plain of forest. The moon loomed bright in the sky, its silver light filtering into the car,  flickering across his closed eyes like a dancing flame.

With every passing shadow on his eyelids, memories unraveled like an old gramophone spinning back to life.

“We need your assistance to find one more person, General.” 

A bold request met with a scoff from his father, patience thinning in the air.

“Since when did we become your dog, Chancellor?”

The Seiryan revolutionaries knew well that the man before them was not one to be provoked.
And yet, they pressed forward with their next chess piece, their pride and stubbornness
brought uncannily reminiscent of a certain woman.

“No, General. This is a bargain none of us can afford to lose.”
“This man will determine the long-term success of our coup.”
The Chancellor’s tone remained composed, but everyone heard the deliberate weight he placed on that one word.

“We would never ask for your help if he were still in our land. But we received news that he has crossed the border into Elyndra.”

“Thus, we request your authority to find him and return him to us. Alive.”
“And the access to Kaizen River will be yours…”  a deliberate pause 

“including all future operations on that land.”

“Isn’t that the reason you came here, General?”

Like men well-versed in striking deals, the reformists did not waver.
Johannes silently applauded their courage to face the wolf; he knew his father appreciated a formidable partner.

He opened his heavy eyelids; the moon gleamed sharply against his vision.

Soren Yulane.
The man born to be the shield of the monarch.

“That will be your new task, Major.”
“On top of your main task, of course.”

The deal between the two factions settled once more, sealed with fragile trust stretched thin between them.
His father agreed to aid the Seiryans so long as he was allowed to begin future operations by sending soldiers from Falkenreich to the Kaizen border.

“Yes, General.”
His boots echoed against the cold stone as he saluted his father in farewell.

Before Albrecht stepped into his car, he halted and gave one long, unreadable look at his only son.

“Do not disappoint me, Johannes.”

The last expression he saw on his father’s face was indifference.

“Yes, Father.”

But he knew the man too well to mistake the weight beneath it, the crushing expectation settling on his shoulders.

“Major, should we stop by the villa, or proceed directly to the capital?”

The voice of his subordinate halted the spinning gramophone of thoughts.
Johannes shifted his gaze to the passing forest, the moon slipping behind budding branches, shadows casting themselves across his face and deepening his darkened eyes.

Like a moth drawn to the light,

The car drifted through the night until it finally stopped before a remote villa,
its walls painted a stark and lonely white.

That was my sin.

*****

Author’s note:

Thank you for reading chapter 7. Please don’t forget to vote the chapter or leave comments and review. I will be waiting for your feedback 🙂

The world of Johannes and Reina is a fictional one, inspired by early 20th-century Europe. During this era, many nations were consumed by war and friends often became foes. It was a time of upheaval when many monarchies fell and countries transitioned into republics. To this day, the scars of those wars can still be felt across Europe.

So what do you think of Johannes and Celeste’s relationship? What do you believe is Johannes’s biggest sin?