Chapter 12
“Wow—Father’s in here too!”
Void carefully lifted a card framed in gold.
The look on Uncle’s face as he stared at it—like he’d just bitten into a bug—was really something to behold…
“If you liked it that much, why didn’t you just buy it earlier?” I asked casually.
Void turned his head away.
“This was only sold in the capital for a limited time, you know? You can’t get it in the North.”
“You could’ve written to the Duke and asked him to buy it for you.”
“There’s no way I could say something like that…”
His pale cheeks flushed faintly.
“I said I’d become a great knight, so if I said I wanted something like this… it’d be too childish… disappointing…”
He mumbled so quietly I could barely hear him.
“Hm?”
“It’s nothing!”
Void neatly stacked the cards and stood up.
“Anyway, thanks. I’m not really that into these kinds of games.”
Liar.
“But since it’s from my little sibling, I guess I have no choice but to accept!”
Puffing out his chest, Void stood proudly in front of me.
“So—anything you want in return? Go on, say it.”
“Hmm. I’d like some alone time for now.”
“Alone time? Of course, I can give you that.”
Putting on a deliberately mature expression, Void ruffled my hair gently.
“Then tomorrow, you’ll play cards with me.”
“And if I say I don’t want to…?”
Snap—
A sharp glare flew my way.
Of course, it wasn’t threatening in the slightest, so I just laughed it off.
“I’ll play, I’ll play.”
That was when Void stared at me intently.
“But you know… the way you smile…”
“Huh?”
“It kind of reminds me of that.”
For a split second, something strange flickered in his innocent violet eyes.
“…A girl?”
I froze completely.
“Well, obviously not.”
What is this kid’s intuition?!
So flustered that I panicked, I chased Void straight out of the room.
The next morning.
I woke up feeling light and refreshed, as though I’d slept on a cloud.
“Haaah… I slept so well.”
“Looks like it.”
“Oh—!”
Leviathan Uncle was sprawled across the sofa in my luxurious room like a pile of unwashed laundry.
“What are you doing there first thing in the morning?”
“It’s not morning. It’s afternoon.”
“Huh?”
Afternoon? Did I really sleep that long?!
I hurried to the window to check the sun.
“……”
The sun had only just risen in the east.
“Hey! What was that for—why’d you lie?!”
Uncle chuckled like some neighborhood loafer.
He was wearing a relaxed tunic. They say fashion is completed by the face—but honestly, even dressed like that, he was dazzling.
Figures. Looks really are everything.
I tugged uselessly at my plain silver hair reflected in the mirror.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Put on slippers. Your feet are cold.”
“Yes, sir.”
I slipped my feet into the small slippers he nudged toward me.
Uncle was tossing an apple into the air and catching it, fidgeting idly.
“Aren’t you busy? I thought a duke who just came back after a long time would be swamped with work.”
“Well… I am busy.”
Swish—his sharp hand caught the apple and set it on the table. His violet eyes, sharp beneath their severe shape, pierced straight into me.
“You seem fine.”
“…?”
I tilted my head, not understanding.
With a soft grunt, Uncle stood up and turned away. He looked like he might disappear at any moment, so I asked hurriedly,
“Where are you going?”
“To work.”
“What about breakfast?”
“…? The chef will bring it, won’t he?”
“No, I mean your meal…”
Uncle lifted an eyebrow. A hint of discomfort flickered across his face.
“Ah. I’ll be busy for a while, so it’ll be hard to eat together.”
The dark circles under his eyes suggested he wasn’t lying.
“You can eat with Void. Don’t you like that?”
“It’s not that I don’t…”
“Then let’s eat together once things calm down.”
“Okay.”
“If anyone gives you trouble, write their name down.”
Uncle grinned beneath the morning sunlight.
It wasn’t the smile of a hero—it was closer to that of a villain.
“I’ll make sure they cry their eyes out.”
“My lord.”
When the butler approached, Leviathan—who had been strolling lazily down the corridor—lifted his gaze.
“Shall we begin with an inspection of the outer walls? Or would you prefer to visit the Regillus Mountain watchposts first? There’s also the knight order’s pending business, and the financial documents that need reviewing…”
All the territorial work he hadn’t been able to touch had piled up at once.
“Documents first.”
After a moment’s thought, Leviathan chose to shut himself away in his office.
The butler raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“You usually delegate the paperwork.”
“……”
He didn’t answer.
The words I don’t want to leave because Rubian’s on my mind wouldn’t come easily. They didn’t suit him.
So… she was okay last night.
Leviathan had spent the night in Rubian’s bedroom.
After arriving at the castle and dealing with urgent matters, it was already dawn. When he quietly checked on her, she was asleep, breathing softly.
I knew she adapted well, but still…
He swallowed a chuckle.
She slept well anywhere. She wasn’t picky about food and rarely complained.
She seemed to like baths—but even that, if circumstances didn’t allow, she wouldn’t beg.
Rubian had slept well last night.
That fact alone gave Leviathan a strange sense of stability.
During the entire journey from the capital to the duchy, the child hadn’t slept properly.
“Don’t… don’t go that way…”
“That place… you can’t…”
She thrashed in cold sweat, muttering in her sleep—no idea what kind of dreams haunted her.
Even Leon and the other stiff, stone-faced knights had spent the night restless with worry.
What kind of nightmare are you wandering through?
Leviathan’s eyes darkened.
Rubian didn’t even seem aware she was having nightmares.
She always woke up smiling, running around as usual.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing—he didn’t know.
But watching her like that weighed heavily on his heart.
Is she reliving the day the village was attacked… over and over in her dreams?
Yet the fragments of sleep-talk were strange.
“I… if only I’d…”
“I’ll go… I will…”
What on earth had a child been expected to do in that village?
Leviathan’s brow furrowed deeply.
She said she was a healer’s child, didn’t she.
Rubian avoided talking about her past. Afraid of touching a wound, Leviathan had been careful.
Should I wait until Rosetta returns…?
To begin with, he was a rough, clumsy man.
He couldn’t understand why Rubian followed someone like him so readily.
And with Void, too…
He sighed.
It hadn’t been long since he’d managed to look Void in the eye and hold a proper conversation. Even that had happened mostly because of Void’s natural sociability.
And still—it was awkward.
It was even worse with the eldest, who was in the south.
This is hard.
He didn’t know where to begin.
“Ah, Your Grace. A letter from Lady Rosetta has arrived.”
“Rose?”
Leviathan took the letter.
It was a reply to the message he’d sent ahead, asking whether it would be all right to bring Rubian in.
The answer was laughably simple: yes.
After losing the child in her womb in a carriage accident, Rose had begun caring for displaced children.
She couldn’t adopt them all, so she started with small sponsorships.
That was how she met Liam and Void—both children she had personally brought in.
Leviathan hadn’t strongly opposed it, nor had he enthusiastically supported it. He’d simply watched in silence.
And now, suddenly, he’d said he was bringing Rubian home.
It would’ve been natural for her to question him.
She’ll ask once she’s back.
Understanding his wife’s intentions, he let out a dry chuckle.
“Hm?”
There was a postscript, partially hidden by his fingers.
The careful handwriting made his gaze sink.
He had buried the dead child with his own hands.
How heavily it had rained that day. How cold the tiny body in his palms had been. He remembered it all as if it were yesterday.
“…Ah.”
His mood sank into the mud. The air around him rippled ominously.
This isn’t good.
He forced himself to calm down, shaking his head roughly and pushing the thoughts away.
“When did Rose say she’d be back?”
“In about a month.”
“I see.”
He started walking again.
Sunlight poured in through the tall windows as he moved down the corridor.
He recalled Rubian’s freshly awakened face—smooth and drowsy.
The image of her tugging irritably at her silver hair, as if she hated it, rose vividly before him, and he laughed.
That temper of hers.
All day long, the servants of the ducal house chatted about Rubian’s shining hair.
How lovely it was. How mysterious. Whisper, whisper.
Leviathan thought her blue eyes were the prettiest—but well, her hair was quite beautiful too.
Calling a boy “beautiful” or “pretty.”
Words he’d hardly ever used in his life slipped out without him realizing whenever he thought of Rubian—and again, he laughed—
Halt.
“Is something wrong, my lord?”
The butler asked when Leviathan suddenly stopped.
An odd sense of dissonance washed over him.
“It’s not morning. It’s afternoon.”
“Hm?”
A thoughtless joke.
“Hey! What was that for—why’d you lie?!”
Rubian hadn’t checked a clock—she’d run straight to the window.
As if it were second nature.
Reading time by the sun and moon’s position.
Like a soldier navigating a battlefield…
In that instant, an incomprehensible tidal wave crashed over him.
