A ragged breath, choked with pain, scraped past his ear.
Even in the darkness, those vivid violet eyes twisted briefly in agony, yet Ressas concealed the pain as though nothing had happened.
Just now, what…?
A visceral fear surged upward, like the floor dropping out beneath him. Before he could even question why the one he was meant to protect had taken the hit for him, Seiyad followed pure instinct and pulled Ressas toward him—desperate to shield him behind his own back. Taking hits, protecting people—that was his duty as a Tither.
But Ressas didn’t allow it. Instead, he shoved Seiyad away, deliberately widening the distance between them so the longsword piercing his abdomen wouldn’t drive forward and injure Seiyad too. Staggering, Ressas took an unsteady step backward.
Ressas.
Seiyad reached out without thinking, murmuring his name. Perhaps hearing the quiet call, Ressas met his eyes and offered a faint smile before his chest rose sharply. Every slight motion screamed pain, but he didn’t retreat. Instead, he clutched the sword embedded in his stomach with his left hand, keeping it from being pulled out. Blood streamed down in thick rivulets.
“Ressas!”
This time, he shouted his name loud and clear. A person stabbed in the abdomen like that shouldn’t survive. Witnessing such a fatal wound unfold before his eyes, Seiyad’s mind went blank.
“It’s okay, Eid. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
As he rushed forward, shouting, that soft whisper reached him. What was okay about this? Talking nonsense, Ressas moved without pause. He locked the sword firmly in place, stopping the knight from retreating, and then drew another blade to stab the second knight behind him in the throat.
Blood splattered across Ressas’s pale cheek. The knight who had ambushed Seiyad dropped his sword and collapsed. Even in death, he made no sound. Coldly severing his enemy’s life, Ressas finally yanked the blade from his own abdomen. A quiet groan slipped soundlessly through his lips.
For a moment, Seiyad couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. His eyes blinked blankly, fixed on Ressas. The realization of how foolish it was to behave like this on a battlefield finally struck his mind back into clarity. Gripping his longsword tighter, Seiyad ran to Ressas and caught him.
“Why would you do something like this…!”
The idea that a prince—a prince, of all people—would risk his life for him was beyond belief. Even as he voiced his anger, Seiyad couldn’t fully grasp the situation. While scolding him aloud, he fumbled to tear his own cloak for a makeshift bandage. At his shout, Vine and Rigda turned back and cried out in alarm.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?!”
The torchlight flickered wildly, revealing blood-soaked white garments in front of Seiyad’s eyes. The pristine clothes, once as pure as the moon, were now drenched in blood pouring from his abdomen. Seeing their ranks fall into disarray, Ressas snapped at Vine and Rigda in a firm, commanding voice. That always-gentle tone was now cold and seasoned, the voice of someone who’d survived countless battles.
“Guides don’t die from just this. Don’t worry. Hold your position. I’ll cover this flank.”
Only then did Seiyad remember—Guides could heal themselves. He had seen it back in the cottage. Ressas did possess the ability to heal his own body, didn’t he? That must be why he acted so recklessly. Seiyad understood, but his heart still couldn’t accept it. His hands trembled, this time for a different reason.
‘What kind of mindset makes someone do this? What if he dies?’
He wanted to scream at him right then—but he swallowed it down. Even now, attacks were pouring in. He had to defend.
“But protecting Your Highness is our duty…!”
Struggling to parry a strike, Vine shouted again. But Ressas remained composed, calm in solitude.
“I won’t die from a wound like this. As disgraceful as it may be, I can at least restore my own body. You should worry about yourselves first.”
No sooner had Ressas spoken than the onslaught from the darkness intensified. As if in desperation, blades came lunging with vicious fury. Deflecting them, Seiyad tried to pull Ressas behind him again.
“Get behind me. Now.”
But Ressas refused to fall back. Instead, he struck down the oncoming blades with sharp clangs and launched a counterattack. Taking the lead in shielding Seiyad, he spoke without looking back.
“As I said, I won’t die easily. I’m better off fighting. When it comes to dealing with people, I’m not far behind the Grand Duke.”
“That’s absurd. What kind of royal fights in place of their retainer—!”
“If the Grand Duke gets injured, I can’t heal you. But if I get hurt, I can recover. So let me take the hits. Use me as your shield, Eid.”
Steady and unshaken, Ressas parried each attack with practiced ease.
‘How can he say that so calmly… use him as a shield?’
Sometimes, Ressas behaved as though something essential was missing from him. It drove Seiyad mad, remembering the time he’d told the king to use him as a human shield. He couldn’t let Ressas get hurt anymore. He had to kill these enemies swiftly—with his power, it would only take a moment.
But damn it… As soon as he steeled his heart to snuff out the lives of these vague silhouettes, nausea surged up. These weren’t Nir’a. They weren’t soulless monsters that bled nothing when cut—they were living, breathing humans. He had never used his power on people before. Because he knew—his power was meant for Nir’a, and Nir’a alone.
‘But if I don’t kill them, we’ll die.’
A harsh truth, but one he had to accept. As Seiyad began to release his power, just as he had against Nir’a, Ressas’s blade pierced through another knight’s throat. No death rattle escaped the body as it collapsed.
“You don’t have to kill. Let me take care of that. Keep those beautiful hands free of blood.”
A soft whisper brushed past Seiyad’s ear. Without even giving him the chance to intervene, Ressas moved through the battlefield, felling enemy after enemy. Each precise strike spilled more blood, soaking his clothes a deeper red with every kill.
At last, the battle that felt like slicing through the darkness came to an end. The relentless flurry of blades vanished, and an eerie stillness cloaked the surroundings. No corpses were visible in the dark; only within the faint radius cast by the flickering torches could they barely make out each other’s exhausted forms. The stench of blood was suffocating—so thick it choked the air.
“Your Highness, are you alright?”
Confirming that no more enemies remained, Vine rushed over and asked. Ressas stood upright without a word, answering calmly as if nothing had happened.
“I’m fine. The wound from earlier has already healed.”
Then he turned to Seiyad with a soft expression that seemed to affirm his words. The gentle look, clearly meant to reassure him, left Seiyad speechless. Vine and Rigda, eyeing their lord with evident concern, finally seemed to relax only when Ressas approached them without showing any signs of pain.
“Even with a fast recovery, Guides are still noble beings meant to be protected… That’s why we stay outside the forest with the knights in the first place. Please, Your Highness… take more care of yourself.”
Ressas didn’t offer a clear response. Instead, he reached out to Seiyad, brushing his cheek with his hand.
“You’ve got a cut on your cheek. It must’ve hurt. You’re not injured anywhere else, are you?”
The eyes looking down at him were so unbearably warm it hurt. That heartfelt concern poured from his entire being, and Seiyad felt like he might lose his mind. Ressas wasn’t the one who should be saying such words—he was.
“Don’t ever put yourself in danger for me again, Your Highness. Injuries are a daily matter for Tithers. I won’t die from a stab to the abdomen either, so please—preserve your precious self.”
He knew Ressas wouldn’t die from it, but the shock of earlier still lingered in Seiyad’s body like a sickness. Ressas listened silently, then slowly shook his head.
“No one deserves to be hurt, Eid. And if you get injured, the pain won’t subside until you’re healed. But I… I recover quickly. So it’s only right that I’m the one who takes the blow.”
His fingertips turned cold. Seiyad didn’t even know what he was trying to say anymore—it was frustrating. Watching Ressas get hurt had made him feel utterly wretched, but he didn’t know how to put that feeling into words. All he knew for sure was that it was a feeling he never wanted to experience again.
As if he didn’t intend to listen to any more arguments, Ressas deliberately changed the subject. He spoke to Vine.
“Vine, give me a torch.”
At his command, Vine handed one over. With it in hand, Ressas began inspecting the bodies scattered on the ground. All of the fallen were dressed in the uniform of those who wore the Armor of the Blue Moon.
“Why are the Crown Prince’s knights here? They weren’t the ones traveling with us in the procession… What on earth…?”
Rigda murmured in a shaken voice. If one listened carefully, her voice trembled faintly. It seemed the shock of killing fellow knights had hit her hard. The same went for Vine and Rigda alike—and Seiyad was no different.
His throat kept tightening with the urge to vomit. He clenched his mouth shut, forcing back the nausea. His trembling hands curled into fists as he went from corpse to corpse, inspecting each face. Just as Rigda said, these weren’t the knights who had joined them on this subjugation. And yet… some of them looked familiar. That familiarity nagged at him, and Seiyad searched his memory carefully. Then it struck him—he had seen them before, in his previous life.
“Rigda, your torch.”
Taking the torch from her, Seiyad slowly moved through the bodies, examining each face one by one. The more he looked, the more his suspicion turned into certainty.
These were the knights who once served Aster and were later reported missing—said to have died in action during an undisclosed mission. Most likely, that “mission” had been an assassination attempt on Ressas.
