“Not once have I ever betrayed Your Highness.”

When Zetach had revealed himself as a spy, he had said those words. At the time I had dismissed them as an excuse, something I couldn’t take seriously. But if he hadn’t been a spy for money or power…

“I only leaked the false information they wanted. My goal was never really…”

He trailed off, leaving his true goal unsaid. He had already…

“The moment you became my servant, you achieved your goal, didn’t you?”

His simple goal – to meet me. He took on the role of a spy and entered the palace with the intention of finding me. But how could he have known where in the vast palace he would be placed? As a mere servant, it would have been almost impossible for him to meet a prince.

If he had been assigned to an undesirable position, even within the same palace, there was a chance that he would never see my face in his entire life. And yet he had risked everything for that slim chance? Zetak must have noticed my confusion, because he spoke up.

“Because there was no other choice.”

“…”

“I looked for any way to get into the palace. Whether it was as a servant, a stable boy or even a despised clown – anything that would get me in was fine. 

I began to understand what he meant. The palace walls were high and the chances of getting in were slim, especially for an orphan boy without a guardian. Then one day a nobleman appeared and offered to sponsor him at the cost of his life. He must have been torn, or perhaps, knowing Zetak’s nature, he accepted without a second thought. 

“Why go to such lengths just to see me? You could have lived your own life.”

“…”

“You said that you fed them false information about me and that you never betrayed me. If that’s true…”

He must have suffered greatly. Bapharos probably wouldn’t have got involved personally – he wouldn’t risk contacting a planted spy directly. It must have been the subordinates dealing with the spies who contacted Zetak.

He might have been overlooked once or twice for feeding false information, perhaps excused as a youthful mistake. But if it continued, they would eventually realise that it was deliberate.

“Did you ever feel comfortable, even for a moment, in the palace?”

He was summoned by Karial because of rumours that he was favoured by me. He was dragged away and beaten for giving false information.

It wasn’t the sort of punishment where servants are beaten a few times for minor mistakes. It was probably done out of my sight, perhaps after the day’s work, when he returned to the servants’ quarters. Had he endured this for four years?

“How can you keep smiling like that?”

He didn’t answer. I was stunned. He was only a child, barely ten. How could he smile under such circumstances? But Zetak always smiled. He often cried, but whenever our eyes met, he would smile as if he were truly happy. What could have made him so happy?

“I didn’t force myself to smile.”

He spoke softly, his face hidden behind his hair, so I couldn’t see his expression.

“It was the only chance I was given. I took it, and without much effort, I immediately met Your Highness. Where else could I have found such luck?”

What a foolish child. To call accepting a spy mission “luck”. Didn’t he understand what the end of this path would be? Spies die, whether they’re caught or not.

He must have been promised safe passage abroad if he completed his mission successfully. But no noble would keep that promise. What kind of noble would allow someone who knows so many secrets to simply walk away from them? They all disappear without a trace – dead if they’re caught, and dead even if they’re not. Such is the fate of a spy.

When I saw his lips curve into a faint smile, I realised that he must have known all this when he accepted the mission. He accepted it, fully aware, in order to achieve his goal.

“That’s right. You’re the kind of child who always gets what you want, even if you pretend otherwise.”

Whatever the means.

“Did you really have a reason to go so far? I may have saved you, but we only met once. I didn’t even know your name… Why were you so fixated on me?”

“…It may have meant nothing to Your Highness – carrying a child out of the basement.”

“…”

“But that doesn’t mean it meant nothing to the other person.”

His gentle words weighed heavily on my heart. Just because it didn’t mean anything to me, it didn’t mean the same to the other person. I thought slowly about what he had said.

What must he have felt when he saw me in the basement? He mentioned that he had not eaten for two years. For that long he must have waited to die, bound by a collar meant for an animal.

What must have gone through Zetak’s mind in that dark place, among the bodies of other children who had died before him? More importantly, there was something there that I couldn’t remember – something significant enough for Zetak to call it a major incident.

I thought I understood the meaning of his words. He was an orphan. He had never known the warmth of a parent’s touch or the affection of a sibling. Instead, he had endured unrelenting hunger and abuse. Perhaps I was his only saviour in his short life. Perhaps I was the first glimmer of hope he had ever experienced, something he desperately wanted to hold onto – even if it meant risking everything.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if Your Highness had tortured me, because I was used to pain.”

He had said that. Zetach didn’t hate me for torturing him. It wasn’t just that he was used to suffering from past abuse. Even when he was by my side, he was in constant pain.

He suffered from Karial’s jealousy and the beatings he received for providing false information in his role as a spy. My own torment may have felt no different to him. What made him hate me wasn’t the torture itself, but…

“I was just… curious when you would hate me.”

One sentence from me changed everything. Zetak, who had endured so much physical pain, was broken by those words. His face twisted with resentment, sorrow, pleading, hatred and longing. But through it all, it was the voice of the boy who kept begging me. The child who only wanted to stay by my side, whose hand I pushed away. I stepped back from the little hand that reached for my foot. The only saviour he had was rejected. The hope he clung to was drifting away.

I was curious, nothing more. Why did he like me so much? When would he start to hate me? How must he have felt when he heard my words? The one who had saved him, behaving just like those who had abused him. I remembered the look in those red eyes, staring pitifully at me as I held the whip. The voice pleading with me as I tore off his fingernails, all to keep him by my side. Physical pain must have meant nothing to him. It wasn’t the pain that broke him, but…

“Ah…?”

Something dripped from my face. Reflexively, I raised my hand to catch it and felt the wetness pool in my palm. I stared blankly at the drops. Now that I thought about it, my chest had been strangely painful for a while. It felt almost suffocating, as if I couldn’t breathe.

Clutching my chest, I touched my face. Tears. Was I crying again? Through the blurred vision caused by my tears, I saw Zetak. It was strange. I knew I was the one crying, but somehow Zetak looked like he was crying too.

***

“Have you calmed down?”

Zetak asked, wiping the tears from my eyes. I looked around, noticing the bright flowers and neatly trimmed trees. The palace garden. I sat down in one of the chairs by the tea table. How had I got here? When had I walked through the gates?

I remembered crying foolishly in the corridor, and vaguely recalled passing nobles staring at me in surprise. After that… Ah, right. Zetak had suddenly removed his cloak and thrown it over my head. How brave of him. The thought that he was crying must have been my imagination. He wasn’t crying – he looked angry.

“Honestly! You, who supposedly have no emotions, crying like that in front of others!”

“With that damned face.”

He murmured through clenched teeth. What had I done to deserve such a scolding? But despite his harsh words, he gently wiped away my tears with his sleeve, which kept me calm. I just watched him in silence. The tears had stopped and the suffocating pain in my chest was gone. Even though I had cried so suddenly, Zetak didn’t ask me why.

“How can you cry so much? Shouldn’t you be incapable of feeling emotions because of some illness?”

“Indeed. I wonder why I was crying.”

When I had cried in the corridor, my chest had felt strangely tight and painful. But now that feeling was gone. My emotions had returned to a state of calm, to the point where I couldn’t even understand why I had cried. But one thing remained clear – the feeling of trampling over Zetak, the despair reflected in his eyes.

“I think I might have…done something terrible to you.”