Meanwhile — that same hour.
“Something is off. Let’s go in and investigate together.”
Knox addressed the men who had followed him — none other than the knights of House Krost.
Knox had not come here with only Aisha on a whim.
If Aisha truly was a spy — if she met her contacts at the rendezvous location — what then?
Combat would be unavoidable.
Which was precisely why he had stationed the knights at the ready beforehand.
“What the—?”
“Eek! Run!”
When two full columns of armed knights poured into a circus operating outside the law, the audience erupted in panic, scattering in every direction out of fear of being detained.
And in the distance —
“……”
Knox observed.
The ringmaster, who had been marching over to protest the disruption to his show, went white as a sheet the instant he registered what he was looking at.
His gaze — Knox was certain — was fixed on the blue wolf crest of House Krost.
So it’s true. It really is as I suspected.
It had only been a flicker of a feeling — but what he had found in that storage room had been unmistakably the Ice Affinity.
An ordinary blizzard couldn’t form crystals like those. Only an Affinity — a pure, living Affinity — could produce what he had seen on those walls.
With Calypse at the edge of the world on a Creature suppression mission, the only soul in existence capable of wielding pure Krost ice at that level was —
A direct heir.
At last. The pieces are fitting together.
Knox exhaled a short, cold breath.
House Foss had colluded with the Ahili Circus to kidnap the young lords of House Krost.
“Move.”
The warmth had already been gone from Knox’s expression; now even the trace of it vanished entirely.
His instinct was to grab the nearest person and demand answers — but living came first. He had to confirm they were breathing.
He strode to the door marked [Authorized Personnel Only].
“I’m sorry, but this is a restricted area. You appear to be a gentleman of means — what brings you to a humble place like this?”
The ringmaster rushed up, pasting a strained smile over white-knuckled nerves.
“You’ve seen the crest. Open the door.”
“The owner of that crest isn’t here in person, as far as I can see.”
Still bowing — but not budging an inch from the door.
“I said open it.”
“Within this room are items of extraordinary rarity, unavailable to even the highest nobility. If you wish to browse, you are of course welcome to pay—”
CRASH.
The sound arrived before the man did.
A thunderclap of impact that seemed to shudder the ground beneath the circus entrance.
Every face in the audience swung toward the sound — and through a cloud of dark dust, a silhouette emerged. Well over a hundred and ninety centimeters. Built like something that had been forged, not born.
Duke Calypse Krost.
“…Your Grace? But how did you—”
There was no time to finish the question.
Calypse crossed the floor in long, measured strides, brushed past Knox’s shoulder, and stepped directly in front of the ringmaster.
“Either move, or die. I’m in a foul mood.”
He had come straight from the Creature suppression. His armor was streaked with blood. The metallic scent of it should have made people’s eyes water — but one look into those cold crimson eyes and every muscle in the body forgot how to react.
Duke Calypse Krost maintained a polished image in public. He had spent countless wars sharpening his face into something people called heroic.
But.
“……”
The Calypse who stood here — raw from the killing fields, not yet rewrapped in his public mask — was something else entirely.
“Th — tha—”
The ringmaster, draining to the color of old paper, stammered and held his ground.
Which, honestly, was suspicious in its own right.
Calypse appeared to agree — he was already treating the man as if he were made of glass, lifting one leg to kick the door down —
“AAAAH!”
And then self-preservation kicked in and the ringmaster fled.
He was caught by the waiting knights, of course.
“Your Grace. The Creature suppression — how did you manage to—”
“There’s Ice Affinity in the air.”
Calypse cut through Knox’s words.
“It’s not mine. What is it.”
He stepped through the door, and his eyes narrowed.
Gulp.
Knox swallowed quietly against the tension tightening his throat.
“…I thought something was wrong, which is why I was trying to get inside.”
Knox was furious — and beneath the fury, still uncertain.
Had the little spy truly colluded with someone from House Foss? Had she been meeting contacts here?
If so — then—
Crunch.
Something cracked under Calypse’s boot.
Knox looked up.
Calypse’s face — impossibly — was worse than Knox’s.
“Whether or not that child deceived me is something I will judge for myself.”
“……”
“If she did—”
A pause. He pushed open the innermost door, continuing as it swung open:
“—then by law, the punishment would be death—”
“Hhff… huh…”
Through the gap of the opening door, a child’s sobbing reached them.
Something is here.
Calypse and Knox exchanged a wordless glance.
Calypse shoved the door fully open — and stepped inside.
“Hff — h-hh — Aisha—!”
Sitting on the floor, weeping openly, was a small boy.
And across the boy’s lap — unconscious, unmoving — was a golden-haired little girl.
Knox took in the scene behind Calypse.
Icicles jutted from every surface. Around the boy, ice crystals floated suspended in the air — expanding and contracting in rhythm with his sobs, as if breathing with him.
But Calypse’s eyes had fixed on the girl alone.
Aisha.
“……”
Someone was saying something nearby — “Your Grace, that Ice Affinity — this person must be—” — but Calypse didn’t hear it.
He walked toward the children as though pulled forward by a thread he couldn’t see.
He knelt.
He looked at the boy without truly seeing him yet, and asked in a voice that was quietly breaking:
“What happened.”
The small, unconscious figure in the boy’s lap.
Her lips slightly parted — as if she were having a pleasant dream. Her eyes closed in soft crescents.
Looking only at her face, you could believe she was sleeping.
But her golden hair was destroyed. Dust and blood stained her clothes in a dozen places. One shoe was missing — the foot had only a single remaining sock, and that barely hanging on.
Whatever had happened, the child had suffered. And for how long, and how badly, was not difficult to imagine.
How desperately she must have needed an adult.
The word death — that he had considered, just moments ago — began to blur and fade.
No. It was worse than that. How cruel it had been, to think that, even for an instant —
Thwack.
He caught himself, and swallowed a hollow laugh, and pressed down on his lower lip.
“…You.”
The boy — who had been staring at him with stunned, tear-blurred eyes — finally found his voice.
“How did you get here? Did you — did you finally come to rescue me—?”
Calypse slowly shifted his gaze.
And at last he saw the boy clearly — the one who had been clutching Aisha and sobbing himself apart.
Perhaps eight years old.
Buried under a tangle of matted hair that had never seen a comb, through clothing that even a commoner might hesitate to claim — a pair of eyes blazed steadily back at him.
Eyes the color of gold with a single drop of red pigment dissolved through them. An unusual, layered color.
Over that face, Calypse saw another — the face of an infant he had last looked at five years ago.
Those eyes. Lucas’s eyes, on the last day they had ever been in the same room.
Calypse’s own eyes went wide —
“Why did it take you this long?! You’re the one she was trying to save instead of herself, and she ended up like this because of it! Save her — you have physicians, you have money, just save her!”
The accusation struck him like a blade pulled from a wound.
And with it, he snapped back into himself.
She tried to save him. Aisha. She did this because of him.
Why?
“Excuse me — could I ask your name?”
Knox stepped forward quickly, lowered himself to one knee before the boy, and asked with measured courtesy.
Calypse still couldn’t process it. His mind was full of one thing only:
The knowledge that he had — however briefly, in some cold, rational corner of himself — considered ordering this child’s death.
“Lucas. Lucas Krost.”
The sound of that name drained every last drop of warmth from his body.
Same for Knox.
BANG.
The Krost knights finally came pouring in — moving swiftly, flowing past both men without pausing — while Calypse and Knox stood frozen.
The boy looked like someone born into poverty, or worse. His appearance was closer to that of a slave than a noble.
But the gaze that stared Calypse down — level and burning — was unmistakable.
Those eyes.
Identical to how Lucas had looked as an infant, the last time Calypse had held him.
“All this time — what on earth—”
Five years.
Five years of wondering.
If they were ever found, what would the reunion look like? What would the children have grown into?
In all the imaginings, he had never once pictured this.
“Why are you even here, how did you—”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t actually care about. If you need me now, fine — then take me. But fix Aisha first.”
The boy clung to Aisha and held Calypse’s gaze.
“I’ll go with you. But only if you save her.”
The boy had, in all this place, found exactly one person worthy of trust. And it was the unconscious child in his arms.
Calypse’s mouth twisted.
He was afraid.
The boy’s anger didn’t frighten him. What frightened him was what that anger meant — what it cost Lucas to speak it. What had been done to him in the years before he was able to say it.
“…Get the children secured. Bring them to the carriage.”
He couldn’t speak. He gave the order to Knox instead.
Aisha, still unconscious, was carried in Lucas’s arms to the waiting carriage.
________________________________________
