“…Were you awake?”
Calypse sat back down quickly, embarrassed.
He had only said the things he would have said regardless of whether Lucas was listening or not — but having all of it heard before he could even properly apologize felt strangely ungainly, and he cleared his throat.
“Ahem. I thought you were asleep.”
“I woke up partway through.”
“When?”
“When you came in and opened the door.”
“…….”
So he had heard just about everything.
Calypse let out a slow breath.
“You have sharp ears.”
“I had to. To keep myself safe.”
But the matter-of-fact way Lucas said it sent his heart dropping again.
“Mm.”
One eyebrow had gone up on its own.
He supposed it was time.
Calypse hesitated for a moment, then met his son’s eyes and spoke.
“About Marquess Lillis.”
“…….”
“If you had told me sooner, I’d have knocked his skull in before any succession trial ever happened. Why didn’t you come to me?”
“He told me you said five thousand gold was too high a price for me. That you hadn’t come to collect me.”
“What?”
“The Marquess. He said that. He told me that.”
He had been about to ask whether Lucas had truly believed something so obviously designed to hurt him — but Lucas narrowed his eyes and added quietly:
“I was three years old.”
Oh. Right.
He couldn’t resent a three-year-old for believing it. And the thought of how much pain that small child had carried for so long made something in his chest pull tight.
Five years of slow death. That’s what that man deserves.
Calypse bowed his head, privately cursing the Marquess, as the guilt that had been building in him quietly spilled over again.
The harder truth was that Lucas, after everything, seemed more composed than he did.
“But I’m alright now. I’ve understood for a while. I’m Krost, after all.”
“…You don’t need to force yourself to understand. You’re allowed to resent me. I’ll accept all of it.”
“I was only so impulsive at dinner because I was a bit frightened, honestly. Even a Krost heir is allowed to be scared of things, right?”
Shift, shuffle.
Lucas propped himself up from where he’d been lying on his stomach, eyebrows drawn together.
“Father. So I want to ask — how can you say something like that?”
An unexpected question. Calypse, who had been staring at his lap, looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“That the world doesn’t matter to you anymore. Come on — does that sound like something a Duke should say?”
“I’ve been so involved in the world’s affairs that I lost all of you. I’m saying I won’t do that again.”
“You — the head of House Krost?”
I was trying to say I wanted to be a better father. But his son had a problem with it, apparently.
“Duke Krost is still a person.”
“But—”
“You’re the only reason I have left to live, Aisha and you.”
At that, Lucas pulled a hard frown.
“But I spent five years surviving by holding onto House Krost.”
Aisha, deeply asleep, rolled onto her back and let her mouth fall open. Lucas lowered his voice to its quietest possible register so as not to wake her, but the frustration in his eyes was clear.
“I’m Krost, so I can survive. Krost heirs don’t lose to things like this — I told myself that for five years inside that cage. That’s how I got through it…”
Calypse was at a loss for words.
“What does it make me — what does my five years mean — if the head of the house turns around and says Krost doesn’t matter?”
“Lucas.”
“So protect both.”
And then — a small fist, raised into the air.
“Use our strength — our Affinity — to protect the people and protect us. Grow strong enough to do both.”
The force behind it had turned the fist white, and his little finger poked out at a stray angle.
Calypse wasn’t sure what to do, but he narrowed his eyes at the sight —
“Ugh, honestly.”
His son, unable to stand the frustration any longer, squirmed upright and forcibly hooked their little fingers together to make a promise.
“Aisha and I are going to get stronger too.”
“…….”
“We’re going to grow strong inside your care. And then we’ll protect people too. You don’t have to do it all alone.”
“…….”
“Keep the promise.”
The determined words hit somewhere deep.
And for the first time — really looking at his son — Calypse saw him clearly.
Lucas was not simply a child.
He was someone who, despite being hurt and used and betrayed, still knew how to look out for those weaker than himself. Someone who understood the purpose of House Krost without needing to be taught it.
Someone worthy of the power he carried — the Affinity that the world had named the gift of a god’s chosen child.
“…….”
Calypse couldn’t look away from his son.
His son had come home through hardship after hardship, and this was what he asked.
“I swear it on my life.”
He had no reason to refuse.
________________________________________
“Mmmmm —”
The bed was unusually warm.
The Krost estate worked hard to maintain warmth against the cold outside — but tonight had a particular quality to it, something that warmed not just the room but somewhere deeper.
Purr.
I woke to the quiet sound of Lucas’s gentle snoring and blinked at the ceiling.
Someone had my fist curled in their hand.
He didn’t let go even once while I slept.
Classic tsundere.
Last night he had grumbled — “Does it look like I want to do this?! The Marquess is locked up but still in the estate — what if something happens? I’m worried, so you’re staying here!” — and shoved me into the bed by force.
“…If someone saw us, they’d think I was Lucas’s daughter rather than his sister.”
Haah —
I stretched lazily and muttered to myself, then went still.
There was another arm. One that didn’t belong to Lucas.
Long and lean, wrapped in restrained muscle.
A hand much larger than mine by every comparison. Thick-knuckled fingers, each joint hardened by years of holding a sword hilt, with calluses distributed accordingly.
…Who else is in this bed? Please don’t let it be Marquess Lillis.
That would be absurd — but an adult man’s arm in this bed was equally absurd.
Roll —
I tried to flip over to see who it was, but sleeping Lucas wrinkled his nose and tightened his grip on my hand.
Oh no.
I’ll have to wait until one of the maids comes.
I tried to at least lift my head to peek —
“Hm?”
Over Lucas’s curled-up form, I could see the sleeping face of the Duke, tucked in at the far edge.
“…We all three fell asleep in the same bed?”
Why, though?
When did Uncle sneak in?
Well. At least I knew why it had been so remarkably warm this morning.
So waking up in the arms of your father and brother is this warm. Good to know.
“Mm.”
Hmm hmm —
Looking at the two of them made a little hum rise up in me without my meaning to.
Like being a baby bat tucked inside a safe cave, and finding there was another cave inside that one, and being protected inside that.
…Is that even the right comparison?
My chest felt ticklish.
Not an excited sort of ticklish — more like the low, rolling purr of a contented cat.
A feeling I had never felt before in my life, so I wasn’t quite sure how to put it into words.
What do I call this?
I was still puzzling over it, nestled between the two of them —
Knock, knock.
The maid who opened the door confirmed us and went wide-eyed.
“A warm family — I mean, the masters are still asleep. I’ll bring breakfast later.”
The answer, as it turned out, came quickly from an unexpected place.
That was it.
Family.
________________________________________
That same hour. The royal palace of the Kingdom of Frozen.
“Knox hasn’t come?”
At Empress Grace’s question, the man with her shook his head.
“The whole northern region is in an uproar right now — he won’t be able to make it. Apparently Marquess Lillis kidnapped a direct Krost heir.”
“What did you say?”
The Empress looked up from the paper she had been examining — covered in fine, detailed illustrations of Creatures.
“Who kidnapped who? What’s been happening to the story?”
The latest news she had heard ended at the young lord has been recovered.
“House Lillis is finished, they’re saying. Apparently the young lord who was kidnapped was also sold as a slave — and disguised as a missing person.”
“…My god. To make his own son the heir? The Marquess has lost his mind.”
“Completely.”
“A man like that deserves to be fed to the Corruption Raptors.”
The Empress clicked her tongue and dropped into her chair.
The Corruption Raptors were a four-legged, herd-type Creature that inhabited the north in large packs.
“Raptor food indeed.”
The woman beside the man added with some relish.
“And speaking of — the reason Knox won’t be coming isn’t only that, apparently.”
“What else is there? The nerve, missing the Empress’s gathering.”
“He’s busy fulfilling Young Lady Aisha’s bucket list!”
“Aisha?”
That name —
Empress Grace’s pale green eyes blinked slowly, and she pulled up Knox’s words from the last gathering.
“She squeaks when she walks, she appears to have arrow-shaped hair ornaments at either side of her head, and her eyes are large enough to take up half her face.”
Knox had been entirely serious as he said it.
How serious? The monocle over his eye had been emitting such concentrated intensity that it had temporarily blinded several of the attendees.
“…At that description, she sounds less like a child and more like a fairy.”
Empress Grace murmured to herself, as if in a waking dream.
Inside her head, a winged fairy with arrow-shaped hair was already darting back and forth in every direction.
________________________________________
