As Ressas gazed at him with a puzzled expression, tilting his head slightly, a faint crease formed on his pale forehead.
“Surely, you don’t mean my mother when you speak of someone precious to me, do you?”
The very suggestion seemed utterly implausible to Ressas, his long eyelashes blinking in genuine bewilderment. This left Seiyad taken aback.
‘Could it be a lie?’
It seemed impossible for such words to come from him. Hadn’t he witnessed over time how Ressas constantly grieved and felt disappointed because of his mother, the Queen? Yet, fabricating such a statement didn’t seem like something Ressas would do either. As Seiyad struggled to make sense of the bizarre question, Ressas continued speaking without changing his expression.
“I fail to understand why you would think I hold any affection for someone I’ve seen only a handful of times in my life. I harbor no feelings towards Queen Leana. She was particularly harsh towards me, but given the reasons, I bear no resentment.”
It couldn’t be true.
“The Queen is your mother. It’s only natural for a child to love their parent.”
“Not all parents love their children, just as children aren’t obligated to love their parents. She is merely the one who gave birth to me.”
As if that was all there was to it, Ressas offered no further sentiments about Queen Leana.
“The death of the former Grand Duke was indeed a tragic injustice. However, I don’t see it as a tragedy significant enough to warrant my ostracization solely because I share the Queen’s blood.”
Seiyad’s brow furrowed. Conflicting emotions surged within him. While he found some solace in Ressas acknowledging his mother’s death as unjust, his words seemed utterly nonsensical.
“Perhaps considering the reverse would make it easier to understand. I have no desire to explain further.”
Tilting his head slightly, Ressas fell silent and fixed his gaze on Seiyad. Just as Seiyad was about to speak again, an unexpected response came.
“I would have been fine with whatever you did. Only the Grand Duke held any significance to me.”
Ressas’s confession was bizarre. It was unimaginable that someone who had so freely given love and helped others could say, in a voice devoid of any emotion, that he had never felt anything special for anyone.
Yet, strangely enough, it seemed plausible coming from Ressas. It was just incredibly confusing to hear this confession at this moment.
“I thought I was worthless and despicable, and that you were merely tired of me. I never thought that what happened to the former Brosius Duke would affect us. It had nothing to do with you and me.”
As Seiyad tried to rationally interpret the bewildering confession, Ressas continued his revelation. Overwhelmed by the difficult-to-accept truth, Seiyad objected to him.
“Do you really think that makes sense? Even if you feel that way about the Queen, politically, a conflict was inevitable.”
“Until just yesterday, wasn’t I someone who had no political influence, someone who shouldn’t have been born? Does a royal, who no one acknowledges and who doesn’t even seem like a royal, have any standing?”
Once again, the voice genuinely sounded perplexed.
Listening to Ressas’s indifferent confession, Seiyad recalled the events of a few days ago when he had offered to be a shield to help. His words, though seemingly absurd, carried a strange ring of truth.
The firmly entrenched resistance within him wavered for the first time. Even after deciding to cooperate with him, that resistance had remained steadfast, a resolve Seiyad had maintained to keep his distance from Ressas.
“…That doesn’t make sense either. You are under the protection of the Shildras Duke’s family, are you not? Despite having Zion Shildras, a long-time friend of yours and a distant relative of the late Queen, by your side, how can you say that?”
At the mention of Zion, Ressas’s expression changed. Watching his eyes cast down in discomfort, Seiyad chided himself for almost believing those innocent-sounding words. For reasons unknown, Ressas seemed intent on persuading him, but his words lacked the ring of truth.
“Zion is indeed… a good friend. At that time, I needed him desperately.”
This time, Ressas spoke the truth. His heart, filled with confusion, found some solace in those words. It had been an incredibly long time since he had emotionally clashed with someone like this, and Seiyad no longer wanted to engage in a war of words with Ressas. He didn’t want to expect anything.
“I’ve heard enough.”
Seiyad spoke firmly. Night had deepened unnoticed. Seeing the expression on Seiyad’s face, full of wariness, Ressas finally fell silent.
“I believe I’ve sufficiently addressed your curiosity, so I shall take my leave. I don’t know with what intention you offer to be my guide, but it’s impossible anyway.”
In this life, he didn’t want to deceive Ressas any longer and had only intended to correct him directly. After all, the matters of the guide and Tither were to be decided by the nation.
“I won’t let go of this opportunity now that you finally need me.”
Ressas was persistent. Eventually, Seiyad fell silent. Turning his body clearly to indicate that he didn’t want to be followed, he pointed out one fact that Ressas seemed to have forgotten.
“You dislike me. You despise my behavior and hate my wrongdoings. I hope you remember that.”
Not expecting an answer, he turned away as soon as he finished speaking. As he headed back to the castle without hesitation, a soft whisper reached his ears from behind.
“I had tried not to expect anything.”
It seemed as though his name was faintly called at the end of the sentence. Deliberately ignoring the whisper he had heard despite himself, Seiyad entered the castle, now shrouded in deep shadows.
***
He had received purification to the point of overflowing. From two guides, no less.
Just as all power has its limits, a guide’s purification also takes a toll on their stamina. It was rare to receive sufficient purification during such times, yet he had received it in abundance.
“Vetria, you dare inflict such wounds upon him. My poor star.”
That night, Aster behaved as if he truly cherished him, just as Seiyad had once mistakenly believed in the past. Healing the half-mended wounds, Aster used a considerable amount of his own power, yet he still touched Seiyad’s hair, kissed his forehead, and stabilized his waves.
“Forgive my mistake from a few days ago. I never imagined you would be in such danger, and I acted childishly. I caused you unnecessary pain over my insignificant brother. I’m sorry.”
As Aster spoke, his lips moved from Seiyad’s forehead to his cheek. The lingering movement near his lips would have turned into a kiss if Seiyad hadn’t avoided it.
In the past, he would have taken his lips without a second thought.
But a strange sense of rejection arose. He couldn’t understand why. Purification was just purification; there was no deeper meaning to the act.
Knowing that Seiyad had reservations about deep purification rituals, Aster didn’t push further. However, as penance for recklessly getting hurt, Seiyad spent the night in Aster’s bedroom. It was no different from guarding him while he slept, but it wasn’t something others could know about.
Seiyad sat on the edge of his bed, watching him all night. His beautiful golden hair and flawless face looked divine, as if he had crafted the sun itself. With mixed feelings, Seiyad guarded him, pondering all night whether Aster’s purification was truly problematic.
Clearly, Aster’s and Ressas’s purifications were different. Just by touching him, his unstable waves calmed, and the pain that had wracked his body disappeared. Yet, there was an indescribable, subtle difference. The emotions that had been turbulent when he was with Ressas completely settled after receiving Aster’s purification, making it seem as if Aster’s purification was even better.
The situation had become much more complicated than when he first realized he had returned to the past.
Just a few days ago, Seiyad had thought that simply preventing his own rampage would make the world safe. But if someone truly wanted to make the Tither rampage and reduce their numbers, and if in the end there was no one to stop Nir’a, then the death of everyone in this land was inevitable.
Suddenly, he recalled that the vanished illusion might actually come true.
The strange illusion felt like Cecilia’s prophecy. The illusion that had rushed in like a lucid dream was forgotten as quickly as it had come, but he clearly remembered the image of the burning kingdom.
Even if the hallucination was born of the madness lurking within Seiyad, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the reduction in the number of Tithers was connected to the kingdom’s downfall. The problem was the trigger. Both Vetria and himself were connected through Aster, but the heir to the kingdom couldn’t possibly want the destruction of the land. Any living being in this land would feel the same.
