* * *
‘I leaned on him so thoughtlessly, not even realizing…’
Lowell understood Felix’s reasoning—and yet, the sadness still gnawed at him.
“I raised a barrier between myself and the blast. It wasn’t perfect since it was hastily made. The sealing wasn’t complete, and that’s the only reason I got hurt. It was a type of wound where fragments embed and tear at the flesh, but I extracted them with magic and stopped the bleeding.”
Felix explained in detail why he was “fine,” but to Lowell, it sounded painfully insufficient.
‘When it’s my injury, he reacts so fiercely…’
Neither of them cared about their own wounds, only about the other’s pain.
In that way, they were mirrors of each other.
“You still need to put on some medicine.”
Lowell had no intention of scolding Felix, knowing how much must already be weighing on his mind.
His voice was soft, almost pleading.
“I will.”
Without argument, Felix nodded.
Lowell rose to his feet with him.
Though he staggered as dizziness washed over him, this time he caught himself before Felix could reach out.
“Let’s go together.”
Lowell recalled that the knights stationed at the rear carried herbs and medicines.
His face was pale, as if he might collapse at any moment, yet he stubbornly held Felix’s hand as they stepped out of the cave together.
The sky above was drenched in complete darkness, scattered with countless brilliant stars.
Under that cold, dazzling canopy, Felix watched Lowell move ahead, bathed in starlight.
In moments like this, Felix felt both an overwhelming desire to protect him—and a surprising sense of strength, simply by his side.
“They’re over there.”
Spotting the knight carrying medicinal herbs, Lowell brightened slightly and hurried ahead.
“Wait a moment.”
Felix, who had been quietly following Lowell while holding his hand, suddenly stopped in his tracks and sharpened his senses.
Lowell, caught off guard, naturally found himself pulled behind Felix’s arm for protection.
“Someone’s coming.”
None of the knights seemed to sense anything, but since Felix was known to have the sharpest senses among them, no one questioned him.
‘Could it be… they actually managed to track us?’
Lowell blinked, unable to believe it.
“One person. Judging from the way they move, they’re not part of the same group from before.”
Felix handed Lowell over to Tia and drew his sword with his injured arm.
Before Lowell could even follow with his eyes, a loud clash rang out.
His brows furrowed instinctively.
Incredibly, the figure cloaked in a robe had blocked Felix’s sword.
“Impossible.”
While the knights quickly moved into a defensive stance, Felix merely twisted his lips into a grimace.
“What business brings you here?”
With just a single clash of swords, Felix had already grasped the identity of the unexpected visitor.
“I figured you’d come this way. Took quite a bit of effort to catch up.”
It was an arrogant voice that even Lowell recognized.
The man sheathed his sword and elegantly pulled down his hood, revealing golden hair that gleamed even under the starlight.
“I have quite a few spies planted all over, you see.”
Even as the Crown Prince explained vaguely, Felix only looked down at him with indifferent, sunken eyes, deeming him unworthy of a response.
The Crown Prince should have been offended, but he simply shrugged lightly and continued nonchalantly.
“Right after I received word that Duke Felix was heading this way, I also heard that a dark sorcerer nearby had self-destructed. Doesn’t it all connect naturally? If it had been someone else, I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. But if the one fleeing was Duke Felix, my former comrade, I could hazard a guess.”
“I understand how you found your way here. However, that doesn’t explain why you came in person.”
Felix’s polite phrasing barely concealed the bluntness of his true message: ‘Shut up and tell me why you’re here.’
“Important matters need to be handled directly.”
It was the same logic he had used when he personally delivered Robin.
“I thought I should know why you’re suddenly trying to change the plan.”
The Crown Prince glanced around, implying he didn’t want to have this conversation in front of so many people.
“I’ll explain inside. Please, this way.”
The knights, sensing the mood, stayed outside the cave to keep watch.
Only three knights assigned to Lowell’s protection were permitted to follow inside.
“I was just thinking, maybe you lost trust in me because I didn’t do enough to stop you from being summoned on treason charges.”
“Frankly, what I’m doing isn’t far off from that.”
“My, my. All we ever wanted was to eliminate those who seek to control the Emperor. How could you say such a thing?”
The Crown Prince sneered cynically, cutting off Felix mid-sentence to push his own point.
“So then, why didn’t you stick to the original plan — the one where we were supposed to wipe out the aristocrats during the ritual? I’d really like a convincing answer.”
Even though Felix’s situation had grown precarious, the Crown Prince hadn’t lifted a finger to help.
Now he acted as if he were the only one who had suffered, demanding an explanation with shameless arrogance.
Felix, used to the Prince’s cold demeanor, wasn’t angered.
Lowell, however, couldn’t hide his disbelief and let out a short, bitter laugh.
“We share the same goal. I don’t understand why you’re taking such a high-handed tone. We simply responded appropriately to the threats we perceived.”
“You make it sound as if I abandoned you. Didn’t I give you prior warning?”
Despite Felix’s attempt to hold him back, Lowell glared at the Crown Prince and retorted.
Yet the Prince didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.
“There’s something you’re hiding, isn’t there? Your Highness, you know why the Emperor — or more precisely, the noble faction — is so desperate to summon Duke Felix, don’t you?”
For the first time, the Crown Prince, who had remained relaxed until now, reacted.
He quickly glanced at Felix, gauging his reaction.
“How do you know that? As far as I know, even Felix doesn’t know the full story.”
“If Your Highness speaks first, I’ll answer as well.”
Gone was Lowell’s usual mild demeanor; he stared sharply at the Crown Prince, pressing him hard.
“Please, no more dodging. Give us a straight answer.”
Felix, understanding roughly what the conversation was about, stepped in to keep the topic focused.
“They need you for their ritual. To be precise, they need you as part of the offering. The summoning ritual they’re planning requires dark sorcerers and an enormous amount of magical power.”
Hearing the Crown Prince deliberately replace ‘resurrection ritual’ with ‘summoning ritual’ and ‘blood of kin’ with ‘magical power’, Lowell managed to suppress his anger somewhat.
‘Maybe he’s sugarcoating it so Felix won’t react emotionally.’
Lowell subtly glanced at Felix to gauge his reaction.
‘Even though Felix already knew the general idea, now that I’m speaking with certainty, it might come across oddly to him.’
But Felix simply accepted it.
It wasn’t that he missed the nuance — he was prioritizing understanding the situation and finding a solution.
“You didn’t reveal that on purpose, did you? Hoping that while Duke Felix was still in the capital, the ritual could be hurried through. In other words, you meant to use him as bait.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“Because the ritual would be rushed, more information would inevitably leak, and the surveillance around Your Highness would loosen. The information you gave us… maybe it was intended either to force a confession during Felix’s capture, or to save face afterward if Felix survived.”
The main reason Lowell had insisted on heading straight to the capital was distrust — distrust toward the Crown Prince.
* * *
