He spoke while gazing down at his glass, but it was obvious whom his words were meant for. They were the ones desperate to return home, yet not a single one of them dared answer so boldly.
Their original plan had been to stay only a few days, then vanish like the wind. Two weeks had passed because the prince refused to wake, and another two because the Grand Duke had gone off to war. Had they known they would be trapped in this dreadful place for more than a month, they would have done anything to avoid coming in the first place.
But none of them had the courage to open the castle gates themselves.
As the hall sank into a silence heavy with their individual thoughts, the champagne glass slipped from Logan’s hand and shattered against the floor.
A sharp crash rang through the hall, drawing muffled screams from every direction despite the fact that everyone knew perfectly well what the champagne spreading across the floor resembled.
“I shall lend you my knights.”
Those were the words they had been waiting an entire month to hear.
Nearly moved to tears, they nodded one after another, and by the following day, a fight had even broken out over who would be allowed to leave first.
It took less than a day for those who departed for the royal capital to spill everything they had seen and heard.
Soon, the entire empire was buzzing with tales of the prince of Rox, who had hovered on the brink of death only to commit an outrageous act of disrespect upon recovering, and of the Grand Duke, who had smiled as he insulted the prince and cast aside his glove.
For better or worse, Logan was the man who commanded the most attention in the country. Countless lives could be lost at the slightest turn of his mood, and so no one wished to earn his displeasure.
That was why, at the time, none of them could have known.
They could not have known that the prince of Rox they had looked down upon would one day take hold of the uncontrollable Logan’s leash.
Nor could they have known just how many things would change in the future because of him.
Unlike before, when he had been dragged away like a dog, the corridor Ian now walked under his own power seemed remarkably long.
As he moved forward, his gaze drifting over nameless works of art and antique ornaments without really seeing them, he could feel the knights keeping close to either side of him.
Of course they were.
He must have looked as though he had seen a ghost.
Ian could imagine what his face must have looked like, but he did not turn his head. Too many unexpected things had happened at once, leaving him unable to think clearly for a moment.
Meeting that man there.
Discovering a blank in his memory.
None of it had been remotely within his expectations.
Still, there was nothing he could do about the gaping holes in his memory for the moment. It was absurd that he could not even remember why he had died, but determining his priorities correctly was far more important.
Thump!
The moment they arrived, he was shoved roughly inside, and the door slammed shut behind him.
Looking around the room he had returned to, Ian decided to begin by taking stock of his situation.
In truth, when he combined the way he had been treated so far with what he had just heard, the answer was easy enough to reach without much thought.
The servants who maintained a sharp attitude toward him yet consistently spoke with honorifics.
The title the tattooed man on the terrace had used when addressing him.
And Logan’s words about him having been forcibly sent across the border.
“……”
Ian sat on the bed and ran his palm across the comforter, feeling the soft fabric brush against his skin.
It was true.
This room was far too luxurious to be a prisoner’s cell. Even the fact that they brought him meals regularly and had done nothing worse than lace them with sleeping drugs was almost absurdly gentle.
In a world that appeared to be somewhere around the Middle Ages, no one would have found it strange if he had been thrown into a dungeon and fed pig slop instead.
Remembering the way he had been displayed like a monkey in a zoo only a short while ago, Ian slowly closed his eyes.
The fact that they had not done so could only mean a few things.
Logan had said, the North, which your country was the first to stir up.
Yet the people gathered in the hall had been whispering among themselves that it was their first time seeing someone from Rox.
And their faces had been far too relaxed for people living through a war.
Had Rox lost?
If so, had the war ended some time ago?
And had Ian been sent to this country as some sort of hostage—a symbol of surrender?
But his treatment seemed strangely considerate for the prince of a defeated vassal state.
Ian knew that beneath whatever resentment they still harbored, the people around him were constantly afraid that he might die.
If he had been sent into enemy territory merely as a political symbol, he was probably not someone particularly important.
Ian opened his eyes and lowered his gaze.
The back of his pale hand entered his field of vision.
For the first time, the fact that it was completely unblemished—not a single scar anywhere—bothered him.
Soft, flowing hair.
Carefully maintained nails.
Smooth skin.
It was nothing like his original body, which had been covered in scars of every kind.
Only now realizing how little attention he had paid to such details before, Ian rolled up his sleeve.
As he swept aside the long strands of hair brushing against his cheek, the sense of incongruity grew stronger.
Hair this long would have been unthinkable for him in the past. It was far too conspicuous.
Ian’s specialty had been moving without leaving so much as a trace. He had often been assigned to tail targets or observe their every movement.
Being injured was the easy part.
Skin covered in scars from stitches and burns could never have looked good, no matter how carefully one tried to disguise it.
As though his body itself remembered everything it had endured, even his fingernails—torn out and broken more than once—had never grown back properly.
There had been times when he traced their uneven edges and thought that was only natural.
Broken things ought to bear flaws that suited them.
Because no matter how carefully you tried to hide the damage, traces always remained.
Even when those traces were not carved into the flesh, miserable memories possessed an inertia of their own.
No matter how desperately you struggled to escape, they would seize you by the scruff of the neck and drag you all the way back to the beginning.
Ian had seen countless people try to overcome the misfortune they had been born into and force themselves upright, only to end up dragged even farther back than where they had started.
Then what about that man?
Having circled back to the same question, Ian surfaced from somewhere deep within his past.
He stared blankly at the bandage, stained red where blood had seeped through, and at last a faint sense of reality brushed against his skin.
His reaction had been far too intense for someone he had merely encountered while carrying out a job.
It certainly was not every day that someone you had killed appeared alive in front of you.
But even that did not fully explain it.
Seeing that face.
Meeting those eyes.
The instant he realized who was standing before him, it had felt as though—
“Knock, knock, knock.”
Ian had been furrowing his brow, trying to retrace an emotion he himself could not quite understand.
Sensing someone nearby, he turned.
A man stood there, actually making knocking noises with his mouth.
Ian merely stared at him in silence.
Unbothered, the man opened the terrace door himself and stepped inside.
He looked positively delighted.
“Did I interrupt a sentimental moment?”
He was the sort of person who remained unforgettable even after a single brief encounter the day before.
Ian barely suppressed a sigh.
His gaze flicked toward the tattoo etched across the man’s cheek before he deliberately turned his head away.
The man noticed.
Naturally, he strode straight toward the bed.
“Wow. I knew our prince wasn’t exactly normal, but haha, I had no idea it was this bad.”
He winked and immediately began rattling on without the slightest restraint.
Ian merely watched as the man approached him with the easy familiarity of an old acquaintance.
Seen properly in daylight, sunlight pouring into the room around him, he somehow gave off an even more chaotic impression than before.
“What, do people from Rox have, like, thirty lives? Or is this some new way of trying to kill yourself? What is it? You hate being alive that much?”
But even more chaotic than his appearance was his mouth.
“Do you know how surprised I was? I came running over the second I heard! I even sent the guy who was supposed to be on duty off to dreamland. Come on, now. Nothing’s gonna change just because you’re sitting there looking miserable. Ah! Wait. Did you leave your guts back in Rox or something? Want me to go get them for you? Huh?”
He looked as though he truly would run all the way to this country called Rox if Ian told him to.
Ian stared blankly at him.
Then, as if suddenly reconsidering his own suggestion, the man shook his head vigorously from side to side.
“No, no. Never mind. Let’s not go looking for them. This is waaaay more fun. Oh, by the way, did you see the faces on those noble bastards earlier? They looked like they were about to piss themselves!”
He burst into a wheezing laugh, sounding as though he might actually run out of breath.
He was not normal.
Apparently, he was one of the knights as well.
Was that really all right?
He seemed to have been assigned to watch over Ian, but his attention already appeared to be somewhere else entirely.
He was probably the sort of person who cared about nothing as long as he found it entertaining.
Thinking that assigning such a man to guard someone was an absurd choice, Ian blinked.
The man, who had been chattering without pause, suddenly exclaimed, “Ah!” and thrust his face directly in front of Ian’s.
“Come to think of it, did I ever tell you my name?”
Ian was not interested.
“Kyle. I don’t have a last name, so you can just call me Kyle. Let’s get along, Prince.”
Regardless of Ian’s wishes, the introduction was made.
Having introduced himself in the space of a breath, Kyle immediately began behaving as though the room belonged to him.
As if he had not just shoved his face into Ian’s personal space, he casually stepped back, crossed over to the table, and dropped into a chair, every movement flowing with effortless ease.
His mouth, meanwhile, never stopped.
Ian had never kept anyone like him close before, so he quietly observed Kyle.
It took only a few minutes to determine exactly how useful the man might be.
Kyle did not seem entirely right in the head.
Which meant he would probably answer almost anything Ian asked without stopping to think first.
There was only one problem.
Ian could not speak.
Confronted with that chronic affliction of modern humanity—the complete breakdown of communication—Ian tapped one fingernail against the ornate wooden frame of the bed.
“Hm?”
Despite the faint sound, Kyle noticed at once and turned his head.
He had been in the middle of complaining about how he had nearly died because someone had taken his knife away the previous evening, but none of that concerned Ian.
He had managed to get Kyle’s attention.
Now the question was how to actually ask him anything.
Even if Ian wrote it down, there was no guarantee Kyle would be able to decipher what he meant.
Remembering the disaster from yesterday, Ian hesitated.
Kyle blinked several times.
Then, as though he had somehow heard Ian’s thoughts, he spoke.
“What? Is there something you’re curious about?”
That was it.
Ian nodded.
Kyle broke into a broad grin, narrowing his eyes with an expression that plainly said, I knew it.
Looking into those violet eyes, so similar in color to Kyle’s hair, Ian decided to try expressing himself with his hands, one halting gesture at a time.