After the meal, the Duke looked around at his children and said:

"Since we’ve all gathered like this, how about we relax and enjoy a post-meal cup of tea while chatting?"

The Duke instructed one of the maids:

"Bring out the flower tea."

The expressions of everyone present twisted in discomfort. They exchanged glances, reading each other's reactions. The daughters-in-law nudged their husbands with their elbows, and the brothers all turned their eyes toward the Count. It was a silent demand for the eldest son to take responsibility and speak up.

The Count, acting as their representative, spoke:

"Father, isn't that the precious tea you usually save for special occasions? If we all drink it, it will run out quickly. Please serve the valuable tea only to the esteemed guests."

"Yes, my elder brother is right."

"How could we drink such precious tea?"

The younger brothers chimed in to support.

"We will excuse ourselves. It doesn’t seem like the place for us. If each of us says even one word, it will become a cacophony."

"Hmm. Very well, then. You may go."

As soon as the Duke gave his permission, the Count quickly stood up and bowed.

"Please continue with your conversation."

Once more than ten people rushed out, the dining room felt noticeably empty.

"Shall we move to another place then?"

Kuhn understood the sentiments of the Duke's family members who had fled. He had no desire to taste that overly sweet tea again. Moreover, he was eager to return to the archive to continue his search.

"Your Grace, I must attend to organizing the archive. It doesn’t seem like something that can be done quickly."

"The archive is quite a mess, so it will indeed require a lot of work. Go ahead and take care of it."

Kuhn bowed to the Duke and then to Sienna before leaving the dining room.

The Duke turned to Sienna and asked:

"Your Highness, do you have any other plans?"

"No, I would like to try that tea."

The Duke smiled contentedly. It was rare to find someone who genuinely enjoyed drinking flower tea with him.

The two of them moved to the terrace. The spring breeze was still chilly, so they closed all the windows on the terrace.

"Duke Bless, I vaguely heard that you had a sister. Did I hear wrong?"

Sienna casually probed during their conversation.

"So you know about that. It seems there are people in the capital who gossip about me."

Sienna's hand, which was holding the teacup, trembled slightly.

"Then, your sister..."

"She passed away a long time ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"But it wasn’t an elder sister, it was a younger one. The information you have isn't quite accurate."

"Oh, a younger sister. Then, are there no other siblings?"

"Just the one younger sister who left us early. Your Highness seems to have quite an interest in my family history."

"Your family seems to be very harmonious. I thought you might have gotten along well with your siblings."

The Duke nodded at Sienna's explanation.

"It's been a while since I thought of my sister. I used to remember her often, but as I grow older, the memories fade."

The Duke, recalling his old memories, looked both joyful and sad.

"My sister was frail from a young age. She spent most of her life bedridden."

Due to the Duke’s authority, he rarely had long, candid conversations with others. His children were all busy with their own families. He found pleasure in having a meaningful conversation after such a long time.

The Duke continued reminiscing about old times, and Sienna listened quietly without needing to probe further.

"My sister even spent her coming-of-age birthday in bed. She passed away at the tender age of twenty-three. Her wish was to visit the capital just once, but she never got to fulfill that wish."

Sienna organized the information she had heard in her mind. The Duke's younger sister might have died after giving birth to the Iron King. The topic shifted briefly before Sienna casually asked another question.

"Has His Majesty the Emperor ever visited Whitestone Castle?"

"No, he has not. Your Highness is the first of the divine lineage to visit since I was born."

"That's strange."

The Duke’s sister never went to the capital, and the Emperor never came to Whitestone Castle. Therefore, they would never have had a chance to meet, which means the Iron King could not have been born between them.

At that moment, a meaningful statement from the Duke pierced her ears.

"However, His Majesty did visit Blackstone Castle several times. That was before he ascended the throne."

 

***

 

A day at the Duke's castle had passed.

Sienna lay on a soft bed for the first time in a long while. Staring at the dark ceiling, she found it difficult to fall asleep.

The bed was quite spacious for just one person. However, it wasn’t much larger than the single beds she had used until now. It was about the same size as the bed in her bedroom at the imperial palace.

The reason the bed felt so large was purely because of her own feelings. During the journey on the White Chip, she had shared a bed with Kuhn. It had only been a few days, but had she already gotten used to it?

The sleeping quarters they had rented while traveling by carriage were so narrow that a person could only just barely turn over while lying down. Because of this, she hadn’t felt this way before.

She felt embarrassed and amused at herself for feeling a sense of emptiness beside her. She tossed and turned for a long time.

Kuhn, too, was unable to sleep. He kept turning this way and that on the bed. Eventually, he sat up abruptly, clutching his head with both hands.

"Damn it, seriously."

He was suffering from a severe withdrawal. Since getting off the White Chip, he hadn’t been able to hold her properly. Lying alone in a spacious bedroom, it was becoming more and more unbearable. The days when he could freely embrace and kiss her in the cabin of the White Chip seemed like a distant memory.

The Duke’s family had provided separate bedrooms for the two of them. This was only natural since they were an unmarried man and woman.

He let out a deep sigh and collapsed back onto the bed. When he closed his eyes, her face would appear before him. He couldn’t sleep. He sprang up again.

"I’ll just go see her for a moment."

He thought he might be able to sleep if he could hold her tightly in his arms just once. He wouldn’t ask for anything more if he could just give her a goodnight kiss.

Kuhn climbed out of bed and quietly opened the door. He peeked his head through the gap in the door.

"Is there something you need, sir?"

"..."

Kuhn stared blankly at the servant who had suddenly appeared. His mind was so filled with thoughts of her that he hadn’t even noticed there was someone outside his room.

"What are you doing here?"

"The Duke has ordered us to take excellent care of our esteemed guests. He was concerned you might be uncomfortable sleeping in a different place, so he instructed us to attend to any minor needs with great care."

"Are you planning to keep watch all night?"

"Yes. Just let me know if you need anything."

"That’s not really necessary..."

"I’m just fulfilling my duty."

The servant, even at this late hour, was brimming with unnecessary enthusiasm.

Kuhn let out a small sigh and closed the door again. He was annoyed by the Duke’s excessive hospitality. With no other choice, he lay back down on the bed. It was even more torturous now. It felt like he was a thirsty traveler looking at a spring of water just below a cliff.

 

***

 

Whitestone Castle was shrouded in darkness. At an hour when everyone else was asleep, the light in the drawing room connected to the Duke’s bedroom was still on.

The door opened quietly, and someone entered. The Duke, who was moving his mobile chair around the drawing room, turned his head.

As he saw the face of the middle-aged man coming closer, Duke Randell frowned. His eyes widened as recognition set in. His finger, which was pointing at the man, trembled uncontrollably.

"You...!"

Jeffrey greeted him calmly.

"It’s been a long time."

"Jeffrey!"

Randell instinctively tried to stand up but collapsed back into his chair. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, enough to momentarily forget about his legs.

He hadn’t known that the person he was supposed to meet today was Jeffrey. The messenger from the Marquis of Rad had only said that "a survivor of the Acheron House" wanted to meet discreetly.

"You’re alive... you’re really alive!"

Randell desperately reached out both hands. Jeffrey stepped forward and took Randell’s hands in his own. Tears filled Randell’s eyes, and Jeffrey’s eyes reddened as well.

"So, it’s true. You survived!"

Randell had wondered why the Emperor suddenly wanted to dig up old affairs, especially to the point of using real names.

"Did you meet His Majesty?"

"I did."

"His Majesty must be planning to clear your name. He hasn’t forgotten you or the Acheron family."

A cold, fleeting smile appeared on Jeffrey’s lips before it faded.

Randell, overwhelmed with joy at his friend's return, looked again at Jeffrey's face. It wasn’t the face he remembered. The cheerful young Jeffrey Acheron was gone.

‘I see. It has been a long time...’

And a cruel time, it seemed, one that had completely changed the man.

"I’m sorry. We were too powerless. And cowardly. We couldn’t help you."

Randell hoped his words could provide some comfort to his friend.

"You did all you could. If your house had also fallen in the madness of the late emperor, what would have happened then?"

Jeffrey’s feelings were conflicted. While he had been hiding, always fearing that death might come at any moment, he had come to resent the world. He resented his friend. He even resented the former Duke Bless, his father's friend.

Hatred had given him the strength to survive each day. That’s how Jeffrey survived, but his heart had become as brittle as dry leaves.

He had never thought of blaming the House of Bless until now. Jeffrey just felt sorrow over how his own heart had withered. The friendship, where he would have given his life for his friend, had faded into a distant memory.

"When did your father pass away?"

The Bless and Acheron families had been closely connected. The two Dukes, who were of similar age, were friends, and their sons, who were also of similar age, had become friends as well. Randell and Jeffrey had called each other’s fathers "uncle," as if they were family.

"My father was greatly troubled after what happened to the Acheron House."

Randell explained the tragedies that befell the Bless family after the downfall of the Acheron House.

The former Duke Bless had been tormented by guilt and had turned to drinking. He became delirious from excessive drinking and started a fire, which resulted in his own death. Randell had injured his legs in the incident. When he was younger, he only limped slightly, but as he aged, walking had become increasingly difficult.

Randell’s younger sister fell ill and died after hearing that Jeffrey had died. She had always been frail. The doctor had said she wouldn’t live to see her coming-of-age birthday.

Yet, she had held on, celebrating her coming-of-age. She dreamed of getting better and becoming Jeffrey’s bride. When that dream was lost, so was her will to live.

Their mother, having lost both her husband and daughter, succumbed to despair and soon followed them in death.

"Hah..."

Jeffrey let out a long sigh. He hadn’t realized how much his friend had suffered.

"The late emperor didn’t just destroy my family; he tore yours apart as well."

"What can we do? It’s all in the past now."

Jeffrey realized the difference between him and his friend. For Randell, it was all in the past, but for him, it was still the present.

“How have you lived?”

In response to Randell's question, Jeffrey recalled the miserable years he had endured.

The two friends spent the night exchanging stories about their lives. They glossed over the painful memories, speaking of them briefly and with a dry tone. Even a whole night was not enough to recount over twenty years.

"Randell. Do you remember the last day we saw each other?"

"I do."

A few days before the soldiers stormed Blackstone Castle, Jeffrey had visited Whitestone Castle. Until that day, Randell had no idea what was about to happen. That day, Jeffrey had only had a cup of tea with Randell before leaving.

"On that day, I left something at your house."

"Hmm? What did I receive?"

"No. I didn’t tell you about it. Probably no one knows. I left it in our secret place."

Randell’s eyes wavered. Memories from their childhood came rushing back.

The secret place in Whitestone Castle discovered by the mischievous young lords of the two ducal houses.

It sounded grand, but it was just a fireplace that had been bricked up and abandoned when the room’s purpose was changed.

The two boys had hidden their precious items there. To others, they were useless treasures—like marbles or the perfect shell of a shed insect.

After the downfall of the Acheron House, Randell couldn’t bear to even look there, as it reminded him of their old memories.

"I’m not sure if it’s still there."

"It’s there. I’m sure of it."

"That’s good."

Jeffrey’s expression and tone were almost devoid of emotion. That’s why Randell felt a sense of unease during their conversation. He couldn’t tell if what Jeffrey had left in the secret place was something important or not.

"What is it?"

"A wooden box."

"As you can see, my legs are in this state. Would it be alright if I had someone else find it for you?"

"I’d prefer it if only you knew. Is that too much to ask?"

"No, no. I’ll manage somehow."

"Thank you."

As Jeffrey turned to leave, Randell asked from behind him:

"Why didn’t you tell me and just leave it there?"

After a moment of silence, Jeffrey replied:

"It was safer for you not to know."

Jeffrey left without looking back. Randell pondered over his friend's parting words.

‘You came... to retrieve that.’

Jeffrey hadn’t come to Whitestone Castle because he missed his old friend. That wooden box must be something very important and dangerous.


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