“At least it’s a relief he managed to keep himself alive even like that.”
A passing noblewoman whispered it under her breath.
“Serves him right.”
The heir of some house snapped the words as he went by.
“So he wanted to live that badly, did he?”
House Rainerio had many enemies. The ones who had played along with his father had all died that day, and all that remained were enemies. The sole heir of House Rainerio, now reduced to a slave with no power to resist, was prey far too tempting for them to tear apart. Without the slightest change in expression, Nox walked after the Emperor’s attendant. Then, in the distance, he saw a man with gray-blond hair.
His master, broad-shouldered and a head taller than most.
Nox slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.
For some reason, he found it hard to breathe.
The nobles all tensed at the sight of the man now walking into the hall alone.
The only legitimate heir House Rainerio had ever had.
But now, that man had been reduced to a slave.
Nox Rainerio had once been the very model of nobility. Even now, as a slave, his back was straight, his shoulders unbent even in a situation like this. His gaze remained fixed forward with perfect composure. There was not a single thing about him that suited the word slave.
And yet the bolo tie at his throat made that fact unmistakably clear.
Their whispering only grew louder. To press down the son of a snake. They sneered, mocked, and condemned. But he paid no heed to the slander directed at him and walked looking only ahead, as though nothing in the world could mar him.
And watching him, Khalid felt his insides twist.
A man who seemed as though nothing could ever scar him.
The one light he had ever had.
That man was his now, and yet he still stood there as if nothing could possess him.
Khalid hated him for it.
Nox walked straight to his side. The moment he reached him, Khalid lifted a hand and seized him by the hair.
“Ugh…”
“How long ago did I give the order? And only now you come crawling over?”
“You gave… no other order, so I was waiting…”
“From now on, you come to my side no matter what. Don’t go wandering off and doing pointless things elsewhere.”
“I under…stand.”
Nox forced the words out through the pain of his scalp being yanked, and Khalid snarled right in front of his face. Everyone in the hall was watching. Nox clenched his teeth and tried not to let his eyes stray toward them. Only after hearing his answer did Khalid release the fistful of hair.
His neatly arranged hair fell into disarray.
The Emperor, Peltion, watched the scene and smiled.
“You call him a favored bed companion, yet you handle him rather roughly.”
“Please do not concern yourself with it.”
“You seize him by the hair in front of me and then tell me not to concern myself?”
Standing beside Khalid, Peltion extended a hand as he looked at Nox, whose brow had not so much as twitched. Then, as though he knew perfectly well Nox was gritting his teeth, he placed his thumb against Nox’s lips and rubbed.
“Has your pretty slave grown nervous?”
“…Has he?”
“He has.”
The Emperor’s smile deepened as he looked into Nox’s dark, shadowed green eyes.
“He certainly does have a face that stirs the appetite.”
“……”
Nox’s lips parted faintly. He could not ignore the Emperor’s words, even if they were nothing more than open appraisal. As his lips moved, the Emperor’s fingertip slipped slightly past them, intruding just inside. Peltion did not remove his hand, and in the end Nox had no choice but to answer slowly.
Each time he formed a sound, the tip of his tongue brushed the Emperor’s finger.
“…Thank you.”
“So it seems you play the slave rather well.”
To answer praise with thanks.
Rather than looking at him fondly, the Emperor was mocking him, just a little.
Nox understood that blatant intent perfectly well, which was why he lowered his gaze to the floor. Peltion toyed with his lips a little longer before finally withdrawing his hand. Then he said to Khalid, as though making a joke,
“As I told you before, if he proves difficult to tame, I would be more than willing to help.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Khalid answered flatly, and Nox could do nothing but remain silent at his side.
With two men of power talking back and forth over a single slave, the eyes of everyone present could only gather on them more intensely.
Khalid was not used to gatherings like this, but he had come because the Emperor had ordered him to. Every noble present was a stranger to him, and he had little interest in the conversations they were having. And though he found it satisfying that people’s eyes were fixed so openly on Nox, he also loathed it.
Look well. The man who once sat above all your heads now lies at my feet.
He found satisfaction in Nox’s humiliating position, in the fact that he had to endure that disgrace. But the sight of Nox’s body, his straight back, and the glimpse of ankle beneath his clothes entering other people’s eyes irritated him to the point of madness.
“Well, now that you’re here, do your best.”
The Emperor lightly patted Khalid on the shoulder. Khalid scrunched the bridge of his nose. This was a banquet celebrating the Emperor’s accession, but at the same time, it was also a gathering the Emperor had arranged so that Khalid, a man of mercenary origins, could grow accustomed to a place among nobles.
Instead of fixing his disordered hair, Nox folded his hands behind his back and stood quietly behind Khalid. Once the Emperor moved away from them, the nobles parted to make way. There was one person in this place no one could dare address first.
That was the Emperor.
So the Emperor was the one who spoke first, naturally.
“I was wondering where you’d gone. So this is where you were.”
“I can only be grateful that Your Majesty sought me out.”
Ellerdin Weiss.
The man who had served as his strategist.
One by one, the Emperor called over the nobles who had formed the backbone of his power, gathering them into a group. Khalid watched that sight for a moment, then turned his head away and started striding off in another direction. The nobles parted before him just the same.
As he followed, Nox thought to himself:
Duke Khalid Via has trouble fitting into noble society.
Khalid had not been born holding a title. Naturally, that meant he would not know noble etiquette well, nor would he have familiar faces here. Slowly, Nox swept his gaze over the surroundings.
Then, cautiously, he called to him.
“Master.”
“What is it?”
Khalid stopped walking and turned back. Nox hesitated for a moment. He was not sure whether this was a situation in which he could insert his voice at all. But if Khalid were to realize he had some use, then perhaps he might be given some kind of work.
A small hope.
That instead of staring into empty air all day like a fish trapped in a tank, he might be entrusted with something, like a person.
Holding on to that hope, Nox began to speak with careful restraint. He leaned toward Khalid’s ear, covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and whispered.
“The man to your right is Count Beranche. He owns gold mines in the west, and it would not be an exaggeration to say he handles thirty percent of the gold entering the capital. It would not be a bad idea to establish friendly ties with him.”
At those words, Khalid looked at Nox with a strange expression. Under that gaze, Nox fell silent for a moment, then belatedly added,
“If that was presumptuous…”
“Did you just advise me?”
“Yes, I did, but…”
A peculiar feeling came over Khalid as he looked down at him.
His slave.
A being he could treat however he wished.
A being who received not the slightest measure of respect from him.
And yet that being had just advised him.
The fact itself felt strange.
What sort of feeling was it, to offer advice to someone who gave you no respect at all?
Khalid wanted to ask, but he closed his mouth instead and walked over to Count Beranche, just as Nox had suggested. There was no reason for Nox’s words to be false. Even if they were, the lie would be exposed soon enough.
The nobles were highly interested in the newly risen duke. The moment he approached, they naturally greeted him and welcomed him in.
“Your Grace.”
“Welcome, Your Grace.”
To them, this new duke was, above all else, a prize worth coveting now that the old balance of power had been overturned. If they could form ties with him, then they might also gain a way to approach Peltion, the new Emperor.
Watching Khalid surrounded by them, Nox briefly thought of his own past.
In any case, they are favorable toward Khalid.
If they wanted to survive, they had reason to court his goodwill. The fact that he came from a mercenary commoner’s background did not matter now. Khalid was no fool, so he would be able to handle himself well enough.
Naturally, Nox took several steps back. A slave like him had no place in that conversation. Khalid cast him a brief glance, then turned his head back toward the nobles. For a moment, Nox simply stood there, like an object no one had come to retrieve.
There were many people, and the space around him was noisy, but Nox kept his mouth shut and lowered his eyes like someone incapable of speech. He could hear the endless murmurs directed at him.
Nox briefly considered whether those blade-like words were something he could bear.
The thought did not last long.
He reached an answer almost immediately.
Even if he could not bear them, it did not matter.
There had not been a single day since that day that he had truly been all right.
“Is it true that Your Grace personally cut down the head of the traitor who assassinated the late Emperor?”
“Are you not practically His Majesty’s right hand?”
“Your Grace, our house is holding a banquet next time. Might we have the honor of your attendance?”
They chirped at Khalid to curry favor with him. Nox carefully took note of each and every face among those flattering him. He needed to decide who Khalid should associate with and who he should not. Khalid was strong, but he still did not know noble society well. Rather than accepting every noble who approached him, what mattered most right now was choosing carefully the ones who could truly become his strength.