Chapter 12….
The Princess of Mirage Meets the Demon King.
After a while, Felicia regained her composure. Taking a deep breath, she slowly opened her eyes. She met the crimson gaze looking down at her with concern and spoke.
“Thank you for saving me. I am Felicia de Duplar, eldest daughter of the Marquis of Duplar.”
The figure wearing a mask shaped like a goat’s skull — like that of a demon — closed his eyes for a moment, hesitating in silence. Then, he opened them again and answered in a low voice.
“—Yoan. Yoan de la Dumerque.”
“Lord Yoan…”
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but when she tried to recall where she had heard it, a dull pain struck her head.
Seeing Felicia wince, the red eyes wavered with worry, and his grip on her hand tightened.
“Does it hurt? You shouldn’t move your head.”
(I must have hit my head back then…)
Her memories were still a little muddled. Her head throbbed as she tried to piece things together.
Crimson eyes. A goat’s skull mask. The place where the carriage was attacked — it was in the forest that marked the border between her kingdom, Rubellite, and the neighboring country…
“‘The Demon King’…?”
The words slipped from her lips before she could stop them.
Duke Yoan de la Dumerque.
That was the name of the man feared as “The Demon King,” said to reside in an ancient castle deep within the border forest separating the Chalcedony Empire and the Rubellite Kingdom.
As Felicia’s fragmented memories finally connected, she raised her eyes once again to meet the gaze behind the mask.
The Demon King, draped in garments as dark as the void, was holding her hand.
“Forgive my rudeness, Your Grace, Duke Dumerque.”
When Felicia tried to rise and bow, the Demon King stopped her.
“I told you not to move your head. There’s no need for such formalities. Yes… ‘Demon King’—apparently that’s what they call me.”
Though she could not see his expression beneath the demonic mask, his hand was gentle — almost tender, as if cherishing her.
(So this is the castle of His Grace, the Demon King… Duke Dumerque.)
The crimson eyes behind the mask wavered slightly under Felicia’s earnest gaze.
This man, called the “Demon King,” was the much younger half-brother of the king himself. Among the royal family blessed with magic, he was born with power that far surpassed the rest. Because of his blood-red eyes and overwhelming magical strength, people feared him as something more demon than man — and so he came to be known as the “Demon King.”
He secluded himself in an ancient castle deep in the monster-infested forest, shunning all human contact. Those who displeased him were said to be erased by his magic. From time to time, horrifying roars — like those from the depths of hell — echoed from the forest, and so people avoided it in terror.
That was all Felicia had ever learned about the “Demon King” during her education as a future queen.
Though Duke Yoan was only two years older than Crown Prince Alexis, he was, in fact, Alexis’s uncle. Yet Felicia had never met him before, nor had she ever heard Alexis speak of him. She had only heard terrifying rumors — but the man before her, despite his unsettling mask, radiated none of the dreadful aura those stories had described.
