Leon finished his morning training with the Holy Knights and returned to the Grand Duke’s estate without delay.
“Sir Leon…? You’re home early again today.”
A butler appeared from somewhere, looking faintly startled as he received him.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be going out again shortly.”
At that, the butler hesitated, then asked with careful delicacy, “Would you happen to be going… to the Rüschino estate again, sir?”
“…….”
Leon looked down at the butler without answering.
The butler’s name was Miles, and he had been in the estate’s employ for over fifteen years — a rare and valuable presence who managed the considerable affairs of a household without a mistress, and managed them without trouble. Part of what made Miles so trusted was that he never crossed the line into interference or unsolicited counsel.
The members of the Grand Ducal household presented, to the outside world, impeccable standing and grace.
Grand Duke Osilot and Leon, as Vice-Captain of the Holy Knights, went without saying — but even Anthony and Eve were admired by many for their striking looks and refined manners.
Behind closed doors, however, this was among the most quietly broken households imaginable.
Grand Duke Osilot had become increasingly unwell — symptoms of severe nervous strain — since his political standing faltered following suspicion that he had been involved in the poisoning of Empress Ann, who now lay in a coma. After the death of his wife, Saint Larissa, it seemed as though he had finally released the last thread by which he had been holding himself together. The symptoms grew worst on the days he returned from the imperial palace.
Anthony, though beautiful to look at, had been born with a fragile constitution and was plagued by frequent illness, leaving him largely confined to his rooms. Perhaps because of this, though he appeared gentle on the surface, there was a sharp, brittle edge to him that surfaced without warning.
Eve was, by comparison, still relatively bright and innocent — but there were moments when she would go still and stare, transfixed, at young girls walking arm in arm with their mothers.
What would happen on the day that longing finally overflowed the small heart that contained it?
And then there was Leon himself — a Holy Knight in the grip of the curse of lust.
In short, this household was a disaster on every front.
Miles knew the hidden truth of the Grand Ducal family better than anyone. And this quiet, composed, unfailingly professional man had just openly asked Leon — Again? You’re going to the Rüschino estate again?
Leon couldn’t help but pause.
Had his behavior of late been so transparent that even Miles felt moved to say something?
Perhaps it has been, somewhat.
He had now spent three consecutive days returning home the moment morning training ended, washing up, changing his clothes, and making his way to the Rüschino estate.
On the surface, the purpose was to assist with the magical artifact research Kasha had asked him to help with. He had reasoned to himself that now that a contractual courtship had begun, he had an obligation to fulfill the conditions of that contract faithfully.
But the underlying purpose was something else — to keep Kasha Rüschino under close observation, to stay near enough to uncover her true intentions.
He had told himself he was working diligently toward those goals over the past few days.
There were, of course, certain small incongruities he hadn’t quite managed to explain away to his own satisfaction.
The fact that he came all the way home after a grueling training session — rather than going directly — just to wash up and change.
The fact that he, a man who normally applied his singular, almost excessive sense of duty to every task he was given, had been carelessly neglecting his responsibilities for days and barely registering the complaints and reprimands of the Holy Knights’ Captain.
He had put all of this down to the nature of his own personality — the way he tended, once fixed on an objective, to pursue it with complete, single-minded focus.
But what exactly is this feeling right now?
Leon touched his jaw with a discomfited expression.
What he was feeling was unfamiliar. The closest word he could reach for was — caught out. As though he’d been found doing something he shouldn’t, like a child discovered misbehaving.
“Sir Leon.”
“Go ahead.”
“His Grace is asking for you.”
“For me? Right now?”
“Yes, sir. He returned early from the palace and has been waiting.”
“…….”
Leon fell into silence.
It was not a common thing for Grand Duke Osilot to summon his children to him of his own accord.
He had been steadily losing ground in imperial politics since the previous year — since the first prince had been invested as Crown Prince. Meetings and audiences that had once filled his days from morning to evening were cancelled one by one; the stream of nobles visiting the estate slowed and eventually stopped.
In truth, this had been the inevitable course of things.
It had been coming from the moment the empress’s poisoning scandal broke — when she refused to die and the first prince, her only son, rose in power far more quickly than anyone had expected. Then the second prince, the one the Grand Duke had been backing, died in an untimely accident; and the prince’s mother, Consort Alyssa, lost her mind and took her own life.
These events had announced the Grand Ducal household’s ruin plainly enough. But the Grand Duke had refused to accept it. He denied the reality of his own diminishment — the fact that there was no longer anywhere that wanted him, that he was expected to remain quietly at home.
He had turned away from the family he had already been neglecting, and threw himself with greater desperation into the outside world. He gathered aging nobles who had retired to their estates; he cultivated great merchants eager for connections to the aristocracy.
But people were not foolish.
They could smell failure on him — on this man who had once been the most powerful figure in the empire. The smell of a man who had been pushed off the edge of a downward slope and was now scrabbling and flailing in the dirt.
The Grand Duke was becoming isolated. Pushed out from the world beyond his walls, he had also isolated himself within them.
It would have been far simpler if he had found comfort in his children — children who were growing beautifully, in their own ways — and been glad of them. But instead they made him uncomfortable. He had never known how to care for anyone or hold himself accountable to them; and beyond that, his children represented a guilt he had never managed to sit with.
At some point, the children had stopped expecting anything from him.
He maintained an obligatory, formal relationship with Leon, the heir — and only on matters of business.
“…My father is waiting for me.”
Leon repeated it as though confirming it to himself. Miles lowered his head.
“Yes, sir.”
Something about the back of Miles’s head looks troubled, Leon thought absently, as he turned and made his way with heavy steps toward the Grand Duke’s rooms.
I still need to wash up. If I don’t, I won’t make it to the Rüschino estate in time for Kasha’s afternoon walk in the garden…
He caught himself and frowned with something like chagrin.
No matter how one justifies it — fulfilling the terms of the contract, uncovering her intentions — if anyone were watching, they’d think I couldn’t wait to get back to the estate.
Irritated by how much that sounded like a defense he was making to himself, he deliberately quickened his pace.
Knock knock knock.
He rapped on the door to the Grand Duke’s study, and the reply came almost immediately.
“Come in.”
The Grand Duke who received him looked gaunt — noticeably thinner than even a week or two ago. The study reeked of cigar smoke, thick enough to suggest the man had scarcely done anything else.
Looking at the wreck of the man who had once been called the most beautiful face in the empire, Leon felt something cold and complicated settle inside him.
He himself was hardly in better shape — if anything, perhaps worse. The image of a man growing hollow-eyed and blurred behind a haze of cigar smoke layered itself over his own reflection in his mind.
Leon swallowed the bitter feeling that rose in his throat and bowed his head to his father.
And at the same moment, a certainty settled quietly over him: whatever his father was about to say, it would not be welcome.
“Sit down. What’s happened to your face.”
The Grand Duke coughed, waving Leon toward a seat. Leon sat without speaking.
“Even for a knight, you need to maintain a presentable appearance. Noblewomen these days think a great deal about a man’s looks.”
Leon dropped his gaze without answering. He was twenty-four years old, and his father was commenting on his face. It was not a promising beginning.
The Grand Duke seemed displeased by Leon’s rigid demeanor, but he had more pressing business and moved forward without further preamble.
“This hunting competition — the one the imperial family is hosting.”
“Yes.”
“You will participate.”
“…I was already planning to.”
Something like color returned — unexpected and fleeting — to the Grand Duke’s haggard face.
“Were you? Good thinking. It’s time you started showing yourself properly in society.”
“…….”
“This works out well. Since we’re on the subject — I intend for this hunting competition to mark the formal beginning of your courtship with the Tyrot duke’s daughter.”
Leon lifted his downcast eyes slowly. The Grand Duke’s eyes — once the same color as Leon’s own, now dimmed and cloudy — met his through the haze of cigar smoke.
“You’ll go as the young lady’s partner that day. I’ve already spoken with the Tyrot Duke — it’s all been arranged.”
“Father.”
The Grand Duke blinked, caught off guard by the interruption.
“What is it.”
“I have already chosen a partner for the hunting competition.”
“…What?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I cannot enter into a betrothal with the Tyrot Ducal family. I am currently courting someone.”
“Leon Milojonif Aranias.”
The Grand Duke coughed and exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke, then spoke Leon’s full name with deliberate slowness. Leon blinked through the haze and thought, for a moment, of a small woman who had coughed in exactly this kind of smoke.
“Don’t make rash decisions. Who gave you permission to choose a partner? Don’t tell me you’ve actually taken a liking to that — that Kasha Rüschino, or whatever her name is? That bastard girl?”
Leon stiffened at the name. But before he could respond, the Grand Duke raised his voice and pressed on.
“You are the legitimate son of this household. And our family right now is in a…”
The Grand Duke’s voice broke off. He trembled. The renewed awareness of his own situation seemed to be bringing fresh fury to the surface.
“A crisis. And you dare — you dare create a scandal with some half-witted stuttering bastard girl? You — the son of the Grand Duke, the son of Saint Larissa?”
His voice climbed higher and higher until it reverberated through the study walls and likely beyond them. Swollen and red-faced, neck flushing as he bellowed — the Grand Duke looked, in that moment, very much like a turkey. Whatever shreds of dignity a great nobleman might retain, he had shed them completely.
But it was not his father’s deterioration that made Leon’s composure falter.
