At those words, Laerte flinched and shot Egon a reproachful look.

“Why are you only saying that now?”

Her voice trembling with a mixture of embarrassment and nervous laughter, she murmured. He smiled faintly, his eyes softening.

“Because I wanted you to stop worrying.”

Her heart skipped a beat. For a moment, all the noise in her head faded away. The weight of her responsibilities, the distance between them, and the expectations she carried all dissolved under his warm gaze.

“You always do that. You always know what to say to make me forget everything.”

“And you always make me remember why I keep coming back.”

He replied, brushing his thumb along her cheek. For a long while, there was nothing but silence between them; a silence heavy with unspoken longing and the ache of too many days spent apart.

Egon held her close, as if he could etch her into his memory before duty called him away again. He kissed her brow, her temple and, finally, her lips: slow and deliberate kisses, as if he were memorizing something sacred.

When he finally drew back, he rested his forehead against hers and whispered,

“How did we end up like this?”

Laerte smiled faintly, eyes glistening.

“Because we keep choosing the same thing. Even when it hurts.”

In that small, hidden space, far from the world that demanded their strength, they simply held on to each other as if the quiet itself could stop them from breaking.

Egon gently washed Laerte, letting the warm water run over her shoulders while he lathered her hair with soap. When he began to rinse it off, she sighed softly, leaning her arms against the edge of the tub and resting her head on them.

“Did I push you too hard?”

They had travelled for hours by carriage. The moment they arrived, he pulled her into his arms without giving her time to rest. Regret crept into his heart. He was worried that she might fall ill — his Laerte, who had always seemed too fragile for her burden.

Within the Henant barrier, her people rarely fell ill. Once they reached adulthood, most of them remained strong and lived long lives. Laerte was no exception. Nevertheless, Egon couldn’t help but worry; her slender frame and soft bones made her seem fragile, and he treated her as though she might break at the slightest touch.

Laerte, for her part, found his misunderstanding endearing. Smiling to herself, she said nothing, savoring the rare tenderness in his voice.

“I’m fine, I just wanted to spend time with you like this.”

Her words made him smile. They shared a gentle kiss—quiet, unhurried, full of warmth rather than passion.

Afterward, Egon brushed her damp hair with slow, careful strokes, then dried it with a towel.

“Laerte,” he said softly, eyes meeting hers through the mirror. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Of course I came,” she replied, her reflection smiling back at him. “If you’re the king, then I’m the queen. Where else would I be?”

“I thought it might be difficult for you to come back here again. You didn’t have to force yourself.”

Since being forgiven and allowed to live with her again, Egon had tried not to be consumed by feelings of guilt. He knew that if he allowed himself to feel it too deeply, it would only push her away.

Laerte’s nature was so bright and open that she could see straight through the darkness he carried within him. And tonight, when she looked at him, he felt her warmth and unwavering light again.

In order to live as her husband and Erbit’s father, he too had to become someone with a bright, untroubled heart — someone unshaken by past wounds, as though they had never existed.

However, he realized that he had only ever experienced such peace in the Henant Forest, under its gentle blessing, or in Numebo, the city she had helped him to build. The palace was different. For Laerte, this place was a site of trauma. Egon himself was the cause of it.

The fact that she had chosen to come here with him without hesitation filled him with both gratitude and guilt.

“I kept wondering, if maybe you forgave me only because your memories of the past have faded.”

“What do you mean?”

She asked, turning toward him.

“If you remember everything clearly, you might not be able to forgive me at all.”

Egon looked at Laerte in the mirror and, for a moment, couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye. He was afraid that he would see judgement instead of love in her gentle eyes.

“I was scared that coming back to this place would make you hate me again.”

“You thought that?”

Laerte stood abruptly and faced him. Her green eyes—those eyes that had once made him forget the weight of the world—now shone with both sorrow and strength.

“There’s no way I could hate you.”

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him lightly, her lips trembling against his.

“I just didn’t want you to face this place alone.”

Laerte understood his pain completely. She had always known that King Baclos was a coward, perhaps even more clearly than he did.

He had used his own son’s soul as nothing more than a convenient tool to achieve his own ends.

Egon had forgiven him. Harriet had at least tried to understand him.

But Laerte could neither understand nor forgive.

Now that she was a mother herself and had given birth to Elvit, this fact filled her with even deeper resentment.

She knew Egon felt the same.

In fact, it was Egon who suffered most, living each day with doubts about whether he deserved the happiness he’d finally found with them.

“When the Henant tribe and the Kingdom of Ganon signed the non-aggression pact, I didn’t even want to sit across from him.”

What if she lost her composure and struck the king in anger? That wild thought had crossed her mind more than once.

“But I was able to face him with a smile. I could even show him Elvit without bitterness.”

That was all because of Egon.

“Because you chose me.”

He was no longer the son of King Baclos—he was Laerte’s husband.

“I won’t let you go through that pain alone. Not in this place.”

She wasn’t the only one wounded in the palace. Egon himself had endured it for far longer and had been scarred more deeply.

“Thank you, Laerte.”

He said, his expression lightening for the first time in a while.

“I live for you.”

He added, his voice steady. It’s not just affection — it’s a vow, born of gratitude and devotion. Laerte smiled and brushed his cheek.

“Then hold on to that thought, don’t let anything else take its place.”

Laerte spoke with quiet but unshakable conviction.

“You’re mine.”

She didn’t mean it in the sense of possession, but rather as a way of offering him comfort and telling him not to dwell on the past or reopen old wounds that no longer had power over them.

Hearing this, Egon finally smiled.

In that moment, in the same villa where he had once lost Laerte and Elvit, he felt saved by her once again.

∘₊✧───────────────✧₊∘

The next day, after sleeping in, they made their way to the palace treasury.

“I heard most of it was looted.”

By the time the rioters stormed the palace gates, it was already in disarray. With famine spreading, there were few soldiers left to defend it and no loyal attendants or maids to hold the line. Those who were still fit to fight had either left or were starving. By the time the mob finally broke through, no one had the strength or will to resist.

But the true looters hadn’t been the rioters outside. They had been the people within the palace walls.

“Looks like they smashed everything.”

Inside the broken doorway, the room that had once been filled with treasure now stood empty and echoing. The glitter of jewels and gold, the gleam of ornate jars stacked high — all of it had disappeared.

What lay before them was nothing like the treasury Egon remembered.

“There’s nothing left.”

Laerte whispered.

“Almost nothing.”

Egon corrected, his gaze shifting toward the far end of the long chamber.

“That one, at least, looks like they couldn’t open it.”

He pointed to a single, sealed vault—its lock still intact amid the ruin.

“What’s that?”

Laerte asked.

“A secret vault.”

Egon replied.

At the far end of the ruined treasury stood an enormous safe, its surface made of thick steel slabs. Laerte and Egon stepped closer, their footsteps echoing faintly across the empty chamber.

“There are marks here. It looks like someone tried to open it.”

Egon murmured, tracing a dent on the door.

“But they failed.”

“Hmm. How are we supposed to open it?”

The metal was scarred by hammer blows and deep scratches, caused by someone trying to pry it open with a chisel.

“Do you even know how to unlock something like this?”

Laerte asked, sounding half skeptical and half curious. Egon only nodded. Without hesitating, he drew a small knife and made a shallow cut across his fingertip.

“Ah! What are you doing?”

She cried out in surprise. But before she could stop him, droplets of his blood fell onto the smooth steel surface. The metal immediately began to shimmer and shift; the flat surface bulged outwards until a handle emerged and began to glow faintly with runic light.

“It’s blood magic,” Egon said quietly. “The work of the Fairy King who created Henant.”

Laerte’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“So that’s why King Baclos was so obsessed with Henant. Anyone else would have dismissed magic as superstition, but after acquiring relics like this one, he began to rely on their power. Then he became consumed by it.”

“Open it.”

Laerte urged on, her voice filled with curiosity. She had never seen a vault like this before, and the mystery of what lay inside made her heart race.

With a soft click, the lock yielded.

As the heavy door swung open, they both peered inside and their eyes widened.

“What… is this?”