A sinister red light flickered in the man’s eyes—eyes steeped in shadow.
Calypse looked larger than he had at the banquet. He crossed the room step by step—step by step—Aisha asleep in one arm, a long sword in the other.
“Wh—why are you—”
Duke Foss’s mouth fell open by degrees.
Calypse should have been on the floor. He had been stabbed—twice at that.
Indeed, the short blade was still there, still held in the sleeping Aisha’s hand where she lay in his arms. And that blade had stabbed Calypse, just as it had been left—
‘He came all the way up here like that? Carrying the child with him!’
How? Was such a thing even possible?
No—there was no point wondering. The man standing in front of him was demonstrating that it was.
—Aisha. Wake up.
In desperation he reached into his mind and called for her.
—Aisha! Open your eyes! Lift your eyelids!
Regrettably, it seemed that dark magic could not move the soul of someone already unconscious.
‘Damn it all. I’ll have to run.’
Thrown by the unexpected turn, Duke Foss pushed himself to his feet. Then he hurled the chair at Calypse with swift, desperate force.
Thwack—!
Calypse bent slightly at the waist and the chair sailed past him. It struck the wall with a tremendous crash and skidded across the floor.
No matter. He could go straight for the window and escape.
‘Besides, the man is moving, but he’s limping—his condition is clearly failing.’
He would put distance between them immediately, then call on the spy operatives stationed around the building for assistance.
That was his plan as he reached for the window—
“Aaaaaaaaargh!”
Duke Foss’s mouth tore open and a scream of pure agony ripped out of him.
It was a pain unlike any he had experienced in his life.
The feeling of bone being ground to powder. Flesh being split apart. As though thousands of needles had plunged through the back of his hand simultaneously.
When his vision cleared, a great sword had been driven through the back of the hand he had been reaching toward the window with.
“Going somewhere… I’m not sure what you might do if I let you leave, so let’s have a conversation with you pinned in place first.”
“You—you’re insane! Help! Someone help! House Foss knights! Spies! Whoever is out there—come out now!”
This was the third floor. A sealed room on every side.
The whites of Duke Foss’s eyes went red as he screamed, screams that would never carry to anyone below.
He had always been the one giving orders.
That had made him superbly capable at maneuvering in society and laying schemes—but having spent his entire life working with his mind alone, he had almost no physical strength, and no real combat experience.
In truth, a situation like this had never happened to him before. Not once.
What could he do?
He was still scrambling in panic when—
“Cough—!”
Thud—
Calypse vomited blood and dropped to one knee. But his grip on the sword did not loosen.
The sight of it made Duke Foss flinch with horror.
‘This—this man is mad!’
How could anyone be this stubborn? He should have been psychologically shattered by now. Learning that his wife and daughter were spies—news that devastating should have left him unable to function. That was precisely the calculation behind the entire operation.
Five years ago, Calypse had lost Ariana and his children and had indeed fallen into despair. He had even taken to wearing a mask to hide his own feelings.
And yet the man before him now looked as though no wound—physical or otherwise—had touched him at all.
“Are, are you telling me you feel nothing? Your wife and daughter were spies!”
With his arm shaking violently from the sword through his hand, Duke Foss screamed.
But.
“Do you appeal to emotions in the middle of a battle?”
The answer came back in a flat, bone-chilling baritone.
“……”
A battle.
Duke Foss sat silently with the word Calypse had used, and his lips parted like a fool.
Calypse ground the words out between his teeth.
“What kind of father collapses when his child falls down crying?”
Creak—
Calypse gripped the sword handle so tightly his knuckles went white. The blade bit deeper into the back of Foss’s hand and the duke let out a howl of agony.
“Hgk—aaaaaaaagh!”
He had always wanted to wield an Affinity of his own. That was precisely why he had engineered the Poison Affinity—cultivated a power to rival House Krost.
He had wanted to use that Affinity freely and cut down the insufferable man hollering about his daughter. He had dreamed of it.
But when it actually came down to it, he had no mental space for any of that. The raw, unfamiliar agony consumed every thought he had, and all he could manage was screaming.
Through the haze of pain, he thought dimly of the spies who had carried out their assignments and died without a sound.
Foss Kray. He was the head of House Foss.
As the master of a family of spies, he was a man who wielded tools.
And now—being a tool for the very first time—he thought he understood.
The spies who abandoned their missions and fled.
They had not been weak.
They were living creatures, too—and they had simply wanted to thrash against the terror of death.
But as the darkness of real fear descended upon him, the thought that rose was something beyond even the survival instinct.
‘Better to just die.’
He wanted to be free of Calypse, who clung to him like a leech and refused to let go.
Gulp. Duke Foss swallowed dry and finally made his last decision.
With enormous effort he managed to get his remaining hand into his trouser pocket. His fingers closed around the death potion inside—
“I don’t think so, Duke Foss.”
Crash—!
He had no idea when Calypse had seen it—but in a single motion, the hand gripping the sword shot out and snatched the vial away, dashing it against the floor.
“If you die now—”
But Calypse had miscalculated one thing.
Thud—
Because of Aisha, still held in his other arm, the torso he had barely been keeping upright lost its balance and pitched forward—and he went down.
Calypse’s vision was growing darker by the moment.
In truth, he had already reached his physical limit from blood loss long ago. Any ordinary person would have collapsed well before this. That he had walked here at all and driven the sword through Duke Foss’s hand had been powered by nothing but sheer will and the burning need for vengeance.
“…If you die now, that won’t do.”
The murmured words trailed off as Calypse’s eyelids slowly closed—
“……”
Silence settled over the room.
“…Wh—what.”
Eyes wide, Duke Foss stared at Calypse lying collapsed with Aisha in his arms.
Then—unable to believe it—he rubbed his remaining eye and stared again.
Calypse had fallen.
That wretched man. The one who had clung like a leech and refused to let go. He had finally closed his eyes.
“…Ha—haha… hahahaha! Of course! Of course my calculations were right!”
The sword through his hand made it impossible to move just yet, but soon enough his subordinates would arrive once they assessed the situation.
“It’s over! This interminable operation is finally over! With the head of House Krost dead, it won’t be long before the Kingdom of Frozen is absorbed into Doctia and the Doctia Empire is established—!”
It was then.
Bang—!
“Duke Foss Kray. You are hereby arrested on charges of royal assassination, arson, and fraud.”
The closed door burst open, and knights of the Kingdom of Frozen’s royal guard filed in one after another, fanning out to encircle the duke.
And—
“…What did he just say? The Kingdom of Frozen is to be absorbed into Doctia?”
At the knight’s lethal question, Duke Foss’s mouth went slack.
“I—I said no such thing. Wh—what is the meaning of this?”
He responded as though nothing had happened, but the turmoil churning inside him was ready to split him in two.
Arrested? That wasn’t possible.
The royal knights knew nothing of the relationship between House Foss and Calypse. That was precisely why he had spent the banquet smiling pleasantly and making himself known to every noble present.
Naturally, in this situation, they might attempt to charge him for what had happened to Calypse—but he too had been stabbed. He had more than enough room to offer a defense.
And yet—they had specifically used the charge of royal assassination.
He had no idea what they thought they knew, but Duke Foss had the unwavering backing of King Arjen himself. In other words—
‘They’ve come with the wrong information.’
The alarm faded from his eyes and they narrowed to something calculating.
Duke Foss immediately drew himself up into the bearing of a nobleman and barked at the knights.
“You insolent wretches!”
The royal knights flinched.
Just as he thought. They had clearly been given wrong information. These knights didn’t seem to know yet who the royal house was truly aligned with.
“You dare try to arrest me? Does His Majesty King Arjen know you’re doing this? He will be greatly displeased when he hears of it!”
It had surely been House Krost’s influence that had led Queen Consort Grace to send these knights.
‘If I invoke King Arjen’s name, the knights will at least hesitate.’
And indeed—his prediction was correct.
The knights, visibly flustered by the sharp reprimand, frowned and exchanged glances.
‘Good. Now I just have to go to King Arjen and confirm that everything is finished…’
But.
“Are you mad? We are here on King Arjen’s own orders.”
Those words fell on his head like a death sentence.
“……?”
A long silence stretched out.
His thoughts ground to a halt. He turned the meaning of the knights’ words over and over in his mind for what felt like a very long time before venturing, almost reluctantly, to ask again.
“…King Arjen gave this order himself?”
“We are royal knights—whose orders would we follow if not the king’s? Enough. There’s no reasoning with this one.”
The knight commander clicked his tongue as if dealing with a fool, then gave a nod of his head.
At the command, the assembled knights surged forward and began to drag Duke Foss away.
“Arjen… he wouldn’t…”
He couldn’t have.
What King Arjen and I are to each other. What crimes we have committed together, what plots we have schemed.
…Unless.
A terrible premonition swept through his mind.
‘King Arjen is betraying me?’
* * *
