More than anyone else. Especially you — you would be in danger beyond all others. Do you genuinely not see that?
What crossed his beautiful face was a smile — but warped, self-contemptuous, deeply tired.
Yet Kasha, who had just been spoken to so harshly, only looked at him with something that resembled sorrow.
“I… will be fine.”
“What exactly will be fine?”
His voice was sharp.
“Is it fine with you if a creature enslaved by lust tears into you? Is that somehow to your taste?”
He had said far too much. Leon bit down on the inside of his lip, too late.
I’ve lost my temper entirely. To say something that careless—
Something was genuinely wrong. He wasn’t usually a man who let words slip like this. He could keep silent when he needed to. Unguarded moments were not supposed to happen.
He raised his eyes — guilt and self-loathing in them both — and looked at Kasha.
She was looking back at him with a smile that had nothing to do with what he expected.
“I think I just… understand. What kind of person you are. How much you’ve suffered. How much you’re struggling even now, in this very moment. All of it.”
* * *
Leon’s outburst had not made Kasha angry. What she felt was something closer to tenderness — a quiet, aching sadness.
So you want to be mauled by a beast consumed by lust? Is that your preference? Hahahaha… heh… ugh—
Over his sharp, biting words, another image rose unbidden: the ruined holy knight she had once found wandering a desolate temple alone, broken by what had been done to him.
Leon was, in so many ways, unchanged.
However cutting his words became, he had never — not once, under any circumstances — laid a hand on her against her will. That was the truth of him.
His rigid, unyielding self-control moved her more than it should have.
You could ask more of me. You don’t have to keep holding everything inside like this.
Bearing it. Swallowing it. Hiding the worst of himself, as if that could make the suffering disappear. It didn’t. If anything, that shell only made the pain lonelier.
She thought of herself — before the return — absorbing every blow alone, never suspecting she was being used, until the day she was struck down from behind and sentenced to death. His silhouette was layered over hers.
The Crown Prince’s wedding.
Before her return, that was the day Leon had finally broken.
He had attacked guests with his eyes gone red, and finally turned on himself in front of everyone — the curse’s lust twisting into uncontainable violence. He was subdued by the Holy Knight Order and confined for a month.
When he stood on the verge of losing even his knighthood, the one who extended a hand to him was Odette.
Odette had been among the people he’d harmed that day. She used her minor injury as leverage, cornered him completely, and took possession of him at last.
In exchange for marrying him, she deployed the Tyrot Duchy’s resources and influence to silence the condemnation. And their marriage had been nothing but the beginning of a long nightmare.
Kasha looked at Leon’s bewildered, exposed expression and said quietly to herself,
You have every right to be angry with me. I’m the one responsible for pushing you into that nightmare.
And then she began to speak.
“I think I just… understand. What kind of person you are. How much you’ve suffered. How much you’re struggling even now, in this very moment. All of it.”
When she finished, Leon looked like a man watching something collapse in front of him — lost, unmoored, unable to speak.
He rose from his seat. Without a word of farewell, he opened the door and walked out.
* * *
The day of Crown Prince Nigel and Princess Jasmine’s wedding.
The plaza in front of the Great Temple was packed with thousands. Not only the nobles formally invited to the ceremony, but commoners who had traveled from across the city simply to witness it from a distance.
Since returning from his diplomatic tour, the Crown Prince’s popularity had soared to extraordinary heights.
“Even the Berman clan — fierce as they are — apparently yielded before the Crown Prince.”
“They signed the agreement in the end, didn’t they? The merchant ships crossing the northern seas will have clear passage now.”
“For my part, what I’m most grateful for is the peace along the border. Relations with the Kazim Kingdom — who could have imagined it?”
“Who would have thought the Kazim princess would fall head over heels for our Crown Prince at first sight?”
“They say Princess Jasmine would do anything he asked.”
“Surely not. She’s so proud. A Kazim princess, of all people.”
“It’s true. At the Crown Prince’s welcome ceremony three days ago, she practically ran out barefoot to greet him.”
“What kind of princess behaves like that? Have they no pride?”
“It’s simply because our Crown Prince is that extraordinary.”
“These days, even the troubadours are composing songs in praise of his eyes.”
“Well, violet eyes have been the mark of the imperial family for generations.”
“In terms of pure beauty, Sir Leon of the Ossilote Grand Ducal house was always considered more striking.”
“Fair enough. White-gold hair and violet eyes together — that combination is hard to match. And his sacred power ranks among the highest in the Great Temple, and his swordsmanship has no equal.”
“Even so, you can’t compare him to the Crown Prince. His Highness is the true bloodline of the Aranias imperial house.”
“Is Sir Leon not of that blood as well? The Grand Duke of Ossilote is the Emperor’s only brother, after all.”
“What does it matter? They say the Grand Duke dared to scheme against the Empress and brought ruin on himself for it.”
“Hush. Don’t speak carelessly. If the Imperial Knights hear—”
The crowd’s voices dropped instinctively at the sight of the guards keeping strict order.
“Ahem. In any case — did you hear? They found a boy’s body in the Arnin River yesterday.”
“A street urchin, they said? He must have gotten into trouble with the wrong sort of people. Probably knifed.”
“But last month, they found a girl’s body in the Chrysos Forest. She was about ten years old. Similar age to the body they found yesterday.”
“What — are you saying there might be a string of murders?”
“I’m just saying. It crossed my mind.”
As the crowd’s chatter began to lag, the sun reached its peak overhead — and the bell tower of the Great Temple rang out in clear, resonant tones.
* * *
“Long live the Crown Prince!”
“Long live the Crown Princess!”
The assembled guests beneath the soaring vaulted ceiling raised their voices as one.
Crown Prince Nigel strode down the crimson-carpeted central aisle without hesitation — a picture of assured, effortless majesty. The sweep of his golden-brown hair framed a clean profile and eyes that caught the light like amethysts.
His smile was unblemished. His bearing, incomparably confident.
“Is it just me, or does he seem even taller than before?”
“It’s not merely his looks. He has a kind of ease that sets him apart. With that composure, no wonder he talked the neighboring nations into submission.”
Kasha listened to the whispered admiration drifting around her and watched from her seat at the far end of a long pew as the Crown Prince made his way forward.
Daryl sat beside her. Across the aisle, she could see Margaret, seated with her parents.
Glancing idly around, she caught Simon Blanche’s eye — he had been staring at her from the very back row. He lit up immediately, waving in her direction.
Kasha’s expression closed over like a shutter and she looked away.
Whatever happens today, I have no intention of getting entangled with that man.
Beyond Leon’s account of the incident — delivered before the return — Kasha had no precise knowledge of what would unfold at the Crown Prince’s wedding. But her reason for attending wasn’t only concern about Leon’s condition.
This is my chance to observe Princess Jasmine up close.
Two clues had lingered from the moment of her death, left behind by the unseen hand that had destroyed her: an overwhelming floral perfume, and the sound of a folding fan being opened.
Truthfully, neither clue was especially useful now. The scent of that perfume was drifting from at least half the nobles currently filling the Great Temple.
Even so — the fact that Princess Jasmine was the first to bring that particular fragrance into this country may still be significant.
Kasha tried not to let her impatience show as she waited for the bride to be announced.
Meanwhile, from the very front row, the Emperor’s low, ongoing complaints drifted back with some regularity. The aging Emperor leaned on Princess Melissa’s arm as before — and Melissa, composed as she had been at the tournament, looked quietly worn down by the relentless stream of his grumbling.
The Empress, bedridden in a coma for years, was absent. The Crown Princess and the Second Prince were no longer of this world. In the next row sat the Ossilote Grand Ducal family.
Eve’s white-gold hair and Anthony’s silver were visible even from a distance. Beside them sat the Grand Duke — haggard, subdued, emanating a quiet sorrow that kept people’s eyes from lingering.
They were a breathtakingly beautiful family. But something in the Grand Duke’s atmosphere made people look away.
And at the front — standing in formation alongside the high clergy, flanking the dais where the Grand Archbishop presided — was Leon.
In his immaculate white dress uniform, his striking features were as extraordinary as ever.
…But he looks so exhausted.
Even from a distance, the shadows beneath his eyes were unmistakable. His cheeks had gone hollow. His posture and expression were composed — but his eyes were dull, the life in them muted.
He had clearly not slept properly in days, pushing his body well past its limits.
The episodes have already begun.
Kasha felt the weight of her dread becoming real.
The Crown Prince, meanwhile, completed his procession and took his place beside the Grand Archbishop, turning his shining smile toward the congregation.
The contrast, purely by accident of positioning, couldn’t have been more pronounced. Leon stood below and before the dais — directly beneath where the Crown Prince now stood. The opposition of their atmospheres drew attention without either man trying.
Like the sun and the moon hanging in the same sky — beneath the Crown Prince’s brilliant, luminous presence, Leon looked all the more hollowed out.
“Why does Sir Leon look so particularly somber today?”
“Exactly. He used to have such a noble bearing. I suppose it’s been wearing off since he started spending time with Kasha Rüschino.”
People murmured openly.
But there were some watching his deteriorated state with an entirely different kind of interest.
That look. It is absolutely my type.
Odette, seated beside the Tyrot Duke in a resplendent gown, could not take her eyes off Leon. He had not once glanced her way.
