“How did His Majesty come to be here…?”
Adena murmured in disbelief, clearly thrown off. Judging from his reaction, it was obvious that Aster hadn’t summoned the king. Thinking about it, that made sense. Aster clearly wanted to get rid of Zion, given how he manipulated others so skillfully. If the matter reached the king, punishing Zion would only be delayed. It would be far more convenient for Aster to handle things himself under the authority delegated to him by the monarch.
So then, was it Ressas who brought the king here?
Was this what he meant by having something to take care of? The capital was about a day away from here, so it was hard to be certain whether this had been part of his plan. Regardless, the king’s appearance wasn’t a bad thing. With the final say in the kingdom’s affairs, even Aster would have to act with caution.
Still, what troubled him was Aster’s abilities. From what Zion had just told him, Seiyad realized the situation mirrored what he’d experienced at the edge of the forest. That moment when someone seemed to suddenly lose all reason—it had felt just like someone under mental indoctrination. And if that young man who’d brainwashed the children in the forest had been Aster, then it was all but certain that Aster possessed such a power.
What if he’d brainwashed the king too? Or if he could?
It was impossible to know the full extent of Aster’s capabilities. So many events had erupted all at once that it had taken time for Seiyad to fully grasp the situation. He studied Adena carefully, now questioning whether everyone close to Aster was moving under the assumption of having already been indoctrinated.
“What are you doing just standing there? His Majesty is here—you’re a knight of the royal order. Escorting him should be your first priority.”
But right now, the priority was getting Adena out of his way. Seiyad issued the order in a cold, cutting voice. Adena, already torn with inner conflict, glared at Seiyad with a simmering rage. Seiyad smirked at the insolent look.
“I’ve indulged your rudeness long enough. Don’t make the mistake of thinking Tither is beneath you just because you’re used to treating the Duke of Shildras like some pawn. The duke standing right beside you could snap your worthless neck with a flick of his finger. He only tolerates your presence because Tither knows honor.”
Seiyad could understand—if only just slightly—why Sirkhan Shildras had become so jaded. He neither wanted to know nor had any right to know the full story, but it was no secret that Sirkhan had always tried to expand Tither’s standing. At some point, the kingdom had begun to take Tither’s devotion for granted, even treating their power as inferior. The exploitation had only gotten worse under the previous king’s reign. If Sirkhan had become disillusioned, it was no wonder.
Not that it justified the madness he’d committed.
Adena’s eyes flared in response to Seiyad’s words, clearly provoked. As captain of the knights, his presence was fierce enough to make the other knights flinch, but to Seiyad, he was nothing more than an irritant.
Seiyad’s smirk twisted further as he stared him down. Then, slowly, he released the latent energy always simmering inside him. The unrefined killing intent that could lash out at any moment without restraint filled the room. Every shadow trembled, and the air turned needle-sharp. A red glint began to burn in Seiyad’s gray eyes.
Why did people never consider that Tither’s restraint in using their power only against monsters was, in itself, a form of mercy?
If Tither had ever desired power, they could’ve crushed the royal family long ago, driving the Guides to ruin and seizing the throne. With their power, they could’ve done anything. That they chose instead to submit to the system was a pact for the sake of collective peace. Those who scoffed at that sacrifice were nauseating.
As the murderous aura intensified, Seiyad felt Zion staring at him uneasily. The knights around them could barely breathe under the suffocating pressure, and Adena—standing directly in its path—was turning pale. His pride couldn’t suppress the instinctive fear crawling up his spine.
“Get out. Now.”
The command left Seiyad’s lips like a final decree, and at once, Adena released Zion’s arm. As if unwilling to admit it even to himself, he stepped back and muttered furiously under his breath.
“You wield that monstrous power so casually, like the Devil himself…”
“Yapping like some trembling mutt with nothing but bark. That was your last warning. I’ll escort the Duke of Shildras to the chapel myself. If you disobey, I’ll make you disappear from this place with my own hands.”
As the crimson hue in Seiyad’s eyes deepened, Adena cursed silently under his breath and brushed past him. The knights who’d been waiting for his signal hurried after him out of the room.
Seiyad watched their abrupt departure with a blank expression before glancing down at Zion, who stood there dazed.
“Are you going to stand there like an idiot, or are you going to move, Duke?”
They’d have to show themselves before the king anyway. To stay on schedule, Seiyad pressed Zion to move. Zion bit down on his lip, wearing an expression of complete disbelief.
“Why did you help me? From your perspective, it would’ve been better if I had been humiliated instead.”
He sounded like someone who actually wished that had been the case. The fact that his enemy had done something he hadn’t expected clearly infuriated him.
“I’m not like your father. I won’t abandon someone who bears the same burden as I do.”
With that, Seiyad turned and began walking. Zion followed without resistance. If he’d intended to fight back, he would’ve done it earlier. The power of Tither wasn’t something an ordinary knight could restrain, and Zion was among the strongest of them. Defying Seiyad would’ve been easy.
Yet both he and Seiyad’s mother had chosen to comply. It was because they respected the laws of the kingdom.
They walked in silence down the corridor. Seiyad didn’t know the way to the chapel, but he turned toward where the energy of the crowd seemed strongest. It seemed he’d guessed right—Zion followed without comment. It was the most compliant he’d ever seen him.
They reached the fourth floor, where a massive door that looked like it led to the chapel came into view. That’s when Zion finally broke the silence.
“I didn’t hate you from the beginning.”
The random remark made Seiyad look back. Zion’s face was twisted in humiliation, like the act of admitting this was almost physically painful. He clenched his teeth and went on.
“…Ressas always adored you—so much so that it was almost ridiculous. Even when you treated him worse than a bug, he’d still pretend nothing was wrong whenever he was around you. After seeing you, he’d come home looking like someone who’d been stabbed, too pale to eat for an entire day. He never cried in front of me, not once. But I know he cried because of you. I hated you so much for that.”
The unexpected words made his stomach churn.
Since the moment Ressas had stopped clinging to him, he had acted differently during their encounters. Naturally, Seiyad had assumed that meant Ressas no longer swayed under his presence as he once had.
“I resented Ressas for not being able to forget you just because he met you first when you were kids—even when I was right beside him as a perfectly good friend. I wanted to be his most dependable companion, but it infuriated me that someone like you still occupied that place in his heart. But now I see…”
Zion looked like a man who had come to a painful realization.
“To Ressas, you weren’t just a friend. You were something far more precious—something incomparable.”
He wore a fleeting expression of defeat before nodding to himself, as though he finally understood. Seiyad, too, was momentarily lost for words.
He had thought it was fine because Ressas seemed fine—because there were no obvious signs. He assumed it had meant nothing.
Even though he had known Ressas was good at hiding his emotions, he never once imagined the boy had put on the same unaffected mask for him, just as he did for others. He had known—had seen—how Ressas smiled when he was truly suffering.
The back of his hand. That pale hand, veined with blue.
Whenever Ressas smiled to mask his pain, Seiyad had always noticed the subtle tremble in that hand. As if to remind him that emotions couldn’t lie—they would always manifest through the body. Even when Ressas’s face betrayed nothing, something else always gave him away.
Lately, Seiyad had caught those signs more often than ever.
Then what if… what if you…
What if, in your past life, you hadn’t hated me either? What if every time you stood before me, you were only pretending, just like Zion said?
Just entertaining the thought was enough to make his breath hitch. Dread clawed at his chest, and Seiyad hastily shut the thought down. Never, not once, had he considered this possibility while observing Ressas’s behavior. There had been no clues. No… it couldn’t be. Surely, at some point, Ressas had grown to hate him.
“I thought hating the Grand Duke was simply the right thing to do. My father always told me the Brosius family’s power was tainted, that the previous patriarch had disgraced the name of Tither. That you were devil’s lackeys—creatures not worth associating with. I heard so many things…But if it was my father who actually summoned the Devil—”
Zion ran a hand down his face. His voice, this time, was stripped bare.
“Then I’ve been hating the wrong person all along. The one I should’ve hated was my father—my own family.”
Having spoken the disgraceful truth of his lineage aloud, he seemed strangely relieved. He passed by Seiyad and walked up to the chapel doors of his own volition. Standing before them, he whispered without turning around:
“I’ll pay for my sins, even with my life if I must. But my younger sister and mother… they bear no guilt. I hope you can understand that. The disrespect I’ve shown the Grand Duke can’t be undone. I won’t even ask for forgiveness. Even saying this now fills me with enough shame to choke on it…”
Zion turned his head and gazed up at the grand chapel doors.
He stared at the radiant sun engraved into the wood, the moon standing silently at its side, and the stars glittering from all directions.
Then, at last, he spoke:
“I was wrong, Grand Duke. I’m sorry.”
Zion still had the courage to acknowledge what he didn’t want to accept.
The arrogant young noble Seiyad had once dismissed as stubborn was now admitting his mistakes. And in that moment, Seiyad felt something within himself—something hard and tightly wound—begin to unravel.
The tension built over years of conflict with Zion wouldn’t disappear just like that. But even so, something had shifted. Something had begun to ease.
Perhaps, Seiyad thought, he too had been clinging to a rigid prejudice all this time.
What you see isn’t everything.
In the past, he had been far more ignorant than he’d realized. Not just about the dark dealings that surrounded him—but about people.
People didn’t change easily. Yet when struck with something that shook the soul, they could indeed transform.
And some feelings…
Some hearts stayed exactly where they were, no matter what they endured.
From the cracked-open chapel door, a shaft of sunlight angled in, casting a pale glow across Seiyad’s face.
Bathed in that light, Seiyad found himself aching—aching with a desperate, maddening longing for a man who had once shared that same warmth.
So much so that the longing itself began to feel terrifying.
