* * *

“Y-Your Grace, the Duke?”

Killian smirked, his lips curling up on one side.

“You know me?”

Nael flinched and curled into himself.

Realizing he was sitting naked on Killian’s thigh, being toyed with, his face burned with shame.

Recollections of last night’s torrid encounter flooded his mind, making him want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

A sealed letter was handed into the carriage as the dark curtains, which had kept the outside world at bay, were pulled back.

Killian took it casually and held it up in front of Nael.

“Nael. Would you like to read the baron’s letter?”

“I….”

Nael hesitated.

He couldn’t read.

For someone like him, who had fought tooth and nail to survive each day, literacy was a luxury.

His life revolved around working himself to the bone, earning a day’s wages, and sharing a meager meal with his sister.

During harsh winters, they made thin gruel from the scant potatoes they could dig up.

His earnings were never enough to provide for the two of them adequately.

As Nael’s hesitation dragged on, Killian stroked his head.

His lips quivered at the man’s gentle query.

“You can’t read, can you?”

“Yes…”

Nael admitted in a small, embarrassed voice.

Killian showed him the sealed envelope’s front, asking if he could recognize the baron’s seal.

Nael nodded, familiar with the mark, and Killian tore it open, scanning the contents.

The baron’s letter, knowing Nael’s illiteracy, was curt and impersonal.

Killian sighed as though the indifference didn’t surprise him.

“It says not to worry about your sister. She will be cared for.”

“Your Grace, please… Let me see my sister one last time. I can’t leave without saying goodbye. She’s very sick. Her name is Lily. She needs me to look after her. She’s too weak to do anything on her own. I’ve never been apart from her before.”

Nael wept and pleaded desperately.

His memories flashed back to when he was twelve, the year their mother succumbed to a plague.

The baron had cast him and Lily out of their cottage, offering no support.

“If you want to eat, work,” he had said.

Nael, young as he was, understood that one had to eat to survive.

Lily, frail from chronic illness, couldn’t do strenuous work.

On bad days, her coughing fits would draw blood from her throat.

Nael had started doing odd jobs then, his small body toiling in the baron’s household.

Though it wasn’t easy, pity from others helped him endure—hidden scraps of food, cast-off clothes, and makeshift garments sewn from discarded curtains.

Even through hardship, Nael never resented Lily.

She was his anchor, the reason he kept going. He would tell her every detail of his day, and she would listen attentively.

On days he returned home beaten by the baron, she would cry in sympathy.

“Please, Your Grace, hear me out,” Nael begged, bowing his head.

Sliding off Killian’s lap, he knelt and pressed his forehead to the floor, pleading to see Lily one last time.

The rough carriage floor scraped against his golden hair, but he didn’t care.

Killian’s cold voice cut through the air above him.

“We’re already close to the harbor. It’s too late.”

His tone was firm and unyielding, and Nael broke into tears, clinging to Killian’s sturdy leg.

Though his frail strength couldn’t budge the duke, he hoped his desperation might reach him.

“Please, Your Grace, just let me—”

Killian slapped him.

A sharp crack echoed, and Nael’s cheek stung.

He collapsed against the carriage wall, his back aching from the impact.

“Ugh!”

There was no time to recover before another blow came.

Slap after slap rained down until his lip split, and blood trickled down.

“Stop, please!” Nael whimpered, curling into himself, shielding his face with his arms.

“Have you come to your senses now?” Killian asked coldly.

“You’re nothing more than a commoner, yet I paid a fortune to buy you from the baron. You’re mine now, and your place is with me.”

Killian added calmly, “I’ll ensure your sister is provided for—a small house and enough funds to hire help or buy medicine.”

“Y-You own me…?”

“The winters in the north are harsh enough to freeze your bones. We must reach my estate before the sea freezes over. Travel becomes slow and dangerous once that happens. You may write to your sister if you wish. I’ll assign someone to write for you since you cannot.”

Nael sobbed, his spirit breaking.

Nael couldn’t make sense of anything else.

The only thing that echoed relentlessly in his mind was this: his father had sold him.

The baron, who had initially requested his service for a single night, treated him like an object and handed him over to the duke.

The words spun around his head like an endless refrain.

“Father… really sold me to Your Grace? Like a slave…”

“Yes. From now on, you’ll live as my possession.”

“No… no, this isn’t… it can’t be true. This has to be a mistake. I’ll go and ask him. The baron wouldn’t… he wouldn’t do this.”

When Nael began crying like a child, Killian let out a faintly irritated sigh.

The baron, satisfied after a particularly enjoyable night, had returned to ask how Nael was faring.

Killian had paid a fair price for him, treating it like a transaction.

The baron, insatiably greedy to the point of being nauseating, was a man Killian had no desire to interact with further.

The way the baron heaped praise on Nael made him sick, so he responded with a disinterested nod.

The baron had even detailed his thoughts in a letter, though Killian hadn’t bothered to read it aloud.

That “fair price” had been an exorbitant sum—enough for the baron to live comfortably for years in his small rural estate.

Killian acknowledged to himself that he hadn’t given Nael enough time to come to terms with the situation.

But patience was not a virtue Killian possessed in abundance, nor was he the type to indulge someone sobbing like a child.

“Ah… ahh…”

When Killian raised his large hand, Nael immediately stopped crying.

Quick to adapt from a life of constant vigilance, Nael instinctively clamped his hands over his mouth, fearful that the hand might strike his cheek.

Still, he couldn’t fully suppress the occasional sob that escaped.

He shuddered silently, his shoulders trembling as tears streamed down his face.

“Stop crying. Even your decently pretty face will become unbearable if you keep that up.”

“Sniff… y-yes. But… I can’t stop the tears. Could you… could you take my sister as well? Please?”

“Ha, Nael. Didn’t you say your sister was frail? She wouldn’t survive a long journey at sea. Even on land, it wouldn’t be an easy trip for a woman. Do you want to see her perish midway?”

Nael stifled his sobs and let more tears silently fall.

“Can your sister read?”

“Yes… a little.”

“If I send a carrier pigeon from the ship, the message will reach her in about a day. She’ll hear from you within a few days at most.”

A day? A few days?

Nael’s clear green eyes filled with confusion.

To him, Killian’s words implied that last night’s harrowing events hadn’t occurred the night before.

“How… how long was I asleep?”

“Two full days. I waited, but you didn’t wake. I couldn’t delay any longer. I can’t let all my men remain stuck on this tiny plot of land because of you. I gave you more than enough time.”

“Ah…”

By now, the scent of the sea wafted in from outside the carriage.

Despite the cool, salty breeze brushing against his face, Nael desperately clung to denial, running his hands through his tousled golden hair.

Killian clicked his tongue at the sight of the disheveled locks, but the carriage had already nearly reached the port.

There was no turning back.

Killian was not the kind of man to reverse a decision once made.

Nael would go north, and he would live there for the rest of his life.

This wasn’t merely about having paid for a possession.

Something about the fragile, delicate youth stirred an odd emotion in Killian.

In the harsh north, where sturdy men with rugged builds and sun-darkened skin dominated, Nael was an anomaly.

The pale youth reminded Killian of the rare southerners he’d encountered during campaigns to support wars near the imperial palace or in the south.

Perhaps it was that delicate face that had prompted him to part with such a significant sum.

Even Killian couldn’t be sure.

Nael’s gem-like green eyes stared at him, shimmering with faint resignation rather than defiance.

Killian had expected the boy to whine incessantly until he boarded the ship, but now there was only a dull acceptance in his gaze.

“Am I really going to live in the north?”

“Yes.”

“And my sister…”

Killian’s stomach churned at the mere mention of the sister again.

His brow furrowed deeply as he looked down at Nael, who lowered his head, his curly golden locks swaying and falling to hide his tear-streaked face.

“Can’t she really come with us?”

“Even if she arrived in one piece, the air in the north is bitterly cold. Do you want to shorten her life?”

“Ah…”

The carriage Nael had been transported in—a gift from the baron—was shabby by northern standards.

Nael’s body, sprawled on the carriage floor, was littered with smudges of dirt.

His pale skin was marred by black specks that clung to him unpleasantly.

Killian clicked his tongue in irritation and brushed the dirt from Nael’s body.

“You’re so troublesome.”

Nael weakly turned his head away, letting Killian’s hands move over him without resistance.

* * *