Grant Me Your Grace

Little Dahlia was familiar with the holes in the walls, just the right size for a small eight-year-old to slip through.

Once outside the northern walls, she ran across the vast desert.

The scorching sun had long since disappeared into the arms of the Nuit goddess, and the desert was a vast expanse of flesh-chilling cold and throat-cracking sand.

“Ugh…!”

A gust of wind blew past her, as if someone was pushing her. 

Stopping in her tracks, Dahlia covered her face with her arms. 

The wind was so strong that every breath she took felt like it was ripping her throat open. 

Covering her nose with her sleeve, she looked around, barely breathing.

The desert was hard to navigate without a compass, as one gust of wind could change the entire landscape around her. 

The farther she traveled from the city walls, the less certain she was that she was in the right place.

“Hey, if you can hear me, answer me. Hey!”

Dahlia called out to a boy she didn’t even know the name of. 

She made a hand trumpet and shouted loudly, but there was no answer. Instead, only the sandy wind stole her delicate voice and carried it away.

“Uh…!”

Another gust of wind blew in. Dahlia quickly turned her back and covered her face. The thought of a sandstorm sent a shiver down her spine.

I shouldn’t have come out here. If a sandstorm starts, I won’t be safe.

‘Should I go back to the palace…’

That Moment.

“Urgh, cough…!”

A small cough came from somewhere. It was so faint that if she didn’t listen closely, she’d miss it.

Dahlia’s keen ears caught sight of something wriggling in the darkness. She rushed toward it.

A boy was half-buried in the sand.

“Hey!”

Dahlia sucked in a short breath and looked at the boy. The wind-blown sand had settled over the boy’s body as he lay on his stomach.

Gritting her teeth, Dahlia barely managed to roll him over. But when she got a good look at the boy, she stumbled back in surprise.

The boy’s body was covered in horrific wounds. 

There were cuts and scratches everywhere, long gaping wounds that looked like they’d been inflicted by a whip, and several black, red bruises that looked like they’d been beaten.

“Hey… wake up. Hey.”

Clutching his quivering frame, Dahlia managed to pull herself up and gently shake him. He groaned softly, but his eyes didn’t open with ease. 

His chest, breathing heavily, rose and fell precariously as if it might snap at any moment.

The torn, ragged clothes clung to the boy’s chest in a bloody tangle, and another fresh pool of blood pulsed beneath them.

“Come on, kid, wake up. Open your eyes…”

Dahlia cried, shaking the boy. The boy groaned softly, thankfully, as the pain brought him to a distant consciousness.

She was relieved to see that he wasn’t dead.

“Ah!”

The boy was on top of her in an instant, pressing a sharp piece of desert rock against Dahlia’s throat. The boy gasped wildly, his eyes burning fiercely.

“Don’t touch me, ever. Before I kill you…”

Dahlia moaned softly at the sharp pain pressing against her flesh. She tried to push him away, but his body, a head taller than her own, refused to budge.

“Are you here to get me, to drag me back to that hell?”

The boy growled like a feral animal.

But Dahlia could vaguely tell it wasn’t real anger. Right now, the boy was masking his fear of death with anger.

“I’m not… I’m not here to capture you. I’m here to help.”

“You liar!”

The boy pressed a sharp stone to Dahlia’s throat. His glowing eyes darted to Dahlia’s diamond headpiece.

“You’re a royal!”

This time, the fury was directed squarely at Dahlia. 

His country had been destroyed by Emperor Khankundra, so it was only natural that he would hate someone of his kind.

Dahlia shook her head and said, “I am here to help you.”

“Because of you, because you killed Janna…!”

Gritting his teeth, the boy held up the arm holding the stone.

“Ugh…”

But his wounded body finally collapsed back down.

“Hey, hey!”

Barely free of the boy, Dahlia looked up at him, breathing lightly.

What should I do now? 

She had run after him, wanting to save him, but she didn’t know exactly what to do.

Taking the boy inside the city walls would put him in the dungeons. There he would be tortured to death again.

But I couldn’t leave him like this. 

Somehow, I knew I shouldn’t. Perhaps it was just compassion, but she simply couldn’t watch the boy die in front of her eyes.

All she wanted to do was save him.

‘What should I do? How can I…’

Dahlia was at a loss for words when she picked up the fallen boy.

“Ugh…!”

Suddenly, her body began to heat up. It started in the center of her chest and spread to her hands, feet, and head, as if she were being bathed in hot water.

Panting and breathing heavily, a thought suddenly entered her mind.

‘I must give this child… my blood.’ 

And when I say ‘a thought came into my head,’ I mean that it came out of nowhere. It was as if the contents of a book I hadn’t read entered my mind.

It was such a natural and mysterious experience that Dahlia’s mind was like a flame, and she concentrated on her thoughts.

Her eyes caught the sharp stone in the boy’s hand, and there was no time to waste. Even now, the boy’s breath was growing thinner by the second.

She pulled the stone from the boy’s hand and made a long slash across her right palm. The long gash quickly oozed blood.

I winced at the pain, but I wasn’t afraid, just vaguely aware that this hot, flowing blood wasn’t the same as before.

Dahlia picked the boy up. Then she opened the boy’s mouth and carefully poured the blood into it. The boy didn’t even move at first, but as it flowed into his mouth, he instinctively swallowed it.

At that moment, the cuts, and bruises covering the boy’s body began to disappear rapidly. 

Unable to believe her eyes, Dahlia gaped as she watched the boy recover.

She squeezed her right hand, and more blood flowed out. As expected, the more the boy swallowed, the faster the wound healed.

Finally, the boy’s body was cleansed.

“Thank heavens…”

I smiled in relief at the boy’s recovery.

“Ah… Argh!”

Dahlia began to shudder at the sudden, simultaneous pains that shot through her body. 

Her head ached like it was going to split, her flesh tingled like she’d been cut by something, and she felt a tremendous dull ache in each of her arms and legs, like a broken bone.

At the same time, red spots began to appear on her body. The spots quickly covered Dahlia’s entire body.

As Dahlia struggled against the horrible change in her skin and the excruciating pain, the desert suddenly turned into a thick, muddy pool that slowly began to engulf her body.

“Aaah, help me. Please help me… It hurts so much. It hurts. Hmph…”

Dahlia struggled to pull herself out of the mud. 

But even the slightest movement caused her body to crumble in pain, and she couldn’t struggle much.

Looking up, she could see the boy regaining consciousness beyond the mud. Dahlia stretched out her trembling arms toward him.

“Help me. Please…”

She couldn’t make out the boy’s face, not sure if the light of the moon had faded or if the pain had blurred her vision.

The only thing I knew was that the boy was peering over the edge of the water.

“Please…”

Dahlia pleaded one more time, and the boy grabbed her hand, the sand from his palm embedded in the still-unhealed wound.

“That’s right.”

The boy stroked his thumb over the gaping wound in Dahlia’s palm and looked down at her with cold eyes.

“You shouldn’t have saved me.”

With his words, Dahlia was swallowed by the mud.