Chapter 46

Like most kingdoms, the Kingdom of Alharn placed a heavy weight on the royal bloodline.

Alharn's founding king had claimed his legitimacy on the grounds that his ancestors were descended from the imperial house of the Eshan Empire, which had once unified the continent. Whether that was actually true was hard to say — the Eshan Empire had already been gone for over a thousand years by the time Alharn was founded. But he made the claim, people believed him, and that was what mattered.

The Alharn royal house had always been bright blond, just like the Eshan imperial line, and that was proof of the legitimacy.

Because the royal bloodline was itself the kingdom's claim to legitimacy, when the previous king died young and without warning, a sixth cousin took the throne. The current king. That had been over thirty years ago.

Seventh District of the capital, Kingdom of Alharn. The National Central Hospital.

Close to midnight.

The place had a solemn air about it at the best of times, but the last few days it had been drawn tighter still. On every floor, people who didn't look like medical staff or patients were stationed here and there, and the corridor leading to the top floor was guarded outright by uniformed sentries.

Anyone going in or out had their identity checked by the sentries. It was a nuisance, but everyone knew who was up there and complied without a word.

Cumbersome, yes, but no one made a scene about it. Absolutely not because a sizable donation had just come into the hospital under the name of House Lambert. Absolutely not because the Alharn royal family had sent one on top of that. Of course not.

"...?"

"What?"

"No reporter trying to sneak in today?"

"After a few days of being thrown out, they've had to learn something."

Two sentries at the door leading into the corridor spoke in low voices.

"His Grace the Duke's angry enough that he'll press charges."

"Serves them right."

"They know it won't work and they still try every time."

"With the Marquis out of the country since last year, I thought things would stay quiet for a while..."

The chatter didn't last long. As figures came walking up the corridor, the sentries fell silent. They were faces the guards had come to know over the last few days.

The doctor and nurse gave the sentries a small nod.

"How is the Marquis?"

"Resting. No other concerns."

The medical staff and the sentries exchanged a quick update on the person at the far end of the corridor. Once the medical staff had left, the sentries returned to their posts.

The corridor went quiet again.

At the end of the corridor was the patient's room. Room, in a manner of speaking — it was nothing like the ordinary sort. In contrast to the tension outside, the lighting inside glowed in warm tones, and a delicate lace curtain hung across the tall window looking out onto the hospital's inner garden.

There was a bed of the sort meant for a patient. On the empty bed lay a thick duvet.

The room's occupant was there all the same. In an armchair near the window sat a man with a splint on his right foot, reading a book. Something in what he was reading must not have sat well with him — he tapped his finger against the page. As his head tilted to the side, a few strands of pale blond hair fell forward.

The man was reaching for a glass of water on the table when he looked up.

A large man stood leaning against the doorway that had been empty only moments earlier.

Short hair, deep blue eyes. Wherever he'd left his coat, he was in nothing but a shirt and vest. Knowing the man's temperament, he'd almost certainly ditched it as a hindrance to moving.

The muscle under the shirt had clearly been built in real combat. If he set his mind to it, killing Grisha wouldn't take him any effort at all.

But Grisha Lambert only raised his eyebrows a fraction. He wasn't startled in the least by a man who had appeared, literally, in the blink of an eye.

Instead, calmly, he took off his glasses and set them on the table, then pressed his fingers wearily against the bridge of his nose.

"Couldn't you come in like a normal person?"

"Heard you were refusing visitors."

"As if I wouldn't have called you myself if I needed you."

"I'm not so sure you would have..."

Grisha glared at him. The man didn't blink and simply walked over to Grisha.

"Your leg? Was it an accident? Or...?"

"...I told you, Harold."

Harold snorted.

"Right, right. That you'd survive without me. Is this what that meant?"

"I survived, didn't I."

"For crying out loud, Grisha."

In the end Harold sighed. He raked a hand through his hair and dropped into the chair across from Grisha.

Grisha said nothing. He didn't want to provoke an old friend. Poke Harold in the wrong direction in that state, and there was no telling where he'd tear off to.

But Harold had known Grisha just as long. When Grisha Lambert went quiet, a bigger wave was coming right behind it.

It was the mild-mannered ones you had to watch when they lost their tempers.

An odd tension settled between two old friends.

"..."

Flip.

Grisha turned a page. Harold gave a dry laugh.

"You can actually read that?"

"I've read it before."

"Cut the crap."

"You've got children to look after now — watch your language, Harold."

Grisha turned another page, deliberately.

Harold looked at him with an expression that said, how far are you going to take this? But as always, his patience gave out first.

"So what happened with the accident?"

"Didn't you read the papers?"

"The papers didn't run anything useful. Was it actually an accident?"

"Well..."

"How badly were you hurt?"

"As you can see."

Grisha waggled his right foot.

"Just a mild sprain."

"You do know I was a mercenary, right?"

If he couldn't gauge the extent of an injury on sight, he wouldn't have made it as a mercenary — he wouldn't have made it out of the academy either.

Grisha smiled easily. That was the kind of smile Grisha wore only when he had nothing to say.

"You call in a doctor at this hour and get painkillers for a mild sprain?"

"How long have you been here, anyway?"

"Long enough."

Harold waved a hand and answered offhandedly. The smile slid off Grisha's face. The furrowed brow was Grisha Lambert at last, not Marquis Roys.

Grisha closed the book he hadn't actually been reading.

"What is it you're so curious about that you came all this way?"

He hadn't answered about the carriage accident. Harold didn't miss that.

But if Grisha didn't want to talk about it, he'd let it go. He'd find out eventually. Everything that Harold had come here to hear an answer to, the carriage accident included, was tied up together.

By the end of it, Grisha would probably be wishing he'd just talked about the accident.

Harold asked it the way you'd ask about tomorrow's weather.

"Grisha. Are you trying to become king?"

Time froze for an instant.

Not literally, the way time froze in the old legends. But every trace of feeling drained out of Grisha's face. He didn't get irritated, didn't get angry. He didn't burst into the incredulous laugh you'd get on hearing an absurd joke, nor did he look put-upon.

Under that carefully composed mask, though, a great deal was moving. You didn't have to see it to feel it.

But the flat denial that would have come out of him instantly ten years ago didn't come.

"I don't want to be king."

He didn't say he wouldn't be.

"Not ten years ago, not twenty years ago, not now. That won't change going forward, either."

"Then why?"

"..."

Grisha ran his fingers over the book on his lap.

"There's no one listening. Say what you want to say."

"With you in the room, I wasn't worried about that."

Grisha said it brusquely.

"I'm not working these days, so I've got plenty of time."

"Your nephews?"

"It's their bedtime. I left after they'd gone to sleep."

"..."

"I'm not blaming you. But if you're doing this, the you I know has a reason."

"Just go down to your domain."

Grisha bit his lip.

"You never had any interest in this kind of thing. Why is it different now? Take them down to the — right. There's trouble at the Bertholdt domain too. I'll help you. Go abroad. Cross the sea and they won't chase you so easily."

"So it's an issue that warrants going that far."

"..."

"I..."

Rare for him, Grisha opened and closed his mouth, at a loss. Normally he'd have thrown a jab at Harold for that, but Harold wasn't in the mood either.

That he had plenty of time was no lie. He'd come here with no intention of leaving until he got a real answer from Grisha.

Whether or not Grisha decided to become king wasn't the point in itself. At least, not for Harold.

But he needed to know what had pushed Grisha into deciding to do something he'd hated all his life. In all likelihood it was tied to his brother. Harold hoped Albrecht hadn't been the one who'd pushed Grisha into it, but he couldn't be sure.

"My nephews think of the capital as home."

"..."

"I don't want to take that from them."

"...You'd do this for a reason like that?"

"It's one of the important ones."

Harold hadn't decided on impulse.

His decisions would sweep his innocent nephews along with them. Part of him wanted to run somewhere far away — and he wasn't without the means.

But he couldn't.

"If you find out who hurt Dad, promise you'll tell me."

The whispering voice hadn't left the back of his mind.

If he turned his back here, Edwin wouldn't forgive him. The boy hadn't said as much, but he had a sense of it. Harold never ignored that kind of instinct.

Then again, maybe it wasn't instinct at all — maybe it was just because it was what Harold himself wanted. Every time his little nephews trailed around after him, he couldn't shake the feeling that his brother should have been the one standing there.

Harold needed someone to blame too.

"My brother is dead. The children were nearly abducted. A butler who'd worked on the domain for years was murdered."

"..."

"There's no guarantee it's safe abroad either."

There was his brother's journal, which he hadn't told anyone about yet.

If his brother had been working with Grisha... Grisha might already know what it was.

If the journal was what Dustin Glenn and his lot were after, they'd come after Harold wherever he took the children. If it was that important a thing.

"And I'm worried about you too."

Harold pointed at Grisha's leg. The leg was the only visible injury, but he wasn't blind to the bandages under the loose shirt.

"You promised me if you ever wanted to teach those bastards a lesson, I'd help. Remember?"

"...We were kids then."

"What's different now?"

Harold said it flatly.

"From what I hear, he's worse than he used to be. I've thought from way back that he shouldn't be king."

"...'What you hear' — that'd be Count Archibald."

"You're supposed to pretend you don't know that."

"..."

Grisha smiled faintly.

He looked like he might burst out laughing any second, or as if he might tell Harold off for saying something that oblivious.

But in the end, Grisha let out a quiet breath and got his composure back.

"Please, Harold. You already know."

"...Know what?"

"Why I'm... doing this. Why Albrecht backed me."

"..."

"You know."

Harold looked at him blankly, not following at all.

"Viscount Manfred said the two of you got that far together. The link with the Kingdom of Barun. Before I took office, before I could get everyone to hold their tongues around you."

"Ah. That. The Kunakshe?"

"Yes. You got there investigating Albrecht's accident, didn't you."

"...Right?"

Grisha let out a deep sigh this time, in earnest.

"That business is tied to mine. What do you think that means?"

"...?"

"You just said it yourself."

"...?"

"Do you think they came without an invitation?"

Spelled out that plainly, even Harold's head made a show of working. His eyes widened.

Grisha nodded.

"The First Prince has struck a deal with a foreign power."