There’s no way.
Oberon let out a laugh that held no humor in it — only disbelief.
Riersha Arachrene was nothing more than a child who had only just been recognized as the family’s heir. What could a girl like her possibly know?
He’d indulged the foolish hope that perhaps Riersha had seen through him — had noticed the way he was slowly, quietly falling apart.
“Oberon.”
The door to the underground prison swung open, and someone stepped inside.
Under any other circumstance, this would have been a lower-ranking knight who wouldn’t have dared to meet Oberon’s eyes.
But things were different now.
The moment he’d been locked away, Oberon became a criminal — all his titles stripped from him in an instant.
A man lower in standing than even the lowliest knight of the ducal house. A convict.
That was what Oberon was now.
“Has my sentence finally been decided? Later than I expected.”
He looked up at the knight with the hollow resignation of someone who had already given up.
Whatever punishment had been decreed, he doubted he would walk out of here in one piece. Suppressing his abilities alone would likely not be enough — they might even take his sight.
Then, behind the knight, Riersha appeared.
Oberon’s eyes went wide.
“Hello, Oberon.”
“…”
“I came to get you.”
Oberon’s gaze wavered.
⁂
For the entire journey back to the castle, Riersha felt as though every stare being thrown her way was prickling across her skin.
Oberon — who should still have been imprisoned — had been released without so much as a formal punishment. Of course people were watching.
I didn’t think Grandfather would actually listen to me.
Riersha turned the memory over in her mind.
“Give Oberon to me.”
“No.”
“Oberon wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
“Can you take responsibility for that claim?”
At first, Arcmund had refused with a face carved from stone.
But then—
“Yes. I can.”
“Then so be it.”
“…Pardon?”
“I will put Oberon’s sentence on hold. Prove his innocence.”
The permission had come so easily it almost felt meaningless.
There had been a condition attached, of course.
Maybe Grandfather already knew Oberon was innocent.
Perhaps that was exactly why he had handed Oberon over to her so readily.
Throughout the walk back, Riersha could feel Oberon’s gaze on her.
“Why?”
When she glanced at him, he was silent for a moment before he spoke.
He was still wearing the mana-binding shackles.
“…Why did you save me?”
“Because you came to me first, Oberon.”
He looked at her with a faintly puzzled expression.
“Don’t you remember asking me for help?”
It had been that day. The day Oberon had come to find her.
He asked, almost cautiously, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
“…You saved me because of what I said that day?”
“Yes.”
Riersha nodded, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
There were other reasons too, if she was being honest.
Oberon’s expression shifted into something she couldn’t quite name.
“…You believed me?”
“Of course.”
“…”
“Were you lying to me back then?”
Riersha stopped walking and looked up at him.
Oberon’s lips parted slightly.
It hadn’t been a lie — but it wasn’t the kind of thing that warranted belief, either. Even Pernoa had been suspicious enough to come and ask him directly.
Is she simply too young to think to doubt me…?
Just as that thought crossed his mind, Riersha’s crimson eyes fixed on him with perfect clarity.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The person who leaves flowers on my mother’s memorial every year.”
For a moment, Oberon’s expression froze — caught, and unable to hide it.
“I thought it might be.”
“…How did you know?”
“Because this year, a flower that’s always been there was suddenly missing.”
If the groundskeeper had been the one leaving flowers all these years, he would have done it again this year. A person doesn’t simply forget something they have done without fail for so long.
And this year’s memorial had coincided with a grand celebration of Riersha’s birthday — all the more reason it shouldn’t have slipped anyone’s mind.
But — what if something had happened that made it impossible to leave the flowers?
Among those with access to the family’s burial grounds, only one person had been caught up in something significant enough. Only Oberon.
“…Were you and my mother close?”
“She showed me a kindness I could never repay.”
“A kindness?”
Riersha tilted her head with a look of genuine curiosity, and Oberon gave a quiet nod.
“Do you know what my ability is, Miss Riersha?”
“…Yes. I do.”
“Then you’ll understand why people in this household tend to avoid me.”
Riersha knew — but she couldn’t bring herself to confirm it out loud. The thought that agreeing might wound him made her hesitate.
Oberon caught her watching him with that careful, searching expression, and he offered her a faint, gentle smile.
“It’s all right. It’s nothing I don’t already know.”
“…”
“…Your mother was the only one who ever thought well of my ability.”
He spoke as though looking back at something distant.
“When everyone else called me unsettling, she was the one who told me I was someone this family truly needed.”
“…Oh.”
“Because of her, I was able to hold on within the Arachrene household.”
The moment those words reached her, Riersha felt something click into place — a sudden, spreading clarity, like light flooding through a cracked door.
So that was it.
That was why Oberon had betrayed the family.
After Yerena died, the Arachrene dukedom began its slow decline, hollowed out from within by the Empress’s schemes. And Oberon — Oberon had known nothing of the traitor hiding inside the house.
Of course he hadn’t.
Riersha had not awakened her ability until she was ten years old. Before that, the ducal house had been visibly corrupted — enough that even Riersha herself had understood it. What must it have looked like through Oberon’s eyes?
It’s because of you.
He must have come to believe that Riersha was the cause of everything — the root of every misfortune the family had suffered. He wouldn’t have been able to fathom why Arcmund continued to protect her when the house was crumbling so plainly before him.
Oberon wasn’t bought by the Empress.
He had belonged to an Arachrene that no longer existed anywhere he could see — so he had chosen to tear it apart with his own hands.
But the situation now is nothing like it was then.
There would be no reason for him to do that again.
Riersha felt the racing thoughts in her mind grow quiet and still. Everything suddenly made sense — every piece settling cleanly into its place.
“Don’t worry about anything, Oberon.”
“…Yes, Miss Riersha. Thank you.”
Whatever he had feared would come to pass — it wouldn’t. Not anymore.
But there was still one problem left to solve.
“What do we do, though?”
Riersha’s brows drew together with a soft, worried crease.
“You’re not fully cleared yet, Oberon. …If you look suspicious at all, you might end up back in that cell.”
“I already expected as much.”
He hadn’t imagined they would release him without conditions — not without the misunderstanding still hanging unresolved.
Oberon lowered himself to one knee before Riersha.
She startled at the gesture.
“From this moment, my life belongs to you, Miss Riersha.”
“…”
“What would you have me do?”
…Riersha swallowed quietly.
She had the distinct feeling she had just reeled in something far larger than she’d anticipated.
⁂
“What did you just say?”
Macton Willias shot to his feet.
The steward’s report had left him momentarily dizzy.
“The Arachrene ducal house has begun exporting Serinel?”
“Yes, my lord. It seems a considerable number of buyers have already been approached.”
“…Damn it all!”
Macton Willias slammed his fist against the desk.
Something has gone very, very wrong.
He had never imagined the Arachrene family would pursue a business strategy this aggressive.
And of all things — Serinel was a commodity that the Willias dukedom also dealt in. A considerable volume of Serinel was produced within Willias’s directly governed territories.
But every last piece of Serinel handled by the Willias house was of poor quality.
This is trouble.
Until now, they had been able to negotiate from a position of arrogance even over low-grade Serinel. That luxury was about to disappear.
