When the Black Moon Rises - Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The cold stone floor. The severed heads of her mother, father, and brothers rolling across it. The executioner kicking the blood-soaked remains aside.
“Aaaaaah!”
Ju Sehwa couldn't even breathe properly.
She screamed at the Clan Head, Ju Kyunghyun, and Sa Yeonju, who sat beside him, watching her.
“Is this the reward for fulfilling my duty as a member of this clan? Who will ever try to fulfill their duty for you again!”
Ju Kyunghyun’s lips moved dismissively.
“You were merely fulfilling your duty, and I am merely fulfilling mine.”
“Is the Clan Head’s duty to harm the clan’s loyal subjects and murder his own betrothed, who has contributed more than anyone to this clan's survival and prosperity for twelve years?”
“Ha! To hear you say such things is truly laughable. To call yourself my betrothed with your own lips. How shameless.”
Mocking laughter erupted from the dais.
“Sister, you are sorely mistaken about something. You didn't stay in the Baek Clan as an important figure of the Ju Clan. You were offered as a tribute to the six clans, with the Baek Clan at the forefront, as a symbol of the end of the war.”
“……!”
Sa Yeonju, her face twisted with malice, rose to answer.
“Betrothed? Who knows what you endured there. No, who knows what you did to survive so long in enemy territory? Why would we seat you, someone like that, in the position of the Clan Head’s wife? It’s absurd that you’re the only one who didn’t realize this obvious fact.”
“……You,”
“If it were me, the day I was chased out of the Baek Clan and returned here, I would have taken my own life to protect my parents’ honor. Or I would have died on the first day I arrived at the Baek Clan to uphold my integrity. Yet you’re alive and spouting such nonsense. Don’t you have any shame?”
Clan Head Ju Kyunghyun chimed in, leaving no room for argument.
“Besides, the executioner has already announced the just reasons for the punishment given to you and your family. Do you not remember?”
“You’re the only ones who would remember such shoddy excuses! Now I understand why you’ve ended up like this today.”
Laughter burst from her lips as well.
“How dare you use the word ‘tribute’? As if the Ju Clan has been under the rule of the six clans since ancient times, so utterly subservient. The reparations were merely reparations, and even if the clan's power dwindled and became precarious, the enemy is still the enemy. You sit in the position of Clan Head with such slavish thoughts?”
She was so dumbfounded she couldn't even speak properly.
“And colluding with the Baek Clan to tarnish the clan’s prestige?”
Her father, who was murdered today, was the one who most bravely defended the front lines against the Baek Clan's attacks for over a decade.
When no other members of the bloodline, not even the elders, fulfilled their duty, her brothers and father participated in the war without thought for their own succession, leading the warriors as commanders.
She, too, went to the Baek Clan to fulfill her duty as the Clan Head’s betrothed, enduring tasks filled with shame and humiliation.
And this is the reward?
“Then what have you done, Ju Kyunghyun? For that long time, you were afraid of the Baek Clan and ran away from all duties, hiding yourself away, and yet you have the gall to speak? Your face is too thick by far. And with that, you massacre the family of a loyal subject and heap disgrace upon them?”
Ju Kyunghyun’s hand gripping the armrest tightened.
He commanded coldly, his teeth gritted, “Enough of your words. I don’t want to hear them. Execute the sentence immediately.”
“Do you think the other members of the Ju Clan don’t know who is responsible for the Ju Clan’s current state? Who is responsible for the humiliation of falling from the position of the leader of the seven clans, a position held since time immemorial, and losing the title of the Mystic Ruler?”
Ju Sehwa laughed loudly.
“Yes. You know it yourself, don't you?”
Ju Kyunghyun’s jaw clenched.
“You merely want to pretend it’s not all your fault. To pretend it’s not the fault of the lazy and complacent past Clan Heads and lords. To pretend it’s not because of your own cowardly escape! You need an innocent victim so you can pathetically reassure yourself that it wasn't your fault!”
“You!!”
Clan Head Ju Kyunghyun slammed his hand down on the armrest and rose, his face contorted.
How dare she!
How dare she speak such words in his presence!
Even if all the members of the bloodline thought so!
Even today, when the Ju Clan had lost its dignity as the leader of the seven clans, when they had been stripped of the title of the Mystic Ruler, when the Clan Head had lost his authority.
No one dared to deny the great history of the Ju Clan and the prestige of the past Clan Heads who had protected it. No one!
“You don’t know the grace of leniency and wag your insolent tongue.”
Ju Kyunghyun’s lips pressed into a hard line. Veins stood out on his fists, clenched so tightly they seemed about to burst.
“You are inviting your own suffering.”
“Just kill me quickly, Clan Head. Or have my tongue cut out.”
“Yes. The guillotine is too light a punishment for you. Guards! Bring the Fatal Fragment poison for this impudent traitor who claims to have dedicated herself to you!”
At those words, the elders surrounding the execution grounds all gasped.
The Fatal Fragment poison?
It was an extremely potent poison that slowly dissolved the organs, eventually carving the body into a thousand pieces, making the victim writhe in agony for a very long time before death.
Hearing that name, Sa Yeonju alone laughed loudly.
With bloodshot eyes, Ju Kyunghyun slowly descended from the high platform.
Hair as dark as a strand of night. Deep eyes and exquisitely handsome features she had once longed to gaze upon forever.
Remembering Sa Yeonju's laughter ringing in her ears, Ju Sehwa stared straight at Ju Kyunghyun’s face, the face that had once captivated her heart.
She mustn't forget that face.
Even if she was reborn, she would remember it and take her revenge.
Ju Kyunghyun approached her and looked down at her bound form. The anger in his gaze made her feel a small measure of satisfaction.
“Confess your sins and repent. Acknowledge your wrongdoings in a loud voice in this place and beg at my feet. Then I will allow you to die the same way as your family, instead of by the Fatal Fragment.”
“Go to hell, you petty man.”
“Ju Sehwa!”
“If there is an afterlife, I will surely kill you in the most brutal way imaginable.”
Ju Sehwa whispered, remembering everyone present.
“You and the elders. The members of the bloodline who stood by and pushed my family to their deaths. Even that beautiful cousin of mine sitting next to you. Everyone involved in this execution, men and women, old and young, should not expect any mercy from me.”
“She is beyond reason.”
Meanwhile, someone quickly approached and reported something in Ju Kyunghyun’s ear.
“The Baek Clan’s… Dan is now… under the Mystic Ruler’s order… regarding the traitor….”
“Who is the Mystic Ruler, who?!”
Ju Kyunghyun’s face twisted fiercely, and he slapped the person who delivered the message hard across the cheek.
“How dare a person from the Ju Clan refer to that filthy traitor as the Mystic Ruler!”
That title was only permitted to the Ju Clan’s Clan Head!
“Is the Fatal Fragment not here yet!”
The executioner came running, panting, and presented a tray to Ju Kyunghyun.
On the tray, a small wine cup held a black liquid.
“Drink it before we pour it down your throat!”
One of the warriors holding her down released her restraints to prevent resistance. However, only her hands were free; she still couldn't move her body.
Pretending to resign herself, she lowered her head and reached out her arm. And as if to take the cup, she struck the tray hard.
Clang!
“Clan Head!”
As intended, the poison splattered towards Ju Kyunghyun, but this last act of defiance was also thwarted by the warriors protecting him.
Ju Kyunghyun, his anger plain on his face, shouted at the executioner.
“Pour it down!”
“I will definitely kill you all. I will not forgive a single one of you in this bloodline, just as you did to my family!”
“Someone shut her mouth!”
At the same moment, one of the warriors holding her shoulders struck Ju Sehwa’s cheek hard.
Thwack!
A tooth came loose, and her mouth filled with the taste of blood.
Once again, Sa Yeonju’s long laughter echoed through the execution grounds.
Ju Sehwa, even in pain, did not close her eyes, glaring at her hateful enemies.
Meanwhile, the executioner hurriedly returned with another cup of the Fatal Fragment.
The warriors holding her down forcibly opened her mouth and poured the deadly poison down her throat.
“……!”
The color drained from Ju Sehwa’s face.
From the moment the black liquid touched her tongue, an uncontrollably intense pain surged through her. It was a pain she had never experienced before, even after enduring five years of brutal torture.
Though she writhed miserably on the floor, she didn't want to scream, so she bit her own tongue to stop any sound from escaping.
Ju Kyunghyun chuckled coldly.
“Serves you right. Guards! Display the heads of this traitorous group in the plaza, tear their bodies into pieces, and throw them into the dog kennels!”
But her efforts ended there.
She wanted to keep watching the faces of her enemies as they turned away.
The members of the Ju Clan who had gathered to watch the execution of her father and brothers, who had dedicated their lives to the clan, and her mother, whom she hadn't been able to contact properly even after sending them all to the battlefield.
The distant relatives who hadn't helped them but had instead been eager to seize her position to place their own daughters in the Clan Head’s favor.
She wanted to remember the faces of all these members of the bloodline, but the pain, as if her bones were being scraped and her flesh torn, made it impossible.
She crawled on the floor like an insect, resenting everyone.
In truth, she knew it too.
The person she resented the most was herself.
“It’s because of you that they’re all dying. Your whole family.”
That’s why those words hurt so much.
Her lips, pale and cracked like a corpse’s, moved slightly.
“……If I could ……go back.”
If there was an afterlife.
If she was granted just one more chance.
She would never let that man into her heart again.
That alone would surely change so much.
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