“What do you mean?”
Leon looked at her, puzzled. Kasha watched him carefully and said,
“Have you felt… the lust curse becoming stronger lately? More difficult to control than before?”
“That’s—”
He faltered, caught off guard.
He had been sitting there tangled in his own private restlessness, and suddenly the curse was being named aloud — it flustered him more than it should have.
“I’m not entirely sure. Not noticeably, I think.”
He dodged the question without meaning to.
But it wasn’t entirely untrue that the nights had been worse these past few days.
Since the curse took hold, he had suffered from nightmares. Dreams so vivid and shameless they made him recoil simply to recall them — flooded with skin and heat and carnality.
Most men might have indulged such dreams and then forgotten them. But his had a habit of beginning in sensation and ending in blood.
He would lose himself in the dream — consumed by a faceless figure, taking what he craved with a frenzy that felt like madness — until at last he became the creature he feared. Biting. Drinking. Laughing, with blood on his teeth.
The nightmare felt like prophecy. He would wake mid-dream, heart pounding, half-convinced it was his own future.
Coming into work afterward — at the temple, at the Holy Knight Order — and being treated as something to revere was enough to bring bile to his throat.
And then, recently — in a development that made everything worse — the figure in his dreams had begun to have a face.
It was Kasha. The woman now blinking at him from across the room, entirely unguarded.
In the dreams, she was always the way she had been when they first met — forward, unafraid — but dressed and wearing expressions he never saw from her in waking life. She approached him with heat in her eyes.
His conscience, or something like it, would jolt him awake before the dream reached its most violent turn — but the content was still enough to make him feel sick with himself.
Last night had been no different.
The dream began at the tournament — the announcement of the winner. Kasha had knelt before him, declared her courtship, and then taken his hand without hesitation, pressing her lips to the back of it.
Those small lips. He was always catching himself watching them. In the dream, they touched his skin, and the sensation was searing — too sharp and too real for something that wasn’t happening.
It was just a dream. It was only a dream. And yet—
There had been one thing different about it from the usual nightmares.
His heart.
It wasn’t desire that started in the places desire usually starts. It was his heart — pounding hard and strange, pushing heat outward through his whole body.
He had stood there, stunned by the unfamiliar sensation, while Kasha looked up at him with those drawn-in pink eyes.
That gaze alone was overwhelming — and then her lips began to move along his hand, rising slowly toward his wrist.
He had heard himself make a sound. Even within the dream, he could see himself clearly — his own eyes had gone red, stained by the curse.
Kasha took no notice of how terrible he looked. She kissed his arm and drew him gently down to her level.
When at last he was sitting before her, she opened her mouth. The warm, soft, red of her tongue caught the light and held his attention entirely.
Kasha.
He had stopped fighting it. He had reached for her lips—
“Leon?”
He startled at the sound of his name.
The woman from the dream was right in front of him, looking up at him with wide eyes.
She had just said his name. Her lips — the lips from that dream — were softly parted, caught in the shape of it.
Just like that. Just like in the dream, when she had pressed them to his hand.
Heat surged through him, sudden and overwhelming. Humiliation followed close behind, scorching his ears. He was on his feet before he knew it.
“You look well enough. I’ll take my leave.”
“Leon! Wait—”
Kasha reached out to catch him, startled.
But just before her hand could reach him, he pulled away — too sharply, too visibly.
Even with his gloves on, even with no skin exposed — the thought that she might touch him felt like exposure itself. As though contact alone would betray every image that had passed through his mind.
His flinch was abrupt enough that Kasha drew back, looking a little stung.
“I’m… sorry.”
He looked at her retreating hand with an expression that pained him.
In truth, he wanted nothing more than to take that hand. To press his face against it, to put his lips to it, to use whatever connection they had to quiet the terrible burning inside him.
If he could only have that, he thought he might throw everything else aside and kneel at her feet and beg.
I’ve lost my mind. I’ve completely lost my mind.
While he floundered in self-contempt, Kasha’s usual composure had already returned. She said,
“Sit down for a moment. There’s something I need to say.”
Every instinct told him to leave. The images in his head, the humiliation of his own wanting — all of it screamed at him to go. But the quiet steadiness of her eyes held him in place. He sat back down without putting up much of a fight.
“What is it.”
His tone came out blunter than he intended. Kasha continued, unbothered.
“Thank you… for honoring the contract so well.”
She was referring, no doubt, to the tournament — to accepting her courtship in front of everyone, and then making his own gesture in return.
He thought: did she need to call it a contract? But he didn’t say so.
She continued.
“So perhaps now… it’s time we addressed the finer terms.”
“The finer terms?”
“The curse needs to be broken. We need to find the medium it’s anchored to.”
Kasha’s face was gaunt, but her eyes were alert and intent.
“The sooner, the better.”
Leon agreed entirely. He had been feeling the curse grow stronger — that much was undeniable.
“I agree. In that case — where do you want to begin?”
“Your bedroom.”
She said it without a moment’s pause.
The word landed with unexpected weight. Leon was the one who tensed.
“…I see.”
“To sustain a curse’s power… the medium needs to be close to the target. The place where you spend the most time… that would be your bedroom. And perhaps the Knight Order’s offices. We need to look at both of them.”
The office at the Knight Order was where he spent two or three hours on official business, moving between various rooms and the training ground. The bedroom, in all likelihood, held more significance.
The thing that unsettles me is the thought of bringing you there.
He kept the thought to himself, considering for a moment before speaking.
“You’re right — but I should mention that after you first raised the possibility, I searched my own bedroom rather carefully. Nothing stood out.”
Kasha remained firm.
“There’s a good chance it’s hidden somewhere you wouldn’t think to look. I’d really like to check for myself. If that’s all right.”
Her eyes were earnest and resolute. He found it difficult to refuse outright.
“Even so — I don’t think it will be possible for about a week.”
Kasha’s expression dimmed.
“Why not?”
“At the end of June — two days from now, to be exact — my father will be hosting several days of meetings with the family’s vassals. The house has been in a flurry of preparation since yesterday. With the banquet that follows, we simply won’t have room for outside visitors for roughly a week.”
Her expression darkened further. She seemed to be weighing something serious and unspoken. Then she glanced at him sideways and asked quietly,
“What if I came… in secret?”
“In secret?”
“Through the servants’ entrance, even — in the middle of the night, if I have to. That’s perfectly fine with me. Truly.”
But at that, Leon drew back sharply.
“In the middle of the night — to my bedroom. Absolutely not.”
Kasha had spent a few nights near him, before the return. She knew well that the curse grew worse after dark. She didn’t press further — only exhaled.
She thought for a moment in silence, then looked up.
“In a week’s time… the Crown Prince’s wedding will be held, won’t it.”
“I believe so.”
The unexpected shift made Leon’s brow furrow.
Crown Prince Nigel had been away on a diplomatic tour and was due to return soon. Upon his return, the long-awaited marriage ceremony with Princess Jasmine was to be held.
Nigel’s return had the capital buzzing with anticipation — and justifiably so. He had managed to calm the tensions with neighboring nations through diplomacy alone, without a single battle. He was, by all accounts, beloved.
A sudden recollection of Nigel’s warm smile crossed Leon’s mind, and his expression became uncomfortable. The restless heat of the curse cooled slightly — a small mercy, under the circumstances.
Kasha watched his expression shift and then said,
“Lord Leon. Would it be possible… for you to find some excuse to miss the wedding? An illness, perhaps. Or another engagement.”
“You’re asking me not to attend the Crown Prince’s wedding?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, entirely in earnest. Leon shook his head.
“That’s not possible. The Crown Prince is my cousin, and his position in the empire is absolute at present. If I absented myself from his wedding without compelling reason, it would invite entirely unnecessary gossip. The Holy Knight Order’s standing would suffer as well.”
Especially given the current circumstances surrounding the Ossilote Grand Duke — the last thing Leon could afford was to fall out of favor with the Emperor or Crown Prince.
“But—”
Kasha hesitated, which was unlike her. Leon looked at her, puzzled.
“Why are you saying this?”
“…Just. With so many people gathered… if your condition were to worsen… that would be difficult to manage.”
“If my condition worsens? Are you genuinely worried that I’ll lose control of myself in front of a crowd of people?”
He said it with disbelief — and Kasha, rather than denying it, simply looked steadily back at him, as if the answer were yes.
Leon felt simultaneously incredulous and faintly paranoid. Did she somehow know what his thoughts had been?
“You think I’m so far gone that I can’t govern myself in public?”
“It’s not that.”
“If I were truly in that state, I would never have been able to function in the Knight Order to begin with.”
“Leon.”
“What exactly do you take me for?”
He was more stung than the situation warranted — he knew it — and the sharpness in his own voice confirmed it. He made a conscious effort to rein himself in.
“Kasha. Is there a specific reason you’re concerned about that day in particular?”
“Well—”
“Is there something you know? Something you haven’t told me yet?”
He pressed her again. She still couldn’t give him a clean answer.
“Only that… it’s been nearly a year since you were exposed to the curse stone. It’s natural for the symptoms to intensify around now.”
He could feel that she was holding something back — that her hesitation was concealing more than she was saying. But Kasha didn’t give him the chance to pursue it.
“For now, just please be careful. And if you think things are becoming dangerous — come find me right away.”
“Come find you?”
He looked at her, and something wry and sad came into his expression.
“That’s the thing—”
“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”
“Pardon…?”
“If I truly reach a point where I can no longer control myself, you would be the most dangerous person to be near. Don’t you understand that?”
