King Surajaya stood frozen in the doorway, watching as his daughter fled down the corridor, her shoulders shaking with sobs. The sound of her tears cut through him like a blade, leaving him feeling hollow and uncertain—emotions he had not known in decades of rule.Could my daughter truly have dreamed of my tragic end? he wondered, his mind swirling with doubt. Or is this merely a clever ploy to make me abandon the pleasures that keep my strength sharp?For long moments, he stood lost in thought, his usual confidence crumbling beneath the weight of Larasati’s words. Though he had dismissed her fears as foolishness, a seed of unease had been planted in his heart. At last, he made up his mind—he would seek out the palace seer, Ki Jalandra, and ask him to look into the matter. Perhaps the old man could shed light on whether the dream was a warning or merely the product of his daughter’s overactive imagination.With heavy steps, Surajaya made his way through the palace’s winding corridors,

Ki Jalandra offered a thin smile, the lines on his weathered cheeks deepening with the effort. “I knew full well Your Majesty could never bring yourself to accept the first condition,” he said gently. “Thus, last night I beseeched my master for an alternative path—a way to alter fate without demanding such a terrible sacrifice.”“Speak quickly, Ki!” Surajaya roared, slamming his fist against the desk once more. “I have no patience for delays—I feel my very life hanging in the balance!”“The second condition, Your Majesty, requires you to unite with twenty-one virgin maidens, all between the ages of seventeen and twenty, within five days’ time,” the seer explained, his voice heavy with regret. “And after each union, you must take their lives and drink one cup of their blood.”A wave of relief washed over the King, though his mind still reeled with worry over his daughter’s pleas. He could easily gather twenty-one maidens in a day or two—his guards had done so before, though never with

“So many soldiers patrol the streets outside—you will never make it out of this village unnoticed,” Setiaji said to Ratih, his eyes scanning the pile of fallen guards within the room. The former warrior’s gaze lingered on each body, his mind working swiftly to forge a path to safety.“What are you thinking, Uncle?” Ratih asked, noticing the calculating look in his eyes.“Nothing good—but it is our only hope,” he replied, stepping toward one of the soldier’s corpses—its uniform stained with only a few splatters of blood, still largely intact. “We must disguise ourselves. Some of us will need to pass as King’s men—and that includes you, my dear.”He gestured to the cleanest uniform. “You will wear this. Go to my room now and wait—I will prepare the garments first.”Ratih understood at once. She could not stay to watch as he stripped the uniforms from the dead, so she hurried from the room and into his quarters, closing the door behind her to give him privacy.A short while later, a soft

In the blink of an eye, Setiaji’s company scattered like leaves before a gale. Each member moved with silent purpose, their eyes scanning the forest floor and canopy for trees thick enough to shield their forms, or undergrowth dense enough to swallow them whole. The ancient woods of Kalingga were vast and wild, and in its depths, even a band of men could vanish like smoke if they knew where to hide.Setiaji himself, alongside Ratih, slipped behind a massive thicket of thorny brush—its branches woven so tightly together that not even a shaft of sunlight could pierce through to the ground below. From their concealed vantage, they peered out between the leaves, their gazes fixed on the direction from which Setiaji had sensed approaching hoofbeats. He had guessed correctly that these riders belonged to the royal forces of Kalingga, and now every muscle in his body was coiled tight as a spring.The mounted company—some fifteen strong, their armor gleaming like polished silver beneath the d

After riding for what felt like hours through the winding paths of the forest, they at last reached their destination—a structure of considerable size, its stone walls weathered by time and gnawed at by countless generations of termites. Thickets of thorny brush clawed at its foundations, while vines as thick as a man’s arm crept across its facade, draping the windows and doorways in a tangled curtain of green. Moss grew in dark patches across the crumbling mortar, and the air around it carried the scent of damp earth and decay—a smell that spoke of long years of abandonment.Setiaji’s face broke into a warm smile as he looked upon the building. “A most remarkable hiding place,” he said, his voice echoing softly in the quiet of the woods. “No soul in all Kalingga would ever suspect that human hands dwell within these walls. The very appearance of it repels all who might draw near—they see only ruin, not refuge.”“Let the exterior remain as it is,” Jaya replied, his eyes sweeping over