* * *
After wallowing in guilt for quite some time, Hesia finally regained his composure and went off to explore another part of the building.
A few days had passed when the door finally opened again, and someone stepped inside.
Hesia, halfway down the stairs, lifted his eyes slightly to see who it was.
“Oh, Count De Winter.”
“Your Highness… how did you come to meet Vivi?”
“Your Highness? I gave up that title myself. Bit too grand now, don’t you think?”
With a half-hearted smile, Hesia leisurely descended the steps.
Without a sound, he came to a stop before Haen and tilted his head slightly.
“But why do you ask?”
“If it’s rude, I apologize. Vivi—Vivisian—is technically a criminal who should’ve remained in prison.”
“A falsely accused victim. A scapegoat created by your people’s baseless suspicions. Let’s speak accurately, Count.”
“…Be that as it may, it seems unlikely. You were in the Merien Principality, and Vivisian was imprisoned. I just couldn’t imagine how your paths crossed, let alone why you would go this far for him.”
There was probably more to it, but he wasn’t lying.
Straightening his head, Hesia casually brushed his chin and let a faint smile tug at the corner of his lips.
“I first met him back when I lived as ‘Sia.’ Then, years later, we ran into each other by chance in the desert—me, a mercenary, and him, the client. Not long after, I found out he was ‘Vivi.’ I became his only guide… and that unbelievably kind man followed me back to the Principality.”
“I heard… he became your lover. Is that true?”
“Half true. I loved Vivi. But Vivi didn’t love me back. So if anyone was the lover, I was his.”
Without hesitation, Hesia smiled brightly as he called himself the concubine.
Haen could tell—this man wasn’t lying.
The sudden murder of the duke and the simultaneous exposure of his crimes had turned the duchy upside down, and the royal family as well.
The current emperor and his children—whose reputations were already disastrous—had plummeted even further.
The third prince, who had somehow remained respectable and had earned support from both nobles and commoners, had suddenly been poisoned.
Only after murdering his far superior younger brother did the current emperor barely take the throne.
Now, he coddled the first prince obsessively and tried to revive the long-forgotten plan to make him heir once more.
Because of that, rumors were now swirling that the emperor himself had killed the third prince.
And Haen knew—this man before him, Hesia, was the one who had done it all.
For love alone, he reached into the heart of the royal family with darkness, renounced his own title, and came to a foreign land to kill the duke with his own hands.
“Vivisian is… no, never mind. Then, Your Highness, what is it that you want? His reinstatement? To restore his honor? Or is it… revenge?”
When Haen finally forced the question out, Hesia blinked his beautiful blue-gray eyes and suddenly burst into laughter.
“You already know, so why ask? Of course it’s revenge! But I think… half of it is already done. Count De Winter, do you miss Vivi? Are you suddenly full of regrets?”
“…What are you talking about?”
Hesia’s smile loosened slightly, as if he were admiring the very same rigid, defensive expression he himself had once worn.
“That face—I’ve made it so many times, I recognize it easily. You get that look whenever you think of Vivi.”
So now everyone knows he was innocent. Is that it?
With a smile as tender as ever, Hesia asked—but Haen didn’t answer.
In his silence, Hesia read the truth, and for the first time in months, he let out a breath with ease.
“Vivi never committed a single crime. Not a single one.”
Like a messenger of the gods whispering truth to the earth, Hesia—bathed in light—spoke the innocence of the one he loved.
And from the shadows, Haen simply watched.
‘Vivisian, I hate you. So please… please be dead when next I see you, let it be after you’ve died in that prison.’
He simply stood there.
‘I wanted to go on a trip with you. Somewhere warm, the kind of place you’d love. But… I guess that won’t happen now, huh? Take care of yourself, Haen.’
And stood still.
‘Blessed are those who mourn. Maybe all this sorrow is just proof that one day… I’ll be comforted.’
As the image of the boy who once cried silently on his shoulder overlapped the face of the man smiling in relief, long-buried memories he had stuffed in the back of his mind surfaced again, rusted and stinking of blood and iron.
In a distant foreign land, the news and memories of the friend he had loved most returned.
And instead of denying them like before, Haen simply looked at them.
The mad, violent, dangerous, heartless prince whom everyone had cursed… had in fact been kinder, more joyful, and more loving than anyone.
Balancing himself amid the torrent of memories now spilling through the open gates, Haen finally opened his mouth.
“First of all, should anything happen to the prince, it could escalate into a diplomatic issue. More importantly, since the crime committed by Letiyan Tayon, who is to be officially stripped of his title today, is clearly proven… we won’t administer a punishment. However, we will appoint a new duke and ask that you stay in the annex until things settle down in the duchy.”
It was a more lenient response than he’d expected.
He’d at least thought he’d be thrown into solitary confinement.
Hesia, who raised his brows at the unexpected reaction, soon nodded without protest.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll keep quiet, just make sure I get fed on time. Back when I used to stay in this castle, I was often left hungry, and that stuck with me.”
As if he was meant to hear it, Haen bit down on the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to stay calm as he nodded.
“Oh, right. Could you maybe plant some blue hydrangeas in the garden? Ah, I guess it’s not the season for hydrangeas. Then something else is fine… anything with blue flowers. It can be a seedling or something in a pot—I don’t mind. Just blue flowers. Please, get me blue flowers.”
“Tending a garden takes quite a bit of effort, so I’ll have them brought in pots. I’ll send someone this afternoon.”
“Do that. Farewell, Count.”
“Rest well.”
With that final exchange, Haen exited the annex.
As the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, an eerie stillness fell over the unnecessarily large and oddly desolate space.
“Grandmother’s probably worried. I should send word that I’m doing alright.”
Muttering to himself, Hesia, standing alone in the empty hall, ascended the stairs.
Each step felt unnaturally heavy.
It felt like he’d returned to that moment when he killed Letiyan, his steps echoing with the sound of blood squelching beneath him.
“That bastard made sure to leave a bitter aftertaste to the very end.”
Cursing in a low, cold voice, Hesia stepped into the library on the second floor.
Though it had become a place of punishment for Vivisian, it had once been used as a separate study for the ducal household, and was filled with all sorts of books.
He drew the curtains and opened a window.
No matter how often Hesia cleaned, dust inevitably settled in the room full of books.
A soft breeze swept through the space, stirring up tiny motes of dust that sparkled in the sunbeam like grains of light.
Catching a glimpse of them, Hesia soon picked up a duster and lightly cleaned the room.
Then, he pulled a book at random from the shelves and sat at the desk.
It was a collection of poems by a renowned poet, famous enough to be known even in the principality that had little contact with the Empire.
He’d read it before and was flipping through it, considering finding something else, when a handwritten note in cursive caught his eye.
Hesia, who had been idly turning pages, paused and slightly parted his lips.
“Vivisian’s handwriting…”
It was the handwriting of the one he loved—there was no mistaking it.
Maybe it was from a time when Vivisian was still living the life of a “perfect noble.”
It was slightly different from his more recent script, but unmistakably his.
Seeing the faint trace of someone he missed in the unfamiliar writing, Hesia gently set the book down.
Then he traced the letters, each stroke of every word, with his fingertips.
It was the most famous line from the poem—and known as divine scripture.
“Blessed are those who mourn… for I shall surely, someday, be saved.”
Hesia felt a wave of nausea as he read the line—Vivisian’s desperate wish, subtly different from the known version.
He couldn’t begin to imagine what the boy must have been feeling when he wrote it.
In the end, Vivisian was never saved by anyone.
The gods stayed silent until after his death before declaring his innocence.
And Hesia, though he claimed to love him, never once explained why.
He had walked a lonely road in silence, but what he’d wanted was the same ordinary happiness as anyone else.
Maybe he stayed by Hesia’s side not just because he lacked the courage to push people away—but because he longed for someone’s love.
There’s no way to know now, and it’s too late regardless.
That certainty sank in as Hesia closed his eyes.
And when he did, Vivisian was smiling kindly at him.
* * *
