Chapter 54

A few minutes later, he fell asleep with the drug which his butler put in it. When the emperor confirmed the boy's state, the maids locked his private room for the meantime until the ministers and counselors had departed.

Toren woke up again during the young nightfall and saw the crescent moon angrily pulsating like a wild beating heart.

It seemed like the darkness had held captive the silver moon across its landscape, locking and holding it in. Toren brushed this off and concluded that he must only be hallucinating.

The next day, Toren joined the mass gathering that was led by a priestess for a routine prayer meeting late in the afternoon.

He noticed the absence of a few people that were always at the side column such as his father Muren and his brother Coen.

The candles were lit up and the opening rites had begun.

Heaven, today, was discussed as a beautiful paradise.

It was depicted as an ideal world above the firmaments of the skies with the lush trees swaying with chilly breeze and ephemeral flower petals. The ground is soft with vapor and clouds, the rivers and waterfalls flowing smoothly and cleanly, the sculpted hills and mountaintops are wondrous, and the angels are singing lullabies.

A deity will welcome a lonely and distressed soul to such warmth and comfort.

In that place, you do not have to worry about a single thing just as much as you have worried on earth.

All your anxieties and pain and loneliness shall vanish in the ethereal world.

There will be no wars, political conflicts, businesses, disorder, and sickness over there.

Only kindness and peace exists in that place.

If such an asymmetrical world actually exists, Toren thought, he wondered if he could paint it or paint in it.

There were a lot more curious things which popped up in his mind and the prayers were not properly recited. He was completely swallowed at his own circling thoughts.

At night, he slept restlessly.

Was it the unaired beds? The uneasiness he had been always feeling? The time flowing endlessly? The heaven that was depicted by the priestess earlier?

There was something bothering him at night, which he decided to shrug off as he kept his eyes shut.

He remained in wordless darkness, waiting for his consciousness to drift into nothingness.

Soon, with struggle and an ounce of desperation, he had arrived to his dream world, but things felt strange.

Had he been transported in a completely different realm, things would feel quite normal.

However, his wobbly mind brought him to the same place – inside his room where the moon was visible through the window.

The crescent moon had filled itself up to a full one, still vehemently throbbing alive. The next moment, the round full moon had turned into a bloody orb hanging against the black sky and across the twinkling stars.

It had truly turned into an angry hue, dripping with crimson lights and illuminating bright red shade.

Toren put the tip of his tongue between his cold teeth and hurriedly hurt himself until he woke up.

His heart almost stopped beating when he saw the crimson moon above.