FSW Chapter 21

Discomfort

He hated white. That color, so vulnerable to dirt, lost its nobility in an instant. His gaze—cold as winter frost—fell to the white handkerchief wrapped around his hand. The original color had vanished entirely, replaced by bloodstains spreading like dark flowers across the fabric.

Loss came so easily.

He barely swallowed the breath trying to escape his throat. What emerged instead was irritation.

Today had been—unusually—not a bad day. His head felt cluttered, so he'd sought out the training grounds despite it not being his scheduled time. There, he'd encountered that man. His instructor wouldn't be present anyway, so he'd commanded a sparring match without much expectation.

The moment their blades first clashed, he'd realized—this man was the child's swordsmanship instructor. He'd known for some time that the child had taken an apprentice knight as a teacher rather than a full knight, someone her own age. But he hadn't known this apprentice possessed skill rivaling—perhaps even surpassing—that of formal knights.

The match had been far more enjoyable than his usual refined lessons. The harder he pressed, the stronger the response. His breathing grew ragged, his grip tingling with each impact of steel on steel.

Pushing any harder would have been reckless. Yet he'd continued adding force regardless. Swordsmanship was good for one thing—it was the only way to escape his headache-inducing reality.

As his mind gradually emptied, he'd become more absorbed in the blade. Eventually, his palm had torn. But it wasn't unpleasant. It had been ages since he'd exerted himself this intensely. He'd felt almost refreshed.

So if he simply hadn't encountered that child, it would have been a perfectly decent day. He shoved open his office door with his unwrapped left hand. The unremarkable office was plain—or to put it less charitably, barren. He'd deliberately furnished it with nothing beyond necessary furniture.

In the space where cold somehow seemed to linger, his aide Oscar stood at attention and bowed.

"You've returned, Your Highness."

"The afternoon schedule?"

"Count Albans has been waiting to see Your Highness for thirty minutes now... Y-Your Highness, your hand..."

Oscar's face went white as paper. He'd clearly noticed the vivid bloodstains the handkerchief couldn't conceal. But Aiden cut him off with obvious annoyance.

"Where is he?"

"...In the drawing room. I'll show you—"

"No need. Return to your work."

He left the office alone, without aide or attendant.

For convenience, drawing rooms were typically positioned near offices. But the drawing room he used sat on the exact opposite side from his office. In the past, his mother the Empress had insisted on using the palace's largest room as her drawing room.

Still, it wasn't in an entirely different wing, so he arrived before long. The soldiers guarding the door bowed deeply, as if they'd been waiting.

The massive doors opened slowly at their hands. Beyond them waited a lavish landscape he could never grow accustomed to.

Excessive gold ornamentation, pillars carved thick with reliefs, paintings covering every inch of ceiling. Not a single decorative vase lacked value. The atmosphere stood in complete opposition to his office with its simple wooden desk.

All of it reflected his mother's taste—she who'd loved flowers with dizzyingly strong fragrances. The traces she'd left behind stubbornly dragged down his mood.

Pretending not to notice what crawled along the floor, he stepped into the suffocating space.

"Your Highness, you've arrived!"

The uninvited guest occupying the center of a sofa large enough to accommodate a grown man leapt to his feet.

Count Albans—hair slicked back with oil, not a single strand out of place. In the past, he'd been one of the Empress's faction, head of a family with influence enough to count among the most powerful noble houses.

But family titles were hereditary. Unfortunately, a family's size didn't always correlate with its head's intelligence. His mother had exploited that fact cleverly. To her, Count Albans had been nothing more than a disposable chess piece—easy to use and discard. The man's devotion to his appetites made him simple to control.

And Aiden despised this type of person most of all. The count hadn't even attended the Empress's funeral. Quick at calculating profit and loss, he'd clearly debated between Aiden—who'd lost his backing when the Empress died—and that child, who had the Emperor as solid support.

Judging by his presence here, he'd apparently chosen Aiden. But Aiden felt neither pleased nor grateful. He ignored the count's greeting entirely and slouched into the opposite seat.

The count's face flushed slightly at being so thoroughly disregarded—the humiliation must have stung. He sat back down. Servants who'd been waiting in the drawing room poured fresh tea before Aiden. The count's cup was nearly empty—his throat must have run dry during his thirty-minute wait.

"I must say, this room never fails to impress me. Just look at this bookcase studded with spirit stones, and this table—isn't it the finest aged wood, obtainable only from the Dryad Forest!"

Logging in the Dryad Forest was strictly forbidden, but ancient trees that had reached the end of their natural lives were cut down for the forest's sake. The few such trees felled each year—perhaps because they'd absorbed so much spirit energy—possessed quality incomparable to other premium woods.

The count's eyes glittered with greed as he swept his hand across the smooth table. The table's owner's eyes held no emotion whatsoever.

Aiden got straight to the point without touching his fragrant tea.

"So what do you want."

He hated wasting time. At his cold, cutting tone, the count leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice, as if sharing secrets.

"Are you aware that the Princess has recently been gathering the daughters of families close to His Majesty?"

He'd heard the child had hosted a tea party—gathering only heirs of Emperor faction families. But that had been in spring. Hardly recent news. Whether or not the count realized he was beating a very dead drum, he continued with visible indignation.

"What could the Princess's intention be in deliberately gathering them before she's even made her social debut?"

Aiden understood the count's implication perfectly. He'd considered it himself.

He'd always known the child watched him from the sidelines. Whether from wariness, fear, or something else entirely—he couldn't say. But after Mother's death, perhaps feeling she had nothing left to fear, the child's attitude had changed markedly.

Boldly grabbing his sleeve. Initiating conversation. Even committing the outrage of visiting his office directly. For a moment, he recalled the child's eyes as she'd set down those cookies. The reddened corners had looked almost ready to cry, but...

"Did you waste my time just to tell me something so trivial?"

He shook off the thought and fixed the count with a sharp glare. Startled by the unexpected reaction, the count hastily added:

"Th-that's not all! I've investigated personally—she's been maintaining a steady friendship with the daughter of House Laurent, a core family of His Majesty's faction! And that's not enough—she's even reaching toward House Orsini!"

"..."

"She's acted meek all this time as if she lacked ambition, but we mustn't be deceived by that pretense! Look! After the Empress's passing, she's shown her true colors so brazenly...!"

"You're noisy. So what exactly do you want to say?"

The cold voice carried warning despite its interrogative form—a wordless pressure that he wouldn't tolerate any more nonsense.

The count wiped away the cold sweat trickling down his face, hesitated, then finally got to the point.

"Before summer ends, I'm hosting a gathering at my estate—ostensibly for my son's coming-of-age ceremony, but truly for those who share our views. Your Highness, please attend—"

"I refuse."

The rejection fell like a blade before the count could finish. The count seemed not to have expected refusal—he echoed stupidly:

"...Pardon?"

"Do I need to say it twice?"

Obvious irritation laced his voice. No explanation. No apology for the refusal. The count looked half out of his wits at the unanticipated response. He must have assumed that after the Empress's death, Aiden would scramble desperately to inherit her faction completely.

"If your business is finished, leave now."

"But! This will surely benefit Your Highness—!"

"I'd better stand up first, then."

Without a trace of hesitation, he rose. Both this space and the man before him were utterly unpleasant. Yet the count, failing to read his sinking mood, chased after him, still running his mouth.

"Your Highness! Please reconsider just once—!"

"Count."

Aiden stopped abruptly and turned, cold dripping from his expression like winter melt.

The count had surely wanted this—for Aiden to turn back. But the gaze that met his was colder than midwinter frost. The count, frozen solid in an instant, gulped.

"Do you know how to silence a barking dog?"

"..."

The question came in a monotone, yet the count—overwhelmed by sheer presence—had gone white as someone being strangled.

Aiden took one step closer to the count, who trembled like prey before a predator, and provided the answer himself.

"Simple. Cut out its vocal cords."

His icy gaze lingered on the count's throat. The count flinched reflexively backward and clutched at his neck in panic. Aiden observed the pathetic display dispassionately, then left the drawing room. Even without the grating noise following him, his steps remained irritable.

Returning to his office, he roughly unwound the handkerchief from his hand. The blood-soaked fabric landed in the trash bin with force.

What exactly was making him this angry?

Being looked down upon even by someone like that? The blood-soaked handkerchief? Or perhaps... the child herself?

'I know I have no right to worry about you, brother. But still... still, please get treatment.'

His clenched fist reopened the wound—blood dripped steadily.

"Your Highness! I'll summon the physician immediately!"

Oscar rushed off to fetch the physician, but Aiden kept turning over those curse-like words.

'You must become the supreme sun. The sun is noble precisely because it stands alone. Never show weakness to that lowborn child.'

His colorless gaze settled on the corner of his desk. The cookies—which he could neither bring himself to eat nor throw away—sat there in their original wrapping. They'd spoiled by now, inedible. Why had he kept them all this time?

He snatched up the package and threw it into the trash as well. Returning to his desk with its newly empty corner, he picked up documents. Discard useless things. He'd always done so, and he'd done so just now. Yet despite discarding over and over, something sticky remained.

And it continued to make him deeply, deeply unpleasant.