Portrait of An Arrogant Master - Chapter 1
“Gasp, hah. hah.”
Macy felt her lungs fill to the brim. Pushing through the underbrush had left her skin raw and stinging. The sky was bleeding dangerous hues of red, and the acrid smoke surrounding her made her throat burn fiercely.
“Why… why… no, it can’t be.”
As she neared her destination, the crackling sound of burning grew sharper, embedding itself in her ears like thorns.
Despite her prayers repeating “it can’t be,” by the time she arrived, the cabin was perilously engulfed in fierce flames. The trees twisted grotesquely like statues from hell, screaming in agony. But the fire knew no bounds and spread relentlessly.
“Have you just arrived?”
Out of the ruins, a dark silhouette emerged.
The heat blurred her vision, but his voice was unmistakable. Black hair like the night sky and icy aquamarine eyes.
Eren Wood, her master, as beautiful as a sculpture. His hair, mingling with the ashes, fluttered in the wind. His clothes, draped over broad shoulders, were surprisingly intact for having emerged from the ashes.
“Why are you… coming out from there?”
There were no burns on him. She was more confused than concerned. He spoke with a hint of a smile in his voice.
“Because I started the fire.”
“What?”
“Sorry about that. I meant to light a cigar but accidentally dropped it.”
A mistake? Was she hearing this right?
“What about my paintings?”
There could have been flammable materials nearby—old carpets, curtains wrapping the windows, or the soft bedding they shared.
And besides…
His nonchalant demeanor hardly seemed a mistake, Macy scrambled mentally to find any plausible excuse for him.
To make his words true. To believe he had accidentally started the fire and not deliberately burned her cherished paintings.
“Your paintings?”
The smirk at the corner of his mouth suggested he found her expectations amusing.
With a white-gloved, elegant hand, he pulled a cigar and matches from inside his jacket. He drew deeply on the match till his cheeks hollowed. As the end of the cigar glowed red, the cabin behind him collapsed completely.
“The painting oil certainly played its part in turning it into a sea of flames.”
The black ashes blossomed like flowers, and the scattered flames brightly illuminated the surroundings.
Macy watched the beautiful yet cruel scene in a daze.
“Why are you crying? They aren’t even yours. Neither the cabin nor the paintings.”
Eren approached and wiped her tears as if pressing down with his hand. It was only after hearing his words that Macy realized she was crying.
As tears welled up effortlessly again, his soft lips pressed against her stained face—a kiss tainted with the acrid smell of cigar smoke and the scent of burning.
“Since I made your hands and feet move, the paintings you created are also mine. So, it’s me who has suffered a loss, Macy.”
This disaster was a punishment inscribed with the name of the devil. No, it was her fault for falling in love with the devil before her eyes.
That’s why she fled. She ran far away.
She wanted to cut his name out of her life, even if it meant tearing it out.
* * *
‘Ah…, is it not possible anymore?’
The tip of her brush trembled slightly. No matter how hard she tried, her fingers wouldn’t curl any further.
The canvas was littered with numerous marks of failure. The loosely held brush soon fell to the floor with a light sound.
“Doesn’t the style seem a bit changed?”
“More like it’s lost its delicacy.”
Macy’s room was on the second floor, but sometimes outside noises sounded as if they were right next to her.
The visitors who had come to purchase her paintings today seemed to be leaving in less than 30 minutes.
“Are they in a slump? They say geniuses feel it intensely.”
“But for the brush strokes to degrade this much…”
“The one once called ‘God’s Brush’, now seems obsolete. Once praised as the greatest painter of Obelite, such a waste.”
A genius artist that started from obscurity, the touch of God’s brush, Obelite’s greatest painter, God’s fingertips…
All the epithets the art world used to describe her now felt ridiculous. Her hands, stiff and sensationless, spasmed noticeably.
Once celebrated as the finest painter of Obelite, she had now become a fool who couldn’t even hold a brush properly.
“Still, the name Yannick Horton carries some value, so let’s keep watching.”
Moreover, that illustrious title was attached to the name of Yannick Horton. Not Macy, but her only older brother.
“Macy!”
While she was intently listening to the conversation downstairs, an angry voice echoed up.
“Macy Horton!!”
Suddenly, without a knock, the door burst open. A man with dark hair and a grim expression, Yannick Horton, stood there.
“You think I’ve been taking care of you all this time just so you could produce such pathetic paintings?”
After inspecting the canvas, Yannick harshly knocked over the painting supplies. Palettes and brushes scattered everywhere.
“Pick up the brush, Macy!”
He then tried to force a brush into Macy’s hand. Her fingers were weak and trembling and the brush kept slipping off.
“I can’t grip it, Brother… My strength… no matter how hard I try, I can’t muster any strength…”
