By Zephyria ‘Why does it sound like he said it reluctantly?’
Leonardo, who was lying straight on the leather sofa, folded his hands on his stomach and tapped his toes. Despite not being short at all, the fact that there was plenty of space above and below meant that the sofa was big, like its owner.
The bangs that were poking at his eyes were swept back along with the rest of his hair, scattering haphazardly on the dark brown leather seat. Below his round forehead, his curved eyebrows were coolly revealed. He occasionally frowned slightly as he recalled the situation a moment ago.
Recalling Hugo’s last words, which he had said a few minutes ago before going out, Leonardo couldn’t deny that he felt somewhat bitter. The biggest reason was probably that he didn’t feel sincerity in the other person’s voice. It felt different from when he had sworn with his name on the line before.
That oath, which had come in like a ray of light through the bars of the prison, had a strange power that made him want to believe it, even though the feelings between them weren’t good. The conviction that was in his blue eyes, which had reached him so strongly that he had voluntarily taken the hand he had offered.
On the other hand, a moment ago, he seemed to be desperately hiding his precarious inner thoughts rather than having confidence in his words.
“I’ll even bring you the stars in the night sky… or something like that.”
Leonardo muttered with a dry expression.
I’ll bet everything I have to set you free, huh. It felt no different from the sweet talk that those pathetic guys used to use when they were trying to woo him.
Of course, he knew that Agrizendro’s heart, which was worried about him and cared for him, was pure sincerity. But the momentary hesitation that was conveyed from his fingertips felt like a white lie, promising something he knew he couldn’t keep.
He thought that the bond he had built with him wasn’t small, but there was no way he could bet everything for him. In fact, he didn’t even expect that much. It would be nice to believe it naively, but his intuition, which he had built up while rolling around in the mud, coldly told him not to be fooled.
‘So in the end, you can’t think that this place is safe either.’
Leonardo immediately straightened his upper body and stared at the large windows that were lined up on the right.
The sight of the blood-red sunset invading the room came into view. The long rays of sunlight flickered over the shoes he had taken off.
It wouldn’t be strange if someone came over that wide-open window and strangled him right now. Leonardo put on his shoes, approached the window, checked behind the window, and began to close them one by one.
The scenery he had seen in the plaza was still vivid in his mind. The pressure that felt like his lungs were constricting was getting worse and worse.
‘What on earth did that mean?’
The bizarre scene that seemed to have chess pieces lined up and displayed as if to show off. Suddenly facing a situation that looked like it was from an exhibition was a huge shock.
At first, he just wanted to believe that it was the Monarch’s great generosity in controlling the road for the safe return of his daughter and son, who had succeeded in subduing the peninsula.
But ‘that person’ he knew was definitely not someone who would do that. Especially if the secret of the peninsula that Alec Siles had leaked contained a truth that threatened the legitimacy of the Imperial Family.
If the Imperial Family had ‘neglected’ the peninsula all along, and if the myth of the first Emperor was about to come to the surface through the existence of ‘Elder Millie,’ then the Imperial Family would not be very happy about the return of the Council, which had stubbornly dug up the truth of the peninsula.
Then, who was that grand spectacle really for?
Leonardo felt a stuffiness around his neck and stared blankly out the closed window.
Below, the members of the Council and the medical team were running around busily. But in the shadow reflected in Gold Eyes, only the Imperial Knights and the guards were swarming.
“Haa….”
Even though he knew it was a hallucination, it felt like his legs were going to give way again, just like when he got out of the car. Leonardo drew the thick curtains and turned his back on the window.
He leaned against the window frame diagonally and unknowingly slipped down. He slumped down on the dark navy carpet with a sigh.
He rested his arms on his knees, made a blank expression, and shoved all ten fingers into his hair.
His mouth and head muttered anxiously as if chanting a spell to calm his chaotic inner self.
‘He’s afraid of me. There’s no way he’ll look for me now. What do you get from this? What are you going to do by provoking me?’
His body shivered as he sat on the cold floor. His pride urged him that it was because he had been in the hot peninsula and had come to a relatively cool place.
But the anxiety that had been lingering since earlier was gnawing at his body and mind, and his hands and feet began to tingle. Leonardo used his fingernails, which were losing sensation, to scratch the back of his hand as if clawing at it.
The Karseil Palace, hidden in the innermost part of the Imperial Palace covered in gold, the only absolute ruler of the modern era who reigns like a god in Aurasian, located in the center of it, and seized the throne of Laina Rogia.
‘Outwardly,’ he never looks for something he has thrown away once. He believes that keeping a tainted existence by his side would tarnish his sacred authority.
In fact, he periodically exterminates ‘abandoned things’ in order to flaunt his absolute power. He instills fear in the foolish, telling them that they too can be abandoned, and rules the empire with a loyalty close to faith.
So, according to that logic, he should have died at the same time as the trial ended three years ago. But his abandoned life is still perfectly intact.
But what if, as an extension of the twisted logic, ‘he’ changed his mind and officially looked for him?
……If he attached an absurd justification and made a gesture, those who worship the sun would move quickly and aim for his life. Can he dare to be sure that Agrizendro, the head of the Imperial Faction, wouldn’t be among them?
“……”
Absolutely not. Leonardo suddenly realized, anew, where his sudden distrust of Hugo came from. How his eyes looked, the hesitation felt at his fingertips, none of that really mattered. It was just a flimsy excuse.
He was simply caught up in a sense of alienation. Unlike him, he was a man with much to lose. If Agrizendro were ever forced to weigh Leonardo Blaine against his own political beliefs, it was obvious which way the scales would tip.
‘Conversely, my beliefs come first for me, too.’
In the end, the reason he couldn’t trust his oath was because he had already reached his own conclusion.
Knowing the reason made his mouth feel dry with bitterness. It was contradictory to prioritize himself, yet expect the other person to prioritize him.
Leonardo hid in a place filled with Hugo’s scent, confronting his own disgusting true self, distrusting him while simultaneously feeling uneasy. And, of all things, what flashed through his memory was that short victory banquet night. Cordelia’s question.
‘Blaine, do you trust His Excellency?’
He felt like he knew now why he couldn’t answer right away back then.
Agrizendro was the Emperor’s loyal subject. He knew that their relationship was not that of ordinary liege and vassal, but the bond between him and Agrizendro was so weak and precarious that it could be severed at any moment compared to that prior relationship.
Even as he became aware of this reality, the feeling that he shouldn’t rely on him and the desire to trust him clashed repeatedly.
‘Still… he said he was worried I’d get hurt. And earlier, he got angry and said he wouldn’t put the Leash on me.’
Leonardo’s gaze, which had been busily wandering through the air, seemed to want to find stability as it followed the Magic Stone handcuffs, the basis of his belief.
He remembered Agrizendro roughly placing them somewhere a little while ago. Subsequently, he saw one side of the thick handcuffs dangling precariously below the side table.
Leonardo steadied himself on the floor with trembling arms and legs and stood up. He led his body with faltering steps and reached the side table in no time.
As he unconsciously grabbed the handcuffs that were about to fall, an unpleasantness of Magic Power being sucked in spread across his palm for a moment. It was not a good sensation, but just the fact that he wasn’t wearing this now calmed the storming anxiety, and he could immediately decide who to trust.
“Ha… yeah, no useless thoughts.”
‘First, I need to rely on him and recover.’
The only person who was trying to give him freedom. To doubt him, even though he had seen his struggles firsthand, was no different from throwing himself into a lonely abyss. He convinced himself that he had to believe even a false oath from the times he had spent with him, if not simply the handcuffs. Once he sorted things out like that, his rough breathing began to stabilize.
Too many things had happened in a short time, and he seemed to have been momentarily confused. As he reined in the growing delusion, a chilling cold sank to the bottom of the floor.
The trembling in his shoulders and hands, which he hadn’t been aware of, also subsided considerably. Leonardo placed the handcuffs on the side table and turned back towards the sofa.
Flynn would be here soon, and he had no idea what to say about the wound on the back of his hand that had just appeared.
“Damn it, it stings when I wash my hands.”
He didn’t know why he couldn’t tell right from wrong and hurt himself every time he was overwhelmed with anxiety. Even as he grumbled, he carefully caressed the scratched skin, when suddenly Leonardo’s steps came to a halt.
‘Wait, but.’
He looked back at the side table again and looked down at his hand that had just touched the handcuffs.
“…Was it originally this feeling?”
He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his palm a few times, and then picked up the handcuffs again.
A strange sense of powerlessness arose immediately at his fingertips. However, unlike what he remembered, the degree of suction was very uniform. Leonardo frowned and concentrated.
It was natural that the sensation felt would vary greatly because the content of Magic Stones differed for each Magic Power control restraint. In other words, it wouldn’t be strange if the control felt in these handcuffs was much less and more stable than some of the restraints he had worn on his wrists since he was dragged to the Council.
But why, at this moment, did Alec Siles’s words from earlier come to mind as an extension of that?
Leonardo, staring at the red Magic Stone embedded in the surface of the handcuffs, rummaged through the inner pocket of the combat uniform he was wearing. Soon, he found the Artifact he had organized before leaving Fidele, and took out a small piece of paper that he had shoved aside and unfolded it with one hand.
After quickly scanning it with his eyes and skipping unnecessary greetings, he was soon able to find the passage he wanted. It was a hypothesis about his control instability.
The bastard thought his Leash was the problem with his control instability, but if not, he guessed there was some other cause. And the new possibility he presented clearly included ‘handcuffs’.
[If you didn’t have that problem before wearing the handcuffs]
His golden eyes narrowed. Alec Siles had definitely told him this.
[I can only conclude that the handcuffs you were wearing were strange.]