Frustrations of a Self-Proclaimed Villain Lord

Chapter 82: The Grand Duke Borrows a Prince (2)

"Take him alive," I said. "Don’t let him speak to anyone from the archive. Don’t let him write. Don’t let him pray. And remove every ring, pendant, seal, pin, cufflink, shoelace, and decorative object from his person."

One of the guards blinked. "His shoelaces, Your Excellency?"

"Especially his shoelaces."

Vesren lifted his head weakly. "You think this changes anything?"

I looked down at him. "No," I said. "I think it improves my morning."

The guards dragged him away, and the Empress watched until he disappeared from sight before exhaling slowly.

"You were right," she said.

"About which part?"

"About the palace not being safe."

I glanced at the black salt residue still caught in Abi’s violet light. "Your Majesty, there’s something important you should understand. I don’t enjoy being right about these things."

For one second, she almost smiled. Almost. Then the Crown Prince groaned from the corridor, and the physician called for help, and the conversation ended there.

The private carriage waiting behind the eastern wing had been stripped of every unnecessary ornament, the royal crest hidden beneath a plain cover, the curtains drawn, no bell near the driver’s seat, no decorative metal fixtures inside. The Empress had ordered the preparation herself.

Efficient.

She climbed in beside Adrien without complaint. The knight sat opposite her, one hand braced near his sword. The physician crouched beside the padded bench where Adrien had been laid down. Two palace guards rode outside, two Sonomi knights followed behind in an unmarked carriage, and Abi and I took the rear bench.

The carriage rolled out through the service gate. No heralds announced the Crown Prince’s departure, no bells rang, the palace swallowed the movement quietly, as though the future heir of the empire hadn’t just been removed under cover of a medical emergency by the Grand Duke who’d originally intended to poison him. The Capital would eventually hear about it. The Capital always heard. For now the streets outside remained unaware, or pretended to be.

We traveled through the eastern district first, then cut through quieter residential roads where old money had built houses behind tall walls, believing distance could protect them from ugly things. The bells continued in the city, fainter now, uneven, a chime from the west, a ringing tremor beneath the road, a soft note carried by the wind and then gone. Every time one sounded, the black mark beneath the Crown Prince’s sternum pulsed.

The physician placed two fingers against Adrien’s neck, his expression turning grimmer. "His pulse is weakening again."

The Empress leaned forward. "Adrien."

His eyes opened slightly, unfocused, and for a second he seemed to look straight through the carriage roof. "No," he whispered.

The knight leaned closer. "Your Highness?"

"They’re outside."

The carriage slowed. I looked toward the window. Nothing waited beyond the curtains, only a narrow street, shuttered homes, a stray dog nosing through a pile of discarded vegetables.

"What’s outside?" I asked.

His fingers curled against the bench. "The children."

The Empress went still.

"They’re singing."

No sound reached my ears at first. Then, beneath the ordinary rumble of the wheels, I heard it, three notes, soft, familiar, the same tune Eleni had hummed in Saint Orison’s.

Abi’s eyes sharpened. "Don’t open the curtains."

The physician looked at him. "Why?"

"Because the song wants to be noticed."

Adrien’s breath caught, and a black thread slipped from the mark on his chest, thin as smoke, moving across the carriage floor. Not toward the window, not toward the Empress, not toward the physician or the knight. It turned east, toward the Elysian Estate. Toward Spiro.

I drew my sword. The thread recoiled, not far, only trembling against the floorboards as though considering another route.

Abi raised a hand. "Don’t cut it."

"I wasn’t planning to."

"You were."

"I was considering it."

"That’s the same thing with better manners."

The thread twitched again, and Adrien cried out, the sound raw enough that the Empress reached for him without thinking. I moved first.

My palm closed around the thread. It was cold, not physically, more like placing a hand into a memory that had no business being mine. For one brief moment I saw a dark room, seven children, a boy with pale hair holding another boy’s hand, a circle of black salt, a woman crying behind a veil of silver wards. Then the vision snapped apart.

The thread writhed beneath my fingers, and my aura moved, not violently, not with the sharp force I’d have used against an enemy, but pressing down, steady, firm, like closing a book on a page that should never have been written. The thread faded. Not destroyed. Denied. It vanished from my hand.

Adrien gasped, then sagged against the cushion. Abi stared at me, and the Empress stared at my hand. I looked at neither of them.

"It will try again," I said.

The physician found his voice first. "What was that?"

"An inconvenience."

"That wasn’t an answer."

"You’re becoming bold, physician."

"I’m watching the Crown Prince die in a carriage."

A fair point. I sighed. "It was part of the ritual line. It wanted to connect him to something at the estate."

The Empress’s eyes narrowed. "Your son."

"Possibly."

Her gaze shifted toward the road ahead. "Then we should turn back."

"No."

"If it’s reaching for your son, why are we continuing toward him?"

"Because it can’t reach him while it remains attached to the Crown Prince."

"And you’re certain?"

"No." Her expression hardened, and I continued before she could push further. "But I’m certain that leaving Adrien inside the palace will give them two vulnerable points instead of one. The estate wards are stronger. My mother is there. My father is returning. And the people who planned this have already shown they prefer using palace walls against their victims."

The carriage fell quiet. She looked at her son, then at me, and finally nodded. "Continue."

The knight exhaled slowly. He hadn’t argued. Good. He was learning that sometimes the most useful thing a knight could do was trust the people already holding the line.

The Elysian Estate came into view twenty minutes later. Its gates were closed, the Sonomian banners lowered, not in surrender, in warning. The guards on the wall were armed. The estate didn’t look like a noble residence anymore. It looked like what it truly was, a fortified home built by people who’d survived a desert no empire could conquer.

The gates opened only after William himself stepped into view, his eyes moving first to the Crown Prince, then to the Empress, then to me. He didn’t ask why I’d brought the heir of the empire into the estate. William had served House Konstantin too long to waste time on questions when someone was visibly dying.

"West guest suite has been prepared," he said.

"Good."

"Lady Konstantin is waiting."

Of course she was.

The carriage doors opened, and the Crown Prince was lifted out. The moment his boot crossed the Elysian Estate’s threshold, the black mark beneath his chest pulsed once, then went still. Not gone. Just still.

Abi noticed. So did I. The thread had reached for Spiro, and yet the estate itself hadn’t welcomed it.

Interesting. Very interesting. I disliked interesting things. They always became work.

As we entered the main hall, Spiro appeared at the top of the staircase, still in his day clothes, his small hands gripping the wooden rail. William must have tried to keep him in his room, but the child had clearly heard the commotion and decided that obedience had limits. His amber eyes landed on the unconscious Crown Prince, then on the Empress, then on me.

"Father," he said.

I looked up. "You should be resting."

"I was."

"That isn’t the same as staying in your room."

He hesitated, then glanced at Adrien again. "Is he sick?"

"Yes."

"Is he going to die?"

The hall went quiet. The Empress looked at her son. The physician looked at me. Abi’s expression changed in a way I couldn’t read.

I looked at Spiro. "No. Not if I can help it."

His shoulders lowered slightly, and he nodded. "Okay." That was all. No dramatic questions, no demand for explanations. He simply stepped aside as the Crown Prince was carried toward the west guest suite.

Yet as I passed him, Spiro’s fingers caught lightly at my sleeve. I looked down. His voice came very soft.

"Father."

"Yes?"

"Don’t let them sing near him."

My chest tightened. For one brief moment I almost asked what he meant, how he knew, why his eyes had looked so old when he said it. Then the Crown Prince groaned from the corridor, and the moment passed.

Spiro released my sleeve. "I mean," he added quickly, "the bells. They make people sick."

I looked at him. He looked back. A child shouldn’t have learned how to correct his own words that fast. But he had.

"Go with William," I said quietly. "Stay near Grandmother."

"Yes, Father."

I watched him leave, then turned toward the west guest suite. The Crown Prince had been brought into my home. The bells had followed. And somewhere beneath the Capital, the second hymn had realized it had chosen the wrong house to threaten.

How troublesome. Very troublesome. But I had never been especially forgiving toward people who attempted to take what was mine.