It was deep into the night.

Yet the lights in Ahazan’s study showed no sign of going out.

He stood by the window, one shoulder angled against the frame, arms folded as he gazed outside. A cold draft slipped through the slightly opened window, stirring the papers on his desk. His eyes followed that faint movement slowly, empty, distracted, as though his mind was elsewhere.

Unlike his usual composed stride, he walked to the desk with the faint sound of dragging shoes and reread the dry sentences he had just written with painstaking deliberation.

Given the situation, handle matters thus and so.

The content carried no more weight than that, clinical, detached.

Knock, knock.

At the sound, he lifted his head. Cal Regerson had already opened the door and stepped inside. The visit was not unexpected; he had been summoned.

“Did you call for me, Your Majesty?”

Cal spoke with an easy grin. Judging by his light attire, he seemed to have come straight from late-night training.

“I called you some time ago. Where have you been at this hour?”

“My apologies. I was with the Pantheon Knights, stretching our limbs for the first time in a while.”

The Pantheon was Ahazan’s personal guard, five knights who had trained alongside him since childhood. Recognized for their skill, they had been formally appointed as his order. It had been over fifteen years since then, and they had even fought wars together. To say they were like brothers bound by blood would not be an exaggeration.

Ahazan had granted them leave before returning to the Empire after the war, yet it seemed they had cut it short and come back early.

“None of you ever listen properly.”

He had clearly threatened to confine them to their quarters and feed them only water if they returned before their leave ended, yet it had done nothing. Ahazan let out a short laugh and shook his head.

“Rekri has gained quite a bit of weight. His movements have slowed, but he’s grown stronger. Look at this, he struck me once, and I’ve already bruised like this.”

Cal exposed a red bruise at his waist in disbelief.

Rekri Alexia was the youngest among them. Imagining the boy’s fuller face, Ahazan’s lips curved more broadly.

“I’ll see for myself soon enough.”

“Please give that insolent brat a proper scolding, Your Majesty.”

Everyone knew, of course, that Cal doted on Rekri the most.

“But at this hour, why have you called me?”

Perhaps puzzled that Ahazan had not yet spoken his purpose, Cal asked first, raising both brows with an almost innocent expression.

Ahazan paused longer than intended, thinking of how that expression would soon change.

Seeing the strange smile playing on his liege’s lips, Cal sensed something amiss. His demeanor sharpened at once.

“Whatever it is, command me, Your Majesty. I will hear it.”

At the steadfast loyalty in Cal’s voice, Ahazan smiled more deeply, though not lightly. He lowered his gaze to the document spread upon the desk, folded it once, and extended it toward him.

Cal approached respectfully and accepted it. After a brief hesitation, he glanced once at his lord, whom he had admired all his life, before carefully unfolding the paper.

Ahazan’s familiar handwriting lay embroidered across the thin, supple leather.

Cal read through it once, then slowly lifted his stunned gaze to Ahazan. Finding nothing in that unreadable expression, he lowered his eyes and read it again.

Only after a long silence did he speak, his voice no longer light.

“What is this, Your Majesty?”

Ahazan answered as though he had expected the question.

“There is no need to ask. You understood it correctly.”

Cal’s brow furrowed sharply.

“This is impossible.”

Each word came out strained.

“Read the text properly, Cal, clearly wrote ‘if.’”

“Whether it is one chance in ten thousand or one in a thousand, I do not wish to obey such an order, Your Majesty!”

There was iron in Cal’s refusal, an unyielding resolve that would not bend even at the cost of his life.

As expected, he had reacted exactly as Ahazan knew he would. Because of that predictability, Ahazan did not rebuke his insolence.

“If you do not serve as witness to this command, someone else will.”

“But, Your Majesty—!”

“This is not a question of whether it will be done. Only who will do it. So spare me further argument and take it.”

In that moment, Cal understood he would ultimately carry out this enormous command. Ahazan would entrust it to no one else.

His shoulders fell heavily.

The document slipped slightly in his trembling hand.

Revealed upon the unfolded page—

was Ahazan’s will.

Across it ran a long blank space, left in case a severance might one day be required. And above it was written a final instruction:

Should Ahazan be killed by Empress Clodine, this will was to be made public, so that his death would be quietly concluded as a s*icide.

“Has something already happened? Is that why you prepared this, Your Majesty?”

Quick-witted as ever, Cal seemed certain there had to be a reason for such a sudden command.

Instead of answering, Ahazan quietly shifted his gaze to one corner of the desk.

At the edge of his sight sat a plain black box, unremarkable in appearance. It had not been there until that afternoon.

Dawn, the day time turned back.

Ahazan had awakened to the presence of a weapon aimed at his throat.

Most would not know this, but all sharp and lethal things carried a certain aura. To one properly honed, that aura could be sensed without sight. Countless assassination attempts on the battlefield had sharpened Ahazan into something like a finely tempered blade.

To imagine that he would fail to notice Clodine’s clumsy, impulsive scheme simply because his eyes were closed would have been almost insulting.

The night before, so rapturous he could have died content in her arms.

So unreal that even had it been declared a dream, he would have accepted it without protest.

Perhaps because of that, the moment that followed did not shock him at all.

He considered opening his eyes.

But instead, feeling Clodine’s breath tremble above him, gathering courage bordering on desperation, he continued to feign sleep.

He listened for a long time to the fragile rhythm of her breathing, wavering between resolve and hesitation. At one point, he nearly wanted to tell her—

If it pains you so much, then go ahead. Stab me. Be at peace.

I am fine. If you can escape that hell, I do not mind dying. Finish it. Be free.

But she did not act.

Through her muffled sobs, he could tell her resolve was fading by the moment. The heavy anxiety tangled in her ragged inhalations, the trembling despair in her exhalations, she was not yet ready to kill him.

Strangely, what Ahazan felt then was not anger, nor fear—

but joy.

Bitter to recall now, but unmistakable at the time.

Rather than being wounded by the fact that she had tried to kill him, he found it natural almost expected. What surprised him, what pleased him, was that she had failed.

That thin line between surrender and decision.

That sliver of hesitation that turned resolve into failure.

The hot tears she must have shed as it happened.

Ahazan had been glad.

He had nearly wanted to seize her and ask—

Why could you not kill me?

What feeling stopped your hand?

Is there still a chance left for me to extinguish the hatred you carry?

‘If so, I could love you again with all my heart.’

He knew he would willingly cast himself back into that cursed cycle.

He laughed soundlessly at himself.

Either way, the ending would not differ much from death.

Clodine had wept beside his bed for a long while, and then just as long before the mirror.

Only then did Ahazan open his eyes to watch her.

He saw her place something white and pointed into a small black box beneath the mirror before hurriedly closing the lid.

He could not see clearly from a distance, but he understood at once.

So that was it.

The desperate object she had clutched all through the dawn.

As they left the villa, Ahazan found himself troubled.

Standing before the mirror and staring at the black box left behind, he felt as though he were leaving Clodine herself there.

And not only that.

When he opened the box and saw the long, white shard of marble, so poorly suited to its grim purpose, he had almost laughed.

‘You cannot kill someone with this, Clodine.’

For her next attempt—or perhaps for himself, who would one day have to submit to it, he had even fleetingly considered teaching her how to choose something sharper, easier to wield.

Absurd thoughts.

In the end, he took the black box containing the marble shard with him.

It did not feel hateful.

In some strange way, it felt almost amusing.

A simple reason, in truth.

And from that moment, Ahazan’s false will was born.

For Clodine, who might one day turn today’s failure into success.

The gift he prepared for her, in anticipation of that day, was absolution.