Chapter 9

“Why are you doing thi, aaagh!”

The noble man gripped his twisted right arm and asked with frightened eyes. Leonid brought his heel down on the man’s shin before the question was even finished. The man’s knee buckled to the ground.

“What in the world is your reason for this!”

Leonid said nothing and wrenched the man’s head back the other way. Unable to even scream, the man rolled on the ground and begged.

“P, please spare me. I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what.”

“Pardon?”

Honestly, he had no idea what he had done wrong. But the way things were going, he might actually die. Those eyes were full of killing intent.

The man cursed inwardly.

If he had his own knight order with him, he wouldn’t be suffering this humiliation. Three of them charging in was no match at all, only inviting worse treatment.

“What exactly were you wrong about?”

“That would be…… ugh!”

The man shook as he rolled on the ground.

No one in their right mind would beat the youngest son of the Shurn ducal family like a dog on the main boulevard of Kadin.

And on top of that, this man was the cursed one. Was he not the son the Emperor had cast aside?

‘Or, could it be……’

Working against Prince Leonid from behind the scenes was possible. But ironically, it was difficult to formally raise the issue simply on the grounds of having been beaten half to death by him.

However little he was treated as a prince, he was still a member of the imperial family.

For a ducal house to publicly challenge the imperial family over something like this would put a crack in the Emperor’s dignity. That was one of the things the Emperor hated most of all.

Challenging the authority of the Empire’s sovereign was not tolerated.

‘Is he calculating all of this and acting accordingly?’

Either way, this situation had to be escaped immediately. Humiliating as it was, there was no handling this man by force right now.

The man gritted his teeth and wrung out words he didn’t mean, swearing to himself that he would repay this humiliation before long.

“Whatever it was, I was wrong. So please stop, aaagh!”

Ellen froze at the scene unfolding before her. She simply couldn’t believe it.

She blinked slowly.

“Hic.”

……It was Leonid. He appeared far younger than the image she held in her memory, but she recognized him at a glance.

Tears gathered at the corners of Ellen’s eyes. She had resolved to forget him. And yet a single glimpse of his back was enough to make her heart crumble like this.

She reached out toward Leonid. But she couldn’t reach him at all. Just like that time.

“……”

A blizzard swept through her blurring vision. It couldn’t be, on a clear spring day like this……

The final moment played out faintly before Ellen’s eyes. She let her hand fall uselessly, just as she had when she hung from that branch.

‘I can’t do this.’

She had decided to let go, she had to let go. The feelings for him still hurt just as much.

Ellen blinked her wet eyes slowly. Hoping the memories of Leonid might fade even a little.

The Leonid she had known was gone now……

The moment that thought reached her, the pain in her chest was like being run through with a spear.

‘It’ll get better. So let’s not hurt anymore.’

She wouldn’t get entangled with him in this life.

She alone carried the memories of what they had been. So the right thing to do was disappear while Leonid was occupied with that man.

But.

“Leonid……”

Against her intention to flee, she called his name without thinking. Foolishly, knowing she shouldn’t, she found she couldn’t leave this spot.

“Leonid?”

It had been barely a whisper, inaudible unless one was paying close attention, yet he stopped moving. He murmured his own name back in a low voice.

He slowly turned his gaze toward where the voice had come from. In that moment, the friends who hadn’t dared step in scooped up the young lord of Shurn and fled quickly.

“……”

Their eyes met in the open air. It was a brief moment, but to Ellen it felt as though time had stopped.

‘His appearance at least hasn’t changed.’

Young as he was now, he was breathtakingly beautiful, just as he had always been.

Perhaps that was why. Meeting those captivating red eyes had always felt like more than she could bear.

“Was that you who just called my name?”

“……No.”

Step by step. Leonid walked toward her. His question snapped Ellen back to her senses, and she stepped back without thinking.

To run into him like this. This was something she had never anticipated.

“Why are you backing away?”

“I, I’m not.”

“You are.”

He tilted his head and narrowed his handsome brow. A sign that something displeased him.

Having been brought to his bed every single day for seven years, she remembered every small habit of his.

Ellen stopped retreating. He was in a poor mood right now, and stopping was the right response in this situation.

‘Why……’

But no matter how she thought about it, there was no reason for Leonid’s mood to be unsettled right now.

‘No, there is a reason. Those men were trying to threaten me.’

Perhaps he had simply wanted to protect someone weaker from those who preyed on them.

He was tormented endlessly in the palace too, so perhaps he had felt a momentary connection.

Ellen looked into those deep, unreadable eyes and let her gaze waver.

“I really wasn’t.”

Leonid looked at her steadily as he heard her answer. As though trying to read something from her.

Out of habit, she avoided his gaze and looked down.

“A lie. There you go again.”

“Pardon?”

“My eyes. You just looked away.”

“Ah……”

Realizing what she had done, Ellen quickly raised her head. Her gaze collided with eyes redder than blood.

He looked into her eyes without a word.

It was the first time. That she had held his gaze for this long.

“……”

Had time stopped. The illusion arose that only the two of them existed on the crowded street.

The moment she had longed for so much had arrived only after every memory of it had been erased from Leonid……

The corners of Ellen’s eyes ached with a quiet sting.

If this was someone she would never see again, then perhaps just once……

She reached out toward him without thinking.

It was at that moment. A voice calling for Leonid rang out from somewhere in the distance. Only then did Ellen realize what she was doing, and she quickly lowered her hand and faced reality.

“I was told it was rude to look directly at a prince.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“That’s……”

“Well, I suppose it would be stranger not to recognize me in Kadin.”

Leonid tapped the corner of his own eye with a long finger as he spoke.

The prince of cursed blood, Leonid of the red eyes.

Crimson eyes with no precedent in the Empire were his symbol, and also the terrible shackle his father, the current Emperor, had created.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Is that so?”

Leonid gave a faint smile and bent his head to bring his eyes level with Ellen’s.

It was then.

“Your Highness, I was startled when you disappeared so suddenly. The person you’re meeting is waiting……. Oh?”

The knight who had come running after finding Leonid noticed Ellen standing with him and was visibly taken aback.

“Did you have company, Your Highness?”

“No. He simply helped me in passing.”

“Pardon? Your Highness helped a young lady?”

The knight looked back and forth between the two of them with an expression of great surprise. Then, remembering why he had come rushing over, the knight cleared his throat.

The commotion that had broken out at the palace had delayed the promised meeting considerably. They had no time to linger here any longer. He called out to Leonid with a restless air.

“Your Highness.”

“Yes. I know.”

Leonid’s gaze, which had been resting on Ellen, lingered and then pulled away. He stepped back from her and left with the knight.

“Does Your Highness know that young lady?”

“I wonder.”

He stopped walking and looked back. There she was, standing rooted to the spot as though nailed to the ground.

“……”

The prince he knew did not help others, did not exchange words with strangers. And he most certainly did not look back at anyone like this. The knight stared at Leonid with a puzzled expression.

“Or perhaps she is a lady you have taken an interest in. Her looks are certainly striking enough to fall for at first sight.”

“Mind your place.”

At the low voice, the knight read the mood and understood. It meant he was displeased to hear that young lady spoken of so casually. He quickly bowed his head and apologized for his mistake.

“If this is the first time you’ve seen her today, I could find out which family she belongs to……”

“No. There’s no need.”

The corner of Leonid’s mouth curved with meaning. The knight was about to ask whether she was someone he knew after all. Seeing him smile while speaking of someone was something the knight had never witnessed before.

In the meantime, the person sent ahead by the one they were meeting had come out to receive them. Knowing how important this meeting was, conducted always in secrecy, the knight closed his mouth and quietly followed the one who had been sent.