Chapter 139
Lionel’s hand trembled violently.
He’d found her.
Really found her.
Unable to believe it, Lionel pulled Agnes even deeper into his arms, as if by instinct.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to hold her tightly. In case, somehow, it might hurt her.
He didn’t want to give Agnes even the smallest pain, not anymore.
Every touch of Lionel’s hands was as desperate and careful as someone grasping at an illusion that might shatter at any moment.
At the warmth reaching his fingertips, Lionel’s breath tore out raggedly.
“…Agnes.”
An unbecoming sound came out of his tightly locked throat.
She was truly alive, Agnes.
Even up until the moment he’d disembarked from the ship at the shore, he hadn’t imagined that such a miracle could come to him.
But the instant his heart had lurched, seeing a woman in a wheelchair at the dock trying hastily to hide herself.
And from the moment he’d caught sight of the dazzling platinum-blonde hair spilling out from beneath her hat, he had simply run.
There had been no time, unlike before, to question whether what he’d seen was really Agnes.
Whether his feet sank into the sand, or struck against a jutting wooden plank on the dock.
Like a man who could see nothing else, he had chased the shape he’d seen, wherever his feet carried him.
And by the time he’d come to his senses, he was already holding Agnes.
He couldn’t even remember how he had reached her side, or what he’d said in between.
Only the sensation felt within his arms proved that this moment was real.
“Agnes, Agnes.”
Lionel murmured her name over and over, like a small child.
As if clinging even to that alone might keep the miracle before his eyes from vanishing.
Wasn’t this, too, perhaps a dream.
He couldn’t shake the anxious thought that this might be another illusion conjured up willfully by his mind, driven half-mad from the gunshot wound.
And so he kept checking, again and again, the warmth beneath his hands.
His breath, still ragged from running, would not settle, and kept tightening around his throat.
It seemed as though everything around him had gone quiet.
No—not quiet. Nothing could be heard at all.
Not the soldiers’ footsteps, not the sound of waves breaking.
Everything had faded, as though erased.
The only thing Lionel could see or hear was Agnes, and Agnes alone.
His chest pounded as if it would burst.
A sensation he couldn’t even distinguish—joy, terror, or guilt—wrapped around his entire body.
How Agnes was alive.
What the remains recovered from the burned carriage had been.
None of that mattered.
That, in this very moment, Agnes was breathing within his arms—that alone was enough for Lionel.
***
Meanwhile, Agnes’s entire body was growing cold, as if submerged in ice water.
She didn’t even need to check his face to know.
Whose arms these were.
The faint scent of cigar smoke seeping in. That voice, slightly hoarse at the edges, chillingly attractive.
It was Lionel.
Agnes felt a sudden terror, as though someone had seized her heart in a tight grip.
How had Lionel come to be here?
Was he trying to hold her accountable for having drugged him and fled at the end?
Or was it to condemn her again, citing rumors, as he had before?
As all manner of thoughts rushed in without order, Agnes’s breathing began to fray.
Instinctively, Agnes struggled to break free from Lionel’s arms.
“Let go, please let go of me.”
With Imperial soldiers passing so close by, she couldn’t even risk raising her voice.
With Imperial soldiers passing so close by, she couldn’t even risk raising her voice.
All Agnes could do was push harder against the firm chest blocking her view.
But, unexpectedly, the strength drained from Lionel’s arms all too easily.
There was no force resisting her, no stubbornness trying to hold her in place.
Agnes lifted her head hastily, trying to escape the now-loosened embrace. It was in that very instant.
Drip.
Something fell onto her face.
At first she thought it was rain.
But the sky over the harbor was clear.
As she lifted her head further, the first thing that came into view was Lionel’s eyes, a piercing, icy blue.
The long, sharp corners of his eyes, tilted slightly upward.
A clear droplet, gathered at their edge, trembled precariously.
…He was crying. Lionel was.
Realizing that fact, Agnes’s movements halted for an instant.
Another of Lionel’s tears fell, settling on Agnes’s eyelashes.
At the unfamiliar weight, Agnes’s eyelids fluttered, and the gathered droplet slid down beneath her lashes.
Trailing down Agnes’s cheek, as if she herself were the one crying.
The tear was neither hot nor cold.
It only left behind a sensation of dampness.
From Lionel, his eyes reddened, came a voice sunk low.
“I’m sorry.”
Agnes’s eyes shook violently.
It wasn’t the words she had expected.
Not scolding.
Not an interrogation demanding accountability.
Not anger, accusing her of betrayal.
“Thank you… for staying alive.”
Lionel repeated only those words.
Only then did Agnes realize.
That Lionel’s hands holding her—no, his entire body—was trembling uncontrollably.
Since coming to Marsen, she had, at times, imagined it.
Unlikely as it was, what it might be like if she happened to run into Lionel again, even by pure chance.
In her imagination, she had felt nothing but fear.
But she had never once pictured Lionel wearing a face like this, and so Agnes didn’t know what she should do.
Because in her mind, Lionel had always worn either a curt expression or an angry one—nothing else.
Why was he crying, Lionel.
It should be her who ought to be afraid, not him.
Yet, if anything, it was Lionel who looked utterly frightened. Like a wounded, abandoned animal.
At the confusion stirred by that sight, Agnes’s lips parted.
“Lionel, I—”
But even she herself was unsure of what she wanted to say, and Agnes could not finish the sentence.
Lionel seemed not to mind, even so.
He tilted his head and rested it carefully against Agnes’s shoulder.
A faint fever radiated from his forehead where it touched her shoulder.
“…You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to explain anything at all. You’re allowed that.”
Lionel’s eyes curved as though twisting in pain.
His expression was that of a man with no right to ask, daring even so to hope for a moment’s warmth.
“So just, for a little while.”
Shrinking into himself, as if afraid Agnes might cast him off, Lionel forced out, as though wringing it from himself, his one and only wish.
“Just for a little while, allow me you.”
I won’t hold on to you by force.
Lionel’s words, pressed out one syllable at a time as though in confession, were soon swallowed and blurred by his own weeping.
It was undoubtedly Lionel who held on.
And yet, his expression was that of someone braced to be cast aside at any moment.
***
At the same hour.
Aboard the ship anchored at the harbor, the Emperor was preparing to step outside.
“An outing, after so long—it’s rather exciting.”
The words, spoken lightly, seemed more animated than usual.
Of course, what lay within them was not excitement, but something closer to greed.
Something akin to the thrill of having good prey to sink one’s teeth into, right before his eyes.
The Imperial Guard knight standing beside him bowed his head cautiously.
“Your Majesty, leave this place to us. To be away from the palace for so long—”
Before he could finish speaking, the corner of the Emperor’s mouth twisted.
“Needless worry. Does the throne’s owner change just because I’m away for a short while?”
Thin lines creased at the corners of the Emperor’s eyes.
“Besides, staying cooped up in the palace all the time makes me restless.”
The Emperor’s eyes, gleaming as brightly as well-polished shoes, swept over his surroundings.
As though searching for something.
No—as though sizing someone up.
It was then.
An officer of the Guard hurried over and stopped before the Emperor.
“Your Majesty, word has just come in by wireless that Colonel Winterbolt’s body was discovered on the southern coast of the Empire!”
“Ah, is that so.”
The Emperor’s response was composed.
He merely swept a hand once, indifferently, across his mouth.
If anything, the knight standing beside him, who had disposed of Jerome, could not hide his flustered look.
He hadn’t expected the body to surface so quickly.
He bowed his head deeply before the Emperor.
“My apologies, Your Majesty.”
Instead of showing anger, the Emperor waved a hand lightly.
“Never mind. It might even turn out to be a fortunate thing.”
Jerome’s murder had already been all but confirmed.
And, as it happened, the last person Jerome had crossed paths with in life had been Lionel.
And here, was there not a witness to that as well?
Glancing at the knight fidgeting anxiously beside him, the corners of the Emperor’s mouth curled upward.
If so, then if Lionel were named as the one who had murdered Jerome, how might the political situation twist and turn?
The crime of regicide against the Imperial family.
Turning that phrase over quietly in his mouth, the Emperor’s lips curved up a little further.
“Now that I think of it, they say Duke Valheim is also on his way here.”
Recalling another repor
t he’d heard just before boarding the ship, the Emperor’s eyes gleamed sharply.
Perhaps, he thought, there might be something even more valuable to gain here than the secret letter.
Something like, for instance, the head of that thorn in his side, Valheim.
Something of that sort.
