Chapter 2

Translator & Editor: Latte

“Shh, Aria. You must never speak, alright?”

Aria’s mother, Sophia, had been feeding her potions ever since she was born.

After drinking the potion, Aria was not able to say anything. She became mute.

She couldn’t even cough.

“You’re a pathetic failure who should’ve never been born!”

Aria’s expression sank.

Why did she have to be beaten and cursed by her own father?

His facial expression was one of absolute disdain. He abhorred her. To him, she was nothing but a burden on his shoulders.

‘I can speak. I have a name, too…’

She blamed her mother.

The mother who would never visit unless it was to deliver potions.

The mother who would scold her when she didn’t drink the potions.

The mother who had never read her fairy tales or sung her a lullaby.

The mother who had never even embraced her…

‘Does she even love me?’

Aria knew nothing.

She could only watch her as the days went by.

When she turned 10 that spring, she learned everything.

Sophia had passed away.

Her vocal cords were completely torn.

“She took her own life. It was said that she committed a violent crime.”

She knew of the truth only after she overheard the maids’ conversations.

Sophia tried to protect her from Count Cortez.

‘I was a Siren.…’

Siren.

Named after an ancient creature, it was an ability that ran through Sophia’s veins.

The ability to charm, lure, control, and heal others by singing.

Sirens were mythological creatures that only existed in legends.

However, 12 years ago, Count Cortez found out that they truly existed. So he kidnapped a Siren and introduced her to the  world.

That Siren was Aria’s mother.

‘Is that how I was born?’

Her whole body trembled.

The news pained her, but it was incomparable to Count Cortez’s domestic violence towards Aria.

“How dare you run away from me, you b*tch! I won’t be your nanny!”

It hurt. A lot.

That day was the worst day of her life.

Aria sat there, tears pricking her eyes, pale hands trembling with fear and sadness.

She tried to block out the screams, but it was impossible, the noise kept ripping her heart.

She felt more pain than the human body could bear and she genuinely believed she would die.

‘I have to run away.’

She had thought of escaping before.

But she was only ten years old.

Furthermore, It had only been a while since she discovered her mother’s true intentions, which were to protect her.

Suddenly, Aria let out a scream.

“Agh!”

She wailed because she couldn’t endure the pain any longer.

“Haha, yes! There’s no way that a Siren’s daughter can’t speak. How dare you try to deceive me?”

“No! Stop it!!!”

“How beautiful… like the voice of an angel, as clear and as soft as a feather….”

In the end, Aria ended up following her mother’s footsteps, living the life of a Siren.

The powerful nobles begged her to sing, offering her all of their wealth and shamelessly kissing her feet.

The secret social parties of the imperial family and aristocrats turned into a gathering to listen to the songs of the Siren.

They did terrible things.

She saw many things she shouldn’t have seen.

She heard things she shouldn’t have heard.

‘I didn’t want to know any of this…”

She prayed to God every day.

‘Please save me.’

But God never responded.

Due to her overwhelming talent, the Siren’s songs became even more popular.

The people worshipped her as if she were a deity.

They begged her to save them.

Until… the worst comes to the worst.

Rumors began to spread throughout the empire.

The Siren was rumored to be a monster, not an angel of salvation who borrowed the voice of a God.

“The legendary monster deceived all of you…,” Saintess Veronica said with teary eyes in front of the believers.

“I also got addicted to her songs and most of the palace officials went crazy. The Emperor too….”

Her tears seemed so real that the congregation in the square became agitated.

The nobles went crazy.

The emperor became a tyrant.

The empire fell to ruin.

‘And it’s all the Siren’s fault.’

The Siren was a fake.

Not a sacred being, but a horrible monster.

The real one was Veronica, the saintess from the Holy Empire.

They shouted in anger, “The imperial family is over because of the monster!”

“We must clean up the imperial palace that has become a den of heathens!”

“Be in power, oh Holy Being!”

“This is not just treason. It’s blasphemy! The Siren’s declaring a holy war!”

The benevolent saint shook her slender shoulders slightly.

War was inevitable.

She raised her head as if she had made a decision.

Their eyes rest upon golden arcing rays that fell behind Veronica’s fluttering blonde hair.

“I will save all of you.” Veronica pledged.

“Wow!”

“I will purify the palace and grant God’s grace so that no more innocent sacrifices will be made.”

Saintess Veronica.

The protagonist of a perfectly woven heroic narrative.

And Aria, the villain who ruined the empire, the root of all evil.

‘I drove them to madness? Really?’

Even Aria herself was confused.

The imperial family, the aristocrats, the commoners… They all said that it was her fault.

The war had begun.

Men and women of all ages were mobilized for war.

They were dragged unconditionally, unable to refuse the conscription.

From the street outside came a peculiar, blood-chilling sound. It was like the low snarling of many voices, and it grew louder and louder until it became a sullen, muttering roar.

The knights called the scene a ‘purification process’.

“Execute the monster!”

When the public sentiment arose, the emperor hid Aria in the depths of the palace.

“Execution? No. You have to sing like a bird for your entire life.”

Then he broke her leg, covered her mouth, and held her captive inside a small birdcage.

‘How long have I been here?’

Aria burst into tears.

“……”

This is how she dies.

She gazed upon her bloody palms and clenched her fist.

‘Yes, I’ll just die.’

Once the last remaining Siren dies, no one will have to suffer like her.

Aria gave up everything.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop her emotions from coming out of her rotten heart.

“Do you want me to kill you?”

Aria shifted her gaze to the source of the voice.

Lloyd Cardence Valentine.

The devilish Grand Duke who was said to have murdered all of his relatives and cut off their limbs at the age of 18.

Here he was, staring at a woman with a broken leg, trapped inside the emperor’s cage and dying.

“Because you called for me.”

“I called for you?”

“The Devil.”

The Grand Duke of Valentine.

A despicable tyrant like the emperor, but he was also a murderer, and he worshipped the devil.

Rumors said that he sold his bloodstained soul to the devil.

“Call me when you need me.”

“……”

“Your songs can be heard everywhere.”

It was as if the devil had offered her a contract with her soul as collateral.

‘He’ll kill us all…’

Aria was dying anyway. What else would she rather do than revenge?

A bird with a broken wing will not be able to fly again even if its cage was opened.

But at the brink of her death, Aria chose to…

“Come, sweet death.”

Call upon the devil.

The Grand Duke, who barged into the palace, murdered all those who stood in his way, with a single sword.

Everyone last one of them, all…

…except for Aria.

The screams tore through the room like a great shard of glass. They were the kind of strangled cry that belonged to those not long for this world

Every face was stained with red splatter, and limbs lay at unnatural angles underneath the light of the chandelier.

The night was filled with terror.

Aria was the only one who saw the light of salvation behind the Grand Duke’s back.

“Too bad. Could I have listened to your song one more time if I had come a little earlier?”

“……”

“I wanted to hear you singing.”

She answered slowly, “Has my song corrupted you, too?”

“No, I corrupted you.”

He picked up the finest herb leaves that had been scattered nearby in a languid manner.

Then he stuffed it into a smoking pipe and bit it in his mouth.

“Let’s go to hell together,” he said as he pressed the pipe to his red lips and puffed out a cloud of smoke.

“I apologize. If you hadn’t called me in, you could have gone to heaven.”

Hell.

The scene in front of her looked like hell.

The imperial families and nobles on the floor were lifeless. Their bodies were scattered in multiple places, stained with dried blood; crimson and the room was filled with a nasty butchershop odor.

‘Furthermore… the emperor died.’

God asked us to forgive our enemies.

Sacrifice yourself for others.

Deny yourself.

God…

But even on the verge of death, the vengeance of a devil was far too sweet.

If the price of her revenge was hell, then she was willing to pay for her sins.

“Sing, I want to sing.”

For the first time in her life. Aria wanted to sing on her own volition.

“Listen to me.”

Her voice didn’t come out well and she could barely open her lips.

But the Grand Duke was still willing to listen.

‘The Devil who took me to Hell.’

Her savior.

He held her in his arms, the pain that weighed on her heart slowly died down.

All of her senses gradually escaped from her body as she began to fall into a deep sleep and a faint smile hung around her face as she blinked her last second…

* * *

Aria had passed on.

But as the numbness of sleep slowly faded from her limbs…

‘…a floral scent.’

She smelled the scent of spring.

‘Is this… Hell?’

Her eyes opened, her eyelashes faintly batting against her lids when she blinked and she gasped in a breath.

A familiar ceiling covered her vision.

It was the attic ceiling that she had been locked up in until she was ten.

She pondered for a while, her breathing beginning to steady.

How odd she thought, there was no sharp pain in her chest anymore. It had pained her a lot when she breathed.

‘It doesn’t hurt anymore.’

She touched her face.

‘No burn marks? Why can’t I feel them…?’

She sat up, dragged her feet off the bed, and cast her eyes around her surroundings.

‘The cage is gone.’

She wasn’t locked up. She was free.

She could move her whole body freely. Her legs weren’t crippled, her wounds were gone, and she could actually speak.

‘It’s not a dream.’

Her limbs hadn’t been without pain these past few years, yet here she was, her body was perfect, younger, and healthy.

Aria jumped to her feet and ran towards a small window.

The petals, which heralded the end of winter, fluttered.

‘It’s spring.’

The spring greeted her as butterfly wings greeted the air. The sky was blue, the flowers bloomed, and the sun brought a welcoming warmth that coated her pink-calamine hair.

It was a beautiful landscape, something she thought she would never see again.

Aria reached outside the window and grabbed the petals that scattered through the air, holding them in her hands as if she were praying.

“Ah.”

She was resurrected.

The devil has given her another opportunity.

“…I can talk.”

She didn’t drink the potion because her mother had died.

The fact that she still lived in the attic meant that her father had not heard her voice.

‘Father.’

Count Cortez.

‘The one who ruined my life.’

She sought revenge then, and she will do so now.

Her revenge was all that would make her whole again.

The first thing that popped into her mind, was not the surprise of turning back in time, or the confusion regarding her unusual surroundings, rather…

It was the seven letters of revenge.

‘He must be drinking by now.’

‘He should have been drinking in that place since morning.’

Aria wanted to visit her father.

So she opened the door of the attic without hesitation and immediately headed underground.

“Gasp!”

“Goodness! You scared me.”

“What, how…?”

The maids were dumbfounded at the sight of her leaving the attic.

Aria brushed past them carelessly.

She will soon meet her so-called father in the wine cellar.

“What are you…?”

Count Cortez was too drunk to fully grasp the situation.

He was confused about Aria’s sudden appearance, and he held a wry expression.

But when Aria began to sing, his face brightened and he was soon bathed in astonishment.