Chapter 41

“…Go on, Helio.”

For a brief moment, the same thought flickered in Helio’s blue eyes. His face was still white as paper, but he accepted her decision and nodded slightly. Kenneth burst out laughing.

“No need to be so nervous. I’m, after all, just a human like you. And Helio, aren’t you one of my people? As an academy pre-student, you’re even more precious. I won’t harm you, so relax.”

“I didn’t think you would harm me, Your Majesty.”

Helio’s denial was timid, but Kenneth looked very satisfied.

“Good, just keep speaking up like that. Now, I’ll take him for a bit. I’ll call for you when I send him back.”

The King looked between Sabina and Ashton, smiling broadly.

“You suit each other.”

Sabina and Ashton looked at each other at the same time. Since Sabina didn’t shake off Ashton’s hand, they were still holding hands. Kenneth, finding this amusing, laughed again as he walked away, and as he left, Sabina muttered in a drained voice,

“I’ve never met His Majesty this often.”

“It’s nice to have power behind you.”

“I don’t need it. D’Vialis is power enough.”

“For Helio.”

The brief judgment of ‘too dependent’ resurfaced. Sabina was already looking in the direction the two had gone. It wouldn’t hurt for the boy to build a connection with the King.

“…Right. It’s good to have many places to lean on. For Helio’s sake.”

Her sincere words didn’t consider that Helio might choose Reyes Brinita as his pillar someday.

* * *

Helio, a bit deflated, followed Kenneth.

In the ten minutes walking to Kenneth’s reception room, he received three times as many bows as he had in his whole life. Those who’d treated Helio as a mere child couldn’t even meet Kenneth’s eyes, bowing with utmost elegance. The boy got a vague sense of what power was.

Kenneth never stopped talking, his words laced with royal authority and a touch of ostentatious casualness. Helio found himself both drawn to and repelled by the King’s instinctive charisma.

Meanwhile, a strange sense of déjà vu seized the boy. It was the same feeling Sabina had experienced recently.

Ashton Bryant and Kenneth Brinita were oddly similar.

There was a shared emotional tone in their way of speaking.

Helio was startled by his own discovery. Paradoxically, he found a clue as to why he felt discomfort with Kenneth but not with Reyes.

As the noise faded, the boy found himself walking on the marble floors of the main palace. He and the King were led by attendants dressed in pure white, with short hair, all of indeterminate gender and age.

Passing through splendid corridors, Kenneth brought Helio to a terrace overlooking an unopened flower garden. He was seated at a table decorated with a single stem of lisianthus in a slender vase. Lost in the view only the King could enjoy, Helio came to his senses as he was served clear, fragrant tea and velvet-soft cake.

“Go ahead.”

Seated, the King looked even more elegant and beautiful than from afar. Helio hesitated, bowing his head before picking up his fork.

Kenneth watched Helio with a smile. He wasn’t a fool. For boys Helio’s age, delicious food was the best way to lower their guard. As the moist cream and sponge melted sweetly, and the subtle bitterness of the tea refreshed him, Helio’s tension slowly eased.

“Um… why did you bring me here?”

Helio asked cautiously. Kenneth laughed openly.

“I have a favor to ask. Nothing difficult.”

Helio asked what it was with his eyes. Kenneth clapped his hands to call an attendant.

“Do you play chess?”

Helio’s cheeks reddened.

“I know the rules.”

Mitchel had taught him chess as one of the basics. All the staff at D’Vialis Mansion could play chess. Especially Julia, whose skills were so good Helio couldn’t hope to beat her as a beginner. Having learned from the maids, Helio sometimes challenged Sabina to a game.

“You know the rules. That’s enough.”

Soon, a crystal chessboard was placed between them. Helio was nervous about leaving fingerprints or scratches, but Kenneth handled the pieces without concern.

“I’m fairly good, so you take white.”

Two attendants silently and swiftly set up the pieces. Helio wondered what Kenneth was thinking, but started the game as Julia always did. Everyone at D’Vialis Mansion began games that way. It was already a habit for the boy.

The King smiled gently at this.

Helio had only made the first move, but wondered why the King was smiling.

Kenneth played kindly. He was so considerate it made Helio feel sorry for being uncomfortable. Helio concentrated on every move. After several dozen minutes, tapping the board with his rook, he let out a low gasp.

“Ah…”

He was in checkmate.

Realizing defeat, he looked at the King, who smiled brightly. Helio didn’t resign, moving his rook one last time. Kenneth’s queen captured it immediately.

Checkmate.

“Thank you for teaching me.”

Helio bowed his head.

Kenneth leaned over and reset all the pieces himself. What followed was a smooth review of the game. Helio, mouth slightly open, asked blankly,

“Did you use magic?”

He’d read that Kenneth Brinita’s magical attribute was ‘Record.’

At his innocent question, the King laughed loudly.

“Of course not. A chess game is a story—if you know the flow, reviewing it isn’t hard.”

Helio watched Kenneth’s hands as he replayed the moves. At one point, Kenneth tapped a piece down.

“This is where you lost.”

“I see.”

The whole board came into view for Helio. Kenneth observed the boy’s focused face. After reviewing the whole game, Kenneth ordered the chessboard cleared.

“Now, all you have to do is not tell anyone about this game.”

It was an odd request.

It was just a chess match. Even if Helio told someone, no one could deduce anything from it. Helio himself didn’t know what the game meant.

“Promise.”

This time, Kenneth spoke a bit more forcefully.

Helio nodded, swept along.

Apparently, that was all Kenneth wanted. He called for an attendant to fetch Sabina D’Vialis. Helio, dazed, sipped his cold tea and cut his cake.

Playing chess with the King wasn’t something to hide, but not something he needed to tell anyone either. Even with lingering questions, obedience was easy. As Helio quietly finished his cake, the King casually asked about his entrance exam grade.

Helio blushed and replied,

“…Grade 3.”

“Grade 3? Not bad.”

“That’s just average.”

“What? That’s top 200.”

Helio realized he’d done better than he’d hoped. It was a happy shock. The King narrowed his eyes, closely watching the joy on the boy’s face.

After a short wait, Sabina arrived, still marked as Ashton’s ‘lover.’ Helio bowed deeply to the King, then hurried to Sabina.

“Thank you for the guidance you gave the child.”

Sabina, as Helio’s guardian, offered the formal thanks, but Kenneth didn’t even look at her. He met Ashton’s eyes instead. Ashton, smiling back at the cheerful King, couldn’t guess his intent.

“Like brothers, aren’t you?”.

The subject was dropped so abruptly it took a moment to understand.

But it wasn’t hard to figure out. Only two men were at the end of Kenneth’s gaze.

Sabina, holding Helio’s hand, looked up at Ashton. His face was fixed in a smile like a painted mask.

Suddenly, Kenneth Brinita burst out laughing.

“Maybe it’s the similar shade of blue eyes.”

Ashton replied a beat late.

“Well. If this kid is as smart as my younger brother, I’d welcome him……. But would he welcome me?”

“Why wouldn’t he? My friend, you are quite a fine adult, aren’t you?”

“Helio doesn’t seem to want to grow up like me at all.”

Helio murmured in a small but clear voice,

“We’re nothing alike.”

“Right.”

Kenneth didn’t deny it, just kept smiling.

“On closer look, you’re different in lots of ways. Seems I was mistaken.”

He sometimes played odd, mischievous jokes. No one knew this better than Sabina. She knew Kenneth well, so she took it as just another extension of his playful nature. Only Ashton took it sensitively.

“Well then, pre-student boy, see you again.”

Kenneth strode over and shook Helio’s hand. Now that he’d gotten what he wanted from Helio, only he knew he’d never summon the boy again.

Sabina didn’t think much of Kenneth’s words, but their content lingered quietly for a long time. As she walked under the rose vine tunnel, avoiding the summer sun, she spoke up suddenly.

“I thought you resembled His Majesty.”

Ashton replied immediately.

“My goodness, Miss D’Vialis. No matter how much faith you have in your family’s authority, isn’t it terribly irreverent to speak so carelessly?”

But he didn’t seem genuinely shocked. He’d expected Sabina to feel that way.

“What are you talking about?”

Sabina said seriously. Ashton fussed with his collar and cleared his throat.

“Well, then. Once you return home today, it’ll be farewell until our young friend’s entrance ceremony.”

He quickly changed the subject, took out his wallet from his jacket, opened the clip, and pressed a small piece of paper right in front of Helio’s eyes.

“Can’t see the real thing, so I’ll have to comfort myself with this.”

Helio’s eyes widened. It was… a portrait of Sabina with a floral background and a slightly annoyed expression. Before he could think Ashton was ridiculously childish, he was swept up with resentment toward Sabina. Why didn’t she give one to him? As he turned to protest to her, Sabina voiced her complaint first.

“Now that I think about it, why do you have the only one?”

Huh?

Helio looked back and forth between the two, dumbfounded.

“We were supposed to exchange, but now I realize you’re the only one who got one that day.”

“What would you do with a picture of my face? It’s not like you’d look at it every day.”

Ashton was clearly teasing. Sabina, with a calm face feigning indifference, grabbed Helio’s hand and raised her cane. As she tapped the stone floor, ready to teleport away and leave Ashton behind, he asked with a laugh,

“Oh. Leaving without getting your portrait? Didn’t you say you wanted it?”

Sabina struck the ground mercilessly with her cane.

Helio swayed, dizzy for a moment. From over there, he heard the maids bustling, “Miss Sabina, you’re back.” He also heard Mitchel’s nagging, “Using teleportation so carelessly again.”

He couldn’t understand why Sabina was so annoyed, and spent the rest of the day with a mild headache.