The Tinder Box

“When did I ever ask you to bring this person here?”

「But he’s the greatest beauty in this country.」

Isaac is a half-witch, born of mixed witch and human blood. Because he is not a pure-blooded witch, he cannot go to the Land of the New Moon, where witches fled to escape human persecution. Instead, he hides the fact that he is a witch and lives modestly in the human world.

In the royal palace where Isaac works as a guard, there is a prince named Kaiyan, a man outstanding in both appearance and ability, but cursed with a truly vile temper. As a member of this country’s royal family, he suffers terrible pain on nights of the new moon because of a witches’ curse. Unlike the other royals, however, he does not seek a magician’s help to ease that pain. Instead, he endures hellish agony every month and hates witches to the bone.

Isaac has managed to live a relatively peaceful life despite standing guard in the palace of a prince who would gladly tear any witch apart. Then one day, three shameless cats appear, steal his precious food, and, as if offering repayment, hand him a flint. When Isaac strikes the steel, three enormous tigers appear before him. They demand that Isaac bring them the tinderbox kept in the king’s treasure vault, and in exchange, they offer to grant him three wishes on every new-moon night, when a witch’s power is at its strongest.

Thinking it must be a dream, Isaac asks for “one night with the greatest beauty in this country.”

But the one the tiger brings to him is Prince Kaiyan, who is suffering from unbearable pain because it is the night of the new moon…

What future awaits the prince whose only goal in life is to drive witches from the kingdom, and Isaac, who has inherited half a witch’s blood?