The Double-Edged Sword

The Aurelian Empire had no shortage of proverbs about love, and among them, one passage stood as the most famous of all: love is a double-edged sword. It meant that the same thing which could make a person happiest could also make them suffer the most.

Leoneld murmured the words under his breath as he watched the red sun rise slowly beyond the far horizon. "...Then is this, too, love?"

He did not know what love was. Naturally so—he had never once been given sweetness in all his life. No matter how vividly you described a banana to someone who had never seen the fruit, that person could never fully understand it. They could only vaguely guess at its true shape within their imagination: a fruit with yellow skin and pale white flesh, sweet on the tongue when bitten.

…

And so Leoneld could be certain of nothing, for he too had never once witnessed the thing with his own two eyes. Yet one thing at least was certain. The night of the ball—it may have been a somewhat reckless, even foolish choice, but the night he had gained in exchange was more rapturous than any moment of his life.

And now, a month later— I feel as though I've been slammed to the very bottom. In stark contrast to that dazzling memory, a damp heaviness had settled in a corner of his chest all day long.

Leoneld could not fathom why this unpleasant thirst refused to fade. Was it because Cesare, who had chased after him nearly every day, had vanished since that night? Because not a single strand of the man's hair had been seen since—not at banquets, not even at official council meetings? If both the rapturous memory of that night and the discomfort now tearing through him came from that one man alone… then was this feeling the love they called a double-edged sword?

As ever, Leoneld could not bring himself to judge. It was not a territory he had any right to define on his own. After a long while of nothing but sighs, he finally rose from his seat with a rough scrape.

…Yes. The chair shrieked against the floor. I should go and see the Duke myself. Better to move than to sit and wither away waiting for someone who would not come. More than anything, it seemed that only seeing the man with his own two eyes might quench this wretched thirst.

And so he arrived at the Valois ducal residence.

"…You mean His Grace the Duke?"

"…Yes. I know he must be busy, but there are matters I must discuss with him face to face."

At the sudden, unannounced visit, the aged butler of the Valois household stared at Leoneld with a face gone stiff.

"That is…"

He was a seasoned butler who had weathered every storm across years of dealing with countless nobles, yet now his eyes trembled faintly. The discomfort of a man concealing some enormous secret was written plainly across his face.

"Has something happened?" Leoneld's sharp instincts sensed danger, and a chill swept down his spine.

In the heavily sunk silence, the old butler finally parted his tightly sealed lips. "His Grace…"

At the voice that faltered and could not go on, Leoneld swallowed dryly. After a long hesitation, the butler finished.

"His Grace has vacated the residence, Your Highness."

"Vacated? What do you—"

Leoneld's blue eyes shook violently. This was in no way the tone of a man who had merely stepped out for a while.

"He said he will not return for the next ten years… or longer… and that no one is to seek him out or expect an audience."

Ten years. Or longer. Once again it felt as though his heart had been slammed down into a pit with no visible bottom. The tips of Leoneld's fingers went cold.

"Why?"

Unable to hide the anxiety rising in him despite himself, he pressed desperately.

"…I cannot say."

"Tell me. Why? Why on earth—!"

But all his pressing earned him was stubborn silence. Watching himself cling so uncharacteristically, Leoneld slowly began to grasp what this unknown throbbing truly was.

…Ah. So this was the price of reaching out with his eyes blinded by rapture.

"So that's how it is…"

Perhaps the proverb had been right all along. The sweetness he had held in his hand for the first time had lasted but an instant, and the loss was this vicious. No expression could have suited it better than a double-edged sword.

Meanwhile, what greeted Cesare—having left the capital's commotion behind and come down to his territory—was a landscape so beautiful it stung the eyes. The Valois ducal territory. Before the great mansion at its heart stretched a lake, endless and clear, gleaming like a mirror. Along the lakeshore, the violet roses that symbolized the family bloomed in lavish profusion, and each time the wind rippled the water, a subtle, intoxicating fragrance scattered into the air. It was enough to make one feel as though they had stepped inside an exquisitely painted watercolor.

Whoa… this is a lot better than I expected. Cesare stepped down from the carriage and tilted his head slightly, letting the fresh dawn wind wash over him. The lingering aftermath of the heat cycle he had suffered in the capital, and the deep ache of a body that had throbbed all night in an Alpha's rough embrace—all of it seemed to lift away with nothing more than a long breath of this serene, crisp air. Compared to the Imperial Palace in the capital, where every nerve had been strung tight, this place was a perfect paradise, the only one of its kind in the world.

…Should I simply live out my days here? Spending the rest of his life in leisure, undisturbed by anyone, in this beautiful and peaceful territory did seem like a rather fine plan. For a moment, the memory of Leoneld's persistent blue eyes reaching for him flickered through his mind, but Cesare shook his head hard and cast off the stray thought. …Well, none of that matters anymore.

He had no intention of telling the man about the child. If the story went on following the original from here, Leoneld would have more than enough to occupy him without it; Cesare had no desire to pile a burden on top. And above all, he was afraid of how the man might react if he ever learned the truth.

If he ever finds out every atrocity the original Cesare committed against him… And if he learns that a child now exists between himself and that enemy… He might try to kill me.

Cesare vividly recalled a scene from the original novel. Thirteenth Prince, have you truly forgotten? The child born between you and me. It was a scene from the middle of the story, in which one of the villainous women lied about carrying Leoneld's child and tried to shake him with it. But contrary to her expectations, Leoneld cut down without mercy the child she claimed was his own flesh and blood.

How irritating. With nothing more than those words, he had swung his sword without a single flicker of hesitation. …Well, yes. It was a fake, in truth. But the point was that at the time, Leoneld had no way of knowing whether it was real or not. This was the man he was—capable of killing a child without so much as a blink, even while harboring the possibility that it might be his own true blood. In other words, the child now growing in Cesare's womb stood every chance of losing its life at those same hands.

Though the child had not been conceived by choice, Cesare was not so irresponsible a man as to toss it aside like nothing. And so— I'll hide it. Keeping the child's existence from him entirely. That was the right thing to do. At least, that was what Cesare believed.

One month since the Duke of Valois had vanished. Leoneld had tried to bolt from the Imperial Palace that very day to chase after him, only to be futilely blocked. It would be best for you to remain in the Imperial Palace, Your Highness. The imperial knights barred his way with cold faces. No—it would be more accurate to call them the Crown Prince's eyes. A prince without power did not even possess the authority to move as he pleased.

On the day the second month began, Leoneld, unable to bear it any longer, sent a letter to the Valois territory, where the Duke was most likely to be staying. It was the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws. But all that returned was a cold, unopened rejection. And so three months had slipped by since the Duke of Valois disappeared.

"Ha…"

In his empty bedchamber, Leoneld pressed a hand to his forehead and let a cold, bitter smile curl his lips. In the chill that had settled over the silence, the voice of the man who had saved him that night—gripping his wrist hard enough to nearly crush it—circled his ears like a phantom. I… wish for Your Highness's happiness.

"Happiness…? He wished for my happiness?" Leoneld murmured like a man losing his mind, his bloodshot eyes narrowing to slits.

At first, he had believed the man would return soon. No—he had wanted to believe it. That some unavoidable circumstance had arisen, and that was why he had left the capital; he told himself this, and told himself again. Day after day he watched the residence for any sign of movement, waiting only for the man to return of his own accord. But three months passed just like that, and even the hope he had clung to like a drowning man's straw began to blur. At last, he admitted it. That the Duke of Valois had abandoned him.

The letters stacked at the head of his bed were proof enough—every one sent to the Valois ducal territory and returned with its seal unbroken. Why. Why on earth. How could a man whisper such tearful sincerity, rage so fiercely at his misfortune, and then cast him aside this easily? If the man had at least tried to deceive and use him to the very end, he would not have been driven this mad.

The night he had tested the Duke of Valois. The man had not attacked him in his moment of lost reason, nor sent assassins after him. There had been no schemes, no plots. They had simply ached for each other and joined their bodies in burning heat. It was the sweetest memory of Leoneld's entire life. If the man was going to offer him true tenderness for the first time in his life, branding an indelible mark upon his soul, then he should have stayed by his side to the end and taken responsibility for it.

…Perhaps you were no different from them after all. How was this any different from what those trash who called themselves family had done to him? That cruel pattern—dangling a single scrap of warmth as bait, then leaving him abandoned alone on the cold floor and walking away. To a bird trampled so miserably it could not even spread its wings, he had forced it to learn the sky, fastening dazzling wings upon its back— …only to drop it from the highest place of all.

A blurred laugh, tangled from futility and vicious betrayal, spilled from between his red lips. But that emptiness soon spread into an obsession he could no longer contain. Across two lifetimes, this had been the only light he had ever wanted to hold in his hands. His savior—the one who had shattered his shell and dragged him out into the world. That such a being had abandoned him was something Leoneld could not, would not, endure.

"…Fine. If you truly mean to abandon me…"

Leoneld rose slowly from his seat. His desire, warped beyond all recognition, stretched long across the shadows.

"However long it takes… I will find you, and I will seat you at my side."

No matter how well the man hid, he could not leave the empire. Then he would simply swallow the empire whole. He would ascend the throne and seize every power in the world if he must, and find the man at last—and bind him in place. Even if it meant staining the Imperial Palace with blood.