His hand rested near his sword hilt, which suggested he’d been about to cut down the Winter Wolf himself.
It seemed Lucas’s arrival had stopped him mid-action.
“…Go ahead and introduce him, Father.”
The boy stood still for a moment before scratching the back of his neck and frowning — though not unkindly.
The unexpected mildness of it caught the Duke off guard long enough for Calypse to collect himself.
“Oh. Yes. Right. The introduction is overdue. This is Lucas Krost. He’s recently—”
As the explanation continued, the eyes around the room grew wider and wider.
“How remarkable. So that is a direct heir of House Krost… I believe I’m seeing him for the first time.”
“I met him once when he was three. He’s grown so much.”
“And with that level of Affinity — does the succession naturally fall to Lord Lucas, then?”
Through all of it, Lucas —
“Dandelion, are you alright?”
“Oh — yeah.”
— was looking only at me.
“Sorry I’m late. I was planning to attend the formal gathering properly, but the servants thought I was ill and didn’t wake me in time…”
He was planning to attend?
I blinked, taken aback.
“But I thought you weren’t coming to the formal gathering. You said the sight of all the nobles made you want to be sick.”
“I never said sick! I said I didn’t like it!”
I was honestly just stating what happened, but this is what I get.
When I stuck out my lower lip, he crossed his arms and turned away with a sharp exhale.
“And anyway! Not attending things you dislike is no way to be a direct heir of House Krost! Is this just something anyone can do?! It takes someone with a sense of responsibility, like me!”
“Then what about me?”
Lucas lifted his brow as though the answer were obvious.
“You! You sat for the succession trial in my place with that ridiculous body of yours! You’re obviously a direct heir of House Krost too! You’re my little sister!”
“……!”
Oh wow.
Every bit of light I had poured straight out through my eyes.
Hearing it from Lucas — someone who was born into this — feels completely different.
That was the moment —
“This is absurd!”
Someone came stumbling down from the audience seating and burst into the training ground.
The Marquess of Lillis, fur coat jangling with gems.
He was clearly beyond rational thought — he launched straight into jabbing a finger at all of us.
“A sudden appearance by Lord Lucas? This makes no sense whatsoever. Your Grace — the young lord was reported missing! Finding him was supposed to be impossible! How on earth—”
“Marquess.”
At first I couldn’t tell who had spoken.
The authority in the voice, the cold edge of it — I’d assumed it was Uncle.
But the boy who had been standing quietly holding my hand took one step toward the Marquess of Lillis.
As if asking him to look him in the eyes.
“Don’t you remember me?”
At the question, the Marquess’s animated face began to stiffen in unmistakable ways.
“Wh — what do you mean by that…”
“Look carefully. A seller should always verify the condition of the goods they sold.”
The contemptuous answer made Calypse’s eyes narrow — subtle, watchful, and cold.
“…Goods?”
“What does he mean by that?”
Others in the crowd shifted uneasily.
“Yes, quite. I have absolutely no idea what the young lord is suggesting. You’ve been away from civilization too long, my lord — perhaps you’ve lost track of what should and shouldn’t be said.”
The Marquess of Lillis laughed an awkward, hollow laugh.
But Lucas had no intention of letting this pass.
After staring the Marquess down for a long, silent moment, he let out a short laugh and reached into his pocket.
“Does this jog your memory?”
“Th — that’s—!”
The Marquess lunged to snatch the paper away, crying out —
Snap —
But Calypse was faster. He plucked it from Lucas’s hand before anyone else could reach it.
On his feet now, the Duke stared at the document in silence for a long moment.
Slave Trafficking Contract.
Those faintly troubled crimson eyes read the single largest word printed on the page —
[Slave Number 1242] [Signed: Ruse]
And then —
He read the transaction record that hadn’t even bothered to include Lucas’s name.
His eyelids fell shut, slowly.
“…Slave? Don’t tell me this is a document saying the young lord was sold as a slave?”
Even someone across the room with sharp eyes had read the text on the page, and the murmuring surged.
“Hold on. Are you saying the Marquess of Lillis sold the young lord as a slave?”
“But the young lord was reported missing — every lord in the north searched their entire territories and couldn’t find him…”
“No matter how badly you want your own son to inherit, selling a noble as a slave?! Nobles get enslaved after catastrophic military defeat, not otherwise!”
But the son of a war hero — sold as a slave.
“Are you completely insane?!”
The situation was steadily closing in around the Marquess like a tightening noose. He swallowed hard.
He turned quickly to look for his allies —
“…….”
Every single person in the room had their eyes closed, staring at the ceiling, looking deliberately elsewhere.
Finally, the Marquess took a step or two back and began to stammer.
“Th — is there any proof that I did this? The signature says Ruse — you haven’t all forgotten my name, have you? I’m Lillis. Not Ruse!”
That part was technically true.
“Bring me proof that Ruse is my name! Until then, stop making accusations! Perhaps the young lord simply needed someone to blame for his suffering and chose to use me as a scapegoat!”
“Ruse would be a nickname!”
Someone shot to their feet in the audience —
“Then bring me proof that Ruse is my nickname! You don’t have any, do you?!”
The Marquess of Lillis, emboldened by the fact that this line of defense had held, planted his hands on his hips and blustered on.
He thought he had won the moment.
He was wrong.
“I have proof.”
Because I was right here.
“……?”
“?”
Every eye in the room turned to me the moment I raised my hand.
I dug through my pocket carefully.
“When the Marquess of Lillis barged into the estate without permission—”
“Who said I barged—!”
“— you left this behind.”
I drew a golden pen from my pocket, and the color drained from the Marquess’s face — his prepared torrent of rebuttals died instantly.
A golden pen.
“Here — the engraving!”
I pointed helpfully at the section where Ruse had been engraved.
“Th — that doesn’t prove it’s mine—!”
Then allow me.
I flipped the pen over and pointed to the other side.
“And here — a family seal!”
“…….”
“…….”
“…Well.”
Thud —
The Marquess, who had been glaring at me with impotent fury, sat down right where he stood.
And then —
“He kidnapped my son.”
Calypse’s voice, quiet and watching until now, carried something in it that made it unmistakable — not the anger of someone beyond reason, but the awful clarity of someone who had just arrived there.
It wasn’t joy. It was a laugh that had come from somewhere past rage — hollow, self-mocking, and slightly unhinged.
“And then sold my son as a slave.”
The murderous cold in his voice that followed stopped every person in the room — Marquess Lillis included — from drawing breath.
Calypse said nothing more after that.
Or rather — he let his body do the speaking.
“Please, I just need you to listen — there’s been a misunderstanding — ugh!”
Thud —
He crossed the floor in long, unhurried strides, and kicked the Marquess of Lillis — who had fallen to his knees begging — squarely in the stomach.
“Ugh — ugh!”
The Marquess’s cries continued without pause, but Calypse did not stop.
With the cold, methodical contempt of someone dealing with something beneath them, he kicked him. And again. And again.
“Please —”
The Marquess, weeping at last, pressed his palms to the floor and tried to crawl away —
“…….”
Not a single person moved to help the Marquess. Not a single person moved to stop the Duke.
They all knew.
In this moment, Calypse was not the head of House Krost.
He was simply someone’s father.
________________________________________
“There’s no way — I sent him to the free territories — how did he end up here — there’s no way—”
The Marquess of Lillis refused to accept responsibility for what he had done until the very end.
Even as he was dragged away by knights, he muttered like a man who had lost his mind — it can’t be, this wasn’t supposed to happen — and the hollow wretchedness of it made Tex, sitting in the audience, finally dissolve into tears.
“Dad —!”
Tex, wailing and running with snot, threw himself after the Marquess.
“Leave my dad alone, you bastards — give him back!”
It was genuinely sad to watch, but — honestly, who told him to do all of this in the first place?
I clicked my tongue and crossed my arms.
Then the knights came dragging another man — a stranger who had been caught trying to flee.
“Your Grace. Regarding the Winter Wolf’s erratic behavior during the trial — it appears this man injected something into the Creature.”
“What?”
The knight held out what appeared to be an empty syringe.
“…Wait.”
Hold on.
I’d seen that before.
Tap-tap-tap —
I trotted over, drawn by the familiar object, and stretched up on my toes between the knight and the Duke.
“I know what that is. It’s a madness amplifier, manufactured by House Foss.”
“And how would Young Lady Aisha know—”
The knight looked at me with mild surprise —
“I took her on a tour.”
“Pardon?”
“Before I adopted her, I had her do a study visit abroad.”
Calypse explained this completely impossible claim in the most perfectly serious tone imaginable.
“…I see.”
The flustered knight blinked several times.
“Incidentally — who is that man?”
The knight, shaken from his daze by the Duke’s question, turned back to the stranger.
“Ah, yes. He had the syringe on his person. As it turns out, he is the Marquess of Lillis’s aide.”
“…Damn.”
And with that, everything made complete sense.
________________________________________
