“No, how can you leave like this right away? You should at least prepare—”
“His Majesty commanded that Sasha Ambrose be brought as quickly as possible.”
“Address him properly as Viscount!”
When the butler—who always just chuckled gently—glared and showed off his vicious muscles, the knight flinched. Then, as if his pride was wounded by the fact he’d been startled, his face reddened with bulging veins.
“How dare you refuse His Majesty’s order!”
“You.”
Sasha was not going to just sit there and watch a knight who refused to admit his mistake and was about to push through on sheer stubbornness.
The people in this estate were Sasha’s people now.
Not the original—people of Sasha, living in the present.
When a low but icy voice cut across the commotion, the overheated atmosphere—like they might collide any second—cooled a notch.
Sasha looked at the knight who had been trying to pressure the butler with a blank face.
“His, His Maj—”
“Is that the only phrase you know?”
Cutting him off before he could even finish, Sasha snatched the imperial edict from the knight’s hand.
The imperial seal stamped at the very bottom was one thing, but yes—this document was definitely written by Edward.
Back when they lived together at the estate, Sasha had checked Edward’s homework himself, so he knew Edward’s handwriting better than anyone. Maybe because Sasha had corrected him personally—drawing long red lines with a red pen every time he reviewed his composition assignments—Edward’s handwriting and grammar even resembled Sasha’s.
‘He really did order me to come to the capital.’
No reason was written, but after confirming the document wasn’t a lie, Sasha handed it to the butler, then slowly swept his gaze over the knight and the soldiers waiting behind him, letting out a thin, fishy smile.
“Right. Some nameless knight came to fetch me.”
As if someone like you—whose house and name I don’t even know—
Even without the rest said aloud, the meaning would have come through in the gaze that looked down on him. Ignoring the knight who couldn’t say a word under the humiliation, Sasha turned to the butler.
“I’ll be back.”
“My lord.”
The gaze that had looked like it might tear that knight in half a moment ago vanished, and an old man with a gentle, kindly face looked at Sasha with worry.
Even after seeing Sasha crush someone completely with just a few sentences, his attitude didn’t change. And the servants behind the butler were the same.
After meeting their eyes one by one, Sasha spoke.
“I’ll come back.”
Had they read his meaning—that no matter what, he would come back safely?
The butler looked at Sasha with eyes full of trust and nodded.
“We will be waiting.”
The servants bowed deeply to Sasha. Leaving them behind, Sasha walked toward the carriage.
“Open it.”
At the arrogant order, the soldier standing beside the carriage stepped forward on reflex and opened the door.
Sasha beckoned the knight who was still stiff as a board. At the elegant gesture that sliced through the air, the knight creaked his way closer.
Receiving the knight’s escort, Sasha stepped into the carriage.
Thud.
The instant he climbed in, Sasha slapped the knight’s hand away, then took the handkerchief in his lap and wiped his hand thoroughly—before tossing it out of the carriage.
“You said you’re busy, so why don’t you hurry and depart?”
When Sasha needled him with a sneer, the knight—staring blankly at the handkerchief now dirtied on the ground—bit his lip and shut the carriage door.
Left alone in the carriage, Sasha twisted his wax-hardened face into a grimace.
You think you can play a dominance game with me?
Whether it was personal emotion or the pressure of some connected noble, Sasha understood perfectly what that knight had been trying to do.
Wasn’t it something Sasha did every day in the capital? Gaining the upper hand and seizing control.
That knight had been trying to tell Sasha: you’re no longer the great Marquess of Ambrose. You’re a petty human who—despite being a traitor—barely managed to keep a noble title through Edward’s mercy.
‘Doing bad things is my specialty.’
Still fuming, Sasha drew in a deep breath. What was the reason for this recall, something not written in the edict?
They weren’t going to kill Sasha now. If that were the plan, they wouldn’t have bothered with formalities like sending a carriage and a knight, and Edward wouldn’t have written the edict himself.
‘They’d have sent a barred wagon instead.’
The knight’s attitude—unable to talk back properly even while Sasha still acted like himself—proved that too.
‘…Then what?’
He turned his head over and over, but no assumption came easily.
Of course.
For the past three months, Sasha hadn’t paid any attention to affairs in the capital.
With a new Emperor taking power, and high-ranking nobles replaced en masse, three months was an absurdly long time. It wouldn’t have been strange if the world had flipped upside down.
‘I should’ve looked into it sooner.’
If he’d gotten information even this morning, he wouldn’t be this ignorant. He’d been stupidly eating and lazing around, turning away from what he absolutely should have done.
Realizing he was repeating the very behavior he’d despised most in the capital’s idle nobles, a curse nearly spilled out.
With no power, no honor, no information—what could he even do?
Without the original, he was free, but at the same time, he’d lost the compass that had pointed him in a direction.
‘What should I do.’
The sweet scent of ice cream still clinging to his fingertips felt like a lie.
*****
The Young Duke of House Grenville.
Rio Grenville, doubting his ears, hurried to the Imperial Palace.
Before the galloping horse had even fully stopped, Rio jumped down as if he’d fallen off, and nobles and servants lowered their heads to him.
It was respect for the heir who would soon succeed his father as the next Duke Grenville, and respect for the closest confidant who served the current Emperor at his side.
Rio didn’t register the nobles trying to get a word with him at all. He grabbed a passing servant.
“Where is His Majesty?”
“He is in his private study.”
Thank god it wasn’t the study shared with the administrators. Something loud might slip out.
At Rio’s rough expression and tone, the nobles who’d been about to approach him froze awkwardly in place. Among those permitted to come and go in the Imperial Palace, there was no one who didn’t know how savage Rio became when he was angry.
Moving his long legs, Rio headed for the study at a near-run.
At his harsh stride, the servants stepped aside on their own. The attendant guarding the study spotted Rio closing in fast and hurriedly announced his visit.
“Young Duke Rio Esther Grenville has arrived!”
Thanks to that, Rio was able to step into the study the moment he arrived. As he entered, he dismissed the attendants waiting outside.
The servant inside glanced at the Emperor, and once permission was given, they left quietly and swiftly.
“What is it?”
Even after the study door shut, and a long moment passed, Rio couldn’t answer the question. Because he knew the moment he opened his mouth, something brutally insolent would spill out.
The person in front of him was his closest friend, but also the lord he served. A level of rudeness beyond what was proper—he couldn’t allow even from himself.
And yet that firm principle kept threatening to collapse.
Rio clenched his fist hard and ground his teeth. Breathing in the smell of paper and ink filling the study, listening to the scratch of the pen nib, he tried to strip his emotions away as much as possible.
“I just heard something utterly… unbelievable.”
But when a rough, snorting breath burst out that didn’t belong in this quiet place, Rio shut his mouth again. The other party—who hadn’t put down his pen even after Rio arrived—looked up at him.
“What did you hear?”
What did you hear? He wanted to shout.
But Rio dragged his patience together.
You never knew. Maybe what he’d heard really was nonsense.
Of course he knew there was no way it was….
“I heard that His Majesty summoned that man back.”
“Ah.”
Ah?
Is that something you just brush off like that?
Rio lifted his twisted face defiantly. Then, unable to hold his anger in, he opened his mouth not as a subordinate, but as a friend.
“Are you insane?”
Do you know who that man is? How hard we worked to get him out of the capital?
While Rio felt like he was going to burst apart, his friend Edward let out a faint laugh.
“Do I look it?”
At that smiling face, the emotions that had been boiling inside him went cold all at once.
“…You’re smiling?”
Even to his own ears, it was a stupid voice.
But he couldn’t help it.
After becoming Emperor—no, for months even before becoming Emperor—Edward had acted as if he’d forgotten what emotions were. Like he’d been threatened that he must not, Edward neither laughed, nor cried, nor got angry.
He worked hard at the tasks given to him simply because they had to be done, but there was no emotion in it.
And yet now—Edward smiled for the first time in nearly half a year.
As Rio sat there with his mouth opening and closing, Edward set down his pen and looked straight at him.
“Rio.”
The smile vanished without a trace from Edward’s face, and yet Edward’s golden eyes were shining clear—just like that first day.
“Sasha Ambrose is coming to the capital.”
Rio could have demanded again what he was thinking. He could have tried to persuade him, somehow. That’s how nonsensical this was.
“That is my will.”
But facing those lucid, shining eyes, Rio bowed his head deeply.
“I will obey your will.”
Rio Grenville returned to being the loyal knight who never refused the Emperor’s command.