“What will you do if you know the reason?”
It was a phrase that sounded similar to something he had heard before, but it didn’t feel as unfair as it had back then.
Enoch stared silently at the man glaring at him, not hiding his annoyance.
Kinas, after briefly scanning the boy up and down, let out a hollow laugh.
“You feel pity for me, don’t you?”
Enoch didn’t respond to that. He didn’t quite understand his own feelings either.
However, it seemed that Kinas found that silence even more unpleasant.
Withdrawing the book he had extended, he sneered.
“Before you pry into others, why don’t you look at your own situation? You’re just a kid with nowhere to go.”
He really was a nasty piece of work.
Enoch thought, glaring at the man who clearly resembled the emperor in temperament. How could someone his age be so mean? Kinas was among the most spiteful people he knew.
Enoch glared at him, his eyes narrowing for a moment before he shot back.
“Did you like how my mother treated you? Of course not.”
“I wish your mother would pay attention to you too, but you’re being ignored.”
That was true, but there was a clear difference between Kinas’s situation and his own. Enoch’s chin rose slightly.
“You and I are different. You could have resisted.”
“If you didn’t love your mother, you wouldn’t be acting like this, would you?”
“Do you think I’m just playing word games right now?”
“It’s not wordplay. You should stop worrying about your mother. You’ve outgrown the age where you need care, haven’t you? You won’t gain anything from this.”
That sounded quite like advice, but he didn’t want to accept it.
Enoch spoke to Kinas, who kept circling around the main point with his words.
“Sure, I love my mother. What about you? Did you tolerate her because you loved her too?”
As he spoke, Enoch thought Kinas would immediately deny it and sneer. He was that kind of person.
However, Kinas paused for a moment and replied in a subdued voice.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
He waved his hand dismissively as he said this, but Enoch didn’t want to agree easily.
“Really? Then why didn’t you push her away?”
“I want to ask you the same. What would change if I resisted?”
“Well, that—”
“You know your mother is always drunk. Everything happens because of her intoxication.”
Enoch fell silent. He noticed that Kinas’s expression had twisted strangely as he spoke.
The man’s face was contorted as if he were hurt.
“Isn’t it more strange to attach meaning to such actions?”
Kinas acted as if he were asking Enoch, but in reality, that question was directed at himself.
Enoch didn’t respond, and the man, who had been looking at him with sunken eyes, turned away.
“Isn’t it better to just go along with a drunk person rather than stir up unnecessary trouble? They won’t remember it anyway when they wake up, so it doesn’t matter.”
But a sober Letina does not exist. Both knew this fact but kept silent. They knew that speaking the truth would only hurt each other.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
Since that day, Kinas began to appear often in the abandoned garden. Enoch still couldn’t understand him, throwing books and leaving without a word, but he didn’t refuse the books given to him.
Somehow, the books Kinas brought were perfectly suited to his level. As Enoch read through the books, which gradually increased in difficulty, he thought that Kinas would have made a good teacher if he had pursued that career. Despite his terrible personality, he seemed to be able to gauge his students’ levels well.
After finishing the books, Enoch would go to the Fourth Prince’s palace to return them, almost like a ritual. Kinas would accept the books without a word.
Sometimes, he would even ask questions.
“Didn’t you feel anything after reading the Eifros War Chronicles?”
Then Enoch did his best to answer that question. Kinas was dissatisfied with the answer, feeling it was below his expectations, but he listened without saying anything. Sometimes, he would consider Enoch’s response and choose the next book accordingly.
Of course, not every day was so peaceful. The emperor’s outbursts grew more severe with each passing day, and he would occasionally throw objects. When Enoch got hit by books or other objects, he couldn’t help but worry that Letina might be suffering the same fate, even if he couldn’t see her.
Kinas, while looking at Enoch with disapproval as his wounds increased with each audience, still provided him with medicine along with the books. Despite living in a dilapidated palace, the medicine he provided was always effective, and Enoch wondered where he managed to obtain such good-quality medicine.
Letina still drank heavily and became depressed easily. She had trouble distinguishing between the Emperor and Kinas and would often call Kinas “Eben” when she saw him. As a result, Kinas was unable to leave the 4th prince’s palace, lest someone witness the scene and cause trouble.
Enoch no longer felt jealous that Letina sought Kinas more than him. It was pointless to feel that way.
Letina didn’t love Kinas.
She still desired only the emperor. Kinas was merely a means to quench her thirst for the emperor.
And because of that, Kinas was unhappy. So, it was not something worth envying.
Every time Enoch witnessed his mother’s strange longing, he thought of the girl from his dreams. He still dreamed of that special girl, but he no longer lived solely for that.
The fever and magic were the same. Letina had said he would acquire an incurable fever along with the magic, but Enoch was unaware of both.
Maybe I don’t love her that much after all.
Sometimes he thought that. It was a rather comforting thought.
Enoch didn’t want to live like Letina. She hoped painfully every day and had been just as miserably disappointed.
Magic was indeed a wondrous power, but if it could only be obtained through such sacrifices, he didn’t want it.
How could that be life? He often muttered to himself.
What Enoch had been dreaming of at that time was something else.
The outside.
Yes. He was dreaming of the outside world.
As Enoch read the books brought by Kinas and gradually broadened his perspective, he began to gaze more and more beyond the palace walls. The stories that Bertina had told him previously also contributed to this growing curiosity.
“Don’t have foolish dreams.”
Kinas had once scolded his younger half brother, who spoke of the outside world with hopeful eyes. However, he didn’t stop him from talking about his fantasies, because in reality, he also harbored the same hope. Enoch only realized this much later.
Perhaps Kinas really could have gone outside. Members of the royal family could not leave the palace without the emperor’s permission, but Kinas was a clever person.
He could have devised a plan. Perhaps he could have pretended to be dead or applied for asylum abroad.
But Kinas did not do so.
It was because his half-brother had broken the jaw of the 2nd prince the following summer.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
In the summer of his fourteenth year, Enoch swung his fist at the face of the Second Prince Tubeni and shattered his jaw. This was possible because his hand was imbued with magic.
There was a reason. Tubeni had made a crude joke linking Kinas and Letina. It was something too vile to even utter.
Kinas endured it, but Enoch could not, and he crushed the mouth that spoke those words.
Despite being a powerless prince, he was still a member of the royal family. Everyone whispered that Enoch would receive severe punishment.
The emperor summoned his son alone. Enoch glared at his father, who sat without wine or women for the first time, with his bright blue eyes. At that moment, he had just returned from a day of confinement in the western tower, yet his anger had not subsided.
The emperor looked down at his son from the throne, his eyes resembling those of a beast. There was no hiding his contempt.
He parted his thin lips.
“In the end, you’ve turned out just like your mother. That damned bloodline, it’s so tiresome.”
The emperor grimaced as if looking at something filthy. Enoch briefly contemplated whether to snap his neck.
At that moment, he had just begun to feel the magic coursing through him. His body was filled with energy, and he felt as if he could do anything.
However, the warning from Letina, who had visited him in the tower the day before, lingered in his mind.
“You must do whatever your father says, understand?”
Promise me you’ll endure whatever comes, my son. No matter what it may be.
“That is the only way to save you.”
Letina had given the guards jewels to get them to let her speak to Enoch. He couldn’t understand why she was saying this, but he couldn’t ignore her words either.
So he kept his mouth shut. It was easier to endure that way.
The Emperor stepped down from the platform and stood before his son, who glared at him with hostility.
The Emperor’s yellow eyes, like those of a reptile, scanned Enoch up and down. Despite his anger, Enoch hesitated for a moment at the Emperor’s cold gaze.
It was then that the icy words fell.
“It seems you will commit the same acts. Disgusting creatures, who would ever see you as human?”
The Emperor raised one hand, and a waiting official approached to carry out his orders.
“I hereby exile the Fifth Prince, who failed to recognize his place and wielded power against his kin, to Agante. The prince shall serve as a soldier in the border defense there and will not be promoted unless he achieves merit. The period during which the prince may leave Agante is limited to the start and end of the New Year’s Festival each year, and any violation of this will result in the death penalty.”
It was essentially a death sentence. Agante was a land where snow fell year-round, and it was the only place where magic didn’t work. Enoch had never received proper military training, and he knew that he would be unable to survive in such a harsh environment.
