#42
Even through his slightly blurred vision, that man’s features were clearly perceived. The gaze beneath his long eyelashes was quietly wavering, and the corners of his mouth were neatly closed.
Though his expression appeared vague, an unclear emotion could be felt. Was it worry, anger, or perhaps resolve? Whatever it was, it wasn’t the face of someone trying to brush off this situation lightly.
Then Crown Prince hyung muttered.
“That’s what it was. Ha, so that’s why you threw yourself as bait.”
Though his voice was low, there were suppressed emotional undulations within it.
“……?”
My eyes widened slightly without me realizing it. Not because I couldn’t grasp the exact meaning of his words, but because that interpretation was so far off the mark.
……Me? I was the bait?
It was an absurd misunderstanding. Hyung’s tone already sounded like someone who had reached a conclusion.
‘Didn’t I clearly say I would use the young lady as bait?’
What I had planned was to provoke the young lady into making a mistake, induce her to reveal her black magic, and clearly expose her relationship with the half-demons. But right now, hyung was thinking that I had deliberately induced contact with the enemy by playing the role of bait myself.
As I tilted my head inwardly again, the Archduke’s breathing became quiet.
He was looking at me without saying anything. A sudden stillness flowed from his body.
As if suppressing his emotions.
His breath caught briefly, and the handkerchief he was holding in his hand trembled slightly.
Concerned, I mouthed ‘What’s wrong?’ from under his handkerchief that was touching my lips, and the Archduke hesitated.
He looked down at me for a long while, then finally showed a reaction.
And he frowned slightly.
* * *
‘He has a strangely mischievous side to him.’
Skyle thought so unconsciously.
His gaze remained quietly fixed on Ersen’s lips.
His breath, still soaked with blood and medicinal scent, hadn’t completely settled yet. His reddish-tinged lips were slightly parted, and his thinly wet eyelashes trembled minutely with each intake of breath.
Skyle smiled briefly and withdrew the handkerchief that had been touching Ersen’s lips.
The cloth was fine linen, and the Archduke’s family crest was intricately embroidered at the edge of the handkerchief. He could feel the friction of the fabric at his fingertips. Skyle carefully adjusted the angle of his wrist and slowly folded the handkerchief, wrapping it in his palm.
Ersen was on the bed once again.
He was lying diagonally on the faded imperial bedding. Under the soft lighting, his face was still pale. His hair lay against his forehead, clinging to it, and his right cheek had a slight flush. The bed sheets were neatly arranged, but only the spot where Ersen lay was slightly wrinkled.
“What kind of poison is it?”
Theodore asked Skyle while looking at the dazed Prince Ersen, who could barely speak properly, with displeasure.
His voice as he spoke was low, clearly pronouncing each syllable with emphasis.
“Do you know of Logi?”
Skyle responded with his head slightly bowed, not letting his manner of speech falter.
“……If it’s Logi.”
Theodore’s gaze wavered slightly. A dark shadow fell over his forehead, and his eyes slowly narrowed.
That poison disrupted the nervous system even in small amounts, and when it spread through mana, it caused abnormalities in all five senses.
Indeed, Ersen’s reaction was close to typical Logi poisoning symptoms. Sensory confusion, decreased concentration, dropping body temperature, and vomiting accompanied by blood. The flow of mana to his brain was going haywire, and the side effects were gradually spreading.
The court physicians of the imperial palace, who had received orders from Theodore and urgings from Skyle, had quickly applied an antidote, but there would definitely be aftereffects.
The scent of the antidote still lingered softly throughout the room, and the bitter smell characteristic of medicinal herbs remained in the air. On one side of the table, large and small glass bottles and medical instruments were messily placed, and half-empty medicine bottles leaned at angles in incomplete balance.
Theodore recalled Ersen drinking wine without suspicion.
That scene, when recalled now, seemed somehow strange and yet vivid. His face smiling without any suspicion while holding the glass, and his expression that only wavered slightly after finishing it all.
“Ersen.”
Theodore called his name, not particularly gently.
“Yees……”
Though the listless voice strangely made him want to stop the interrogation, Theodore lightly ignored that impulse.
Ersen opened his eyes narrowly, then soon fixed his gaze on the ceiling. The words that flowed between his lips were languid, clearly showing hesitation.
“You didn’t knowingly drink it, did you?”
Despite their brotherly relationship, that question carried considerable sharpness.
That earlier comment about bait had been sincere.
The assumption that Ersen had used himself as bait to trap someone was a hypothesis that Theodore found utterly unacceptable.
He hadn’t even gotten an answer to what he’d asked earlier.
The silence was more frustrating than the question.
“Mmm.”
A hazy voice lingered around his lips.
“……?”
Theodore’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.
But this damn bastard avoided answering.
That silence was evasion. It was all too easy to tell that it was a silence with reason.
After promising to take care of his body, he threw himself as bait into a situation where he didn’t know what might happen.
His breathing echoed louder in the room than his voice. A stillness spread as if the temperature difference between the lying Ersen and the standing Theodore was gradually widening.
“You even knew there might be poison, yet you just drank it all down like that?”
Theodore spoke briefly. Even after his words ended, the air in the room remained heavily settled.
Silence turned.
The question had clearly been asked, but no one answered.
Neither Skyle, who was smiling serenely like a statue, nor that damn bastard who was only letting out groans, reacted to his words at all.
Skyle was lightly laughing beside them, but that laughter somehow felt rigidly hardened. Ersen half-opened his mouth while catching his breath on the bed, then closed it again.
Theodore stood with his arms crossed beside the bed.
His shoulders looked somewhat heavy. The shadow stretched long, reaching to the edge of the bed, and though his posture was firm, it was tilted inward.
Unlike his usual cold expression, the wrinkles deeply etched between his eyebrows revealed his complicated inner state.
Those wrinkles didn’t disappear easily.
“If you violate the contract, you’ll have problems with your heart.”
Skyle stated matter-of-factly.
Though his voice was affectionate, the content of his words was not. A quietly delivered judgment.
“Would that be alright, Your Highness?”
His tone dropped just slightly as he reached the end of his words.
“……Me?”
Ersen asked back briefly.
“Who else would I be talking about if not Your Highness?”
Skyle replied with an affectionate tone.
Ersen blinked and studied Skyle’s expression.
After taking a deep breath slowly, he turned his head very slightly and directed his gaze toward the face of Skyle, who was sitting beside him. It might have been a simple movement of his gaze, but the angle of his pupils and the time they lingered was a bit longer. Even after blinking two or three times, he was still looking at him.
Watching this, Theodore tilted his head slightly.
It was a short, smooth motion. One eyebrow lifted very slightly, and his eyes narrowed. Like an observer and judge, he silently looked back and forth between the two.
Was it his imagination?
For a moment, Theodore’s thought drifted by. His pupils wavered slightly.
It felt like Prince Ersen was strangely more concerned about Kyle’s reactions than others.
That was a definite length of gaze. There was clearly a subtle temperature difference between the reaction he showed to Skyle and the reaction he showed to Theodore himself. Ersen’s gaze lingered long on Skyle, he smiled along when Skyle smiled, and tried to read him when he was expressionless.
As if to confirm that thought, Ersen’s answer, which hadn’t come to him, popped out.
Those lips that had maintained silence for so long opened easily this time.
“Mmm, actually, as long as I don’t die, I try to use anything I can use.”
A lingering tone remained at the end of his words.
“Is that so?”
Skyle’s voice was short and quiet. It was a low resonance that seemed to follow from the back of his neck.
“But Archduke, I’m taking care of my body as promised. Really.”
Ersen spoke with his eyebrows slightly furrowed, trailing off at the end. Though there was sincerity in his eyes, how convincing those words sounded was uncertain.
Without even responding, Skyle smiled and placed his hand on Ersen’s forehead.
The moment his hand touched his forehead, Ersen’s eyelids trembled with a start. His fingertips were neither cold nor hot. They were placed carefully on his skin, holding a constant body temperature.
And without even asking permission, he poured mana into him.
Quietly, without any warning. The mana that spread from his fingertips flowed in through the center of his forehead. That path was gentle and very natural. It was absorption as quiet as breath.
“……Ah?”
A single syllable flowed from Ersen’s slightly parted lips.
At that small exclamation, Theodore let out a small sigh.
Even without words, the meaning carried in that sigh was clear. Absurdity, fatigue, and a very small amount of dissatisfaction.
‘Does he even know he’s receiving treatment that couldn’t be obtained even if given a fortune?’
He muttered inwardly and slowly lowered his head. The deeply etched wrinkles between his forehead remained like an afterimage.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
